North America, vol 1 | Page 8

Secretary of State, that
England would regard the North and South as belligerents, and would
remain neutral as to both of them. This declaration gave violent offense
to the North, and has been taken as indicating British sympathy with
the cause of the seceders. I am not going to explain--indeed, it would be
necessary that I should first understand--the laws of nations with regard
to blockaded ports, privateering, ships and men and goods contraband
of war, and all those semi-nautical, semi-military rules and axioms
which it is necessary that all attorneys-general and such like should, at
the present moment, have at their fingers' end. But it must be evident to
the most ignorant in those matters, among which large crowd I
certainly include myself, that it was essentially necessary that Lord
John Russell should at that time declare openly what England intended
to do. It was essential that our seamen should know where they would
be protected and where not, and that the course to be taken by England
should be defined. Reticence in the matter was not within the power of
the British government. It behooved the Foreign Secretary of State to
declare openly that England intended to side either with one party or
with the other, or else to remain neutral between them.
I had heard this matter discussed by Americans before I left England,
and I have of course heard it discussed very frequently in America.
There can be no doubt that the front of the offense given by England to
the Northern States was this declaration of Lord John Russell's. But it
has been always made evident to me that the sin did not consist in the
fact of England's neutrality--in the fact of her regarding the two parties
as belligerents--but in the open declaration made to the world by a
Secretary of State that she did intend so to regard them. If another proof
were wanting, this would afford another proof of the immense weight

attached in America to all the proceedings and to all the feelings of
England on this matter. The very anger of the North is a compliment
paid by the North to England. But not the less is that anger
unreasonable. To those in America who understand our constitution, it
must be evident that our government cannot take official measures
without a public avowal of such measures. France can do so. Russia
can do so. The government of the United States can do so, and could do
so even before this rupture. But the government of England cannot do
so. All men connected with the government in England have felt
themselves from time to time more or less hampered by the necessity of
publicity. Our statesmen have been forced to fight their battles with the
plan of their tactics open before their adversaries. But we in England
are inclined to believe that the general result is good, and that battles so
fought and so won will be fought with the honestest blows and won
with the surest results. Reticence in this matter was not possible; and
Lord John Russell, in making the open avowal which gave such offense
to the Northern States, only did that which, as a servant of England,
England required him to do.
"What would you in England have thought," a gentleman of much
weight in Boston said to me, "if, when you were in trouble in India, we
had openly declared that we regarded your opponents there are as
belligerents on equal terms with yourselves?" I was forced to say that,
as far as I could see, there was no analogy between the two cases. In
India an army had mutinied, and that an army composed of a subdued,
if not a servile race. The analogy would have been fairer had it referred
to any sympathy shown by us to insurgent negroes. But, nevertheless,
had the army which mutinied in India been in possession of ports and
sea-board; had they held in their hands vast commercial cities and great
agricultural districts; had they owned ships and been masters of a
wide-spread trade, America could have done nothing better toward us
than have remained neutral in such a conflict and have regarded the
parties as belligerents. The only question is whether she would have
done so well by us. "But," said my friend, in answer to all this, "we
should not have proclaimed to the world that we regarded you and them
as standing on an equal footing." There again appeared the true gist of
the offense. A word from England such as that spoken by Lord John
Russell was of such weight to the South that the North could not endure

to have it spoken. I did not say to that gentleman, but here I may say
that, had