Lincoln's Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation

[Thomas Thorne]

I remember reading an account of the climax of the Laird Rams Crisis. The frantic American minister to Britain,Charles Francis Adams. laid siege to important British personalities and implored them to confiscate the vessels Fearful they would not,he was preparing in his mind what he would say in his written demand for his passports. This is diplomatese for severing diplomatic relations between states.

I believe British officials felt the same way toward the United States but happily without the intense hatred that Georges Clemenceau,the "tiger of France" felt toward Germany when he said he "loved Germany so much he wanted two of them."

A British desire for the breakup of the United States,unfortunately for the Confederacy, did not translate into British willingness to fight the United States unless as in the Trent Affair British vital interests were affected or the US became so weak she could not harm the UK. .

By coincidence today, reading this month's account of the origins of World War I by Margaret MacMillan-'The War That Ended Peace" I unearthed the feelings of the three time British Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury 1830-1903, an aristocrat's aristocrat, who had a life long loathing of the United States.

Salisbury "found in Americans everything he detested about the modern world:they were greedy,materialistic,hypocritical,and vulgar and believed that democracy was the best form of government. During the Civil War he was a passionate supporter of the Confederate side,partly because he believed that Southerners were gentlemen and Northerners were not."

The author quoted a letter Salisbury wrote in 1902, fearing the growth of American power "It is very sad, but I am afraid America is bound to forge ahead and nothing can restore the equality between us. If we had interfered in the Confederate War, it was then possible for us to reduce the power of the United States to manageable proportions. But two such chances are not given to a nation in the course of its career."

It is fortunate that Lord Salisbury confined his hatred of the US to private letters. His last premiership had many famous episodes of British retreat in the face of American demands, including acceptance of American expansion and renunciation of British interest in what become the Panama Canal.

PS Now our civil war has had many names but "Confederate War" is new to me.
Tom