GDG- Re: Defeat of AoP, Recognition by Britain

Wed Apr 30 22:46:53 CDT 2008

Michael,

I doubt even the most fervent fire-eaters expected the UK to support them for ideological reasons.  What they believed, as an article of faith, was that English cotton mills were so dependent upon slave state cotton that Her Majesty's government.  James Henry Hammond said in his infamous "King Cotton" speech in 1858 in the US Senate:

>>Why the South has never yet had a just cause of war except with the North. Every time she has drawn her sword it has been on the point of honor, and that point of honor has been mainly loyalty to her sister colonies and sister States, who have ever since plundered and calumniated her.

But if there were no other reason why we should never have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three years' entire abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of Engla
nd was king; but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme? When the abuse of credit had destroyed credit and annihilated confidence; when thousands of the strongest commercial houses in the world were coming down, and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed property evaporating in thin air; when you came to a dead lock, and revolutions were threatened, what brought you up? Fortunately for you it was the commencement of the cotton season, and we have poured in upon you one million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to save you from destruction. That cotton, but for the bursting of your speculative bubbles in the North, which produced the whole of this convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000. We have sold it for $65,000,000 and saved you. Thirty-five million dollars we, the slave
holders of the South, have put into the charity box for your magnificent financiers, your "cotton lords," your "merchant princes."  

As it turns out, they seriously overestimated English dependency on southern cotton.  Furthermore, if they had studied, with any degree of objectivity, the Parliamentary history of, first, the abolition of the slave trade and later abolition of slavery itself in British possessions, they should have realized that the UK did this at a significant financial disadvantage to itself.  Not only had the UK come to dominate the slave trade (there were Royal investors in the Royal Africa Company) but a substantial portion of the British economy derived its income from servicing the slave trade, even when conducted under other flags, through, among these services, building and outfitting ships and supply trade textiles and other items to be traded for slaves in Africa.  This was the reason that the fight to ban the slave trade took so long and was so bitter. Once it happened, the UK put muscle into the ban with the use of Royal Navy ships  to interfere with the transatlantic ships.

On the Trent, I think the British outrage was genuine.  When the tables were turned, the US was willing to go to war in 1812 in significant part due to such actions by the Royal Navy.  At the time of the Trent action, British belief in its naval supremacy was a core element of its national identity.  The naval officer's action in the Trent affair was seen as a egregious affront to British honor, sovereignty, and dominion over the high seas. Coming from its former colonies added insult to injury.  Fortunately, cooler heads, especially Lincoln's on the US and the Prince Consort in one of his last acts of service to his adopted country, prevailed and arrived at a solution which allowed both nations to back down honorably and prevent another such crisis from occurring.

I think another thing that never seemed to occur to the secessionists was that the UK had other concerns that were much more important to it than the fate of the United States.  The US Civil War began only five years after the Crimean War ended  and only 9 years before the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War and the rise of Germany.  The period was an extremely turbulent one (at one point there were those who blamed the premature birth of Prince Albert Victor  on the anguish of his mother, the Danish-born Princess of Wales over war between Prussia and Denmark making royal family relations very awkward since the Prince of Wales' older sister, Victoria, the Princess Royal, was married to the heir to the Prussian throne). The British government had no intention of getting bogged down in a land war in America, although it was quite willing to exploit the situation if it could do so without much risk to itself.

Regards,

Margaret

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Michael Davidson <mldavidson at verizon.net> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> 
> Margaret, 
> 
> Thanks for reminding me. The "Trent Affair" is certainly evidence for the 
> Confederacy's 
> investment in hope for recognition, and perhaps it is evidence of Britain's 
> positioning itself as a major player who could help in resolution of the 
> conflict. 
> 
> That could explain Britain's seeming moral outrage. Show both North and South 
> who 
> has the real power. Lincoln did back off, though he did not apologize. 
> And the martial might that was developed so suddenly on both sides in America 
> must have given Britain pause that a new world power was emerging. One must 
> always look for the GB advantage, of course. Then there are the observers like 
> Col. Freemantle, who gave the impression that Britain would welcome an 
> independent CSA if not welcome it back into the fold. And I never heard anyone 
> accuse 
> Jefferson Davis of being a realist, when it came to the war. 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> Michael Davidson 
> 
> Esteemed member wrote: 
> >> 
> Except during the Trent incident (ironic given the role that HM Navy boarding US 
> ships played in causing the War of 1812), the British policy re the ACW was 
> cynical, opportunistic & vy risk-averse. Like France in the American Revolution, 
> the UK had no ideological reason to support the rebels. What they needed was a 
> CSA that showed sufficiently viable to make the reward (the US divided into two 
> smaller weakened countries & the "Great Experiment" proven a failure) to make 
> the risks of dropping neutral status worth it. As I've heard it said, to win for 
> the US meant regaining control of the rebel states; for the CSA victory required 
> survival. << 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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