Union Backs Down from War with England: Focus Solely on Fighting Confederacy

During the last seven weeks of 1861, the Confederacy almost got what it wished for: a war between England and the United States, resulting in a termination of the Union blockade of Southern ports. The trouble began when the U.S. warship San Jacinto abducted four Confederate officials from the English mail steamer Trent, despite the men being under the protection of the British flag. The ensuing diplomatic uproar, known as the Trent Affair, brought England and the United States dangerously close to war.

During the seven weeks of the diplomatic crisis, the Northern government, public and press slowly changed their tone. At first, Yankee Captain Charles Wilkes was lauded as a hero for seizing the Confederate diplomats Mason and Slidell and their two secretaries. However, when Great Britain rushed men and arms to Canada and put its mighty fleet on alert, Northern opinion began to change. The realization began to sink in that fighting a war with the Confederacy and England at the same time would be a disaster. Despite initially boasting that the prisoners would never be surrendered, the North began to reconcile itself to giving up Mason and Slidell and moving beyond the Trent Affair.

A week before the Confederate officials were set free, the Northern spirit of reconciliation and resignation was reflected in an editorial the New York Herald (New York, New York) printed in its Dec. 21, 1861, issue:

Important from Washington—Mason and Slidell to Be Delivered Up if Demanded

According to our latest advices from Washington, all apprehensions of a rupture with England upon the late affair of the Trent may be dismissed. Our Cabinet, we are informed, looking to the absorbing and paramount issue—the suppression of this Southern rebellion—will yield to the present demands of England as the conditions of her neutrality, even if these demands involve the restoration of Mason and Slidell to the protection of the British flag, and a disavowal of and an apology for their seizure by Captain Wilkes.

In adopting this alternative of submission to these peremptory demands, the administration runs the hazard of disappointing the popular sentiment of our loyal States. But a little reflection will satisfy every intelligent mind of the wisdom of deferring a final settlement with England until we shall have made an end of this Southern rebellion. There have been some conjectures that arbitration may be resorted to; but it is better gracefully to yield to the exigencies of the crisis, and promptly relieve England of her convenient pretext for a quarrel, without the intervention of any third party. Let our government, then, meet the requisitions of Lord Lyons, in the restitution of Mason and Slidell to British protection, and in an acknowledgement that, while Captain Wilkes would have been right in seizing the Trent steamer and in bringing her before a prize court for adjudication, he was wrong in limiting his proceeding to the seizure of his prisoners; and that we regret that his controlling considerations of international courtesy and leniency should have resulted in the very offence which it was his particular object to avoid.

An explanation of this character, we presume, will be considered amply satisfactory, as an atonement to the insulted flag of England. It may be painful and humiliating to us. But who will reproach the surprised traveller for yielding to the demand of “Your money or your life,” with the highwayman’s pistol at his head? Our government will be amply justified in this reparation by the public opinion of our loyal States, considering the rejoicings of our rebellious States at the prospect of securing the aid of England’s fleets and armies in the enterprise of the occupation of Washington. We are called upon now to exhibit the virtues of patience and moderation towards a domineering foreign Power, and to submit to its arrogant demands and pretensions, in order to grapple the more effectively with an insolent domestic enemy beleaguering our national capital. But as Rome remembered Carthage from the invasion of Hannibal, and as France remembers St. Helena, so will the people of the United States remember and treasure up for the future this little affair of the Trent.

Nor do we suppose that the pacific solution of this difficulty, upon the basis of England’s offensive ultimatum, will be without equivalent or compensation. We expect that it will secure a more decent regard hereafter for England’s professions of neutrality than she has heretofore exhibited; that such scandalous neutral hospitalities as those lately extended to the piratical steamer Nashville, at Southampton, will not be repeated; and that such commercial ventures as that of the steamer Bermuda to Savannah will cease to be made by British subjects from English ports, under the connivance of her Majesty’s government. Granted that these demands of England in this matter of Mason and Slidell were framed for war and not for peace, we have the right to call for a faithful adherence to this peace which has been conceded where war was expected and designed. But we are asked why these humiliating concessions upon a quibble and a pretence? If England’s purpose is war, will she not find some other pretext upon which there can be no concession? We answer, that by yielding to the arrogant demands of England upon this pretext of today we shall have reduced her to bonds of peace from which she cannot escape except as a reckless filibuster, liable to be outlawed by every other European Power.

Meantime, with the re-establishment of our peaceable relations with England, we shall be at liberty to bring our whole military power to bear by land and sea upon this domestic rebellion. We hope, too, that, admonished by the restless impatience of England and France for cotton, President Lincoln and his Cabinet will vigorously push forward the movements of our fleets and armies, and put an end to all European notions of an inevitable Southern confederacy by the speedy overthrow of the spurious revolutionary league of Davis and his confederates. Then, with this rebellion suppressed, with our revolted states restored, with an army of a million of men in the field, with a powerful navy, including a good proportion of iron-plated ships, and with our seacoast and frontier defences upon a war footing, we shall have the power to settle, not only our outstanding accounts against England, but the power to prescribe the extent and the limitations of European authority on this continent.