A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [399]
Beall’s conviction not only appeared to validate the desperate measures called for by General Dix, but also lent credence to those who argued that Britain deserved to be punished for allowing these plots to be nurtured in her territories.35.3 Yet Seward, who might have been expected to inflate his rhetoric for maximum effect, surprised observers by moving swiftly to maintain calm along the Canadian border. He countermanded General Dix’s order, though he begged the legation secretary, Joseph Burnley, to keep quiet about this action until the fuss had died down. Seward also labored hard to manage the increasingly belligerent stance against Britain adopted by Congress. Charles Sumner’s transformation into Britain’s harshest critic was now complete, and he was leading the Senate movement for retaliatory steps to be taken against the mother country. His first target was the ten-year-old Reciprocity Treaty—a free trade agreement with Canada—which was scheduled to end in June 1865. Using his position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner pushed through a resolution for the treaty’s suspension after June; he also attacked the Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817, which limited the militarization of the Great Lakes, and prepared a list of grievances, beginning with the Queen’s proclamation of neutrality in 1861, which he intended to be the basis of a campaign for massive financial restitution from Britain.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., had breakfast with Sumner in Washington in December and thought that he was half sane at best “and now out-Sumners himself.”15 The senator’s brave and often lonely fight to achieve equal rights for Negroes had become lonelier of late because of his tendency to alienate potential allies.16 Rather than being an asset in the White House’s campaign to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which expanded the Emancipation Proclamation to all U.S. states and not just those in rebellion, he was regarded as an obstacle to the deal making that had to be done to achieve its passage. The Senate had passed the amendment in April 1864, but it had been stalled in the House since.
Sumner’s power in the Senate was waning. Lincoln no longer listened to him or trusted him. (Sumner owed his frequent appearances at the White House to Mary Lincoln, whom he assiduously courted.) Seward no longer feared him, but, according to Charles Francis Jr., he would exile Sumner as Minister to Anywhere if he could. Lyons had come to Washington believing that Sumner was the greatest man in American politics. Five years later, he considered him a self-aggrandizing, sneaky Savonarola who tainted the very causes he affected to espouse. “If that man ever gets into power he will, under some highly moral pretence, sacrifice the highest public interests to his position,” Lyons complained to Professor Goldwin Smith, who happened to be a fellow passenger on the China. Of all public men in Washington, “he is the one for whom I have brought away the least respect.”17 Lyons’s regard for Seward, on the other hand, had matured from barely concealed contempt to admiration. After an acrimonious beginning, each had learned and benefited from their forced collaboration. The politician had become a true statesman, the diplomat a true ambassador.
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The chief defect of Jacob Thompson’s plots, in the opinion of the Confederate government, was that they were not working. Thompson defended his record to Confederate secretary of state Judah P. Benjamin: “I have relaxed no effort to carry out the objects the Government had in view in sending me here. I had hoped at different times to have accomplished more, but still I do not think my mission has been altogether fruitless.”18 Benjamin disagreed and appointed his replacement, telling Thompson in December:
From reports which reach us from trustworthy sources, we are satisfied that so close espionage is kept upon you that your services have been deprived