A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [60]
Russell’s satisfaction over his dealings with Gregory lasted only twenty-four hours. On May 2 he received a run of telegrams: the first announced that Lincoln had decided on a blockade rather than port closures; the next, that Virginia, that mainstay of the American Revolution, had seceded, depriving the North of the large weapons arsenal at Harpers Ferry; and finally, that Maryland had erupted in violence, leaving eleven people dead in Baltimore during street fighting between Federal troops and Southern protesters.4.2 “This is the first bloodshed and God knows where it will end,” Moran wrote in his diary. It surprised and comforted him when several Englishmen called at the legation vainly asking to join the Federal army. But the reaction of Russell’s predecessor at the Foreign Office, Lord Clarendon, showed that old resentments had a habit of reviving: “For my own part if we could be sure of getting raw cotton from them, I should not care how many Northerners were clawed at by the Southerners & vice versa!”14
When Russell went to the House of Commons that evening, he was bombarded with questions from MPs, not a few of whom shared Clarendon’s view. He could give little enlightenment, but to those who expressed a desire for British intervention he warned against such a reckless move. “Nothing but the imperative duty of protecting British interests, in case they should be attacked, justified the government in at all interfering,” he told the House. “We have not been involved in any way in that contest. For God’s sake, let us if possible keep out of it.”15 He delivered a similar message to the Southern envoys when they arrived for their interview on Friday, May 3. Gregory had warned them about Russell’s notorious shyness, but they had not expected the frigid politeness with which they were received. Russell caught them off guard by declaring he had “little to say.” William Yancey stumbled through a speech about the Constitution, liberty, and states’ rights. He insisted the slave trade would not be revived, which Russell disbelieved, threw in a warning about cotton, which Russell ignored, and finally asked for immediate recognition, which Russell refused. The envoys returned to their lodgings at 40 Albemarle Street thoroughly disheartened.
Lord John Russell spent the weekend of the fourth and fifth of May carefully analyzing the choices open to the British government. He hoped that antislavery would become the overriding cause of the war, but feared that the North would throw it over without hesitation if the Union could thus be saved. He was also torn between despising the South for its dependence on slavery and admiring its spirited bid for independence. Above all, he agreed with Lord Lyons that to give preferential treatment to the North would be unwise and possibly dangerous with Seward at the helm. Accepting the legality of the blockade, which would require a declaration of official neutrality, struck him as the wisest course, he told his colleagues, especially in light of Seward’s evident keenness to manufacture a reason for declaring war.
The cabinet was not enthusiastic about adopting a policy that was so dangerous to the country’s cotton industry. Palmerston agreed with the proposal, though he felt it was a heavy price for staying out of the conflict. “The South fight for independence; what do the North fight for,” asked the home secretary, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, “except to gratify passion or pride?”16 William Gladstone was privately even more outspoken for the South and compared Jefferson Davis to General Garibaldi. When his friend Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, heard about his views, she was outraged and demanded to know how he could “think the Southern states most in the right—I did not hear you say; I don’t believe it.”17 Nor did she accept his explanation that the wishes of minorities ought to be respected.18