Wartime Motivations: Great Britain, the American Civil War, and the Role

Florida Gulf Coast University Thesis APPROVAL SHEET This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s degree in History Christopher Meinert Approved: August 23, 2016 Committee Chair / Advisor: Dr. Michael Epple Committee Member 1 Dr. Eric Strahorn Committee Member 2 Dr. Scott Rohrer Wartime Motivations: Great Britain, the American Civil War, and the Role of Personal Reasons for Backing the Confederacy A Thesis by Christopher Meinert 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements… ii Preface….. iii The Lines are Drawn….. 1 Views from Across the Atlantic….. 3 Steven Cave and Slavery….. 8 Lord John Russell and the Desire for Intervention….. 21 Stratheden, Gladstone, and Ethnicity….. 61 Post-War Lives….. 77 Epilogue and Conclusions….. 84 Bibliography….. 87 i Acknowledgements Various people assisted me throughout the writing of this thesis. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them. First, I’d like to thank my parents, Ken and Becky Meinert, for not only supporting me but encouraging me to take up graduate studies. I’d also like to thank my advisor, Dr. Michael Epple. He has been the single best mentor I could ask for on a project such as this. For putting up with my confusion, paranoia, and forgetfulness, he is a saint. I’d also like to thank Chris Harrison, a fellow graduate student who on more than one occasion told me where I could find key sources and texts for my work, as well as Dr. Scott Rohrer, who gave me advice and teaching on how best to limit the use of passive voice in my writings. Finally, I’d like to thank the faculty and staff of Florida Gulf Coast University, from which I also received my Bachelor’s Degree in History. Their teaching and guidance brought me here; my only hope now is that my work will benefit both the school as well as future students researching this same area of history. ii Preface I have long been interested in the American Civil War. It stands among the few conflicts that may be called distinctly American. The battles had American names, the soldiers fought on American soil, and the ideologies that drove them originated in America. For better or worse, the Civil War remains an indelible aspect of American heritage. It was not until I went to college, however, that I discovered another aspect of this conflict. This is the non-American part of the war, the reactions held by foreign nations. For me, learning of this side of the conflict felt like a light suddenly being switched on. Just when I thought I could not learn anything else about the American Civil War, a whole new area opened up. I began poring over documents from a new battle: diplomacy. I found myself enamored by the accounts of Confederate delegates trying to obtain recognition and the efforts of Union officials to prevent them. Yet, even more fascinating proved to be the reactions to the war held by foreigners, particularly in Great Britain. As the superpower of the nineteenth century, the opinions of the British Empire could affect those of other nations. If Britain so wished, she could have decided the conflict on a moment’s notice. Yet, she chose to keep her distance. After all, the maintaining of the world’s largest Empire proved to be a time-consuming task. This did not, however, prevent the British leadership and people from having an opinion on the American Civil War. The average British subject seemed more inclined to support the North, as Britain had outlawed slavery in 1833. Surprisingly, many prominent leaders in the British government held very different opinions. Many British leaders actually favored the Confederacy over the North, even though the South fought to preserve slavery. These people looked upon the Union with disdain and iii occasionally outright disgust. Other British leaders took this distaste a few steps further, however. Some went so far as to covertly support the Confederacy, offering them weapons, uniforms, naval vessels, and whatever else they needed. From these actions, it is obvious that these people wanted the South to win. The question now is why? The most common answers I have found in nearly all contemporary books on the subject suggest that all of these men backed the Confederacy for the same reason: cotton. Britain needed the crop for its textile mills, so the leadership must have figured the best means by which to ensure its supply remained uninterrupted might be to support the Confederates. Another common answer is the shared ancestry between Britons and American southerners. The United States of America may have been founded by former British colonists, but the influx of immigrants to the young nation led to intermarrying, especially in the Northern States. The Southern States, on the other hand, remained largely of British descent. This may have led to sympathy from British leaders when the American government imposed laws which white southerners opposed. It is true that there is evidence to support the existence of these motivations. However, many historians simply stop with this explanation without investigating its genesis. They seem to treat all British leaders and their motivations as monolithic. Must they be all one thing or another? Could different people, though united in their goals, hold different reasons for carrying out the same action? These generalizations motivated me to action. I began researching prominent members of the British government, analyzing their letters, published papers, and private accounts in order to determine their true thoughts on the issue. I can now say with certainty that each member of the British government who supported the Confederacy did so for their own reasons. They had been united by a common desire: to see iv the South win the war. Furthermore, while Britain held a national interest in keeping its cotton supply, the personal motivations of its leadership varied. To this end, I have selected three British leaders who best exemplify this pattern: Stephen Cave, Lord John Russell, and William Ewart Gladstone. Each of these men contributed to the Confederate cause, though I gave Lord Russell the lion’s share of my attention since he had a large role to play and left behind so much information. As their accounts show, these men are united in their aims but divided in their motivations. v The Lines are Drawn The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 sent shockwaves throughout the United States of America. Lincoln’s free soil ideology divided America. Many wealthy white men in the South practiced slavery on the grounds that it is permitted by the Constitution and it increased their own power and standing in Southern society. In fact, the culture of the region regarded slavery as an important aspect of their lives, as well as an American tradition. Meanwhile, abolitionists in the North made use of the same Constitution to levy counter- arguments against the slave owners, hoping to ensure that slavery might be abolished. Lincoln fit into this because of his positions on slavery. Though he made some effort to conceal these sentiments in his speeches, he nevertheless galvanized slave-owners with such statements as “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”1 Lincoln’s 1860 opponent, Stephen Douglas, by contrast, had been very pro-slavery for some time. He had even proved instrumental six years earlier in the passing of the 1854 Kansas- Nebraska Act, which sought to expand slavery into both of those new states. Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. During his presidential campaign, Lincoln did not announce a plan to eliminate the practice from the United States entirely. However, it became clear that an attempt to at least contain the institution in the South and prevent it from spreading elsewhere might be among the chief priorities of Lincoln’s presidential administration. Although Lincoln did not foresee any imminent secession in the wake of his election, delegates still met in South Carolina to discuss the matter on December 24, 1860. Though many 1 Abraham Lincoln, “House Divided Speech,” Abraham Lincoln Online, http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm. 1 issues had plagued the state’s relationship with the federal government ever since the founding of the country, slavery became the main point for contention. Many slave owners and Southern politicians in South Carolina became angered by the reluctance of their Northern countrymen to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as a perception that leaders in Washington may be conspiring to end slavery altogether. Though the secession convention’s resulting Declaration did not mention Lincoln by name, the men present did state that the new president and his anti- slavery stance served as the proximate cause of their desire for secession.2 Tensions mounted between the two sides until April 11, 1861 in South Carolina. Confederate forces laid siege to the Union- held Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. Great Britain had not been a passive observer during these events. Nor had her people uniformly favored one side. In fact, the anti-slavery stance grew in popularity among the citizens of Great Britain.3 Slavery had even been made illegal in Britain decades earlier. Even the majority of the British leadership favored the global abolition of slavery.4 That said, some prominent Englishmen did favor the South. Oftentimes the reasoning behind their choices and actions is distilled to mere national interests. It is tempting to believe that multiple people in the same group who all want the same thing must possess the same motivations. However, a closer inspection yields evidence of a lack of uniformity in the motivations of these men.

Load more