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THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND THE BRITISH IMPERIAL DILEMMA TREVOR COX A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2015 This work or any part thereof has not been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose (unless otherwise indicated). Save for any express acknowledgements, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Trevor Cox to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss. 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date is copyright is owned by the author. Signature ................................................... Date ............................................................ 1 ABSTACT The following study argues that existing historical interpretations of how and why the unification of British North America came about in 1867are flawed. It contends that rather than a movement propelled mainly by colonial politicians in response to domestic pressures - as generally portrayed in Canadian-centric histories of Confederation - the imperial government in Britain actually played a more active and dynamic role due to the strategic and political pressures arising from the American Civil War. Rather than this being a basic ‘withdrawal’, or ‘abandonment’ in the face of US power as is argued on the rare occasions diplomatic or strategic studies touch upon the British North American Act: this thesis argues that the imperial motivations were more far-reaching and complex. The British policy on union was bound up with the wish to make the provinces more responsible for defence, a need greatly intensified by the Civil War; however this imperative was meant to help preserve the North American colonies in the empire and even more vitally outside of the orbit of the United States. From the metropolitan government’s point of view Confederation had its genesis in the antebellum period and was a long-term aim - not only to secure the British North America - but even fact to counter United States hegemony in on the continent. Therefore rather than being conceived as a ‘retreat’, it was an overarching plan to challenge Federal preponderance in North America. Due to the security dilemmas arising from the Civil War the long-term nature of this scheme became unworkable and was therefore accelerated to become a short-term response to a strategic dilemma. CONTENTS 2 1. INTRODUCTION 4 2. THE ANTBELLUM ERA 24 3. THE SECESSION CRISIS, 1860-61 65 4. THE TRENT CRISIS, 1861-2 102 5. THE INTERVENTION CRISIS, 1862-3 134 6. THE NEUTRALITY CRISIS, 1863-4 172 7. THE FINAL SECURITY CRISIS, 1864-5 297 8. CONCLUSION 227 BIBLIOGRAPHY 240 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The following thesis offers a new interpretation of the forces and motivations which led to the Confederation of Canada in 1867, reconsidering arguments about the effects of the American Civil War and the role of the British government and in the coming of unification. Specialist studies of the events leading to the British North America Act have 3 almost exclusively been written in terms of how unification was experienced – and effected – by the provinces themselves, while diplomatic and political accounts of Britain in the Civil War generally overlook the vital position of Canada. On occasions when histories do touch on the imperial view of unification, it is normally regarded as a ‘withdrawal’ stimulated by a realisation of US dominance on the continent.1 This thesis will display that these interpretations do not stand up to scrutiny. Canadian-centric histories of confederation underplay the British role and the larger strategic issues at stake, while notions of military ‘withdrawal’ oversimplify the imperial aims of the unification policy. Confederation began as an imperial plan to offset the spread of Federal republicanism in North America and in this respect, far from being a withdrawal or retreat, was a concerted attempt to nurture a balance of power on the continent. This was a long- term project considered to be attainable in the antebellum era when, as will be shown, in itself US military capability held little concern for British statesmen. Overwhelming Federal militarisation however and difficulties afflicting relations with the United States between 1861 and 1865 drastically upset this sense of relative military assuredness, leading the imperial government to appeal to unification long before it had intended. At the same time Confederation was adopted as a policy to impress some of the responsibility for defence onto the North American provinces themselves. While this necessity was intensified by the Civil War, the imperative to reduce Britain’s military commitment to the provinces - and indeed possessions across the empire - was an ongoing process that predated the 1860’s. It was motivated by the need to economise, as well as realisation that British power would find itself spread dangerously thin if engaged in crises or conflicts in different parts of the globe. Imperial policy held that increased autonomy, as well as the establishment of a larger central government, would increase the sense of colonial responsibility for this greater state’s protection. Britain would continue to support the provinces, primarily with its sea power, 1 Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815 – 1908, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 302-3. 4 however defence on the ground would be provided for by the new unified government. In this sense Confederation was not ‘abandonment’, and was only a ‘withdrawal’ in the sense that local security would be incumbent on the colonies. British North American unification therefore was favoured as a gradual policy both for challenging the United States as a regional power and for reducing Britain’s continental commitment. These may appear as divergent and even contradictory aims - and perhaps lacked realism - however this thesis will argue that the imperial government believed them viable due to the essential military equilibrium in North America. The feeling of relative security was destroyed by the growth of American power in the Civil War and therefore severely intensified the urgency of their achievement. It will be contended that the long term strategy of achieving British North American strength through unification transformed into a short term answer to a strategic dilemma. This argument challenges the prevalent interpretation in most histories of Confederation which are generally Canada-centric in their scope. The common arguments as to why British North American union came about are that the Canadian coalition government pioneered a scheme for provincial union in order to unshackle themselves from the political instability in their own legislature and that this plan was accepted by the various provincial communities due to the perceived benefits that union would bring. These primary benefits were the facilitation of interprovincial trade, improved defence, enablement of expansion to the Northwest, and the building of a continental or ‘intercolonial’ railroad. The dominant interpretation of Confederation has commonly been that while the British supported it, the politicians in the colonies themselves driven by these goals did the most to achieve union. A recurring historiographical problem with accounts of Confederation therefore has been a tendency to examine it from the provincial perspective rather than the imperial, or indeed, as a shared experience. This partiality towards the Canadian role may in part be explained by the fact that the some of the most influential texts, for instance Donald Creighton’s The Road to Confederation (1964) and W.L. Morton’s The Critical Years: The 5 Union of British North America (1967), were written to coincide with the centenary of Confederation’s accomplishment, and therefore emphasise – and hugely acclaim –politicians in the colonies as great statesmen and nation-builders, an approach also true of a group of biographies written in this era. The triumphalism of these accounts can also be attributed to the fact that, not only had the 1960s brought the hundred-year anniversary of Confederation, but had witnessed a period of political unrest within the French Canadian communities, encouraging a nationalistic agenda in writing about the birth of modern Canada.2 This is one reason for Britain’s role in, and rationale for, British North American union being overlooked in the literature. On a more practical level these studies are often limited in terms of imperial considerations due to the fact that, in light of their focus, their source material is predominantly Canadian. When British sources are consulted it understandably tends to be the records of the Colonial Office and on occasions the Foreign Office. As will be argued here, from Britain’s point of view Confederation was, under the strains of the time, a political manoeuvre with a largely strategic motivation and therefore the imperial role can better be appreciated through the added consultation of War Office and Admiralty files. The historiography on Confederation too, can reflect an unconscious bias due to the era works were written in. Robin Winks for example in The Civil War Years: Canada and the United States (1960) examined the crises facing the province in the 1860s and subsequently challenged the persistent myth of British North America’s ‘undefended frontier’ in the 1800’s. Winks attributed its persistence in the literature to a dominant twentieth century factor: the two World Wars.3 Similarly scholarly appreciation of the difficult relations between Britain and the Union during the conflict were arguably for a long time stifled by the Anglo-American 2 Phillip Bucknor in Ged Martin, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837-67, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995), p. 4.

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