第13章

It was he who insisted upon the proclamation, acknowledging the Secessionists as belligerents, on the morning of the 14th of May, after he had been informed by telegraph from Liverpool that Mr. Adams would arrive at London on the night of the 13th May. He, after a severe struggle with his colleagues, dispatched 3,000 men to Canada, an army ridiculous, if intended to cover a frontier of 1,500 miles, but a clever sleight-of-hand if the rebellion was to be cheered, and the Union to be irritated. He, many weeks ago, urged Bonaparte to propose a joint armed intervention "in the internecine struggle,"supported that project in the Cabinet council, and failed only in carrying it by the resistance of his colleagues. He and Bonaparte then resorted to the Mexican intervention as a pis aller . That operation served two purposes, by provoking just resentment on the part of the Americans, and by simultaneously furnishing a pretext for the dispatch of a squadron, ready, as The Morning Post has it, "to perform whatever duty the hostile conduct of the Government of Washington may require us to perform in the waters of the Northern Atlantic." At the time when that expedition was started, The Morning Post , together with The Times and the smaller fry of Palmerston's press slaves, said that it was a very fine thing, and a philanthropic thing into the bargain, because it would expose the slave- holding Confederation to two fires -- the Anti-Slavery North and the Anti-Slavery force of England and France. And what says the very same Morning Post , this curious compound of Jenkins and Rhodomonte, of plush and swash, in its to-day's issue, on occasion of Jefferson Davis's address? Hearken to the Palmerston oracle:

"We must look to this intervention as one that may be inoperative during a considerable period of time; and while the Northern Government is too distant to admit of its attitude entering materially into this question, the Southern Confederation, on the other hand, stretches for a great distance along the frontier of Mexico, so as to render its friendly disposition to the authors of the insurrection of no slight consequence.

The Northern Government has invariably railed at our neutrality, but the Southern with statesmanship and moderation has recognized in it all that we could do for either party; and whether with a view to our transactions in Mexico, or to our relations with the Cabinet at Washington, the friendly forbearance of the Southern Confederacy is an important point in our favor."I may remark that the Nord of December 3 -- a Russian paper, and consequently a paper initiated into Palmerstons designs -- insinuates that the Mexican expedition was from the first set on foot, not for its ostensible purpose, but for a war against the United States.

Gen. Scott's letter had produced such a beneficent reaction in public opinion, and even on the London Stock Exchange, that the conspirators of Downing Street and the Tuileries found it necessary to let loose the Patrie , stating with all the airs of knowledge derived from official sources that the seizure of the Southern Commissioners from the Trent was directly authorized by the Washington Cabinet.

The Crisis Over the Slavery Issue Karl Marx The Crisis Over the Slavery Issue London, December 10, 1861The United States has evidently entered a critical stage with regard to the slavery question , the question underlying the whole Civil War. General Fremont has been dismissed for declaring the slaves of rebels free. A directive to General Sherman, the commander of the expedition to South Carolina, was a little later published by the Washington Government, which goes further than Fremont, for it decrees that fugitive slaves even of loyal slave-owners should be welcomed and employed as workers and paid a wage, and under certain circumstances armed, and consoles the "loyal" owners with the prospect of receiving compensation later. Colonel Cochrane has gone even further than Fremont, he demands the arming of all slaves as a military measure. The Secretary of War Cameron publicly approves of Cochrane's "views". The Secretary of the Interior, on behalf of the government, then repudiates the Secretary of War. The Secretary of War expresses his "views" even more emphatically at a public meeting stating that he will vindicate these views in his report to Congress. General Halleck, Fremont's successor in Missouri, and General Dix in east Virginia have driven fugitive Negroes from their military camps and forbidden them to appear in future in the vicinity of the positions held by their armies.

General Wool at the same time has received the black "contraband" with open arms at Fort Monroe. The old leaders of the Democratic Party, Senator Dickinson and Croswell (a former member of the so- called Democratic regency), have published an open letter in which they express their agreement with Cochrane and Cameron, and Colonel Jennison in Kansas has surpassed all his military predecessors by an address to his troops which contains the following passage:

No temporising with rebels and those sympathising with them. I have told General Fremont that I would not have drawn my sword had I thought that slavery would outlast this struggle. The slaves of rebels will always find protection in this camp and we will defend them to the last man and the last bullet. I want no men who are not Abolitionists , I have no use for them and I hope that there are no such people among us, for everyone knows that slavery is the basis, the centre and the vertex of this infernal war. Should the government disapprove of my action it can take back my patent, but in that case I shall act on my own hook even if in the beginning I can only count on six men.