[167] George W. Julian, Polit. Recoll.
204.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
To the people who had been engaged in changing Illinois
from a wilderness into a civilized State, Europe had
been an abstraction, a mere colored spot upon a map,
which in their lives meant nothing. Though England
had been the home of their ancestors, it was really
less interesting than the west coast of Africa, which
was the home of the negroes; for the negroes were
just now of vastly more consequence than the ancestors.
So even Dahomey had some claim to be regarded as a
more important place than Great Britain, and the early
settlers wasted little thought on the affairs of Queen
Victoria. Amid these conditions, absorbed even
more than his neighbors in the exciting questions of
domestic politics, and having no tastes or pursuits
which guided his thoughts abroad, Mr. Lincoln had
never had occasion to consider the foreign relations
of the United States, up to the time when he was suddenly
obliged to take an active part in managing them.
At an early stage of the civil dissensions each side
hoped for the good-will of England. For obvious
reasons, that island counted to the United States
for more than the whole continent of Europe; indeed,
the continental nations were likely to await and to
follow her lead. Southern orators, advocating
secession, assured their hearers that “King
Cotton” would be the supreme power, and would
compel that realm of spinners and weavers to friendship
if not to alliance with the Confederacy. Northern
men, on the other hand, expressed confidence that
a people with the record of Englishmen against slavery
would not countenance a war conducted in behalf of
that institution; nor did they allow their hopes to
be at all impaired by the consideration that, in order
to found them upon this support, they had to overlook
the fact that they were at the same time distinctly
declaring that slavery really had nothing to do with
the war, in which only and strictly the question of
the Union, the integrity of the nation, was at stake.
When the issue was pressing for actual decision, each
side was disappointed; and each found that it had
counted upon a motive which fell far short of exerting
the anticipated influence. It was, of course,
the case that England suffered much from the short
supply of cotton; but she made shift to procure it
elsewhere, while the working people, sympathizing with
the North, were surprisingly patient. Thus the
political pressure arising from commercial distress
was much less than had been expected, and the South
learned that cotton was only a spurious monarch.
Not less did the North find itself deceived; for the
upper and middle classes of Great Britain appeared
absolutely indifferent to the humanitarian element
which, as they were assured, underlay the struggle.
Perhaps they were not to be blamed for setting aside
these assurances, and accepting in place thereof the
belief that the American leaders spoke the truth when
they solemnly told the North that the question at issue
was purely and simply of “the Union.”
The unfortunate fact was that it was necessary to
say one thing to Englishmen and a different thing to
Americans.
