under more than a hundred thousand adverse votes; and
he prudently remained, the next winter, on the Canada
side, to avoid the real-rest which threatened his return. 1
Lincoln s great skill as political director and defender
never shone to better advantage than in the election canvass
of this memorable autumn. To the storm of angry reproach
that followed Vallandigham s arrest and sentence he op
posed strong specious argument, though expediency had
been his real motive for sustaining Burnside. Eesponding
to the protest of an Albany indignation meeting, he insisted
that Vallandigham had been arrested, not for damaging the
administration in its political conduct, but for assailing the
army upon whose presence and vigor depended the very
life of the nation. To a committee from the Ohio conven
tion, which asked him in no deferential tone to restore the
nominee to his home, he disclaimed, in good temper, all
purpose of insult to a loyal State, and promised compliance
if the committee would pledge themselves to propositions
he had written out, for sustaining the army and navy in
the suppression of rebellion a pledge, it is needless to
say, which they would not give. 2 Here, as in other oppor
tunities of our whole Northern canvass, President Lincoln
produced a strong impression on the mind of the common
people by making points in discussion against his party
adversary, and showing, though with kindliness and dis
creet expression, his resolute purpose to maintain this fight,

i 7 N. & II. c. 12 ; Am. Cycl. 1863. 2 Ib.



424 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.

whatever its errors, until the Union should regain its right
ful supremacy.



SECTION VI.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS IN 1863-65.

The Palmerston ministry had offered neither regret nor
apology to the United States for the depredations of those
escaping vessels, built at Liverpool, which now scoured the
high seas, plundering the commerce of American merchants. 1
*.863 "^ O1 ^ e mos t part, the same cold, supercilious, and

ungracious tone characterized its communications
with Minister Adams until after Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
Nothing, however, penetrates the thick tegument of Eng
lish indifference like successes won notwithstanding. Lord
Palmerston was of antislavery sentiment, and, despite an
aristocratic bearing, his government leaned to the popular
side in its foreign policy. The British common people
developed by 1863 a better feeling towards the Union cause
than before. With the Lincoln government at length com
mitted to a moral revolution, the heart of British philan
thropy was touched, and, in place of that stolid indifference
or disaffection concerning the merits of the original contro
versy a contest for supremacy, as many thought it, where
some States wished to get rid of a burdensome compact and
the others to compel them to it was now felt something
of a sympathy for the side of freedom under the stars and
stripes. In Exeter Hall, in January, a large mass-meeting
applauded the new edict of emancipation, many English
journals and public men changed their tone, and numerous
addresses of sympathy from British antislavery societies
and trades unions were forwarded, through Adams, to
President Lincoln. The poor and downtrodden abroad
turned their thoughts to a home in the New World, and our
Government at Washington encouraged immigration as part
of its own regenerating work.

1 Supra, pp. 270-272.



1863. BRITISH VIOLATIONS OF NEUTRALITY. 425

Yet relations with the British government were by no
means genial. It was now our turn to complain; for
scarcely a week passed without bringing home to Northern
merchants the news of some fresh spoliation on the ocean.
American shipping had to seek protection under a foreign
flag. Congress authorized the President to issue letters
of marque and reprisal. Minister Adams was instructed
to present the Alabama claims to the British government as
fast as they were made up, and to press them discreetly.
Yet Earl Russell coldly disclaimed all responsibility. The
wealthy and privileged classes of England, with such organs
as the London Times, were still bitterly hostile. The in
fluence of a great Democratic nation was dreaded, while
Southerners seemed a congenial sort of landed gentry. A
Confederate cotton loan had been entirely taken up by Eng
lish capitalists. New vessels were on the stocks, notori
ously under contract with agents of the South, and the
Lairds, strong partisans of that section, had commenced
two ironclad rams for hostile operations. In Parliament
a violent faction pressed resolutions to compel the imme
diate recognition of the Davis Confederacy.

Discussions at Downing Street had drawn out a sugges
tion from Earl llussell that mutual amendments might
make the enlistment laws of Great Britain and the United
States more effective; but when Seward acceded to this
proposal, it appeared that the Lord Chancellor thought the
present act sufficient, and the ministry would propose no
change. Five months later, a fitting comment was fur
nished by a ruling of the English Exchequer Court in an
important case. The Alexandra, 1 launched at Liverpool in
the spring of 1863, was meant for a vessel of war, and the
proof was overwhelming of its Southern destination. This
time the English ministry acted promptly, and informa
tion was filed on behalf of the Crown against ship and
builders. But when, at the trial in June, the facts claimed
were fully established, the Lord Chief Baron instructed the



1 The marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Princess Alexandra of
Denmark took place in March, 1863.



426 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.

jury, in effect, that building and fitting out vessels for a
purchaser to use as he pleased was no breach of the Foreign
Enlistment Act. The case was appealed; and, now that
the tide of military success had turned at home, Seward
gave plain warning that, if this new doctrine of neutral
obligation was sustained in the higher court, Great Britain
must either amend her statutes, or expect the United States
to protect their own commerce as against the naval force of
a public enemy. 1 Meanwhile the two rams, more formi
dable than anything hitherto attempted on neutral territory,
approached completion ; and, regardless of depositions the
most convincing, Earl Russell advised Minister Adams, in
September, that he could not interfere. "It would be
superfluous in me to point out to your lordship," was
Adams s sturdy rejoinder, "that this is war." 2

That perilous climax brought the Palmerston ministry to
its senses. The Alexandra lawsuit, like a wounded snake,
dragged its slow length up to the House of Lords, to dis
appear, finally, as vexing litigation does so often, in its
own convolutions; and, to relieve itself of a troublesome
dilemma, the crown purchased the two rams for the royal
navy. Eeverberations from Vicksburg and Gettysburg had
changed the tone both of Parliament and the Cabinet per
ceptibly, and that without need of amending the present
laws at all. By April of the next year notice was formally
given to the South that the " so-called Confederate
States " must make no further effort to build war-
vessels for use against the United States government, a
friendly power. 3



1 Dipl. Corr. 1863, 308.

2 8 N. & H. c. 10 ; 3 Seward, 180. The conclusion, September 8th,
announced to Adams, to detain the rams, was the turning-point in the
course of this English cabinet. 4 Pierce s Sumner, 165.

3 8 N. & H. c. 10. See 4 Pierce s Sumner, 151-154, for a careful
analysis of British sentiment towards the United States during the
Civil War. Earl Russell, so hard, captious, and cynical in those years,
regretted his course in later life. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, was, up to July, 1863, hostile to the cause of Union ; Cob-
den, at first distrustful, gave his good-will because of the emancipation



1864. RELATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 427

Except for these "ocean incendiaries," these "gypsies of
the sea," as Sunnier called them, the British ministry was
found just and reasonable in official intercourse ; for, besides
the treaty for suppressing the slave trade, Seward arranged
with Earl Russell for adjusting claims upon the northwest
frontier. But this belligerent ship-building for the South,
so long and so superciliously permitted, excited in the loyal
United States more ill-feeling and resentment than all
other European aggressions combined. As Suraner wrote
to Bright in early 18G3, while this grievance was growing,
"All the signs are of war," with Great Britain, "more
surely than in the time of the Trent." l Neither privateers
nor public armed cruisers can much longer make respectable
among nations this plundering of defenceless private prop
erty not contraband upon the high seas. The South gained
a questionable glory by her prowess in this enterprise. Not
all "pirates," worthy of that name, we should remember,
are the individual enemies of mankind; for the Barbary
States that pursued this plundering business when the cen
tury opened, were recognized governments, sovereignties
gone astray, so to speak, in the world s great family.



While open acrimony marked long our official intercourse
with Great Britain, the Imperialist of France pursued his
stealthier and more treacherous schemes against the peace
of this continent, always bland and polite in demeanor
whatever the mask he wore. The new conquest of Mexico
advanced to its consummation under his inexorable ISGS,
orders. After numerous delays and a costly siege, May-June.
Forey captured Puebla on the 19th of May, and confisca
tion of property was meted by the wholesale to such Mexi-



policy ; Brougham, like Carlyle and Harriet Martineau, appeared un
sympathetic. John Bright alone, among the leading British statesmen,
was from first to last the firm friend of the United States. Simmer,
who had "loved England," as he wrote, deplored finding her so long
on the wrong side. Ib. 162.
1 4 Sumner, 131.



428 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, CHAP. II

cans as resisted longer. 1 The Church party of the Repub
lic, which had favored the invading army, now gave in its
formal allegiance. Onward to the capital marched the
ruthless conqueror, over the route of glory that Cortes and
Scott had travelled in succession. Marshal Bazaine, ex
alted in Napoleon s favor, succeeded Forey, to complete the
new conquest. On the 10th of June, amidst reactionary
demonstrations of delight, the French commander entered
the city of Mexico; Juarez with his cabinet having already
fled to San Luis Potosi, there to hoist once more the stand
ard of the people, hastily invested by the Mexican Con
gress with dictatorial powers. "Adversity," proclaimed
the patriot President, u is not sufficient cause for fainting
to the determined Republicans who defend their native land
and their rights."

Bazaine now placed the Mexican capital under martial
law, muzzled the liberal press, and proclaimed against non-
submissionists another confiscation. With military de
spatch he organized in six days a provisional government,
which consisted of a junta, or superior council, named upon
Saligny s advice, with all adherents of Juarez excluded.
This junta, according to programme, committed, tempo
rarily, all executive authority to a council of three, with
Almonte at the head, after which, by associating others
with themselves, they constituted an assembly of about
two hundred and fifty notables, for designating a govern
ment. So well had the work of this assembly been laid out
for them, that it took but a single day to adopt, by a vote
nearly unanimous and without debate, the resolve which
abolished the present republic and substituted a monarchy;
and, not to leave any doubt of their cringing subservience,
they offered the imperial crown to the Archduke Maxi
milian of Austria, or, in case of his refusal, to such other
Catholic prince as his Majesty, the Emperor of France,
might please to indicate. Napoleon, from Paris, tele
graphed to the archduke his congratulations; but he found

1 This cruel and impolitic measure was disapproved by the French
government, but was only partially revoked. See p. 266.



1864-65. MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 429

the court circles of Europe incredulous of this distant
assembly which had grovelled so eagerly when obeisance
was enough. The House of Hapsburg wished to purge
itself of the whole business, nor would Maximilian consent
to accept the crown, unless his choice was ratified by the
suffrage of the Mexican people. How to secure this was a
puzzle, since the French army occupied but a few cities in
scattering states, and had conquered but a fraction of the
Mexican people. Bazaine managed plausibly, however, a
popular sanction in the military departments occupied ; and
after a year s waiting in vain for broader expedients, the
archduke considered himself elected.

Maximilian, ill-fated representative of imperialism in
this New World, was a younger brother of the emperor of
Austria, and a true scion of the proudest aristocracy of
Europe. Scarcely turned of thirty, generous, indolent,
good-natured, he was not devoid of ability, courage, or an
honorable purpose ; but admiral in the Austrian navy had
been thus far his sole distinction, with money extravagance
in place of exploit. The impetuous spirit of his vivacious
spouse, Carlotta, to whom he was fondly attached, and
something of a romantic disposition of his own, led him to
think more favorably of Napoleon s glittering offer than
did the head of his house. With delicate oval face, high
forehead, pencilled eyebrows, well-formed nose and mouth,
Maximilian looked little like the oppressor of a people, the
chief of bigoted partisans; but as clay, rather, to the hand
of some craftier potter. On Sunday, the 10th of April,
1864, having formally accepted the sway of Napoleon s new
subjects of the West, this ruler was crowned at

.11 , -r -, i p ivr- i 18G4-1S65.

the beautiiul palace or Miramax*, whose parks were
thronged with visitors. A Mexican deputation was there
received which bent the knee and kissed his hand in token
of a people s homage and fidelity over the ocean. Amidst
the shouts of Austrian spectators and the roar of Austrian
artillery, this youth was proclaimed Emperor of Mexico,
and a solemn Te Deum was sung in the cathedral at Trieste.
The royal head of the House of Hapsburg had given at
length his assent, nor was the Papal benediction wanting.



430 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.

A convention between Napoleon and Maximilian provided
that the French troops should remain in Mexico until
native forces could be organized to supply their place; that
in the meantime the French commander should have equal
authority with the Emperor in determining all movements
and points of military occupation; that the expenses of
the French invasion, fixed at the sum of 270,000,000 francs,
and all future expenses of a standing army, should be
assumed by the new empire; and that those exorbitant
French indemnities for which war against Mexico was
originally undertaken should likewise be paid. Under
such auspices, and oppressed with the pawn of his king
dom to his patron for a distressing load of debt, Maximilian
departed for his new possessions, having renounced all
right to the throne of Austria so long as the Mexican
dynasty should endure; and for him remained the discour
aging, indeed the nugatory, attempt of planting a throne in
this thorny soil, which had yielded him but the mockery of
a crown. 1

Maximilian made fair professions upon arriving in
Mexico. He exhorted his subjects to abandon political
dissension and unite in promoting their country s welfare.
He promised his people personal liberty and equality before
the law. With the offer of a general amnesty he sought to
seduce from Kepublican allegiance the patriot army, which
still held some of the richest and most populous portions of
Mexico. But President Juarez blocked every such tempta
tion, and, by a prudent and baffling system of military tac
tics, the European invaders were incessantly harassed.
While thus unsuccessful in conciliating the friends of popu
lar institutions, Maximilian soon lost the friendship of
those native reactionists who had offered him the throne.
Complying with their wishes so far as to decree that the
Eoman Catholic religion should be the religion of his em
pire, he refused to repeal existing laws of religious tolera
tion, or to restore the Church property confiscated by the
former government. The Church party deserting him in

i 3 Dipl. Corr. 1801, 07, 71 ; 7 N. & II. c. 14.



1864-65. MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 431

consequence, French bayonets became the sole prop of his
exotic empire. A native army was summoned, but natives
would not enlist in it. While in this shabby though pic
turesque capital and its historical palace, the ceremonials of
a bankrupt court were maintained with phantom gayety,
Maximilian s fortunes grew more gloomy and hopeless as
the months went on. Guerillas hung upon the flanks of
Kazaine s occupying army. A captured town would declare
fealty to Maximilian, and then, when the main detachment
had retired, its citizens rose upon the guard, drove out the
imperial partisans, and declared for " Juarez and liberty "
as before. The small, swarthy French soldier, who had
not yet outlived the fame of his nation s preeminence in
arms, toiled through the barren and unthrifty land to con
firm this establishment of the lesser Napoleon, now in
mud to the knees, now climbing steep mountains, glad
enough when a herd of stray cattle could be caught to fur
nish fresh meat for his rations; he slept with unquiet
dreams at night by the side of the unpaved road, or within
some ruined convent, tortured by fleas and mosquitoes;
while by day he sickened heartily of Mexico, sickened of
French glory as attempted in the present age.



Juarez and the liberal government received the constant
sympathy of Spanish-American republics. The United
States, too, while preserving a prudent neutrality in Mexi
can affairs, withdrew Minister Corwin, and showed plainly
that no usurping empire could hope for American recog
nition or favor. Maximilian sent a messenger to Washing
ton with an autograph letter, but President Lincoln would
neither receive the letter nor hold intercourse, official or
unofficial, with the person who bore it. As months went
on the course of events, in Mexico as well as Europe, was
vigilantly watched by our administration. While engaged
in the life and death struggle of his own government, Presi
dent Lincoln could do no more in prudence than to keep
steadily before the eyes of the European Powers the adverse
opinion of the United States to this whole invasion; and



432 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. tt.

that was constantly done with candor and firmness. Sew-
ard, in long despatches of September and October, 1863,
not controverting Napoleon s friendly assurances,
repulsed French overtures for acknowledging the
new monarchy in Mexico, and maintained that the
normal opinion of Mexico favored a government there
republican in form and domestic in organization, " in pref
erence to any monarchical institutions to be imposed from
abroad." He pressed, besides, for Napoleon s serious
consideration, the interdependence of all American repub
lics upon one another, and the deep interest of the United
States in the maintenance of free institutions throughout
this continent. 1

Such a posture foreboded the day of reckoning on these
American frontiers, when our own Civil War was ended.
But in the Senate and House of Representatives were men
to whom such diplomacy seemed tame and tedious; and
when, in his message of December, 1863, the President
wisely refrained from discussing the pending coronation of
Maximilian, they undertook to force a crisis of their own.
In the Senate a belligerent resolution of January, 1864,
against France, was suppressed on reference to the Com
mittee of Foreign Relations, under Sumner s judicious direc
tion. But in the House, the impulsive Henry Winter
Davis, chairman of the corresponding committee in that
branch, reported a similar resolution, which passed the
House, 2 April 4th, by a large affirmative vote, not a voice
raised against it. The administration pursued unruffled its
own judicious course, Seward blandly explaining to the



1 Dipl. Corr. 1868 ; 7 N. & H. c. 14 ; 4 Sunnier, 119, etc.

2 "Resolved, That the Congress of the United States are unwilling
by silence to leave the nations of the world under the impression that
they are indifferent spectators of the deplorable events now transpiring
in the republic of Mexico ; and that they therefore think fit to declare
that it does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowl
edge any monarchical government, erected on the ruins of any repub
lican government in America, under the auspices of any European
power." Cong. Globe, 1408. In the Senate this resolve was put to
slumber, unreported.



1864-65. OUR POLICY TOWARDS MEXICO. 433

French government, now thoroughly vexed on the subject
and disposed to mischief, that, while that resolution truly
interpreted the unanimous sentiment of the people of the
United States in regard to Mexico, it had not passed, in
Congress, to a final stage; besides which the question of
recognition remained, under our Constitution, an executive
one. This administration meant no present departure from
the policy it had hitherto pursued, and France would be
seasonably apprised of any change in such a policy here
after. 1 Nevertheless, while Lincoln lived, and until, in
September, 1865, after his death, Seward gave warning to
France that our policy had changed and that the imperial
experiment in Mexico must come to an end, no occasion was
lost in making it known to the diplomatic corps in Wash
ington, and through our minister in Paris to Napoleon
himself, that this Maximilian monarchy was thought a
temporary and unnatural occupation which must soon pass
away. But the Juarez government and its constitution kept
the hearty friendship of this administration. And an out
spoken sympathy was extended to the harassed Mexican
President, who, in wisdom, patriotism, and patient con
stancy of purpose, as also in conducting to a final triumph
his people s cause, showed himself the Lincoln of a neigh
boring republic.



Slidell, of the Confederacy, unrecognized formally at
Paris, had been used to court intrigues and the footfall of
covert diplomacy. The Archduke, while waiting at Mira-
mar for his crown, sent him a message, signifying that he
thought the success of the South inseparably blended with
that of his own prospective empire, and had made French
recognition of its independence a condition of his accept
ance. But Maximilian s visit to Paris, the next March,
brought Slidell no audience, and the latter consoled himself
with an absurd fable, current in high circles, that Presi
dent Lincoln had promised recognition to Maximilian s

1 7 N. & H. c. 14 (April 7th, 1864).



434 HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. CHAP. II.

empire on condition that there should be no negotiations
with the Southern Confederacy. As for Maximilian s
proposed empire, Slidell was too deeply an American to
indulge in illusions of its permanence. 1

Always preserving the aspect of honorable friendship
towards the United States, in official intercourse, the French
Emperor used double-dealing to carry out his distant and
dangerous enterprise. Slidell, though not officially recog
nized, was given constantly to suppose that recognition of
the Confederacy was only in brief suspense ; and the envoy s
report of confidential interviews with Napoleon and his
ministers excited the liveliest hopes in the breasts of the
Richmond rulers. That the French Emperor plotted to
keep this Union sundered is undeniable ; and to that intent
had been his efforts for European mediation, already men
tioned. 2 If what Slidell relates may be trusted, the Em
peror himself once, in 1862, suggested the building of a
Confederate navy in Europe; and when Slidell expressed
his willingness, if the police would not watch too closely;
"Why," asked Napoleon, shamelessly, "could you not have
them built as for the Italian government?" 3 Slidell kept
in his pay, so he reports, an official in the department of
Foreign Affairs, who, with the sanction of its head, gave
him all the information he needed; and the wily Drouyn
de 1 Huys, preferring to keep his eyes closed, referred him
to the Minister of Marine, who, in early 1863, gave assur
ances, distinct enough, that any Confederate ships of war