at the time be, may institute the proceedings of condemnation, and in such case they shall be wholly for the benefit of the United States; or any person may file an information with such attorney, in which case the proceedings shall be for the use of such informer and the United States in equal parts. And be it further enacted, That whenever hereafter, during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person claimed to be held to labor or service under the law of any State, shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or by the lawful agent of such person, to take up arms against the United States... or to work or be employed in or upon any fort, navy yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatsoever, against the Government and lawful authority of the United States, then, and in every such case, the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due shall forfeit his claim to such labor, any law of the State or of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. And whenever thereafter the person claiming such labor or service shall seek to enforce his claim, it shall be a full and sufficient answer to such claim that the person whose service or labor is claimed had been employed in hostile service against the Government of the United States, contrary to the provisions of this act.1 Approved, August 6, 1861. 1 President Lincoln, who was determined at the beginning of the war to adhere to his professed policy of preserving the Union rather than freeing the slaves, and who was consequently very careful not to alienate or offend the loyal slaveowners, signed this bill with reluctance. However, the actual confiscation of negroes had begun several months before. As early as May 24, General B. F. Butler, commanding at Fortress Monroe, in Virginia, had refused to deliver up to their owners negro slaves who had come into the Union lines. His pretext was that, having been employed in the construction of a confederate battery, the negroes were "contraband of war," and he forthwith set them to work on the Union entrenchments. Later in the year other commanders in the field (Frémont, Hunter) took it upon themselves to declare the emancipation of the slaves in their districts. 94. The British view of the November- 1861 [442] FROM BULL RUN TO GETTYSBURG The relations of the Federal government and the court of St. James were sorely strained during the Civil War by Trent affair, the open sympathies of the governing classes and the influential journals of England with the Southern cause, and by the remissness of the British ministry in allowing ships to be built and launched in English yards for the purpose of preying on Northern commerce. President Lincoln's proclamation of the blockade of the Southern ports (see No. 93 (b), p. 409) was a severe blow to British trade,1 and threatened to cripple British industry by shutting off the supply of raw cotton for her mills.2 The queen's proclamation of neutrality of May 13, 1861, recognized the secessionists as belligerents, whereas the administration at Washington affected to regard them as traitors—even after Bull Run and the beginning of an interchange of prisoners 1 Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, writing to his home government of the proposed blockade, said: "Calling it an enforcement of the Revenue Laws appeared to me to increase the gravity of the measure, for it placed the Foreign Powers in the dilemma of recognizing the Southern Confederation, or of submitting to the interruption of their Commerce." Lord Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol. I, p. 33. 2 Punch, the London comic paper, summed up the dilemma between ethics and profits thus: Though with the North we sympathize, It must not be forgotten That with the South we 've stronger ties Which are composed of cotton, Whereof our imports mount unto Quoted by Rhodes, History of the United States since 1850, Vol. III, p. 433. Seward wrote to his wife, May 17, 1861: Great Britain is in great danger of sympathizing so much with the South, for the sake of peace and cotton, as to drive us to make war against her as the ally of the traitors." Frederick Bancroft, Life of Seward, Vol. II, p. 575. of war. So the forcible removal of Messrs. Mason and Slidell from the British steamer Trent, applauded enthusiastically by the majority of the President's cabinet, the members of Congress, and the general public of the North, appeared to the British government as the last act in a policy of deliberate infraction of their neutral rights. The people of England were aflame with indignation.2 Eight thousand troops were dispatched to Canada, and war between the United States and England seemed imminent as the Christmas season of 1861 approached. Lord Lyons, the British minister at Washington, wrote to his chief, Lord John Russell, foreign minister in Lord Palmerston's cabinet: Washington, Nov. 22, 1861 I have all along been expecting some such blow as the capture on board the Trent. Turn out how it may, it must I fear produce an effect on public opinion in both countries which will go far to disconcert all my peaceful plans and hopes. I am so worn out with the never-ending labor of keeping things smooth, under the discouragement of the doubt whether by so doing I am not after all only leading these people to believe that they may go all lengths with us with impunity that I am sometimes 1 Even as late as the autumn of 1861 Seward maintained that any communication between a foreign government and the Confederate government at Richmond was an offense to the United States (Lord Newton, Lord Lyons, Vol. I, p. 53). As there was no government but the Confederate below Mason and Dixon's line, this meant that England and other foreign nations were to have no tribunal to which to appeal to safeguard the lives and property of their citizens living in eleven great states of the South. 2 An American living in London wrote to Mr. Seward two days after the arrival of the news of the Trent episode (November 29): "There never was within memory such a burst of feeling as has been created by the news of the boarding of the [Trent]. The people are frantic with rage, and were the country polled, I fear that 999 men out of a thousand would declare for immediate war. Lord Palmerston cannot resist the impulse if he would."-War Records, Series II, Vol. II, p. 1107. half tempted to wish that the worst may have come already. However, I do not allow this feeling to influence my conduct, and I have done nothing which can in the least interfere with any course which you may take concerning the affair of the Trent. If the effect on the people and Government of this country were the only thing to be considered, it would be a case for an extreme measure one way or the other. If the capture be unjustifiable we should ask for the immediate release of the prisoners, promptly, imperatively, with a determination to act at once, if the demand were refused. If, on the other hand, the capture be justifiable, we should at once say so, and declare that we have no complaint to make on the subject. Even so, we should not escape the evil of encouraging the Americans in the belief that we shall bear anything from them. For they have made up their minds that they have insulted us, although the fear of the consequences prevents their giving vent to their exultation. . . . While maintaining entire reserve on the question itself, I have avoided any demonstration of ill-humor. My object has been, on the one hand, not to prevent the Government being led by its present apprehensions to take some conciliatory step, and on the other hand, not to put H.[er] M.[ajesty's] Government or myself in an awkward position, if it should after all appear that we should not be right to make the affair a serious ground of complaint. Congress will meet on December 2nd, which will not diminish the difficulty of managing matters here. It is supposed that General McClellan will be obliged to attempt some forward movement, in order that he and the Government [cabinet] may be able to meet the fiery legislators. . . . On November 27th news of the boarding of the Trent reached England, and on the 30th the British cabinet drew up a dispatch declaring that the neutral rights of Great Britain had been violated, demanding that the act be disavowed and the prisoners set free, and instructing Lord Lyons to leave Washington should the government refuse to comply with these demands. When the dispatch was submitted to the queen and her royal consort, Prince Albert, the latter (then on his deathbed) suggested several modifications and mitigations of its peremptory tone, such as the omission of the phrase "wanton insult" and of the imperative mood and the threat to terminate diplomatic relations. The revised draft read, in its important parts: ... Her Majesty's Government, bearing in mind the friendly relations which have long subsisted between Great Britain and the United States, are willing to believe that the United States's naval officer who committed this aggression was not acting in compliance with any authority from his Government, or that if he conceived himself to be so authorized, he greatly misunderstood the instructions which he had received. For the Government of the United States must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow such an affront to the national honour to pass without full reparation, and her Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that it could be the deliberate intention of the Government of the United States unnecessarily to force into discussion between the two Governments a question of so grave a character, and with regard to which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such unanimity of feeling. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, trust that when this matter shall have been brought under the consideration of the Government of the United States, that Government will, of its own accord, offer to the British Government such redress as alone would satisfy the British nation, namely, the liberation of the four gentlemen, and their delivery to your Lordship, in order that they may again be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed. Should these terms not be offered by Mr. Seward, you will propose them to him. John Bright, the distinguished liberal statesman, and member of parliament from Rochdale, near Manchester, though himself a large cotton manufacturer, was the most |