Earl Russell and the Slave Power

On the 20th December, 1860, South Carolina signed her address to the other Slave States, declaring her own secession from the Union on the ground that slavery must inevitably be overthrown if Abraham Lincoln’s party remained in power. After arguing on the certainty of that result, if the South submitted to him, she invites all the Slave States to join her in forming “a great Slave-holding Confederacy, larger than all Europe.” The result was, within twenty-two days, the seizure of thirteen fortresses, with great navy-yards and arsenals. To this they were emboldened by the fact that the garrisons had been purposely withdrawn by the treason of President Buchanan’s ministers, while the Northern forts and arsenals had been emptied of their arms and ammunition, expressly in order to afford a prize to the South. All the State authorities who ordered the attack, were under oath of allegiance to the Union.

Unless one could suppose the English ambassador at Washington guilty of unparalleled negligence, or to have no duties, he must have informed Earl Russell of these facts, which were notorious to us by the common newspapers.

No great power can afford to patronize official treasons in foreign governments. If the English government has no interest in republicanism, if it has become indifferent to freedom and slavery, it has interest in fidelity to official oaths. Earl Russell had a right, by International Law, without offending its minutest punctilio, to offer to Mr. Lincoln, on the day of his assuming the Presidential chair, any fifty ships of the British navy which he chose to pick, with all their accoutrements and stores, and any amount of Armstrong guns and Enfield rifles which he desired, to be paid for within twelve months, and delivered to the President in whatever parts he directed. It is more than possible, that this offer would have subdued the rebellion and have saved the bloodshed, before war became a reality. If not, it would at least have hindered the revolt of Virginia and seizure of Norfolk Harbour. It would have given to the North six valuable months, which they lost in making arms. It would have won for us for another century the warm attachment of the Free North, which for all defensive purposes we should have virtually annexed to the English empire. The immense discouragement to the South would have reinforced the Unionists of the Slave-States. The whole mountain population from Western Virginia to East Tennessee, and thence westward towards the Mississippi, might have resisted Jefferson Davis long enough for the North and the loyal Kentuckians to march into Eastern Tennessee before the summer of 1861. In that case the war could not have outlasted the year, nor would England have ever been gravely distressed for cotton.