London, January 31
Liverpool's commercial greatness derives its origin from the slave trade. The sole contributions with which Liverpool has enriched the poetic literature of England are odes to the slave trade. Fifty years ago Wilberforce could set foot on Liverpool soil only at the risk of his life. As in the preceding century the slave trade, so in the present century the trade in the product of slavery — cotton— formed the material basis of Liverpool's greatness. No wonder, therefore, that Liverpool is the centre of the English friends of secession. It is in fact the sole city in the United Kingdom where during the recent crisis it was possible to organise a quasi-public meeting in favour of a war with the United States.(1) And what does Liverpool say now? Let us hearken to one of its great daily organs, the Daily Post.
In a leading article entitled "The Cute Yankees"(2) it is stated among other things:
"The Yankees, with their usual adroitness, have converted an apparent loss into a real gain and made England subservient to their advantage.... Great Britain has in fact displayed her power, but to what end? Since the foundation of the United States the Yankees have always claimed for a neutral flag the privilege that passengers sailing under it are protected from any intervention and attack by the belligerents. We contested this privilege to the limit during the Anti-Jacobin War, the Anglo-American War of 1812 to 1814, and again, more recently, in 1842, during the negotiations between Lord Ashburton and the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster.[174] Now our opposition must cease. The Yankee principle has triumphed. Mr. Seward registers the fact and declares that we have given way in principle and that through the Trent case the United States have obtained a concession from us to secure which they had hitherto exhausted every means of diplomacy and of war in vain."
More important still is the Daily Post's admission of the shift in public opinion even in Liverpool.
"The Confederates", it says, "have certainly done nothing to forfeit the good opinion entertained of them. Quite the contrary. They have fought manfully and made dreadful sacrifices. If they do not obtain their independence everyone must admit that they deserve it. Public opinion, however, has now run counter to their claims. They are no longer the fine fellows(3) they were four weeks ago. They are now pronounced a very sorry set. ...A reaction has indeed commenced. The anti-slavery people, who shrank into their shoes during the recent popular excitement, now come forth to thunder big words against man-selling and the rebellious slave-owners.... Are not even the walls of our town posted with large placards full of denunciations and angry invectives against Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the authors of the accursed Fugitive Slave Law? The Confederates have lost by the Trent affair. It was to be their gain; it has turned out to be their ruin. The sympathy of this country will be withdrawn from them, and they will have to realise as soon as possible their peculiar situation. They have been very ill-used but they will have no redress."
After this admission by such a friend of secession as the Liverpool daily paper it is easy to explain the altered language that some important organs of Palmerston now suddenly make use of before the opening of Parliament. Thus The Economist of last Saturday has an article entitled, "Shall the Blockade be Respected?" (4)
It proceeds in the first place from the axiom that the blockade is a mere paper blockade and that its violation is therefore permitted by international law. France demanded the blockade's forcible removal. The practical decision of the question lay accordingly in the hands of England, who had great and pressing motives for such a step. In particular she was in need of American cotton. One may remark incidentally that it is not quite clear how a "mere paper blockade" can prevent the shipping of cotton.
"But nevertheless," cries The Economist, "England must respect the blockade." Having motivated this judgment with a series of sophisms, it finally comes to the gist of the matter.(5) "In a case of this kind," it says, "the government w[7]ould have to have the whole country behind it. The great body of the British people are not yet prepared for any interposition which would even have the semblance of aiding the establishment of a slave republic. The social system of the Confederacy is based on slavery; the Federalists have done what they could to persuade us that slavery lay at the root of the Secession movement, and that they, the Federalists, were hostile to slavery; and slavery is our especial horror and detestation.... The real error of the popular sentiment is here. The dissolution, not the restoration, of the Union, independence, not the defeat of the South, is the only sure path to the emancipation of the slaves. We hope soon to make this clear to our readers. But it is not clear yet. The majority of Englishmen still think otherwise; and as long as they persist in this prejudice, any intervention on the part of our government which should place us in active opposition to the North, and inferential alliance with the South, would scarcely be supported by the hearty cooperation of the British nation."
In other words: the attempt at such intervention would cause the downfall of the ministry. And this also explains why The Times pronounces itself so decidedly against any intervention and for England's neutrality.
Endnotes
[1] Marx and Engels began to contribute to the New-York Daily Tribune in 1851 (see Vol. 11, Note 2). 1861 and 1862 were the last two years of their work for the Tribune. With the outbreak of the US Civil War interest in European affairs in America declined. The Tribune cancelled its contracts with all its European correspondents except Marx, who was asked to reduce the number of his contributions from two to one a week. Between February 1861 and March 1862 the paper published ten items by Marx and one by Engels. One appeared as a leading article, nine were marked "From an Occasional Correspondent" and one was marked "From Our Own Correspondent". Marx's final break with the newspaper occurred in the spring of 1862 (see Vol. 12, Note 1 and Vol. 39, Note 4). The theme and basic content of this article were suggested to Engels by Marx, who in a letter dated January 22, 1861 (Vol. 41 of the present edition) asked Engels to write on the Schleswig-Holstein question for the NYDT. Engels wrote the article on January 23. On the following day Marx sent it to New York by the steamer Anglo-Saxon.
[174] See Notes 107, 108, 127.
[7] At Magenta and Solferino the decisive battles of the 1859 Austro-Italo-French war were fought on June 4 and June 24 respectively. The Austrians were defeated on both occasions.