Alas! that this
news should find us still embarrassed, and still diddling with the negro
question! Alas! That we should still have
one war upon our hands, while we are threatened with another? Had we, as we should have done, disposed of
this question at the beginning of the war, then would its beginning have also
been its ending. If slavery was not, as
it certainly was, the sole cause of the war, it nevertheless, was that
vulnerable spot in the foe at which we should have struck without a moment’s
delay. Instead of repelling the negroes,
bond and free, by insults and cruel treatment we could have brought them all to
our side by simply inviting them to it.
As it is, the war has grown into a very formidable one; and the
threatened one whereas, had we not acted insanely on the negro question, we could
have dreaded neither. More than this,
had we, as it was so easy to do, struck instant death into the first war, we
should have escaped the threat of this second one.
For what is it that
the English press threatens us with war? It is for compelling the English ship
to give up the rebel commissioners, so it says. This is the ostensible reason.
But would not England — she who is so famous for clinging to an almost entirely
unqualified and unlimited right of search — have done the same thing in like
circumstances? If she would not, then she would not have been herself. Had a
part of her home counties revolted and sent a couple of their rebels to America
for help, would she not have caught them if she could? And in whatever
circumstances they might have been found? If she says she would not, there is
not on all the earth one “Jew Apella” so credulous as to believe her. If she
confesses she would, then is she self-convicted, not only of trampling in her
boundless dishonesty on the great and never-to-be-violated principle of doing
as we would be done by, but of insulting us by claiming that we ought to be
tame and base enough to forbear to do that which her self-respect and high
spirit would prompt her to do.
But perhaps England
would not have done as we did. Her naval
captains have taken thousands of seamen from our ships — these captains
constituting themselves the sole accusers, witnesses and judges in the cases.
It was chiefly for such outrages that we declared war against her in 1812. The
instance of the San Jacinto and Trent is not like these. In this instance there
was no question, because no doubt, of personal identity. But I repeat, perhaps
England would not have done as we did.
In a case so aggravated, she would, perhaps, may, probably, have taken
ship and all. By the way, it may be that
we did act illegally in not seizing the ship as well as the rebels, and
subjecting her to a formal trial; but if in this we fell into a mistake, could
England be so mean as to make war upon us for it? — for a mistake which was
prompted by a kind and generous regard for the comfort and interests of
Englishmen? Surely, if England is not noble enough to refuse to punish for any
mere mistake, She is, nevertheless, not monstrous enough to punish for the
mistake, which grew solely out of the desire to serve her.
But wherein have we
harmed England in this matter? We have
insulted her, is the answer. We have not, however, intended to insult her: and
an unintended insult is really no insult.
If, in my eagerness to overtake the man who has deeply injured me, I run
rudely through my neighbor’s house he will not only not accuse me of insulting
him, but he will pardon so much to my very excusable eagerness as to leave but
little ground of any kind of complaint against me. Surely, if England were but to ask her own
heart how she would feel toward men in her own bosom, who, without the slightest
provocation, were busy in breaking up her nation, and in plundering and
slaughtering her people, she would be more disposed to shed tears of pity for
us that to make war upon us.
It is not possible
that England will make war on us for what we did to the Trent, and for doing
which she has herself furnished us innumerable precedents. It is not possible that she will so ignore,
nay, so deny and dishonor her own history. I will not believe that England,
whom I have ever loved and honored almost as if she were my own country, and
who, whatever prejudiced and passionate American writers have written to the
contrary, has hitherto, during our great and sore trial done nothing through
her government, nor through the great body of her people, to justify the
attempt by a portion (happily a very small and very unworthy portion) of our
press to stir up our national feeling against her — I say I will not believe
that this loved and honored England will make war upon us for a deed in which
we intended her no wrong; in which, so far as her own example is authority,
there is no wrong; and in which, in the light of reason, and, as it will prove
in the judgment of mankind, there is no wrong. She could not make such a
causeless war upon us without deeply and broadly blotting her own character and
he character of modern civilization. But, after, all, what better is our modern
civilization than a mere blot and blotch if the nation which is preeminently
its exponent, can be guilty, and without the least real cause of provocation,
and upon pretests as frivolous as they are false, of seeing to destroy a sister
nation? — a sister nation, too, whose present embarrassments and distresses
appeal so strongly to every good heart? Moreover, how little will it argue for
the cause of human rights, and popular institutions, if the nation, which
claims to be the chief champion of that cause, can wage so wicked a war upon a
nation claiming no humbler relation to that precious cause?
What, then, do I
hold that England should do in this case?
1st. Reprimand or
more severely punish the captain of the Trent for his very gross and very
guilty violation of our rights in furnishing exceedingly important facilities
to our enemy. This our government should have promptly insisted on, and not
have suffered England to get the start of us with her absurd counter
claim. This is a case in which not we,
but England, should have been made defendant.
It is her Captain who is the real offender. Ours is, at the most, but a nominal one. In the conduct of her Captain were in spirit
and purpose, as well as the doing, of wrong.
The conduct of ours, on the contrary, was prompted by the spirit and
purpose of doing right; and if, in any respect, it was erroneous, it was simply
in regard to the forms of doing right.
Moreover, the guilt of her Captain can be diminished by nothing that was
seemingly or really guilty in ours. The criminality of taking the rebels into
the Trent was none the less, because of any mistakes which attended the getting
of them out. Nevertheless, England takes
no action against him. Her policy is to
have her guilty Captain lost sight of in her bluster about our innocent
one. To screen the thief, she cries, “Stop
thief!” Her policy is to prevent us from
getting the true issue before the public mind, by occupying it with her false
one.
How preposterous is
the claim of England to her right to make war, because we took our rebellious
subjects from her ship! The taking of
them into her ship is the only thing in the case which can possibly furnish cause
of war. That, unless amply apologized for, does, in the light of
international law, furnish abundant cause of war.
Did every hypocrisy
and impudence go farther than in England’s putting America on trial! Was there
ever a more emphatic “putting the saddle on the wrong horse”? I overtake the
thief who has stolen my watch, and jerk it from his pocket. He turns to the people, not to confess his
theft, but to protest against my rudeness, and to have me, instead of himself,
regarded as the criminal!
An old fable tells
us that a council of animals, with the lion at their head, put an ass on trial
for having “broused the bigness of his tongue.” The lion (England) was
constrained to confess that he had himself eaten sheep, and shepherds too. Nevertheless, it was the offence of the ass
(America) that caused the council to shudder with horror. “What! Eat another’s
grass? O shame!” and so the virtuous rascals condemned him to die, and rejoiced
anew in their conscious innocence.
Moreover, England,
instead of turning to her own conscience with the true case, has the brazen
effrontery to appeal to our conscience with her trumped-up case. Which of the parties in this instance needs
conscience-quickening, in no less certain than in the instance of the footpad
and the traveler, when he had robbed of his bags of gold. The poor traveler meekly asked for a few
coins to defray his expenses homeward. “Take them from one of the bags,” said
the footpad, with an air of chivalrous magnanimity; but on seeing the traveler take
half a dozen instead of two or three, he exclaimed, “Why, man, have you no
conscience?” England, through her subject
and servant, entered into a conspiracy against America. America, through her subject and servant,
forbore to punish the wickedness, and simply stopped it. And yet England bids us to our conscience!
Why Should England protect
her captain? Her Queen, in her last May’s
Proclamation, warned him that, for doing what he has done, he should, “in no
wise obtain any protection.” He had full knowledge of the official character of
the rebles, and at least inferential knowledge of their bearing dispatches with
them. But, besides that the whole spirit
of it is against what he has done, her Proclamation specifies “officers” and “dispatches”
in the list of what her subjects are prohibited to carry “for the use or
service of either of the contending parties.
England did not
protect the Captain of her mail-steamer, Teviot, who, during our war with
Mexico was guilty of carrying the Mexican General Paredez. He was suspended. Why does she spare the Captain of the
Trent? Is it because she has more sympathy
with the Southern Confederacy than she had with Mexico? — and is, therefore,
more tender toward him who serves the former, than she was toward him who
served the latter? But it will, perhaps
be said, that we have not demanded satisfaction in this case as we did in
that. England, nevertheless, knows that
we are entitled to it; and that she is bound to satisfy us for the wrongs she
did us, before she complains of the way we took to save ourselves from the deep
injury with which that great and guilty wrong threatened us. In this connexion, I add that if, upon her
own principles and precedents, the Captain of the Trent deserves punishment for
what he did, she is stopped from magnifying into a grave offence our undoing
what we did.
2. The next thing
that England should do is to give instructions, or rather repeat those in the
Queen's Proclamation, that no more rebel commissioners be received into her
vessels.
3. And then she
should inform us whether, in the case of a vessel that shall hereafter offend
in this wise, she would have us take the vessel itself, or take but the
commissioners. It is true that whatever her preference, we would probably
insist on taking the vessel in every case: — for it is not probable that we
shall again expose ourselves in such a case to the charge of taking too little.
It is, however, also true, that, should she prefer our taking the vessel, we
will certainly never take less.
But such
instructions and information, although they would provide for future cases,
would leave the present case unprovided for; and England might still say that
she could not acquiesce in our having, in this case, taken the Commissioners instead
of the vessel. What then? She ought to be content with the expression
of our regret that we did not take the mode of her choice, and the more so as
that mode could not have been followed by any different result in respect to
our getting possession of the Commissioners.
But this might not satisfy her: — and what then? She should generously wait until that unnatural
and horrid war is off our hands; and if the parties could not then agree, they
should submit the case to an Umpire. If,
however, she should call for an Umpire now, then, although the civilized
world would think badly of her for it, and our own nation be very slow to
forgive her for it, I would nevertheless, in my abhorrence of all war, have our
government consent to an Umpire now. Nay, in the spirit of this abhorrence,
and for the sake of peace, I would go much farther. If no other concession we could make would
satisfy England, I would have our Government propose to surrender the rebels,
Mason and Slidell, in case the English Government would say, distinctly and solemnly,
that it would not itself disturb neutral vessels having on board rebels who had
gone out from England in quest of foreign aid to overturn the English Government. An ineffably base Government would it prove
itself to be should it refuse to say this, and yet declare war on the ground of
our capture of the rebels who were on their way for foreign help to overturn
our government.
I spoke of my
abhorrence of all war. Our lifelong
opponents of war find themselves unexpectedly in sympathy with mighty
armies. They have to confess that they
never anticipated a rebellion so fast; still less did they ever anticipate that
England would be guilty of coming to the help of such a satanic rebellion.
I have said that
England will not go to war with us in the case of the Trent. Nevertheless I am
not without fear that her government will be driven to declare war against us. The
Government of no other nation (and this is honorable to England) is more
influenced by the people. By such an
affair as the capture of Mason and Slidell, the patriotism of the least-informed
and superficial and excitable part of her people is easily and extensively
wrought upon. With this part of her people the inviolability of the British
flag is more than all earth besides. But
it is not by that capture, nor by those classes to whom it appeals with such
peculiar power that the Government will be moved. If an irresistible pressure
comes upon the government, it will come from those portions of the people who
long for the cotton and free trade of the South, and who have allowed
themselves to get angry with the North by foolishly misconstruing our high
tariff (which is simply a war measure) into a hostile commercial measure.
The capture of Mason and Slidell will be only the pretext, not the provocation;
only the occasion, not the cause of war.
If England wishes
to go to war with us for any wrongs we have done her, she shall not have the
chance—for we will promptly repair the wrongs, at whatever sacrifices of
property or pride. But if, as I still honor and love her too much to believe,
she wishes to go to war with us at any rate, and chooses this our time of
trouble as her time to make us an easy prey, then will she be gratified. It will be but fair, however, to advertise
her that she must not take our fighting in the war with the rebels as a sample
of what will be our fighting in the war with herself. The former is fooling. The latter will be fighting. On all subjects connected with slavery, and
therefore in a war about slavery, we Americans are fools. We cannot help it. We have worshipped the idol so long and so devoutly,
that when in its all-influential presence, we cannot be men. The powers of our
moral nature are, however, not destroyed; they are but perverted. And such an outrage as the English press
threatens us with will restore their legitimate use. Our manhood is not dead; it but sleeps. And as it was when the Philistines fell upon
the bound Samson, that the Spirit of the Lord came to his help, so, when the
English shall fall upon the worse-bound Americans, this sleeping manhood will
awake. And it will awake to assert
itself, not merely against the English, but against the rebels also. And It will do this mightily, because it
will, and the same time, be asserting itself against its own life-long
degradations, and the hateful cause of them.
Let us but know that England, to whom we have done no wrong, has resolved
to come to the help of the Pro-Slavery Rebellion, and our deep indignations
against her, combining with our deeper indignation against ourselves, will arm
us with the spirit of the power to snap the “cords,” and “green withs,” and “new
ropes,” with which slavery has bound us to dash to dust the foul idol whose
worship has so demented and debased us.
Yes, let us hear this month that England has declared war against us,
and this month will witness our Proclamation of Liberty to every slave in the
land. No thanks will be due her for the
happy effect upon us of her Declaration of war.
No thanks will be due her that the Declaration will have the effect to
save us — to save us by making us anti-slavery.
No more half-way measures, and no more nonsense on the Subject of slavery,
shall we then propose. There will be no
more talk then of freeing one sort of slaves, and continuing the other in slavery;
but we shall then invite every negro in the land, bond and free, to identify
himself, “arm and soul,” with our cause.
And then there will be no more talk of swapping off taxes for
negroes, and no more talk of colonizing and apprenticing them. Then we shall be eager to lift up the negroes
into the enjoyment of all the rights of manhood, that so we may have in them men
to stand by our side, and help us make short work with the present war, and
with that with which we are threatened.
Owing to the
bewitching and debauching influence of slavery upon our whole nation, there
are, even in the Free States, divisions among us in regard to the present
war. But should England so causelessly,
cruelly and meanly force a war upon us, there will be no divisions among us in
regard to that war: — nor, indeed, will there then be in regard to the other.
And so deep and abiding will be our sense of her boundless injustice, that
there will never be any boundless injustice, that there will never be any among
us to welcome propositions of peace with England, until her war with us shall
have reached the result of our subjugation, or of her expulsion from every part
of the Continent of North America.
Moreover, we shall rejoice to hear of the crushing of her power every
where — for we shall feel that the nation which can be guilty of such a war is
fit to govern no where — in the Eastern no more than in the Western hemisphere.
SOURCES: “News from
England by Geritt Smith,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Friday,
January 3, 1862, p. 4; An abstract of thes article appears in Octavius Brooks
Frothingham, Gerrit Smith: A Biography, p. 262-3
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