Lord John Russell to Edward Everett, July 12, 1861

PEMBROKE LODGE, July 12, 1861.

MY DEAR MR. EVERETT, – I have hitherto delayed answering your letter of the 28th of May, in hopes that a better feeling, and I must say a juster feeling towards us might spring up in the United States. I am not sure that this is the case, but I am told there has been a lull. In the interval before a fresh storm arises, I will write a few lines as to our position. I shall say little as to yours; I respect the unanimous feeling of the North, and still more the resolution not to permit the extension of slavery which led to the election of President Lincoln. But with regard to our own course, I must say something more. There were according to your account 8 millions of freemen in the Slave States. Of these millions upwards of five have been for sometime in open revolt against the President and Congress of the United States. It is not our practice to treat five millions of freemen as pirates, and to hang their sailors if they stop our merchantmen. But unless we meant to treat them as pirates and to hang them we could not deny them belligerent rights. This is what you and we did in the case of the South American Colonies of Spain. Your own President and Courts of Law decided this question in the case of Venezuela. Your press has studiously confused the case by calling the allowance of belligerent rights by the name of recognition. But you must well know the difference. It seems to me however that you have expected us to discourage the South. How this was to be done, except by waging war against them I am at a loss to imagine. I must confess likewise that I can see no good likely to arise from the present contest. If on the 4th of March you had allowed the Confederate States to go out from among you, you could have prevented the extension of Slavery and confined it to the slaveholding States. But if I understand your Constitution aright you cannot do more in case of successful war, if you have to adhere to its provisions and to keep faith with those states and parts of states where slavery still exists which have not quitted the Union.

I regret the Morrill Tariff and hope it will be repealed. But the exclusion of our manufactures from your markets was surely an odd way of conciliating our good will.

I thank you for your condolence on the death of my brother. It is a grievous loss to me, after half a century of brotherly affection. I remain,

Yours faithfully,

J. RUSSELL.

SOURCE: Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 45: October 1911 – June 1912, November 1911 Meeting, p. 77-8