The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, 1861-1865, vols. 1-5. New York: Appleton & Co., 1868.

Confederate Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861

DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES. 1861.  On the 4th of May, Messrs. Yancey, Mann, and Rost, the commissioners from the Confederate States to obtain their recognition in Europe as an independent nation, waited upon Lord John Russell, the British Minister for Foreign Affairs. Their interview is described in a letter from Lord Russell to Lord Lyons, the British Minister resident at Washington. lie writes:

One of these gentlemen, speaking for the others, dilated on the causes which had induced the Southern States to secede from the Northern. The principal of these causes, be said, was not slavery, but the very high price which, for the sake of protecting the Northern manufacturers, the South were obliged to pay for the manufactured goods which they required. One of the first acts of the Southern Congress was to reduce these duties, and, to prove their sincerity, he gave as an instance that Louisiana had given up altogether that protection on her sugar which she enjoyed by the legislation of the United States.

As a proof of the riches of the South, he stated that of $350,000,000 of exports of produce to foreign countries, $270,000,000 were furnished by the Southern States.

I said that I could hold no official communication with the delegates of the Southern States. That, however, when the question of recognition came to be formally discussed, there were two points upon which inquiry must be made: first, whether the body seeking recognition could maintain its position as an independent State; secondly, in what manner it was proposed to maintain relations with foreign States.

After speaking at some length on the first of these points, and alluding to the news of the secession of Virginia, and other intelligence favorable to their cause, these gentlemen called my attention to the article in their constitution prohibiting the slave trade.

I said that it was alleged very currently that if the slave States found that they could not compete successfully with the cotton of other countries, they would revive the slave trade for the purpose of diminishing the cost of production. They said this was a suspicion unsupported by any proof. The fact was they had prohibited the slave trade, and did not mean to revive it. They pointed to the new tariff of the United States as a roof that British manufactures would be nearly excluded from the North, and freely admitted in the South.

Other observations were made, but not of very great importance. The delegates concluded by stating that they should remain in London for the present, in the hope that the recognition of the Southern Confederacy would not be long delayed.

On the 14th of August, the same commissioners address a lengthy note to Lord John Russell, again urging the recognition of the Confederate States, for the reasons set forth in their letter. "They thus allude to their first interview:

At an early day after the arrival of the undersigned in London, at an informal interview which your lordship was pleased to accord to them, they informed your lordship of the object of their mission, and endeavored to impress upon your lordship that the action of the seven Confederate States had been based upon repeated attempts on the part of the Federal Government, and of many of the more Northern States which composed the late Union, during a series of years which extended over near half a century, to rule the people of the Southern section of that Union by means of the unconstitutional exercise of power; and that secession from that Union had been resorted to as, in the opinion of the seceding States, the best and surest mode of saving the liberties which their Federal and State constitutions were designed to secure to them. They also endeavored to place before your lordship satisfactory evidence that the justice of .this great movement upon the part of the cotton States was so palpable that it would be endorsed by many, if not by all, of the Southern States which were then adhering to the Union, which would sooner or later become convinced that the security of their rights could only be maintained bv pursuing the like process of secession from the lute Federal Union, and accession to the constitution of the government of the Confederate States of America.

They next proceed to state the reasons for which the people of the Confederate States believe they violated no principle of allegiance in their act of secession. They then refer to the British declaration of neutrality, respecting which they present the following views: The undersigned, however, received with some surprise and regret the avowal of her Britannic Majesty's government that, in order to the observance of a strict neutrality, the public and private armed vessels of neither of the contending parties would be permitted to enter her Majesty's ports with prizes.

The undersigned do not contest the right of the British Government to make such regulations, but have been disposed to think that it has been unusual for her Majesty's Government to exercise such right, and that in this instance the practical operation of the rule has been to favor the government at Washington, and to cripple the exercise of an undoubted public right of the Government of the Confederate States. This Government commenced its career entirely without a navy. Owing to the high sense of duty which distinguished the Southern officers who were lately in commission in the United States navy, the ships which otherwise might have been brought into Southern ports were honorably delivered up to the United States Government, and the navy, built for the protection of the people of all the States, is now used by the Government at Washington to coerce the people and blockade the ports of one-third of the States of the late Union. The people of the Confederate States are an agricultural, not a manufacturing or commercial people. They own but few ships, hence there has been not the least necessity for the Government at Washington to issue letters of marque.

The people of the Confederate States have but few ships, and not much commerce upon which such private armed vessels could operate. The commodities produced in the Confederate States are such as the world needs more than any other, and the nations of the earth have heretofore sent their ships to our wharves, and there the merchants buy and receive our cotton and tobacco.

But it is far otherwise with the people of the present United States. They are a manufacturing and commercial people. They do a large part of the carrying trade of the world. Their ships and commerce afford them the sinews of war, and keep their industry afloat. To cripple this industry and commerce, to destroy their snips, or cause them to be dismantled and tied up to their rotting wharves, are legitimate objects and means of warfare.

Having no navy, no commercial marine, out of which to improvise public armed vessels to any considerable extent, the Confederate States were compelled to resort to the issuance of letters of marque, a mode of warfare as fully and clearly recognized by the law and usage of nations as any other arm of war, und most assuredly more humane and more civilized in its practice than that which appears to have distinguished the march of the troops of the Government of the United States upon the soil and among the villages of Virginia.

These facts tend to show that the practical working of the rule that forbids the entry of the public and private armed vessels of either party into British ports with prizes, operates exclusively to prevent the exercise of this legitimate mode of warfare by the Confederate States, while it is, to a great degree, a practical protection to the commerce und ships of the United States.

The inefficiency of the Federal Administration, and the ill success of all its military efforts, are next related. The commercial resources of the South are then stated for the purpose of removing any impression which might be entertained that the South was a poor country. After which it is argued that the Abolition sentiment of England can hope for nothing from the Administration of Mr. Lincoln, which "proposes no freedom to the slave." In this connection it would be well to read the views expressed in Congress at the session previous to Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. [See Congress U. S.] The views of the Southern Commissioners, so entirely opposite to those of Southern Senators and Representatives, were thus expressed: The undersigned are also aware that the anti-slavery sentiment, so universally prevalent in England, has shrunk from the idea of forming friendly public relations with a government recognizing the slavery of a part of the human race. The question of the morality of slavery it is not for the undersigned to discuss with any foreign Power. The authors of the American Declaration of Independence found the African race in the colonics to be slaves, both by colonial and English law, and by the law of nations. Those great and good men left that fact and the responsibility for its existence where they found it; and thus finding that there were two distinct races in the colonies, one free and capable of maintaining their freedom, and the other slave, and, in their opinion, untitled to enter upon that contest and to govern themselves, they made their famous declaration of freedom for the white race alone. They eventually planned and put in operation, in the course of a few years, two plans of government, both resting upon that great and recognized distinction between the white and the black man, and perpetuating that distinction as the fundamental law of the Government they framed, which they declared to be framed for the benefit of themselves and their posterity—in their own language", " to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The wisdom of that course is not a matter for discussion with foreign nations. Suffice it to say that thus were' the great American institutions framed, and thus have they remained unchanged to this day. It was from no fear that the slaves would be liberated that secession took place. The very party in power has proposed to guarantee slavery forever in the States, it the South would but remain in the Union. Mr. Lincoln's message proposes no freedom to the slave, but announces subjection of his owner to the will of the Union—in other words, to the will of the North. Even after the battle of Bull Run, both branches of the Congress at Washington passed resolutions that the war is only waged in order to uphold that (pro-slavery) Constitution, and to enforce the laws, (many of them pro-slavery,) and out of one hundred and seventy-two votes in the Lower House they received all but two, and in the Senate all but one vote. As the army commenced its march, the Commanding General issued an order that no slaves should be received into, or allowed to follow, the camp. The great object of the war, therefore, as now officially announced, is not to tree the slave, but to keep him in subjection to his owner, and to control his labor through the legislative channels, which the Lincoln Government designs to force upon the master. The undersigned, therefore, submit with confidence that, as far as the anti-slavery sentiment of England is concerned, it can have no sympathy with the >"orth; nay, it will probably become disgusted with a cantitig hypocrisy which would enlist those sympathies on false pretences. The undersigned arc, however, not insensible to the surmise that the Lincoln Government may, under stress of circumstances, change its policy —a policy based at present more upon a wily view of what is to be its effect in rearing up an clement in the Confederate States favorable to the reconstruction of the Union, than from any honest desire to uphold a Constitution, the main provisions of which it has most shamelessly violated. But they confidently submit to your lordship's consideration, that success in producing so abrupt and violent a destruction of a system of labor which has reared up so vast a commerce between America and the great States of Europe, which, it is supposed, now gives bread to 10,000,000 of the population of those States, which, it may be safely assumed, is intimately blended with the basis of the great manufacturing and navigating prosperity that distinguishes the age, and probably not the least of the elements of this prosperity, would be visited with results disastrous to the world, as well as to the master and slave. Resort to servile war has, it is true, as we have heretofore stated, not been proclaimed, but officially abandoned. It has been, however, recommended by persons of influence in the United States; and when all other means shall fail, as the undersigned assure your lordship they will, to bring the Confederate States into subjection to the power of Mr. Lincoln's Government, it is by no means improbable that it may be inaugurated.

Other reasons are advanced for a speedy recognition of the Confederate States.

On the 24th of August, Lord John Russell gave his reply, as follows:

The undersigned has had the honor to receive the letter of the 14th inst., addressed to him by Messrs. Yancey, Rost and Mann, on behalf of the so-styled Confederate States of North America.

The British Government do not pretend in any way to pronounce a Judgment upon the questions in debate between the United States and their adversaries in North America; the British Government can only regret that these differences have unfortunately been submitted to the arbitrament of arms. Her Majesty has considered this contest as constituting a civil war, and her Majesty has, by her royal proclamation, declared her intention .to preserve a strict neutrality between the contending parties in that war.

Her Majesty will strictly perform the duties which belong to a neutral. Her Majesty cannot undertake to determine by anticipation what may be the issue of the contest, nor can she acknowledge the independence of the nine States which are now combined against the President and Congress of the United States, until the fortune of arms, or the more peaceful mode of negotiation, shall have more clearly determined the respective positions of the two belligerents.

Her Majesty can, in the mean time, only express a hope that some adjustment, satisfactory to both pur ties, may be come to, without the calamities which must ensue in the event of an embittered and protracted conflict.

On the 30th of November, the Commissioners, under instructions from the President of the Confederate States, urge upon her Majesty's Government the ineffective nature of the blockade, and the paramount interests affected by the blockade. To this appeal a brief reply was given on the 7th of December, as follows:

Lord Russell presents his compliments to Mr. Yancey, Mr. Rost, and Mr. Mann. He has had the honor to receive their letters and inclosures of the 27th and 30th of November; but, in the present state of affairs, he must decline to cuter into any official communication with them.(The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1861, vol. 1. New York: Appleton & Co., 1868, pp. 278-279.)


Source: The American Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year, 1861-1865, vols. 1-5. New York: Appleton & Co., 1868.