January 26, 1861 (Saturday)

Impact of Outside Influences

How will England and France Respond to the

Southern Confederacy?

"...It has been several times announced that Great Britain had intimated that she would not recognize a Confederacy of the Southern States.  The statement was evidently false. 

In the Toronto Leader, of January 24:  'The English Government intends to acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy as soon as formed.'    The sensible Washington correspondent of the Examiner on January 23rd:  'I hear from reliable authority that the Powers of Great Britain, France, and Russia will recognize promptly the independence of the new Southern Confederacy.  Assurances of this have been given in a way which leaves no doubt as to the result.  It may be counted on with certainty that any attempt to block up Southern trade will be put down by England and France.  They must have the cotton."  (Will England Recognize the Southern Confederacy, Richmond Daily Dispatch, January 26, 1861)

"We do not believe a word of what the Toronto Leader has said.  We do not believe the Leader has any such authority, or that the English Government has any such intention.  The whole story is a canard.  It is a humble attempt of our Canadian contemporary to imitate the Herald who has been busy for weeks in making the same announcement.  Nobody gives heed to the solemn assertions from the Herald. 

It can scarcely be supposed that the British Government will feel any special sympathy with the leading aim and object of Southern secession -- the fortification and perpetuation of Slavery.  Until the Government of the United States recognizes the independence of the South, Great Britain cannot, with justice or safety, do so.  Those persons, South or North, who look for the speedy recognition of the independence of the Southern Confederacy by the Government of the United States, would do well to dismiss that delusion as speedily as possible.  That recognition will come when the South compel it, and not before.  If those of you who expect the people of this country to sit down quietly and see this free Republic prostrated in the dust, -- its liberties overthrown with its Constitution...have much to learn of the temper of our people and of the spirit of the age in which we live.  If the Southern States have more power, more wealth, more courage to do and to endure, and a better cause to fight for, than the North, they may, after five or six years of war, establish their independence and compel us to recognize it.  If not -- not."  (England and a Southern Confederacy, New York Times, January 26, 1861)

"In no one thing are our friends in the Cotton States more completely deceived than in supposing England and France will make a war with the United States, if need be, to open the ports of seceding States, in order that they may obtain raw cotton.  England and France have long been struggling for some means of freeing itself from dependence upon the United States.  One great difficulty encountered by them in their own experiments to raise cotton has been their inability to compete with our unrequited slave labor.  Abolish American Slavery, and it will aid them materially in establishing the culture of cotton within their own dominions.  England and France will continue to push their efforts to develop cotton-fields of their own in India, Algeria, and China. [More in the article on development of cotton on other parts of the world.] "  (The Secession Question:  Probably Course of England and France Towards the South, New York Times article, January 26, 1861)