What they had attempted by way of example with regard to Kansas, to force slavery on a Territory through the central government against the will of the settlers themselves, they now set up as law for all the Territories of the Union. Such a concession lay beyond the power of the Democratic leaders and would only have occasioned the desertion of their army to the Republican camp. On the other hand, Douglas's settlers' sovereignty could not satisfy the slaveholders' party. What it wanted to effect had to be effected within the next four years under the new President, could only be effected by the resources of the central government and brooked no further delay. It did not escape the slaveholders that a new power had arisen, the North-west, whose population, having almost doubled between 1850 and 1860, was already pretty well equal to the white population of the slave states -- a power that was not inclined either by tradition, temperament or mode of life to let itself be dragged from compromise to compromise in the manner of the old North-eastern states. The Union was still of value to the South only so far as it handed over Federal power to it as a means of carrying out the slave policy. If not, then it was better to make the break now than to look on at the development of the Republican Party and the upsurge of the North-west for another four years and begin the struggle under more unfavourable conditions. The slaveholders'
party therefore played va banque. When the Democrats of the North declined to go on playing the part of the poor whites of the South, the South secured Lincoln's victory by splitting the vote, and then took this victory as a pretext for drawing the sword from the scabbard.
The whole movement was and is based, as one sees, on the slave question. Not in the sense of whether the slaves within the existing slave states should be emancipated outright or not, but whether the twenty million free men of the North should submit any longer to an oligarchy of three hundred thousand slaveholders; whether the vast Territories of the republic should be nurseries for free states or for slavery; finally, whether the national policy of the Union should take armed spreading of slavery in Mexico, Central and South America as its device.
In another article we will probe the assertion of the London press that the North must sanction secession as the most favourable and only possible solution of the conflict.
The Trent Case Karl Marx The Trent Case London, November 28, 1861The conflict of the English mail ship Trent with the North American warship San Jacinto in the narrow passage of the Old Bahama Channel is the lion among the events of the day. In the afternoon of November 27the mail ship La Plata brought the news of the incident to Southampton, where the electric telegraph at once flashed it to all parts of Great Britain.
The same evening the London Stock Exchange was the stage of stormy scenes similar to those at the time of the announcement of the Italian war. Quotations for government stock sank three-quarters to one per cent. The wildest rumours circulated in London. The American Ambassador, Adams, was said to have been given his passport, an embargo to have been imposed on all American ships in the Thames, etc. At the same time a protest meeting of merchants was held at the Stock Exchange in Liverpool, to demand measures from the British Government for the satisfaction of the violated honour of the British flag. Every sound-minded Englishman went to bed with the conviction that he would go to sleep in a state of peace but wake up in a state of war.
Nevertheless, the fact is well-nigh categorically established that the conflict between the Trent and the San Jacinto brings no war in its train. The semi-official press, like The Times and The Morning Post , strikes a peaceful note and pours juridically cool deductions on the flickerings of passion. Papers like the Daily Telegraph , which at the faintest mot d'ordre roar for the British lion, are true models of moderation. Only the Tory opposition press, The Morning Herald and The Standard , hits out. These facts force every expert to conclude that the ministry has already decided not to make a casus belli out of the untoward event.
It must be added that the event, if not the details of its enactment, was anticipated. On October 12, Messrs. Slidell, Confederacy emissary to France, and Mason, Confederacy emissary to England, together with their secretaries Eustis and MacFarland, had run the blockade of Charleston on the steamship Theodora and sailed for Havana, there to seek the opportunity of a passage under the British flag. In England their arrival was expected daily. North American warships had set out from Liverpool to intercept the gentlemen, with their dispatches, on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The British ministry had already submitted the question whether the North Americans were entitled to take such a step to its official jurisconsults for their opinion. Their answer is said to have been in the affirmative.
The legal question turns in a narrow circle. Since the foundation of the United States, North America has adopted British maritime law in all its rigour. A major principle of this maritime law is that all neutral merchantmen are subject to search by the belligerent parties.
"This right, " said Lord Stowell in a judgment which has become famous, "offers the sole security that no contraband is carried on neutral ships."The greatest American authority, Kent , states in the same sense: