President Jefferson Davis with his son Joseph and Jim Limber Davis.
The
leaders of the Republican political machine in Washington “were annoyed
and offended because Europe ventured to pronounce the condition of
affairs in North America to be a state of war, which they affirmed to be
only an insurrection.” The South, as Republicans and a few War
Democrats saw it, was engaged in domestic insurrection inflamed by
insurgents rather than forming a more perfect union with the consent of
the governed.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Jefferson Davis and Others Have Made a Nation:
[Earl
Russell said at Newcastle], “But I cannot help asking myself
frequently, as I trace the progress of the contest, to what good end can
it tend? Supposing the contest to end in the reunion of the different
States; supposing that the South should agree to enter again the Federal
Union with all the rights guaranteed to her by the Constitution, should
we not then have debated over again the fatal question of slavery?....
But,
on the other hand, supposing that the Federal Government completely
conquer and subdue the Southern States – supposing that be the result
after a long, military conflict and some years of Civil War – would not
the national prosperity of that country be destroyed?....
If
such are the unhappy results which alone can be looked forward to from
the reunion of these different parts of the North American States, is it
not then our duty…is it not the duty of men who wish to preserve to
perpetuity the sacred inheritance of liberty, to endeavour to see
whether this sanguinary conflict cannot be put to an end?
In a speech delivered in the house of Lords, February 5th,
1863, Earl Russell said: -- “There is one thing, however, which I think
may be the result of the struggle, and which, to my mind, would be a
great calamity – that is, the subjugation of the South by the North….”
Mr.
W.E. Gladstone, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in a public
speech at Newcastle, October 7, 1862: -- “We may have our own opinions
about slavery; we may be for or against the South; but there is no doubt
that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army.
They are making, it appears, a navy, and they have made what is more
than either – they have made a nation. (Loud cheers.)….We may anticipate
with certainty the success of the Southern States so far as regards
their separation from the North. (Hear, hear.)…”
[Mr.
Gladstone stated in the House of Commons on 30 June 1863]…Why, sir, we
must desire a cessation of the war….We do not believe that the
restoration of the American Union by force is attainable. I believe that
the opinion of this country is unanimous upon that subject….[and]
believe that the public opinion of this country bears very strongly on
another matter….whether the emancipation of the negro race is an object
that can be legitimately pursued by means of coercion and bloodshed….I
do not believe that a more fatal error was ever committed than when men –
of high intelligence I grant….came to the conclusion that the
emancipation of the negro was to be sought, although they could only
travel to it by a sea of blood. I do not think there is any real or
serious ground for doubt as to the issue of this contest.”
(The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, James D. Bulloch, Volume II, Sagamore Press, 1959, pp. 359-361)
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