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England.
The London press is able, or was then able, to throw the English people into a frenzy,—having a power in this respect which does not belong to metropolitan journals in this country; and it used effectively its opportunity at this time.
It did not publish the speech,—as is the habit of American journals with foreign matter affecting the United States,—but made it the topic of inflammatory harangues.1 Not one of them, not even the ‘Times,’ with its enormous space, admitted it to its columns, but only culled extracts to suit a purpose.2
The English people were very sensitive at the time; and the sensitiveness was natural.
The ministry, in which were Gladstone, Bright, Argyll, Forster, and Stasfeld,—all except the first our friends in the Civil War,—had been very desirous of settling the question, and sincerely thought they had done so. They as well as the English people were at first puzzled by the unanimous rejection of the treaty; and when Sumner's speech came to hand, they attributed the rejection wholly to him. They did not understand that its fate was sealed before he had said a word upon it, and that even his support would not have saved it.3 It is not, however, difficult to account for their
1 G. W. Smaller reviewed in the New York Tribune, May 12, 1869, the notices of Sumner's speech which appeared in the London journals. The ‘Spectator,’ always friendly to the United States in the Civil War, stated its objections to the speech in a fair and temperate way. Its chief points were that expressions of regret from the British government could not be expected, and that the senator had ‘confounded legal considerations of the first importance with totally distinct moral considerations.’ Goldwin Smith, then in the United States, wrote front Boston, April 18, to a workingmen's paper in England, that after the speech English emigration to the United States could not be encouraged, and that English residents might soon have to leave this country! This letter was copied generally by the English press, and was effective in spreading alarm in that country. It was the subject of kindly but trenchant criticism in two Boston journals, May 21,—the ‘Advertiser’ and the ‘Journal.’ Mr. Smith also replied to Sumner in a speech at Ithaca, May 19.
2 That journal contained, May 1, twenty columns of debates in Parliament, while Sumner's speech just received would have tilled only five. It was more moderate that day in its estimate of the speech than in later issues,—allowing it then ‘the merit of an argumentative and dispassionate manner;’ and the day! before it said that ‘its prevailing tone is rather that of passionate remonstrance than of menace.’ A few days later, however (May 5), it began its leader: ‘Mr. Sumner had the questionable honor of contributing more than an other man to the war which broke up the Union, and to the differences which keep the breach still open.’
3 Mr. Bright expressed the view in conversations, without sufficient reflection, that Sumner, by joining in Mr. Johnson's confirmation, and commending in private letters his personal qualities, had committed himself in favor of the minister's work. W. E. Forster complained that the senator condemned what ‘the, fashionable people’ of England had done, without taking into account the sympathies of ‘the working people’ for our cause; but Sumner's reply was that he had dealt with the government, and not with divisions of the people. His correspondence with Mr. Forster is printed in the latter's life by T. W. Reid (vol. II. pp. 15-21). Mr. Forster, in an address to his constituents at Bradford, May 21, made a reply, in a friendly tone, to the senator's speech.
Cambridge, MA. Press of John Wilson and Son. 1877.
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