Yet in a few months sympathy had given way to angry and suspicious bickering, and the possibility of invasion of Canada by the Northern forces was vigorously debated.This sudden shift of opinion and the danger in which it involved the provinces were both incidents in the quarrel which sprang up between the United States and Great Britain.In Britain as in Canada, opinion, so far as it found open expression, was at first not unfriendly to the North.Then came the anger of the North at Great Britain's legitimate and necessary, though perhaps precipitate, action in acknowledging the South as a belligerent.This action ran counter to the official Northern theory that the revolt of the Southern States was a local riot, of merely domestic concern, and was held to foreshadow a recognition of the independence of the Confederacy.The angry taunts were soon returned.The ruling classes in Great Britain made the discovery that the war was a struggle between chivalrous gentlemen and mercenary counterhoppers and cherished the hope that the failure of the North would discredit, the world over, the democracy which was making uncomfortable claims in England itself.The English trading classes resented the shortage of cotton and the high duties which the protectionist North was imposing.With the defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run the prudent hesitancy of aristocrat and merchant in expressing their views disappeared.
The responsible statesmen of both countries, especially Lincoln and Lord John Russell, refused to be stampeded, but unfortunately the leading newspapers served them ill.The "Times", with its constant sneers and its still more irritating patronizing advice, and the New York "Herald", bragging and blustering in the frank hope of forcing a war with Britain and France which would reunite South and North and subordinate the slavery issue, did more than any other factors to bring the two countries to the verge of war.
In Canada the tendency in some quarters to reflect English opinion, the disappointment in others that the abolition of slavery was not explicitly pledged by the North, and above all resentment against the threats of the "Herald" and its followers, soon cooled the early friendliness.The leading Canadian newspaper, for many years a vigorous opponent of slavery, thus summed up the situation in August, 1861:
"The insolent bravado of the Northern press towards Great Britain and the insulting tone assumed toward these Provinces have unquestionably produced a marked change in the feelings of our people.When the war commenced, there was only one feeling, of hearty sympathy with the North, but now it is very different.
People have lost sight of the character of the struggle in the exasperation excited by the injustice and abuse showered upon us by the party with which we sympathized."** Toronto "Globe", August 7, 1861.
The Trent affair brought matters to a sobering climax.* When it was settled, resentment lingered, but the tension was never again so acute.Both Great Britain and in Canada the normal sympathy with the cause of the Union revived as the war went on.In England the classes continued to be pro-Southern in sympathy, but the masses, in spite of cotton famines, held resolutely to their faith in the cause of freedom.After Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves, the view of the English middle classes more and more became the view of the nation.In Canada, pro-Southern sentiment was strong in the same classes and particularly in Montreal and Toronto, where there were to be found many Southern refugees, some of whom made a poor return for hospitality by endeavoring to use Canada as a base for border raids.Yet in the smaller towns and in the country sympathy was decidedly on the other side, particularly after the "Herald" had ceased its campaign of bluster and after Lincoln's proclamation had brought the moral issue again to the fore.The fact that a large number of Canadians, popularly set at forty thousand, enlisted in the Northern armies, is to be explained in part by the call of adventure and the lure of high bounties, but it must also be taken to reflect the sympathy of the mass of the people.
* See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union", by Nathaniel W.Stephenson (in "The Chronicles of America").
In the United States resentment was slower in passing.While the war was on, prudence forbade any overt act.When it was over, the bill for the Alabama raids and the taunts of the "Times" came in.
Great Britain paid in the settlement of the Alabama claims.*Canada suffered by the abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty at the first possible date, and by the connivance of the American authorities in the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870.Yet for Canada the outcome was by no means ill.If the Civil War did not bring forth a new nation in the South, it helped to make one in the far North.A common danger drew the scattered British Provinces together and made ready the way for the coming Dominion of Canada.
*See "The Day of the Confederacy", by Nathaniel W.Stephenson;and "The Path of Empire" (in "The Chronicles of America").
It was not from the United States alone that an impetus came for the closer union of the British Provinces.The same period and the same events ripened opinion in the United Kingdom in favor of some practical means of altering a colonial relationship which bad ceased to bring profit but which had not ceased to be a burden of responsibility and risk.
