Great Britain and the American Civil War | Page 4

State is directly
concerned and frequently active. But it may be of service to a clearer
appreciation of British attitude and policy before 1860, if the
intermingling of elements required by a strict chronological account of
relations is here replaced by a separate review of each of the three main
lines of contact.
Once independence had been yielded to the American Colonies, the
interest of the British Government rapidly waned in affairs American.
True, there still remained the valued establishments in the West Indies,
and the less considered British possessions on the continent to the north

of the United States. Meanwhile, there were occasional frictions with
America arising from uncertain claims drawn from the former colonial
privileges of the new state, or from boundary contentions not settled in
the treaty of peace. Thus the use of the Newfoundland fisheries
furnished ground for an acrimonious controversy lasting even into the
twentieth century, and occasionally rising to the danger point.
Boundary disputes dragged along through official argument, survey
commissions, arbitration, to final settlement, as in the case of the
northern limits of the State of Maine fixed at last by the Treaty of
Washington of 1842, and then on lines fair to both sides at any time in
the forty years of legal bickering. Very early, in 1817, an agreement
creditable to the wisdom and pacific intentions of both countries, was
reached establishing small and equal naval armaments on the Great
Lakes. The British fear of an American attack on Canada proved
groundless as time went on and was definitely set at rest by the strict
curb placed by the American Government upon the restless activities of
such of its citizens as sympathized with the followers of McKenzie and
Papineau in the Canadian rebellion of 1837[4].
None of these governmental contacts affected greatly the British policy
toward America. But the "War of 1812," as it is termed in the United
States, "Mr. Madison's War," as it was derisively named by Tory
contemporaries in Great Britain, arose from serious policies in which
the respective governments were in definite opposition. Briefly, this
was a clash between belligerent and neutral interests. Britain, fighting
at first for the preservation of Europe against the spread of French
revolutionary influence, later against the Napoleonic plan of Empire,
held the seas in her grasp and exercised with vigour all the accustomed
rights of a naval belligerent. Of necessity, from her point of view, and
as always in the case of the dominant naval belligerent, she stretched
principles of international law to their utmost interpretation to secure
her victory in war. America, soon the only maritime neutral of
importance, and profiting greatly by her neutrality, contested point by
point the issue of exceeded belligerent right as established in
international law. America did more; she advanced new rules and
theories of belligerent and neutral right respectively, and demanded that
the belligerents accede to them. Dispute arose over blockades,

contraband, the British "rule of 1756" which would have forbidden
American trade with French colonies in war time, since such trade was
prohibited by France herself in time of peace. But first and foremost as
touching the personal sensibilities and patriotism of both countries was
the British exercise of a right of search and seizure to recover British
sailors.
Moreover this asserted right brought into clear view definitely opposed
theories as to citizenship. Great Britain claimed that a man once born a
British subject could never cease to be a subject--could never "alienate
his duty." It was her practice to fill up her navy, in part at least, by the
"impressment" of her sailor folk, taking them whenever needed, and
wherever found--in her own coast towns, or from the decks of her own
mercantile marine. But many British sailors sought security from such
impressment by desertion in American ports or were tempted to desert
to American merchant ships by the high pay obtainable in the
rapidly-expanding United States merchant marine. Many became by
naturalization citizens of the United States, and it was the duty of
America to defend them as such in their lives and business. America
ultimately came to hold, in short, that expatriation was accomplished
from Great Britain when American citizenship was conferred. On shore
they were safe, for Britain did not attempt to reclaim her subjects from
the soil of another nation. But she denied that the American flag on
merchant vessels at sea gave like security and she asserted a naval right
to search such vessels in time of peace, professing her complete
acquiescence in a like right to the American navy over British merchant
vessels--a concession refused by America, and of no practical value
since no American citizen sought service in the British merchant
marine.
This "right of search" controversy involved then, two basic points of
opposition between the two