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64 caution and cooperation 3 The Trent Affair and Its Aftermath in the Rapprochement With the cooperation that had been achieved over the first spring, summer, and fall of the Civil War, the South was not in the fine position that many in Richmond believed. British-American relations had emerged after the first six months of the conflict with the antebellum sentiments of cooperation intact. These past influences and the mutual desire for peace prevented the Trent affair from breaching the rapprochement, and the same spirit infected the relationship after the affair. A recent historian writes that the affair was a “watershed in Anglo-American relations during the war and there was a distinct difference between British attitudes towards the Union before the incident and afterwards.”¹ Another study argues that Seward’s cooperation was again demonstrated to untangle the Trent affair. Early in the affair at a party at the Portuguese legation, a haggard Seward, perhaps suffering from the effects of too much brandy, threatened through his cigar smoke: “We will wrap the whole world in flames.” British war correspondent William Howard Russell was standing nearby and was visibly shaken until another guest told him, “That’s all bugaboo talk. When Seward talks that way, he means to break down. He is most dangerous and obstinate when he pretends to agree a good deal with you.” What he was trying to do was to seize on the Trent affair to warn the British not to recognize or help Richmond.² Moreover, because of the earlier cooperation, the Trent affair was managed with usual diplomatic practices. Although one cannot argue that the affair’s settlement was determined the minute that it occurred, it was not a watershed event, because of the dependability of diplomatic practices in the relationship and the pronounced temperament of cooperation afterward. All of the players used traditional diplomacy, and the affair was quickly settled. It took only two months to resolve the affair because the need for cooperation was shared. Like the respective governments, very few British subjects wanted a war with the North because imperial France was the primary threat facing Britain and its empire in 86. Moreover, there were few anti-North speeches in Parlia64 the trent affair and its aftermath 65 ment during the affair. Despite the North’s celebrations at a time when a success in the war was badly needed, there was little saber rattling in Britain. As Duncan Andrew Campbell recently concluded by quoting the January 862 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine just after the affair was resolved, “If there be a war-party in this country, eager for conflict, it must be very fractional and insignificant.”³ The Trent affair thus cannot be seen within the event itself. The antebellum diplomacy of caution and cooperation, concocted within the mutual desire not to cause an international war, makes any other but a peaceful solution difficult to calculate. To date, the affair has been seen too separate from the general flow of antebellum and Civil War diplomacy, which has led to the affair being interpreted more as a prognosticator of conflict rather than as another example of the peaceful structure underpinning relations. To produce any other but peaceful outcomes would have represented a shattering break with the past and upset the trend line in relations as they had evolved throughout the century. The urgent Union need for loans is another factor that has gone unconsidered in explaining why the Trent affair was resolved quickly and peacefully. Jay Sexton’s work sheds new light on the resolution of the affair. The event occurred when the Union needed British loans to finance the war effort against the South. The Barings and other British banking houses refused to issue loans as long as a British-Union war seemed inevitable due to the Trent affair. The bankers made it clear that their British nationalism was stronger than their desire to make a profit. Knowing this, a Wall Street broker told secretary of the treasury Salmon P. Chase to resolve the matter because another war meant economic ruin. Chase’s colleague Atty. Gen. Edward Bates felt the same. His conservative instincts caused him to state that “war with England is to abandon all hope of suppressing the rebellion . . . our trade would be utterly ruined and our treasury bankrupt.” Fortunately , Chase agreed...

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