A Good Cause: Goldwin Smith, British Political Opinion, and the American Civil War
Guest post by Alexandra Hill, Second Year Student, BA History and American Studies at the University of Manchester
Goldwin Smith (1823–1910), Oxford Regius Professor, historian, and journalist was a prominent Englishman and Liberal, who took great interest in the US Civil War. The outbreak of the conflict in April 1861 became a major topic of British political interest, and, because of the importing of slave-grown cotton, a significant factor in public debates around Manchester. Smith was a staunch advocate for the abolition of slavery and supporter of the Union. In the aftermath of the formation of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society, following a meeting at the Free Trade Hall on December 31, 1862, Smith became a prominent member of the group, delivering lectures to public audiences across the North of England, and proving one of the Society’s most prolific pamphleteers.
Smith expressed his views against slavery and support for the Union in several addresses, including those held at the Free Trade Hall, and these are available at the John Rylands Library in Manchester, along with other publications written by him during the 1860s. Despite the availability of these materials, Smith’s important role and guiding influence on British public opinion has generally been overlooked by scholars, including by several of his biographers. Scholars at large have also tended to focus on the general field of British opinion around the war, as exemplified by historian Richard Blackett’s important study, Divided Hearts (2000).
British opinion towards the conflict was divided in the early years of the war, a situation not helped by the Union’s failure to make Emancipation an immediate war aim. Smith particularly felt the “Civil War can only be justified by the complete victory of a good cause,” and, like many, he rallied behind the Emancipation Proclamation when it was introduced in January 1863. His first public speech on the conflict was delivered in the weeks following Lincoln’s Proclamation and addressed the topic of Warships for the Southern Confederacy. There he protested the building of piratical ships in British shipyards for the Confederacy, warning of the consequences if Britain intervened on the side of the Secessionists and outlining a moral case for support of the Union. Smith stated “I dwell more readily on the moral than on the legal aspect of this question,” explaining that in a war about racialized slavery and abolition, the moral aspect took priority over any quasi-legal arguments about state rights.
Smith faced constant criticism for his views and advocacy, notably so from the London Times, which endorsed the Confederacy and tirelessly undermined British support for the Union. It was The Times that led to a false perspective of British opinion in the US, and which Smith tried to correct with his lecture, ‘On England and America’ in 1865, delivered during his visit to the US. Smith consistently battled with the newspaper, directly replying to an 1864 editorial with his work Does the Bible sanction American Slavery? — which criticized the way that slaveowners and their supporters distorted the meaning of certain biblical passages to justify the system.
Upon the dissolution of the Union and Emancipation Society, in early 1866, Smith had risen to become a prominent member of the Society, and his opinions were highly valued. Even the Manchester Guardian, which was ambivalent towards Lincoln in the early years of the war, reported favourably on Smith’s closing speech to the group, later published as The Civil War in America. Such testimony highlights Smith’s prominence in transatlantic politics and show him to have been a passionate advocate for the abolition of slavery and restoration of the Union. From the onset of his involvement in the debate around the American Civil War, Smith remained steadfast in his commitment to the cause, and earned recognition as the ‘Transatlantic Liberal’. He successfully campaigned for British neutrality, promoted the Union cause, and thereby helped to accomplish the aims of the Union and Emancipation Society.
Further Reading
Richard Blackett, Divided hearts : Britain and the American Civil War (2001), Ref. 973.7 BLA
Goldwin Smith, The Civil War in America: an address… [1866] Ref. R31415
Goldwin Smith, A letter to a Whig member of the Southern independent association (London, 1864). Ref R151423
