The Maine Affair
26.
The 1860 US Presidential Election was a hard fought affair. The Whigs had held onto the White House and dominated Congress for over a decade following a string of dovish Democrats, crowned by Polk, who had led America into the Oregon War in an ill thought out attempt to rally the electorate. Now however, the Whigs, as broad a church as their late British namesakes, were starting to buckle. As the Mid-West was being consolidated and settled, the extent of US expansion for now, the issue of slavery had constantly risen. Whether a new state was to become a slave state or free state was a major matter of contention. Due the existence of an independent Texas, many Southern congressmen decried, the voice of slave states was doomed to wither and die as all new states were in the north. As such they called for new land to be purchased elsewhere to maintain a balance. However in Cuba, the Spanish government refused to sell their colony, while attempts to conquer Nicaragua by proxy only resulted in nationalist backlash. Added with the entrance of Minnesota to the Union in 1858, tipping the balance in the Senate to the free states, the Democrat dominated south fumed.
The Whigs fought with themselves as much as their opponents on the issue. Conservatives under former President Fillmore agreed with the Democrats in keeping a balance, radicals under Fremont called for total abolition by the federal government, while the moderates under Seward believed slavery would die out naturally. Eventually Seward won the nomination on this unobtrusive tone with the Mid-Western populist, Abraham Lincoln, his running mate. He campaigned on promising the South security on the slave issue. This not only saw Fremont’s radicals walk out of the Whig convention, but split the Democrats as well. Many northern Democrats were happy with Seward’s policy of federal non-interference, and hoped a bi-partisan consensus would help relieve the growing tension in American politics. Southern Democrats however, demanded their candidate fight for slave state expansion and a return to the free-slave balance in the Senate. When the northerners’ candidate, Stephen Douglas, lost the nomination, they walked out of the convention, leaving the Kentuckian, John Breckinridge to become the official Democratic presidential hopeful, while Douglas campaigned on a Union-Democrat ticket. The election was fierce, with incidents of lynching, riots and paramilitary violence* occurring, particularly in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The Democrat split however, meant the result was never in doubt.
Seward rolled into office on a landslide, albeit based purely on the north’s larger population. The Democrats began talks with Seward regarding a new compromise, hoping his moderate stance could at least hold off abolition in the south. A group of southern Congressmen proposed the Crittenden Appeal in January 1861. It called for an official recognition of slavery by the federal government as crucial to southern society, while also accepting its death in the north. Seward was intrigued by the Appeal but as word of his meeting with the Congressmen leaked, abolitionists, liberal Whigs and much of the northern press viciously attacked their new President. It was viewed as a step back by many, and an example of the slaveholder influence in Washington. For Fremont’s radicals, it was the last straw, leading to the formation of the free-soil Populist Party. Shocked by the backlash, Seward backtracked, attacking the Appeal and implicating Vice-President Lincoln in the White House’s interest in it, unwilling to slander their President, the Whig Party leadership turned Lincoln into their scapegoat, forcing him to resign in May. From here, things deteriorated fast. Seward, pressed between the Democrats and vocal Populists, informed Congress that he would respect state rights on slavery but “they have no puppet in the White House”. He pressed for the creation of a federal fund to buy slaves their freedom, and stated that Washington would protect blacks escaping to the north from being forcibly returned to their owners. State politicians in South Carolina and elsewhere soon looked to their options.
Across the Atlantic, Britain and France watched the crisis with interest. In Westminster in particular, Palmerston and his hawks in the Foreign Office saw one of their most prominent goals, the weakening of the United States, being accomplished from the inside. As early as the 1840s, Palmerston had seen slavery as a key issue that could break Brother Jonathan**. Indeed, following several incidents regarding runaway slaves and standoffs between federal and state forces, civil war was almost a certainty. Finally in March 1862, following riots in Virginia, which had possibly suffered the most from pro and anti slavery violence, and the intervention of Army forces, secession was in the air. Before anyone had realised it, nine southern states had formed the new, Confederate States of America, while rumps in the Virginia and Kentucky state governments joined them, leading to major civil unrest along the border.
Confederate militia
President Seward, confidently told Congress that the conflict would be resolved in a matter of weeks, and soon the 40,000 strong Federal Army marched from Washington into Virginia. Needless to say, relying on enthusiastic volunteers and skilled generals, the Confederates turned the small crisis into a bloody tit for tat battle throughout the Border States. By late 1862, foreign governments were beginning to take the rebels in Charleston*** seriously. Indeed Palmerston, although like the National Liberals in general, was an abolitionist, he saw the Confederacy as both a powerful counter-balance to the US (far more than his machinations with Texas) and ever supportive of popular rebellion, believed they had the moral right to form a new nation. Meanwhile both Britain and France were getting sweet promises of cheap cotton from Charleston, in return for support. In this respect, neither government placed restraint on their businesses from selling the Confederacy weaponry or supplies and in this biased neutrality, most expected Europe to remain.
Then, in January 1863, to the shock of many, the Russian fleet arrived in New York in an act of solidarity with the North****. The Tsar’s small yet modern navy was greeted with amazing fanfare, however naturally it was as much directed to London as Charleston. Following Alexander II sudden death in 1858, war-hero Marshal Krasnov had become emperor in all but name, keeping the young Tsar Nicholas isolated while he directed all his efforts into rebuilding Russia’s military. Despite his army credentials, Krasnov had made the Imperial Navy, all but annihilated in the Baltic War, his pet project, hoping to rival the British in technology at least (there by remaining within the numeric restrictions of the 1854 Konigsberg Treaty). As such the flagship leading the New York mission, was Catherine the Great, the only fully-fledged ironclad outside of the Royal Navy. US Naval officers were on hand to look over the ship, much to the worry of the Admiralty.
A young Tsar Nicholas II
Palmerston was furious; Krasnov had won a political coup. Russian ships wintering so close to Canadian waters was an affront to British naval hegemony. The First Lord, once again relying solely on his own initiative, ordered a squadron of monitors, raiders and men-o-war to set sail for the Confederacy, while the War Office organised the deployment of 20,000 troops to Upper Canada. The move was met with general support, but Disraeli was conspicuous by his absence in the Commons, his views on the Confederacy varying a great deal with that of the First Lord. The Young Englander, although quite happy to encourage British might overseas, saw Palmerston’s actions as dangerous. He viewed the United States with fondness and no little wariness, seeing it as a growing power that could soon endanger the Empire’s influence in the Americas if provoked. When the Maine Affair broke, he almost resigned in disgust.
In an attempt to intimidate the North, the British squadron had been ordered to sail in routine from Newfoundland to South Carolina and back, menacing the Eastern Seaboard. On June 4th 1863, the frigates HMS Royal and USS Providence clashed off the coast of Maine, the Royal’s captain having accidentally entered American waters. His opposites in turn assumed due to poor visibility, that the ship was a British-built Confederate raider and opened fire. Both ships were crippled, with the Royal running aground only five miles from the Canadian border. The crew was captured by local militia and imprisoned. When the Affair broke, Palmerston immediately began discussing war. Disraeli, after being convinced to stay by Cobden and Lord Clarendon, led the doves calling for an investigation into the event and an apology for the HMS Royal’s mistake to Washington. The First Lord however saw the Affair as a chance to knock the Yankees down once more. Believing the Confederates only months away from a military victory in their own right, Palmerston was confident British intervention would smash the Union. The doves however were slowly gaining support on both sides of the Commons, with Gladstone leading liberal Tories in a rare alliance with Disraeli. When President Seward released the HMS Royal and its crew in April, quite fearful of British intervention, the Cabinet were horrified to discover Palmerston had no intention of backing down.
The First Lord had popular support, and continued to call for grandiose reparations from the Northern government, despite pleas to back down. The final straw came with France’s offer of peace broker in the American Civil War. Palmerston openly called it a betrayal of the Confederacy and attacked Paris as such. In a series of meetings with both his Cabinet and the Queen, Palmerston was privately lambasted. Amazingly, the First Lord was shocked, having managed to isolate himself so totally from the greater political world. On April 19th, Palmerston resigned, stating a half-truth regarding his health as the reason. Lord Clarendon, as a respected moderate Liberal Whig was handed the First Lordship, while John Russell, Palmerston’s arch nemesis took up the role of Foreign Secretary. In this role Russell was obliged to heal relations with Washington and join France once more in peace negotiations. Meanwhile Clarendon looked in the creation of a Secretary of State for Ireland to replace the role of Lord-Lieutenant*****.
First Lord Clarendon, as depicted by Punch Magazine
Following the Battle of Vicksburg in November, the Union’s cause had become quite moribund. Seward’s armies had been pummelling the south without much success, excluding the pacification of Kentucky. Tens of thousands lay dead, and foreign support for the Confederate cause was growing in Europe and even in Texas and the Indian territories. When Paris offered a negotiated peace, Seward immediately sent a delegation to France to begin secret talks. By 1864, knowing his position in the Whig Party was doomed, Seward finally revealed the talks to the country, and met relative approval, particularly in the North-East were the recent draft riots had taken place. His opposite, President Davis was also quite happy to accept a compromise, knowing the Confederacy’s reserves in manpower, munitions and money were all but spent. A cease-fire was agreed for April 10th 1864. The border would see the nine southern states recognised as the CSA, while Kentucky and Virginia would remain within the United States. The Treaty of Paris retains an infamous place in the Foreign Office’s history, as Washington refused Russell the privilege of co-broker with his French colleague, a testimony to Palmerston’s ‘impression’ in the American politics.
*In OTL, the 1860 election was a rare example of political paramilitary violence in the United States, ITTL, although the Whigs are less sectionalist than the Republicans, things are quite similar.
**An early personification of the USA, before Uncle Sam arose in the 1870s.
***Due to Virginia’s divided status, the CSA capital is in Charleston, South Carolina
****Tsarist Russia and the Union? Well it happened in OTL too, not too original am I?
*****Something Clarendon did toy with in OTL, however here he has more power to look into it
