.JOURNAL OFTIIE CHURCHILL CKNTER AND ... - Winston Churchill

have prevented the ultimate victory of the North. It is inthe political sphere that we have to look to find the explanationof the triumphs begun upon the battlefield.Curiously enough, Lee furnishes an almostunique example of a regular and professional soldier whoachieved the highest excellence both as a general and as astatesman. His ascendancy throughout the ConfederateStates on the morrow of his Gettysburg victory threw JeffersonDavis and his civil government irresistibly, indeedalmost unconsciously, into the shade. The beloved andvictorious commander, arriving in the capital of hismighty antagonists, found there the title deeds which enabledhim to pronounce the grand decrees of peace. Thusit happened that the guns of Gettysburg fired virtually thelast shots in the American Civil War.THE MOVEMENT ofpoliticians exploiting the ignoeventsthen shifted to 'It may perhapS Serve aS a rant and untutored colouredthe other side of the At-vote against the white inhabilanticOcean. England—the Corrective tO UfluUe COWlplacefLCy tants and bringing the time-the long statecraft of Britain in dealing with alien andmore primitive populations. There was not only the needto declare the new fundamental relationship between masterand servant, but the creation for the liberated slaves ofinstitutions suited to their own cultural development andcapable of affording them a different yet honourable statusin a commonwealth, destined eventually to becomealmost world-wide.Let us only think what would have happenedsupposing the liberation of the slaves had at that timebeen followed immediately by some idiotic assertion ofracial equality, and even by attempts to graft white democraticinstitutions upon the simple, gifted African race belongingto a much earlier chapter in human history. Wemight have seen the whole of the Southern States invadedby gangs of carpet-baggingname by which the British Empirewas then commonly described—hadbeen rivenmorally in twain by the dramaof the American struggle. Wehave always admired the steadfastnesswith which the Lancashirecotton operatives,though starved of cotton by theNorthern blockade—our mostprosperous county reduced topenury, almost become dependentupon the charity of the restof England—nevertheless adheredto the Northern cause. The British working classeson the whole judged the quarrel through the eyes of Disraeliand rested solidly upon the side of the abolition ofslavery. Indeed, all Mr. Gladstone's democratic flair andnoble eloquence would have failed, even upon the thenrestricted franchise, to carry England into the Confederatecamp as a measure of policy. If Lee after his triumphalentry into Washington had merely been the soldier, hisachievements would have ended on the battlefield. It washis august declaration that the victorious Confederacywould pursue no policy towards the African negroes,which was not in harmony with the moral conceptions ofWestern Europe, that opened the high roads along whichwe are now marching so prosperously.But even this famous gesture might have failed ifit had not been caught up and implemented by the practicalgenius and trained parliamentary aptitudes of Gladstone.There is practically no doubt at this stage that thebasic principle upon which the colour question in theSouthern States of America has been so happily settledowed its origin mainly to Gladstonian ingenuity and toif we meditate for a spell uponthe debt we owe to thoseConfederate soldiers whoby a deathless feat of armsbroke the Union front atGettysburg and laid open a fairfuture to the world."honoured forms of parliamentarygovernment into unmeriteddisrepute. We might haveseen the sorry farce of blacklegislatures attempting to governtheir former masters. Uponthe rebound from this theremust inevitably have been astrong reassertion of localwhite supremacy. By one deviceor another the franchisesaccorded to the negroes wouldhave been taken from them.The constitutional principlesof the Republic would have been proclaimed, only to beevaded or subverted; and many a warm-hearted philanthropistwould have found his sojourn in the South nobetter than A Fool's Errand.'we must return to our main theme and to theI procession of tremendous events which followedB;UTthe Northern defeat at Gettysburg and the surrenderof Washington. Lee's declaration abolishing slavery,coupled as it was with inflexible resolve to secede fromthe Union, opened the way for British intervention.Within a month the formal treaty of alliance betweenthe British Empire and the Confederacy had beensigned. The terms of this alliance, being both offensiveand defensive, revolutionized the military and naval situation.The Northern blockade could not be maintainedeven for a day in the face of the immense naval power ofBritain. The opening of the Southern ports released thepent-up cotton, restored the finances and replenished thearsenals of the Confederacy. The Northern forces at Newcontinued overleaf...FINEST HOUR 103/29