Charles Francis Adams to William H. Seward, October 5, 1865

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward

Sir: The excitement about the Fenian organization appears to be subsiding in Ireland. The combination, as developed by the evidence, scarcely deserves to be regarded as formidable. The fact that the movement was stimulated from the United States seems to be eagerly seized upon in order to raise an offset to the proceedings on this side during the late war. I transmit to you a copy of the London Times of the 4th instant, which contains a leader in this sense. The reasoning is flimsy enough, and a resort to it only indicates the sense of a necessity to extenuate the offences of the past.

The republication which has been made here of a list of subscribers to the rebel cotton loan has brought out more evidence of the same thing. There seems to be a general desire on the part of the persons concerned to get out of that company as soon as possible. Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Evelyn Ashley disavow all association with it very properly. I presume the insertion of their names must have been a mistake. Others excuse themselves in a more equivocal way, as not having lost anything, which might well be, if they were acute enough to sell out in time. All the parties connected with the press, with a single exception, have, for obvious reasons, come forward to clear themselves of possible imputations. On the whole, this sensibility is a sign of returning good sense and sound judgment in the mass of the community.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

[Untitled]

During the earlier part of the American war, and especially while the right of secession was under discussion, a parallel was often drawn between the relation of Ireland to the United Kingdom and that of the southern States to the American Union. The analogy was by no means perfect, for Ireland was originally annexed by conquest to the English Crown, and has since been attached to Great Britain in a manner and under conditions inconsistent with the first principles of federalism. Still, it was the most obvious and natural way of impressing on an English mind the alternatives which presented themselves to American politicians. What would England do if Ireland were to revolt with a unanimity equal to that of the southern States? Would she recognize the inherent right of a people to choose its own rulers and form of government, or would she take her stand on political necessity and put down the insurrection with a strong hand? Would she listen to arguments about the hopelessness of combining permanently under one constitution two populations so different in character as the Celtic and the Anglo-Saxon ? Would she admit the conflicting interests of the two countries in matters of taxation, or any other matters, as a reason for separation, when the consequence would be the establishment of a nation too weak for independence, and therefore the more dangerous as a neighbor, opposite her western shores ? Would she appreciate the expediency of thus establishing a balance of power within the British isles, with the prospect of having to keep up large armaments against a possible invasion from Ireland? Such were the home questions by which the advocates of the federal cause strove to make us realize the true nature of the contest and its vital importance to the United States. Now that it is at an end, and that the fortunes of war have converted secession retrospectively into rebellion, this class of questions has lost any interest which it may have had. The easy submission of the south after its military power had once been crushed confirms the opinion of those who maintained that a sentiment of loyalty to the Union lay deeper than hatred of the Yankees, and the virtual extinction of slavery removes for the future the chief abiding source of disruption. There is another point of view, however, from which the parallel between Ireland and the south happens just now to retain a certain significance. Ireland has never revolted, and is less likely now than ever to revolt, in the sense in which the southern States revolted, for the great majority of the wealthy and educated classes have never been on the revolutionary side, but disaffection has smouldered in Ireland from time immemorial. The close of the American war, strange to say, was the signal for a fresh outburst of this spirit, which, contemptible as it is in a military or political aspect, may do as much harm socially as if it were far more formidable. The position of ourselves and the United States is thus for the time reversed; we have to deal with a secessionist conspiracy, while they have to adopt the attitude of a neutral State. The disproportion between the scale of the two movements is, indeed, so ludicrous as to defy comparison, and the Fenians have not yet qualified themselves for the assumption of belligerent rights by declaring war against the lord lieutenant. Still, the tables are turned just so far as to enable us, by a great effort of thought, to imagine what we might feel if the Fenians had a Davis for their president and a Lee for their general, and just so far as to initiate the American public into the difficulties of friendly neutrality.

The origin of modern Fenianism, like the origin of the ancient Fenians, is enveloped in inscrutable mystery. No one knows whether the first idea of it was conceived in the brain of an Americanized Irishman or in that of an Hibernicized American. What is certain, however, is that the United States territory is to all intents and purposes the basis of Fenian operations. It is there, if anywhere, that the two hundred thousand volunteers are enrolled, for enough has been ascertained to make the existence of that force in Ireland itself utterly incredible. It is there that meetings are held, subscriptions raised, and oaths administered. There resides the redoubtable “head centre” of the whole organization, Mr. John O’Mahony; thence orders are issued to the brotherhood throughout Ireland and England; and thence “trained officers” are sent, or at least promised, to drill and command the national army. Nor are these hostile proceedings altogether illusory. Mr. Barry, in opening the case against the Dublin prisoners, positively stated that remittances from America to the amount of £5,000 had been intercepted within the previous fortnight, and officers professing to hold commissions in the United States service have actually,been arrested. There is not the least doubt that a very considerable number of American citizens are at this moment openly engaged in levying war against her Majesty, and it is not for want of will that their efforts are so impotent. These men are not the agents of a foreign power; they are themselves principals in the enterprise, and their avowed design has been to conquer Ireland from America just as England was conquered from Normandy. All their operations have been carried on in broad daylight, and reported in the papers, nor have they always provoked unfavorable comments from the organs of American public opinion. The governments of England and the United States are on the best possible terms with each other, and yet recruits are enlisted by thousands on the soil of the United States for an expedition to Ireland, not only without disguise, but with a degree of bravado, half American and half Irish, that is almost comical.

Why do we dwell on these facts, especially since Fenianism in Ireland has received a blow which may not, we trust, have to be repeated? Certainly not with the object of exciting a bitter feeling towards the government of the United States, from which the Fenians have doubtless received no more encouragement than from our own. Nothing can be further from our intention than to suggest that Great Britain should prefer demands on her own behalf such as those against which she has so often protested of late. We are not aware that any representations on the subject of Fenianism have yet been made at Washington, and, except in an event too improbable to contemplate, we trust that none such may be made. We are perfectly able to take good care of the Fenians at home, and if their brethren in America would come together in a “fleet,” instead of one by one in passenger steamers, it would save the police a good deal of trouble. On the other hand, nothing would be more likely to give an impulse to Fenianism in America than any ill-timed interference on the part of the Executive. Technically speaking, a government may be responsible for breaches of international law by its subjects which it is powerless to prevent, but this is not a doctrine which it would be friendly, or even just, to apply too strictly. Knowing the peculiarity of American institutions, remembering the embarrassments under which President Johnson is laboring to reconstruct the Union, and having confidence in his desire to remain in amity with this country, we act wisely as well as courteously in abstaining from any serious remonstrances against the apparent toleration of American Fenianism. All that we claim in return is a like consideration for the circumstances which made it impossible for us to check entirely the building of confederate cruisers in our own ports. It was not so much the want of a more stringent foreign enlistment act that baffled our efforts as the extreme difficulty of applying any law that would be endured by a free and high-spirited people to cases which so nearly resembled the legitimate transactions of commerce. It is easy to descant on the injury inflicted on American commerce by a single vessel like the Shenandoah, but no one has yet pointed out what form of enactment would have enabled the Crown to ascertain her destination and lay an embargo on her in the dockyard. The same can hardly be said of the Fenian enlistments in America. They are ostensibly illegal from first to last, and have not the advantage of any commercial disguise or pretext whatever. If they occasion us much less concern than the ravages of the Alabama and her consorts did the Americans, this is because our hold on Ireland is too firm to be shaken by any filibustering agitation. But then, for this very reason, they are without the least semblance of justification, for nothing could even colorably justify them but the deep and deliberate aversion of the Irish people from connexion with Great Britain. Fenianism, we would fain believe, is the last reductio ad absurdum of Irish rebellions, but the damage which it has already done, in retarding the progressive improvement of Ireland, must be measured in millions of capital repelled and the work of years undone. This is no light grievance, but we have made no complaint, while the American press is never tired of accusing us as a nation of complicity with the crimes of Captain Semmes and Captain Waddell. Even this injustice we are willing to bear with perfect good-humor, and only entreat our critics to ask themselves, in all honesty, what they would feel if they were to hear of volunteers mustering in myriads on the Canadian frontier, for instance, and before the eyes of the Canadian authorities, for the invasion of the United States.

[From the London Times of October 5, 1865.]

THE CONFEDERATE LOAN.

Some of our cotemporaries have published lists, derived from American sources, of subscribers to the confederate cotton loan. Many of the gentlemen whose names have been so freely used have written to the papers to declare the statement to be untrue. The concoctors of this “shave,” choosing to place the Morning Post on their list, selected the name of the registered proprietor, Mr. Rideout, and fixed his share, or loss, or whatever it may mean, at £4,000. Mr. Rideout has written to us from Cowes, stating that he “never had, nor ever applied for, any of the confederate loan; so that, if the rest of this list be like that which refers to me, there is no dependence to be placed upon it.”