An’ whose free latch-string never was drawed in
Against the poorest child of Adam’s kin,—
The grave’s not dug where traitor hands shall lay
In fearful haste thy murdered corse away!
It was in this faith that we took our stand, with a firm resolution that no effort of ours should be spared to help your people shake themselves clear of the dead weight of slavery, and to preserve that vast inheritance of which God has made you the guardians and trustees for all the nations of the earth, unbroken, and free from the standing armies, disputed boundaries, and wretched heart-burnings and dissensions of the Old World. It was little enough that we could do in any case, but that little was done with all our hearts, and on looking back I cannot but think was well done.
There was no need at first for any organisation. Until after the battle of Manassas Junction in 1861, there was scarcely any public expression of sympathy with the rebellion. The Times and that portion of the press which follows its lead, and is always ready to go in for the side they think will win, were lecturing on the wickedness of the war and the absurdity of the rebel States in supposing that they could resist for a month the strength of the North. The news of that first defeat arrived, and this portion of our press swung round, and the strong feeling in favour of the rebellion which leavened society and the commercial world began to manifest itself. The unlucky Trent business, and your continued want of success in the field, made matters worse. We were silenced for the moment; for though, putting ourselves in your places, we could feel how bitter the surrender of the two archrebels must have been, we could not but admit that our Government was bound to insist upon it, and that the demand had not been made in an arrogant or offensive manner. If you will re-read the official documents now, I think that you too will acknowledge that this was so. Then came Mr. Mason’s residence in London, where his house became the familiar resort of all the leading sympathisers with the rebellion. The newspaper which he started, The Index, was full, week after week, of false and malignant attacks on your Government. The most bitter of them to us was the constant insistance, backed by quotations from Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, that the war had nothing to do with slavery, that emancipation was far more likely to come from the rebels than from you.
“The lie that is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,” and we felt the truth of that wonderful saying. This had been our great difficulty from the first. Our generation had been reared on anti-slavery principles. We remembered as children how the great battle was won in England, how even in our nurseries we gave up sugar lest we might be tasting the accursed thing, and subscribed our pennies that the chains might be struck from all human limbs. Emancipation had been the crowning glory of England in our eyes. But we found that this great force was not with us, was even slipping away and drifting to the other side. It was not only Mr. Mason’s paper, and the backing he got in our press, which was undermining it. The vehement protests of those who had been for years looked on by us as the foremost soldiers in the great cause on your side told in the same direction. I well remember the consternation and almost despair with which I read in Mr. Phillips’ speech in this hall on 20th June 1861, “The Republicans, led by Seward, offer to surrender anything to save the Union. Their gospel is the constitution, and the slave clause their sermon on the mount. They think that at the judgment day the blacker the sins they have committed to save the Union the clearer will be their title to heaven.”
Something must be done to counteract this, to put the case clearly before our people. Mr. Mason and his friends were already establishing a Confederate States Aid Association; it must be met by something similar on the right side. So in 1862 the Emancipation and the Union and Emancipation Societies were started in London and in Manchester, and in good time came Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation of emancipation to strengthen our hands. The original manifesto of the Emancipation Society said—“To make it clear by the force of indisputable testimony that the South is fighting for slavery, while the North is fully committed to the destruction of slavery, is the principal object for which this society is organised. Its promoters do not believe that English anti-slavery sentiment is dead or enfeebled. They are confident that when the demands and designs of the South are made clear, there will be no danger of England being enticed into complicity with them.” We pledged ourselves to test the opinion of the country everywhere by public meetings, and challenged the Confederate States Aid Association to accept that test. They did so; but I never could hear of any even quasi public meeting but one which they held in England. That meeting was at Mr. Mason’s house, and was, I believe, attended by some fifty persons.
The first step of our societies was to hold meetings for passing an address of congratulation to your President on the publication of the Emancipation proclamation. It was New Year’s Eve 1862. Our address said: “We have watched with the warmest interest the steady advance of your policy along the path of emancipation; and on this eve of the day on which your proclamation takes effect we pray God to strengthen your hands, to confirm your noble purpose, and to hasten the restoration of that lawful authority which engages, in peace or war, by compensation or by force of arms, to realise the glorious principle on which your constitution is founded—the brotherhood, freedom, and equality of all men.” The address was enthusiastically adopted by a large meeting, chiefly composed of working men. It was clear at once that there was a grand force behind us, for we became objects of furious attack. The Times called us impostors, and said we got our funds for the agitation from American sources—the fact being that we always refused contributions from this side. The Saturday Review declared, in one of its bitterest articles, that if anything could be calculated upon as likely to defer indefinitely the gradual extinction of slavery, it would be Mr. Lincoln’s fictitious abolition of it. We were meddlesome fanatics, insignificant nobodies, mischievous agitators. This was satisfactory and encouraging. We felt sure that we had taken the right course, and not a moment too soon. Then came the test of public meetings, which you at least are surely bound to accept as a fair gauge of what a people thinks and wills.
Our first was held on the 29th of January 1863. We took Exeter Hall, the largest and most central hall in London. We did nothing but simply advertise widely that such a meeting would be held, inviting all who cared to come, foes as well as friends. Prudent and timid people shook their heads and looked grave. The cotton famine was at its worst, and tens of thousands of our workpeople were “clemming” as they call it, starving as you might say. Your prospects looked as black as they had ever done; it was almost the darkest moment of the whole war. Even friends warned us that we should fail in our object, and only do harm by showing our weakness; that the Confederate States Aid Association would spare no pains or money to break up the meeting, and a hundred roughs sent there by them might turn it into a triumph for the rebellion. However, on we went,—we knew our own people too well to fear the result. The night came, and familiar as I am with this kind of thing, I have never seen in my time anything approaching this scene. Remember, there was nothing to attract people; no well-known orators, for we always thought it best to keep our Parliament men to their own ground; no great success to rejoice in, for you were just reeling under the recoil of your gallant army from the blood-stained heights of Fredericksburg; no attack on our own Government; no appeal to political or social hates or prejudices; only doors thrown wide open, with the invitation, “Now let Englishmen come forward and show on which side their sympathies really are in this war.” Notwithstanding all these disadvantages the great hall was densely crowded, so that there was no standing room, and the Strand and the neighbouring streets blocked with a crowd of thousands who could find no place, long before the doors were open. We were obliged to organise a number of meetings on the spur of the moment in the lower halls, and even in the open streets. In the great hall—where two clergymen, the Hon. Baptist Noel and Mr. Newman Hall, and I myself, were the chief speakers—as well as in every one of the other meetings, we carried, not only without opposition, but, so far as I remember, without a single hand being held up on the other side, resolutions in favour of your Government, of the Union, and of emancipation. The success was so complete that in London our work was done.