The Guardian Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==== Slavery and the American Civil War ==== The newspaper opposed slavery and supported [[free trade]]. An 1823 leading article on the continuing "cruelty and injustice" to slaves in the [[West Indies]] long after the abolition of the slave trade with the [[Slave Trade Act 1807]] wanted fairness to the interests and claims both of the planters and of their oppressed slaves.<ref name="Guardian 1511 2012">{{cite web | title=The cruelty and injustice of negro slavery: From The Guardian archive, 15 Nov 1823 | website=The Guardian | date=15 November 2012 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/nov/15/slavery-injustice-abolition-british-1823 | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=30 June 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630185615/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/nov/15/slavery-injustice-abolition-british-1823 | url-status=live }}</ref> It welcomed the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]] and accepted the "increased compensation" to the planters as the "guilt of slavery attaches far more to the nation" rather than individuals. Success of the Act would encourage emancipation in other slave-owning nations to avoid "imminent risk of a violent and bloody termination."<ref name="Guardian 0705 2011">{{cite web | title=15 June 1833: Striking off the fetters from the limbs of the slave | website=The Guardian | date=7 May 2011 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/07/newspapers-national-newspapers | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=9 August 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200809070124/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/07/newspapers-national-newspapers | url-status=live }}</ref> However, the newspaper argued against restricting trade with countries that had not yet abolished slavery.<ref name="Guardian 2403 2012">{{cite web | title=From the archive, 24 March 1841: Editorial: Anti-free trade | website=The Guardian | date=24 March 2012 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/mar/24/archive-1841-editorial-anti-free-trade-slavery | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=2 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200702152458/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2012/mar/24/archive-1841-editorial-anti-free-trade-slavery | url-status=live }}</ref> Complex tensions developed in the United States.<ref name="Stoddard 2015">{{cite web | last=Stoddard | first=Katy | title=Looking back: American civil war | website=The Guardian | date=20 July 2015 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jul/20/looking-back-american-civil-war | access-date=29 June 2020 | archive-date=30 June 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630151953/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/jul/20/looking-back-american-civil-war | url-status=live }}</ref> When the abolitionist [[George Thompson (abolitionist)|George Thompson]] toured, the newspaper said that "[s]lavery is a monstrous evil, but civil war is not a less one; and we would not seek the abolition even of the former through the imminent hazard of the latter". It suggested that the United States should compensate slave-owners for freeing slaves<ref name="Guardian 1212 2008">{{cite web | title=From The Guardian archive: On slavery and civil war | website=The Guardian | date=12 December 2008 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/dec/12/slavery-american-civil-war | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=30 June 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630031046/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/dec/12/slavery-american-civil-war | url-status=live }}</ref> and called on President [[Franklin Pierce]] to resolve the 1856 "civil war", the [[Sacking of Lawrence]] due to pro-slavery laws imposed by Congress.<ref name="Guardian 1006 2015">{{cite web | title='Civil war' in Kansas threatens to spread: from the archive, 10 June 1856 | website=The Guardian | date=10 June 2015 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/american-civil-war-united-states-kansas-archive-1856 | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=28 June 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200628213636/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/10/american-civil-war-united-states-kansas-archive-1856 | url-status=live }}</ref> In 1860, ''[[The Observer]]'' quoted a report that the newly elected president [[Abraham Lincoln]] was opposed to abolition of slavery.<ref name="The Guardian 1712 2014">{{cite web | title=Lincoln opposes abolition of slavery: From the Observer archive, 17 December 1860 | website=The Guardian | date=17 December 2014 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/17/abolition-slavery-abraham-lincoln-1860 | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=3 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200703094212/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/17/abolition-slavery-abraham-lincoln-1860 | url-status=live }}</ref> On 13 May 1861, shortly after the start of the [[American Civil War]], the ''Manchester Guardian'' portrayed the Northern states as primarily imposing a burdensome trade monopoly on the [[Confederate States of America|Confederate States]], arguing that if the South was freed to have direct trade with Europe, "the day would not be distant when slavery itself would cease". Therefore, the newspaper asked "Why should the South be prevented from freeing itself from slavery?"<ref name="Guardian 2305 2011">{{cite web | title=From the archive, 13 May 1861: America and direct trade with England | website=The Guardian | date=13 May 2011 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/13/america-trade-england-1861 | access-date=28 June 2020 | archive-date=15 June 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615145651/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2011/may/13/america-trade-england-1861 | url-status=live }}</ref> This hopeful view was also held by the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] leader [[William Ewart Gladstone]].<ref name="Kettle">{{cite news|last=Kettle|first=Martin|author-link=Martin Kettle|date=24 February 2011|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/1865-guardian-stance-us-civil-war|title=Lincoln, evil? Our certainties of 1865 give us pause today|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=26 June 2020|archive-date=27 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627145624/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/1865-guardian-stance-us-civil-war|url-status=live}}</ref> [[File:Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Square, Manchester.jpg|thumb|Statue of [[Abraham Lincoln]] in [[Manchester]], with extracts from the working men's letter and his reply on its base]] There was division in Britain over the Civil War, even within political parties. The ''Manchester Guardian'' had also been conflicted. It had supported other [[Age of Revolution|independence movements]] and felt it should also support the rights of the Confederacy to self-determination. It criticised Lincoln's [[Emancipation Proclamation]] for not freeing all American slaves.<ref name="Kettle"/> On 10 October 1862, it wrote: "It is impossible to cast any reflections upon a man so evidently sincere and well-intentioned as Mr Lincoln but it is also impossible not to feel that it was an evil day both for America and the world, when he was chosen President of the United States".<ref name="Ayerst1971">{{cite book|first=David|last=Ayerst|title=The Manchester Guardian: Biography of a Newspaper|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RhZlAAAAMAAJ|year=1971|pages=154β155|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-0642-3|access-date=2 July 2020|archive-date=7 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240407174556/https://books.google.com/books?id=RhZlAAAAMAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> By then, the [[Union blockade]] was causing [[Lancashire Cotton Famine#Politics|suffering in British towns]]. Some including [[Liverpool]] supported the Confederacy as did "current opinion in all classes" in London. On 31 December 1862, cotton workers held a meeting at the [[Free Trade Hall]] in Manchester which resolved "its detestation of negro slavery in America, and of the attempt of the rebellious Southern slave-holders to organise on the great American continent a nation having slavery as its basis". There was a comment that "an effort had been made in a leading article of the ''Manchester Guardian'' to deter the working men from assembling together for such a purpose". The newspaper reported all this and published their letter to President Lincoln<ref name="Rodrigues 2013">{{cite web | last=Rodrigues | first=Jason | title=From the archive: 1863, Lincoln's great debt to Manchester | website=The Guardian | date=4 February 2013 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/feb/04/lincoln-oscars-manchester-cotton-abraham | access-date=3 July 2020 | archive-date=1 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200701081412/https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/feb/04/lincoln-oscars-manchester-cotton-abraham | url-status=live }}<br>{{cite web | title=Full text of "Manchester and Abraham Lincoln : a side-light on an earlier fight for freedom" | website=Internet Archive | date=10 June 2020 | url=https://archive.org/stream/manchesterabraha00hour/manchesterabraha00hour_djvu.txt | access-date=3 July 2020 }}</ref> while complaining that "the chief occupation, if not the chief object of the meeting, seems to have been to abuse the ''Manchester Guardian''".<ref name="Ayerst1971"/> Lincoln replied to the letter thanking the workers for their "sublime Christian heroism" and American ships delivered relief supplies to Britain.<ref name="Rodrigues 2013"/> The newspaper reported the shock to the community of the [[assassination of Abraham Lincoln]] in 1865, concluding that "[t]he parting of his family with the dying President is too sad for description",<ref name="Guardian 1402 2015">{{cite web | title=The assassination of President Lincoln, 14 April 1865 | website=The Guardian | date=14 April 2015 | url=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/from-the-archive-blog/2015/apr/14/president-lincoln-assassination-1865 | access-date=3 July 2020 | archive-date=1 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200701153414/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/from-the-archive-blog/2015/apr/14/president-lincoln-assassination-1865 | url-status=live }}</ref> but in what from today's perspective looks an ill-judged editorial wrote that "[o]f his rule we can never speak except as a series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty", adding: "it is doubtless to be regretted that he had not the opportunity of vindicating his good intentions".<ref name="Kettle"/> According to [[Martin Kettle]], writing for ''The Guardian'' in February 2011: "''The Guardian'' had always hated slavery. But it doubted the Union hated slavery to the same degree. It argued that the Union had always tacitly condoned slavery by shielding the southern slave states from the condemnation they deserved. It was critical of Lincoln's emancipation proclamation for stopping short of a full repudiation of slavery throughout the US. And it chastised the president for being so willing to negotiate with the south, with slavery one of the issues still on the table."<ref>{{cite news|last=Kettle|first=Martin|date=24 February 2011|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/1865-guardian-stance-us-civil-war|title=Lincoln, evil? Our certainties of 1865 give us pause today|newspaper=The Guardian|access-date=26 June 2020|archive-date=27 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200627145624/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/24/1865-guardian-stance-us-civil-war|url-status=live}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page