| May 3 |  |
Editor says, what if Ebenezer Scrooge acted as an intermediary with the Confederacy? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1861, President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy met with Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge of the City of London that Friday and arrived at a mutual defense agreement.
The Scrooge ContributionScrooge's terms were set out admirably. The precision left no doubts in the minds of Davis' Cabinet that their new republic would get the support of the United Kingdom, Even better, the British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, had initiated the approach to the South and sent to Richmond his "gray eminence" and master banker.
Even so, the term required for Britiain's support of the South was a condition the South had never thought of making a factor of its struggle for independence. Over first discussion of the matter, Vice President Stephens and four members of the Confederate Cabinet (Toombs, Mallory, Memminger and Reagan) advised against it.
"If our survival as a nation came about at such a price to the Union we have left", said Toombs "we would be forever stand condemned before our erstwhile countrymen".
"Mr. Toombs", said Jefferson Davis. "we shall have to meet many challenges in the coming war, and not a few of the advantages we shall seek will bring severe criticism from the North. It is better that our Southern States have the North's condemnation of our agreements with allies than that the South do without such necessary aid".
The commotion raised in Parliament was considerable when news of the Scrooge Assignment was debated on the floor of the Commons. "Sensible men know the Scrooge Proposal is nothing but piracy, plain and simple", wrote Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister to the Court of St. James. "Its theft from the common fund of our Great Republic is justified on no reason or moral obligation. It is the bald assertion that England gets California if the confederate states get their independence".
Entry posted by
Raymond Speer
© Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843)Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Pacific and Dixie Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ebeneezer Scrooge, Charles Dickens, Jefferson Davis, Confederacy, Civil War. Editor says, this is the first Journal Entry of the "Pacific & Dixie" series.
~ Scrooge would have made a wonderful negotiator. He was honest as the day is long, but sharp as a tack and nobody's fool. If he were sent to negotiate with Jeff. Davis and Co,, the Southerners had best send in their A-team...Judah P. Benjamin! I'd love to sit in on that one---it'd be a clash of titans!
Comment from Gregory Mitchell on Facebook: While Ebeneezer Scrooge was a fictional character. his creator, Charles Dickens, was a war correspondent for a London newspaper. In 1862 he informed his British readership "At present, the American conflict is solely a fiscal one". He had quite a grasp on the situation.
~ Ahem. I must be missing something here. How can the CSA promise California to Britain when California was not at any point a Confederate possession? Or, to put it another way, how could it deliver on such a promise?
~ Scrooge is a charcter of fiction and thus can not be. From what I have been reading of Dickens it is doughtful he would, if he were a living man, have anything to do with the ownership of other human beings and its abuses. At the same time t houigh Britain's elite sided with the south they dared not touch since that would have them coming in to support the evils of slavery that their government had been the first to outlaw. (They then reinvented it as Coolie labor in the form of indentured servants from either India as well as from China), Needless to say this line of action would lead to war with the United States and the loss of Canada for Britain. In short the British Empire gets the ultimate Bah Humbug from Abraham Lincoln.
Comment from Andrew Beane on Facebook: wow now that's an intriguing possibility!
Comment from Enrico Emilitri on Facebook: All this shoud had been very trouble for USA.
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