British Nonintervention vs Offshore Balancing in the
American Civil War:
The English School Strikes Back
Richard Little
University of Bristol
WISC Conference
Panel: English School Methodology
Istanbul 24-27 August 2005
1
The extraordinary territorial expansion of the United States during the nineteenth
century in conjunction with the threat to the survival of the state at the time of the
American Civil War represent two dramatic and crucial features of modern world history.
Yet the study of International Relations has had surprisingly little to say about the largely
unimpeded expansion of the United States and even less about its potential demise at the
time of the civil war. To the extent that theorists have paid attention to the evolution of
the international system, interest has almost invariably focused on Europe with the result
that there has been a prevailing although often unnoticed Eurocentric bias within the
discipline. This bias is now, however, increasingly acknowledged and attempts are being
made to break free of the Westphalian straitjacket. One of the most innovative attempts to
escape from the straitjacket and reconceptualize the international system has,
surprisingly, come from within realism. During the 1990s, offensive realism, developed
an approach to international politics that highlights the essentially regionalized structure
of the international system.1 Because of the importance attached to regions, the balance
of power, that provides the backbone for realist theory, has had to be extended to
accommodate this development and the ideas of offshore and extraregional balancing
have come to the fore.2 From this theoretical perspective, the American Civil War
becomes a crucial test case in the context of nineteenth century international politics
because it was probably the last occasion when offshore balancing could have been
employed by the British to prevent the United States from establishing itself as a regional
hegemon. Instead, the British drew on the norm of nonintervention to justify a policy of
neutrality although during the course of the war, they also contemplated the idea of a
collective mediation by key European great powers to bring what was seen as a horrific
war to an end. Although offensive realists disagree about why the British failed to operate
as an offshore balancer they are certainly not inclined to accept the possibility that British
policy was constrained by normative considerations associated with nonintervention. 3
Instead, offensive realists are persuaded by Krasner’s argument that international norms
and institutions are non-consequential and the frequent reference to norms by decision
makers simply demonstrates the importance of the phenomenon of ‘organized
hypocrisy’.4
This paper draws on English school thinking to demonstrate that this purely
instrumental approach is problematic and results in a one-dimensional view of
international politics. It argues that it is not possible to provide a coherent understanding
of the British response to the American civil war without taking seriously the shared legal
and normative framework that was subscribed to by both the British and the Americans.
The English school, however, is not simply operating from a legal and normative
perspective, as is often assumed; it also acknowledges that there is a complex relationship
between law and norms on the one hand and power and interests on the other – hence the
importance of the oxymoronic imagery associated with the idea of an anarchical society5.
1
See Labs(1997) Mearsheimer(2001), Layne (2004), and Elman (2004)
See Mearsheimer (2001, Ch.7 ), Layne (1997, 2002, 2002/3) and Elman(2004)
3
Contrast Mearsheimer (2001) and Elman (2004)
4
Krasner(1999)
5
This is the title of one of the central English school texts. See Bull (2002[1977]). The main focus of the
English school has been on the European international society but there has always been an interest in
earlier international societies and how they differ from the European international society. See, in
particular, Wight (1977) and Watson (1992)
2
2
English school theorists work, as a consequence, from a pluralist perspective that
embraces both an instrumental and a normative approach to international politics.6
Unsurprisingly, English school theorists do not fit neatly into established typologies of
the different theories that have been developed within the study of international relations
and the pluralist nature of English school thinking is generally overlooked when attempts
are made to categorize the approach.7
There is now a growing interest in pluralism or what is now sometimes called
analytical eclecticism, but this approach has always provided the bedrock for English
school thinking.8 The English school takes it for granted that states have a right to defend
and promote their interests. Indeed, under international law states have a right to use
force in order to defend their vital interests. War has, as a consequence, always been a
primary institution in international society. But, by the same token, it is also
acknowledged that states are constrained by a complex body of norms and institutions.
As international law has evolved, for example, so the circumstances under which states
can legitimately go to war have changed over time. But because war was such an
important feature of European international society, the overall distribution of power is
also considered to be of vital importance and the recognition that the great powers had a
responsibility to maintain the balance of power by eschewing hegemony and curbing
hegemonic ambition is considered to be a major institutional development and a key
feature of the European international society. English school theory presupposes,
moreover, that there is a necessary relationship between international law and a balance
of power.9 In other words, there is a presumption that international law can only flourish
in the absence of hegemonic power. Hegemony is seen to threaten the survival of
international law.10 Bull argues, as a consequence, that, paradoxically, it is sometimes
necessary to breach international law in order to maintain a balance of power.11 The
American Civil War, therefore, provides an important test case for English school
theorists as well as offensive realists because it unquestionably raised the issue of
whether the British saw this as a situation where the sovereignty of the United States
could be violated in the interests of re-establishing a balance of power in North America.
However, the potential fragmentation of the United States not only affected Britain’s
putative interests in a balance of power in North America but it also raised significant and
conflicting moral issues, with the independence of the Southern States being linked to the
right to self determination and the maintenance of the Union being linked to the
elimination of slavery.
6
See, for example, Jackson (2000:39). It is important to distinguish this use of pluralism from the
distinction that is often drawn in the English school between pluralism and solidarism where there is a
major debate about the right to intervene in the domestic affairs of the state. Pluralists wish to preserve the
sanctity of the norm of nonintervention whereas solidarists argue that there is a growing need to sanction
humanitarian intervention. See Wheeler(2000)
7
Both Krasner (1999:) and Wendt (1999:32), for example, focus exclusively on the normative dimension
of English school thinking.
8
See, for example, Peter J Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara (2001/1) and Tannenwald (2005)
9
The link reflects a long standing tradition of European thought. See Vagts and Vagts(1979) Bull
(2002[1977] identifies the balance of power and international law as two of five primary international
institutions. The other institutions are war, diplomacy and great power management.
10
English school thinking runs counter to hegemonic stability theory.
11
Bull (2002[1977] 104-5
3
The offensive realist assumption that all great powers have an interest in
hegemony runs directly counter to the English school assumption that the balance of
power had an institutional status in the European international society. The two schools
are also divided on the role of norms in international politics. Whereas offensive realists
assume that normative issues will be non-consequential, the English school presupposes
that they will be of central significance. Although offensive realists have identified the
American Civil War as a crucial test case for their theory, they disagree about why the
British failed to intervene. But the civil war can also be seen to provide a crucial test case
for the English school. The British were fully aware when the American Civil War broke
out that whatever the outcome, there would be huge consequences for international
politics. This was an occasion when it could be argued that instrumental reasoning would
outweigh normative reasoning. But the only way to address this issue is by detailed
archival research. The research in this paper reveals that it is not possible to understand
the British response outside of the normative framework that defined the international
society at that time. The paper is divided into five sections. The first elaborates on the
offensive realist position and presents two divergent explanations offered for the British
failure to intervene and adopt a strategy of offshore balancing in the American Civil War.
The second section identifies recognition and nonintervention as primary institutions in
international society and discusses the significance of primary institutions in English
school thinking. It argues that the English school approach to these institutions
undermines the organized hypocrisy thesis. The third section justifies the methodology
employed. The fourth section presents the case study and the final section analyses the
findings.
Offshore balancing and offensive realism
Although the study of international relations is often identified with the United States,
there have been remarkably few attempts within the discipline to account for the
emergence of this great power.12 Realists should have been interested in this
development, but their focus has been primarily on the multipolar world of nineteenth
century Europe and the bipolar cold war struggle between the United States and the
Soviet Union. The very distinctive way in which the United States emerged as a great
power is ignored. It took the end of the cold war to shake realist complacency and
precipitate a reassessment of fundamental realist premises. As a consequence, despite a
widespread assumption in the early 1990s that with the failure to predict the end of the
cold war realism would soon be boxed and buried, in recent years there has instead been
a renaissance in realist theory. This regeneration is particularly surprising given realism’s
close links to balance of power theory and the realist prediction, drawing on this theory,
that unipolarity would quickly give way to multipolarity.13 Yet, at least in part, it is the
problematic nature of this prediction that has acted as a spur to rethinking realist theory.
See Hoffmann (1977), Smith (2000). One possible explanation for this absence, implicit in Guzzini’s
historiographical account of the discipline, is the European origins of American realism. Guzzini(1998)
argues that European realists imported the maxims that characterized nineteenth century European
diplomacy into the emerging discipline of international relations and that Americans then attempted with a
singular lack of success to turn them into a scientific theory.
13
See Waltz(2000) and Layne (1993)
12
4
Over the past decade, realists have attempted to account for the persistence and durability
of unipolarity, for the prevalence of underbalancing in international politics and for the
fact that, contrary to balance of power theory, across world history, anarchy and the
balance of power have generally given way to hierarchically organized international
systems.14 The image of the balance of power as ‘almost a natural law’ is dead.15
Paradoxically, however, Waltz and Mearsheimer, the founding fathers of the two
leading realist subschools – defensive and offensive realism – are agreed that we are not
operating within a unipolar world but in a multipolar world.16 Waltz’s position is
anomalous because even during the cold war he argued that when thinking about polarity,
it was not a question of ‘whether a third or fourth country will enter the circle of great
powers in the foreseeable future but rather whether the Soviet Union can keep up’.17 By
contrast, Mearsheimer, who had the advantage of developing his theory in the post cold
war era, ensures that his position on multipolarity flows directly from his theoretical
premises. The key premise that pulls offensive and defensive realism apart is now
generally considered to be whether states are revisionist or status quo in orientation.
According to Mearsheimer, great powers, rendered insecure by anarchy, constantly aim
for hegemony. By contrast, Waltz is seen to presuppose that great powers accept the
status quo.18
But the more revolutionary feature of Mearsheimer’s account is the introduction
of a geographical dimension. Geography is taken into account as a result of the
distinction that he draws between insular and continental great powers. The crucial
consequence of this distinction is that the international system is then conceptualised as
inherently structured on a regional basis and it also creates the conceptual space for the
idea of a regional hegemon.19 Mearsheimer’s theory, as a consequence, places the United
States in a unique position in the international system as the only great power that has
managed to establish itself as a regional hegemon. In fact, it is more than a regional
hegemon, it is a hemispheric hegemon.20 Mearsheimer reveals how the United States
established itself as a hegemon in North America during the course of the nineteenth
century, becoming a hegemon across the hemisphere by the start of the twentieth
14
See Wohlforth, Schweller, Tin Bor and Wohlforth et al.
Ott,2003
16
See Waltz(2000) and Mearsheimer (2001)
17
Waltz (1979: 179-180) Given this assessment, it was remiss of Waltz not to open up the question of
unipolarity in the post cold war era. The logic of his theory indicates that even if states do balance against
the United States, the system would still be unipolar.
18
Schweller (1994, 1996) draws attention to the importance of this distinction. Since it is now regarded as
the central factor distinguishing defensive and offensive realism, it becomes difficult to refute
Wendt’s(1999:105) constructivist argument that despite Waltz’s interest in establishing a purely structural
explanation, he has no alternative but to smuggle a motivational factor in by the back door.
19
Mearsheimer, however, has been sharply criticized, however, for assuming that the stopping power of
water eliminates any potential for the establishment of a global hegemon. Layne (1997, 2002/3), for
example, insists that the United States has unwisely, but successfully, established itself as a global
hegemon. If Layne’s position is accepted, of course, then the distinctively regional nature of Mearsheimer’s
theory is called into question.
20
Mearsheimer, however, fails to extend his analysis to Latin America. For interesting account of the
balance of power in Latin America and the hegemonic role played by Chile in the nineteenth century, see
Burr (1955 and 1965)
15
5
century.21 This unprecedented expansion in influence, however, raises the question for
realism of why Britain, whose diplomats so clearly had a global perspective throughout
the nineteenth century, failed to take any steps to put a break on the remorseless growth
of US influence across the western hemisphere. In other words, given the importance that
British decision makers attached to the global balance of power, why did they not
develop a strategy of extraregional or offshore balancing in the Western hemisphere?22
The most obvious answer to this question is that the British thought that they
could not succeed in forming a balance against the United States. Certainly, some
historians have argued that the American Civil War marked a turning point in Anglo
American relations and that after the war the British could ‘never again hope to challenge
the will of the United States on the continent of North America.’23 Mearsheimer accepts
this line of argument and, indeed, he goes further and asserts that ‘one reason Britain did
not intervene on the Confereracy’s side during the Civil War is that its leaders believed
that the North would prevail even if the South received British assistance’.24 But this
position is not universally accepted and, indeed, Reid makes the important
historiographical point that historians often find it difficult to conceive of ‘a world where
the United States is not the most powerful state and thus does not invariably get its own
way in international affairs’.25 He argues that despite the inflammatory language, the two
states ‘reached a level of accommodation, compromise and affinity that was unusual in
the nineteenth century’.26
This assessment, moreover, can be accounted for by an interesting theoretical
gloss that Elman imposes on Mearsheimer’s theory.27 Elman argues that Mearsheimer’s
theory is underspecified. Nevertheless, the theory does explicitly demonstrate that states
occupy different positions in the structure of the international system and so, as a
consequence, the structure has a differential impact on the foreign policy of these states.
In contrast to Waltz, therefore, Mearsheimer argues explicitly that his theory enables him
to ‘explain both the foreign policy of individual states and international outcomes’.28 But
Elman argues that by taking more account of the geographical dimension, Mearsheimer’s
theoretical framework can be further elaborated to demonstrate that there are additional
structural positions that states can occupy.29 He contrasts a structural setting where there
is a multipolar region, such as Europe in the nineteenth century, interacting with a
unipolar region, such as North America in the same period. Balancing strategies will be
very evident in the former region but virtually nonexistent in the latter region. Elman then
Mearsheimer’s account of the ruthless way in which the United States expanded has been commended
from some otherwise unlikely quarters. See the thoughtful review by Gowan (2001).
22
Goldstein and McKercher note that for Britain to achieve its goals in the nineteenth century it had to
maintain a balance of power in both Europe and the wider world. See also McKercher(1989). For a
discussion of offshore balancing see Mearsheimer (2001, Ch.7 ) and Layne (1997, 2002, 2002/3)
23
Bourne(1970:96)
24
Mearsheimer (200: 489) He cites Bourne(1967), Jenkins(1974,1980) and Morton(1962) in support of this
position.
25
See Reid (2003: 46)
26
Reid (2003:45)
27
Elman (2004)
28
Mearsheimer (2001: 422). Elman(1996a and b) argues that Waltz’s theory can also account for foreign
policy. But Waltz (1996) insists that this is not what his theory is designed to do and so it is not likely to
operate very effectively as a theory of foreign policy.
29
Elman(2004, 2005) elaborates these different positions on the basis of an explanatory typology.
21
6
goes on to examine the links between these two regions and he postulates the divergent
foreign policy orientations of a continental state such as France and an insular state such
as Britain towards the United States. He argues that the continental state will prove to be
a weak and inconsistent extraregional balancer because of a preoccupation with security
threats within its own region. But, in contrast to Mearsheimer, Elman argues that the
insular state would certainly acquiesce but could even actively support the emergence of
a hegemon in a more distant region. Elman argues, for example, that since the United
States, like Britain, would fear the emergence of a European hegemon, the British could
rely on the United States to act as a balancer of last resort in Europe.30 This line of
argument, however, overlooks the fact that Britain’s defence plans in the nineteenth
century treated the United States as a potential enemy.31 Far from seeing the United
States as a balancer of last resort, there were fears that the United States could ally with
one of Britain’s European adversaries. In any event, offensive realists are certainly not
agreed on how Britain should have responded to the American Civil War from the
standpoint of their theory. On the other hand, it is clear that the civil war does provide an
excellent case study for testing the theory.
Primary Institutions. Organized Hypocrisy, and the English School
Although the English school has displayed considerable interest in the expansion of the
international society, there has been no discussion of the process whereby the United
States became a member of this society or the process whereby it became a great power.32
When attention is focused on the unimpeded expansion of the United States, however, it
has to be acknowledged that not only has the issue been ignored but it also represents a
major anomaly for English school thinking. When the United States came into existence,
the British, French, Spanish and Russians all had a presence on North America, but by
the time of the American Civil War only Britain retained a territorial interest on the
continent and any sense of a balance of power operating in North America had gone
completely by the end of the century. Developments on North America, therefore, fail to
conform to the English school assessment of the balance of power. According to Bull, the
balance of power has fulfilled three functions in the modern states system
(i)The existence of a general balance of power throughout the international
system as a whole has served to prevent the system from being transformed into a
universal empire;
(ii)The existence of local balances of power has served to protect the
independence of states in particular areas from absorption or domination by a
locally preponderant power;
30
Elman (2004:567)
See Bourne(1967) Although perhaps only on the basis of planning for every contingency, American
military officials ‘drew up a secret plan in 1930 for war against Britain in which Canada would be the main
battleground. "Joint Plan Red," as it was known, envisaged the elimination of Britain as a trading rival’.
See The Journal of Historical Review(1992:121) I am grateful to Richard Stratford for drawing this item to
my attention
32
See Bull and Watson (1984). The framework used by Bull and Watson was always inadequate and
attempts are now being made to extend the framework, in particular by acknowledging colonialism/
imperialism as one of the crucial primary institutions involved in this process. See Keene (2002) and
Suzuki (2005). For a critique of the ethnocentric features of the English school see Callahan (2004)
31
7
(iii)Both general and local balances of power, where they have existed, have
provided the conditions in which other institutions on which international order
depends (diplomacy, war, international law, great power management) have been
able to operate.33
The history of the United States is simply not compatible with the idea of a local balance
of power being established and maintained in North America and it is difficult to accept
that it is entirely consistent with the maintenance of a general balance of power. The
argument developed by offensive realists that the international system is essentially
regionalized accounts for the rise of the United States much more effectively, although,
nevertheless, they still disagree about why the Europeans failed to respond to US
expansion.
Offensive realism, however, is not entirely inconsistent with a pluralistic view of
English school thinking. Both assume that the emergence of hegemonic or preponderant
power represents a threat to other states that can only be met through the establishment of
countervailing power, in other words, a balance of power. The main difference is that the
English school does not approach the balance of power from an exclusively security
perspective. On the contrary, Bull argues that if all great powers are aiming for hegemony
in order to maximize their security then any balance of power that emerges is going to be
purely fortuitous. Although he accepts that a ‘fortuitous’ balance of power can emerge
without ‘any conscious effort’, this outcome is seen to be most likely in a situation where
two dominant states pursue hegemony. But Bull insists that we can only imagine a
systemic balance of power to be ‘a moment of deadlock in a struggle to death between
two contending powers’.34 In contrast to Waltz, Bull insists that a fortuitous or
unintended balance of power will be both short lived and incapable of establishing any
kind of international order.35 As a consequence, a fortuitous balance of power is sharply
contrasted with a ‘contrived’ or institutional balance of power. In this case, it is essential
that at least one of the parties is not concerned with ‘absolute aggrandisement’ but is selfconsciously monitoring the overall distribution of power in the system and is constantly
reacting to prevent the emergence of a hegemon. The idea that great powers acknowledge
a responsibility to prevent the emergence of a hegemon is regarded as a product of
modern Europe and cannot be identified in other international systems.36
The idea of a fortuitous and a contrived balance of power can be mapped onto
Bull’s contentious distinction between an international system and an international
society.37 Although there is no doubt that the distinction is problematic, it can be seen to
serve a useful heuristic function for theorists and practitioners operating within a rule
governed international society, allowing them to conceptualize an anomic world where
international relations are devoid of norms and institutions. It is a state-based, state of
nature and permits the thought experiment of what international politics would be like in
33
Bull (2002[1977]:102)
Bull (2002[1977]:100-1). See, in addition, Watson (1992:.311).
35
See Waltz (1979)
36
Bull (2002[1977]:103). Both Wight(1977) and Butterfield(1966) also stress that the balance of power is a
phenomenon that is peculiar to modern Europe. This line of argument is consistent with Wohlforth et
al.(forthcoming)
37
In a systematic and very effective rethinking of the English school approach, Buzan(2004:98-108)
eventually concludes that the distinction is unhelpful because the idea of an international system can be
effectively wrapped into the idea of an international society. See also James(1993) and Jackson (113-6).
34
8
the absence of an international society.38 Bull presupposes that the breakdown of an
international society is a highly undesirable prospect and so European great powers
wished to see a balance of power maintained not just for security reasons but because it
underpinned the other primary institutions associated with an international society.39
These institutions, he argues, all ‘assume a situation in which no one power is
preponderant in strength’. 40 This line of argument is most self-evident in the case of
sovereignty and non-intervention and these institutional norms both proved to be
absolutely crucial issues when the American Civil War broke out.41
Although the English school views the balance of power as a necessary
precondition for the survival of a rule governed international society of sovereign states,
Krasner has challenged the idea of a rule governed international society. ‘Rulers’ he
argues, ‘have found that it is in their interest to break the rules’.42 As a consequence, he
does not accept that states observe rules because they acknowledge that they have an
obligation to do so. On the contrary, he argues that states observe rules only if it is in
their interests to do so. He focuses on the norms and practices associated with mutual
recognition (which he identifies as international legal sovereignty) and to the norms and
practices associated with nonintervention (which he identifies as Westphalian
sovereignty). He then presents a series of case studies that reveal how the norms and
practices associated with recognition and nonintervention are habitually violated. This
leads him to conclude that these norms and practices have never provided a ‘stable
equilibrium’ in the Westphalian state system.43 States he insists, are guided by a logic of
expected consequences rather than a logic of appropriateness.44 The former associates
politics with rational calculations designed to optimize state preferences. The latter
associates politics with rules, roles and identities that stipulate appropriate behaviour for
any situation. But although there are very clear logics of appropriateness for both
recognition and nonintervention Krasner argues that they fail to constrain states because
statespersons operate on the basis of the logic of expected consequences. He attributes the
absence of normative constraints in international politics to the nature of the international
environment where there are conflicting norms, an absence of any mechanisms for
deciding between conflicting norms, and chronic power asymmetries that allow the
stronger state to choose the norm that best suits its instrumental objectives. The English
school, he argues, employs the logic of appropriateness without appreciating the impact
of the factors that minimize the influence of norms.45
38
Hobbes, of course, assumed that a system of states necessarily established a degree of security and could
not be compared to a state of nature where everyone experiences absolute insecurity.
39
Bobbitt (2002) draws heavily on Bull(2002[1977]) and Osiander (1994) for his framework depicting
European history in terms of a series of epochal wars, when international society broke down, giving rise to
major peace treaties that each established a new and distinctive constitutional order within a new form of
international society.
40
Bull (2002[1977]:112)
41
Buzan (2004) notes that it is odd that Bull fails to identify sovereignty as a central institution.
42
Krasner 1999,7
43
Krasner 1999, 24
44
For a discussion of the distinction, see March and Olsen (1998). According to Kingsbury (2000, 593),
however, his case study approach reveal the complexity of situations on the ground and forces him to draw
back at times from the ‘blunt assertion’ that the logic of consequences always prevails over the logic of
appropriateness.
45
Krasner (1999:6)
9
Apart from the fact that Krasner fails to acknowledge the pluralist character of the
English school approach, his finding that norms are not always observed, or that they
often observed for instrumental reasons, is unsurprising. But as he admits, it is surprising
that throughout the Westphalian era states have almost invariably acknowledged these
norms in principle, despite apparently ignoring them in practice. How do we account for
the durability of these norms and their failure, over time, to become deadletters.46 Krasner
acknowledges that the durability of these norms represents an intriguing puzzle, and one
that has been overlooked by other theorists. He draws on Brunsson’s idea of ‘organized
hypocrisy’, a concept that presupposes an endemic mismatch between talk and action in
the way that contemporary organizations operate. 47 This is an intriguing concept and it
certainly resonates with the widespread view that when states intervene into the affairs of
other states, they will frequently accompany the action with talk about the importance of
defending state sovereignty and observing the institutional norm of nonintervention.48
Brunsson distintinguishes two ideal types of organization. Action organizations
are instumental and singleminded; they aim to produce goods in the most efficient
manner possible. By contrast, political organizations reflect the complex and
contradictory environments that they are intended to serve. Because they
contantly endeavour to satisfy constituents that have competing demands and subscribe
to divergent norms, hypocrisy is seen to be a fundamental feature of these organizations.
They say one thing to satisfy one audience but actually do something very different in
order to satisfy a second audience. The resulting contradictions can be assuaged to some
extent provided that the two audiences are operating in different locations or if the talk
occurs at a different time to the action. The overall point that Brunsson makes, however,
is that action organizations increasingly have to function as political organizations and so
hypocrisy is becoming a prevailing feature of all organizations. Car manufacturers, for
example, are confronted by an incredibly complex environment that consists of a huge
range of competing actors from oil companies to environmental lobby groups that are all
constantly making contradictory demands on the car manufacturers. Given this
environment, mismatches between what such manufacturers say and do is unsurprising.
This model of political organizations can certainly be applied to contemporary
governments. All governments confront exceptionally complex environments and they
have to attempt to satisfy a multiplicity of conflicting and competing groups. But can this
model help to account for the extraordinary durability of the institutional norms
associated with sovereignty and nonintervention? Brunsson’s model presuppposes that
governments are confronted by divergent groups that subscribe to competing norms.
These norms persist despite state violations because their adherents still believe in them
and they will continue to pressure governments to put them into practice. The organized
hypocrisy model, therefore, does help to explain the discrepancy between talk and action
in the context of contemporary organizations, but it is less well suited to account for the
persistence of international norms across several centuries.
See Levy et al who argue that regimes that are not consequential become ‘deadletters’..
Brunsson(1989)
48
When examining intervention on the Iberian Peninsula in the 1830s, for example, Schroeder (1994,720)
notes that ‘What really happened in the supposed conflict of principles is that the Holy Alliance powers,
who believed in the principle of intervention, did not intervene, and the Western powers, in particular
Britain, intervened under the principle of non-intervention’.
46
47
10
The English school approaches this issue from a very different perspective. What
is distinctive about the English school is the recognition that interaction amongst
collective entities, such as states, can generate what Buzan calls second order societies.49
Any international society is assumed to have properties that are distinctive from first
order societies that consist of individuals. The central focus of the English school is on
the primary institutions that constitute an international society. These institutions are seen
to be ‘relatively fundamental and durable practices, that are evolved more than designed’
and that are ‘constitutive of actors and their patterns of legitimate activity in relation to
each other’.50 Recognition and nonintervention are interrelated primary institutions that
help to constitute both states and international society and they can be identified by a
complex set of practices that are related to specific institutional norms.51 These norms are
mutually reinforcing. When states recognize each other, they simultaneously
acknowledge the other party’s right to nonintervention. These norms, moreover, help to
constitute what we mean by the state. A state is not a state if it is not recognized by other
states.
There is, however, considerable disagreement about the nature and significance of
norm deviation in the context of constitutive institutions. For Krasner, working within the
framework of a conventional causal model, the persistence of norm deviation provides
unequivocal evidence that norms are not causally consequential. But there is widespread
support, extending well beyond the boundaries of the English school, for the argument
that it is inappropriate to use causal modelling to assess the significance of constitutive
institutions. Indeed, Brown argues that by adopting this approach Krasner misses the
point and that it is much more helpful to view constitutive norms and institutions as
Wittgensteinian ‘rules of the game’. 52 Because all states acknowledge that they playing
by these rules, a deviation from the rules tells us nothing about whether or not
international society is rule governed. By the same token, discrepancy between talk and
action has nothing to do with hypocrisy and everything to do with states trying to
demonstrate that they are still playing the game. Brown concludes that the ‘discursive
force of the norms of the Westphalia System is not ultimately dependent upon the extent
to which they guide actual practice’.53 In the same vein, Cohen notes that followers of
Wittgenstein argue that ‘the grammar of “following a rule” also implies “making a
mistake” or “violating a rule”.’54 Krasner, it has to be said is unimpressed with these
kinds of argument. At the end of the day, he insists, the international system ‘is not a
game of chess’.55
Methodologial Issues
49
Buzan (2004:110)
Buzan 2004,167,181. These primary institutions are distinguished from secondary institutions, more
commonly known as regimes, which deal with specific and often subglobal issues. See Buzan,2004, 161-2,
and Waever,1998.
51
For a useful survey, see Jackson and James 1999.
52
Brown (2002:36)
53
Brown (2002:37)
54
Cohen (1981: 9)
55
Krasner, (1999:237)
50
11
Although there has been an explosion of interest in the study of norms in recent years,
most of this interest focuses on regimes or what Buzan calls secondary institutions. 56 The
potential importance of the English school, therefore, largely hinges on the centrality of
primary or constitutitive norms and institutions within its theoretical framework. From a
mainstream perspective, however, the English school has failed to make much headway
because of fundamental methodological and theoretical weaknesses. Ruggie argues that
the school has been more interested in resisting a social scientific approach than
clarifying and firming up its theoretical position.57 Copeland also criticises the school for
failing to articulate its theoretical assumptions or providing ‘a deductive causal logic that
would explain why higher levels of shared rules and norms should lead to higher degrees
of cooperation’.58 He compares the English school unfavourably with neoliberal
institutionalists who have developed a precise theory to account for cooperation. At the
same time he criticises the school for failing to take account of the impact of anarchy on
state behaviour. But these criticisms rest on some serious misapprehensions. In particular,
they ignore the centrality of war in English school thinking and the recognition that war
is a crucial institution that is associated with a complex set of norms and practices. In
other words there is a widespread but mistaken view that the idea of an international
society can be equated with peace and cooperation.59
A more relevant criticism relates to the failure of the English school to provide a
coherent account for why states comply with international law.60 Hurrell argues that they
have produced a range of explanations that includes power and coercion, self-interest and
reciprocal benefits, institutionalised habit or inertia, the existence of a sense of
community, procedural legitimacy of the process of rule creation, and the moral suasion
that derives from a shared sense of justice. The problem is that the English school does
no more than establish an aggregate list of factors ‘without providing any precise guide as
to their relationship’.61 On the other hand, Wæver insists that the arguments enumerated
by the English school have the potential to take us much further than the liberal
institutionalists who only investigate one item on the list. Moreover he suggests that ‘the
general interest in international society is important in explaining compliance with
specific rules, while the specific rules add up to a general system of international law that
is constitutive of the structure of the state-system itself. Because states come to believe
that they have a long-term interest in this international legal system, the rules achieve
obligation and normativity in a way which becomes more law-like and where compliance
is hard to calculate in terms of specific and calculable interests.’62 In other words, Wæver
accepts that testing this proposition is not straightforward.
56
Buzan, 2004 see footnote 51. Legro 1997,31 argues that interest in norms is greater now than at anytime
since the interwar era
57
Ruggie 1998,11
58
Copeland (2003:433)
59
Even the debate between pluralists and solidarists involves the circumstances when force can legitimately
be employed.
60
The position of many contemporary realists needs to be sharply distinguished from the position of
classical realists, such as Morgenthau 1973, 273, who insisted that for the past four hundred years,
international law has been ‘scrupulously observed’ despite the ‘widespread misconception’ to the contrary.
61
Hurrell (1993:55)
62
Wæver, (1998, p. 90-1)
12
The English school preoccupation with primary institutions and constitutive
norms also takes us beyond the neoliberal position. A key point for an English school
theorist is that it is not possible to understand or interpret what is going on in
international relations without an appreciation of the underlying rules of the game. But
once norms and institutions are viewed as constitutive ‘rules of the game’ then according
to Kratochwil and Ruggie, instead of treating the rules as variables, researchers should be
relating these norms and institutions to discursive practices.63 There is, however, no
agreement about the desirability of this move or the methodological, epistemological and
ontological implications of making it.64 A central aim of this paper is to identify a method
for advancing the debate beyond the current impasse.
In the first place, members of the English school argue in favour of a hermeneutic
approach to analysis. Whenever any subject, be it nonintervention or offshore balancing,
is being interrogated, the theorist according to Jackson ‘is always inside the subject and
seeks to understand and interpret it by gaining insight into the mentality of the people
involved and the circumstances in which they find themselves’.65 Such an approach has
the potential to reveal both instrumental and normative thinking, although English school
theorists presume that it will reveal that decision makers consider themselves to be
operating in the context of an international society that provides a moral and legal
framework that helps to shape the conduct of international relations.66 Given this
perspective, however, it is difficult not to agree with Copeland’s criticism that there are
surprisingly few attempts by English school scholars to ‘extensively utilise archival
sources’.67 On the other hand, although the role of constitutive institutions remains
under-theorised and under-researched, at least the English school is facing in the right
theoretical direction to understand the role that these institutions play in international
politics.
Progressing in this direction, however, requires the adoption of a very detailed
case study approach. Others have reached a similar conclusion. Hurrell accepts that it will
‘not be easy to measure the normativity of rules in exact terms’ but he insists,
nevertheless, that ‘we can still try to understand what this sense of obligation consists of,
not in general terms but on a specific case-by-case basis’.68 To reveal and assess the
impact of constitutive institutions on decision makers it is necessary to examine their
theory and practice in some considerable depth.69 By a form of process tracing it becomes
possible to see how British decision makers responded to the American Civil War: did
the constitutive norms associated with recognition and nonintervention play a crucial role
in the decision making process or did the logic of consequences associated with offensive
63
See Kratochwil and Ruggie 1986
Hopf, forthcoming. The move is regarded as problematic by Raymond 1997, 235 who insists that
granting norms a constitutive role ‘does not require rejecting research designs aimed at testing for
covariation and controlling for spurious relationships’.
65
Jackson(2000:71)
66
See Jackson(2000:39)
67
Copeland (2003:432)
68
Hurrell (1993:64)
69
See Herrmann and Shannon 2001, 650 who argue that to understand variation in norm application it is
necessary to develop a ‘theory at the level of cognitive agents’.
64
13
realism and organized hypocrisy prevail?70 Following Osiander’s methodological rule,
the focus here is on the external response to civil war because both recognition and
nonintervention are so clearly brought into question under such circumstances. 71 During
a civil war, the ability of the state to defend its own sovereignty is threatened and so
nonintervention norms come to the fore, by default.72 Sovereignty is putatively protected
by international society, like a cracked egg in an egg box.73
Britain and the American Civil War 1861-186574
The existence of slavery raised difficult constitutional and political problems for the
United States. As a consequence, when civil war broke out, President Lincoln was
reluctant to define the conflict as a servile war.75 Nevertheless, slavery had been a source
of division from the moment the United States established its independence. For the
southern states, slavery was considered an economic necessity, whereas in the northern
states, by 1800, slavery was practically extinct. At that time, the population in northern
and southern states was roughly even, but by 1860, two thirds of the population resided in
the north. The drive west further threatened the precarious balance between free and slave
states in the Senate, but in 1850, there was a compromise settlement: California joined
the union as a free state, but it was agreed that before subsequent states could be
admitted, the issue of slavery must be decided on the basis of self-determination.
Although the compromise maintained unity for another decade, it failed to resolve the
conflict. While the Republican Party began to expand on the basis of its anti-slavery
platform, the issue eventually split the Democratic Party. During the Democratic
Convention in 1860, the southern Democrats walked out and nominated their own
candidate. Within three months of Lincoln winning the Presidency for the Republicans,
eight southern states had seceded. They believed that they would get better terms from
outside the Union, although it was intended to rejoin once satisfactory guarantees had
been given. In his inaugural speech, however, Lincoln insisted that it was not possible to
tolerate secession. Neither side was willing to compromise.
The growing division was closely observed by European states. Russell, the
British foreign secretary, wrote at the beginning of 1861 that he did not see ‘how the
United States can be cobbled together by any compromise’. From his perspective, ‘The
70
Process tracing is normally associated with a causal chain of reasoning to see if the available evidence
reveals an uninterrupted set of links between an independent and a dependent variable. See
Bennett(2004:22-3). Here the intention is to see if there is an intersubjective understanding of a body of
rules and to trace the consequences of these intersubjective understandings.
71
Osiander was interested in exposing the structure of the international system and so he focused on major
peace conferences because during these occasions decision makers were necessarily sensitised to how the
international system was structured.
72
This line of argument has much in common with Jackson’s 1990 study of ‘quasi states’.
73
The image of international society as an egg box was formulated by Suganami and Vincent. See Vincent,
1986 123-5,173
74
The case study draws in the first instance on primary sources, although it also relies on a number of
secondary sources based on archival research. The standard text is Adams(1925). But there has been a
range of texts in more recent years. See Case and Spencer (1970); Crook(1974); Hubbard (1998); Jenkins
(1974; 1980); Jones(1992); Mahin(2000). Nevertheless, there is still no comprehensive account of the
international dimensions of the civil war.
75
See Jones (1999)
14
best thing now would be that the right to secede should be acknowledged and that there
should be separation....above all I hope that no force will be used’.76 In the same vein,
Palmerston, the prime minister, wrote to Queen Victoria forecasting ‘the approaching and
virtually accomplished Dissolution in America of the great Northern Confederation’.77
The European states began to plan for the consequences of the separation before it even
happened. The French ambassador in Washington wrote a paper in which he argued that
the southern states should be recognized before any conflict started in order to avoid
giving the impression that the act was unfriendly. Lord Lyons, the British ambassador,
argued that such a move would not be seen as benign or impartial and he advised that no
attempt should be made to challenge existing arrangements until absolutely necessary. On
the other hand, he argued that when the critical point was reached, it was essential to act
swiftly and he advised the British government that local consuls should be empowered to
recognize the southern states.78
From the British perspective, it was considered unlikely that the southern states
would pose any kind of threat, partly because of the natural ties between Britain and the
southern states but also because it was argued that ‘the new Republic will never rise to
eminence as a great power on the earth’.79 Nevertheless, a separation was assumed to be a
source of future instability because it was argued that ‘sooner or later it seems impossible
that they should not quarrel and fight, whether there remain two great republics, or one
large one and a number of small independent states’.80 From the onset of the crisis,
however, the southern states assumed that they could count on British support, primarily
because of their conviction that Britain was dependent on cotton from the southern states.
By the same token, it was widely held amongst the northerners that the British wanted to
see the Union fragment in order to eliminate an expanding rival in the Western
hemisphere and thereby create the conditions for a future British hegemony in the region
– a view that has subsequently been ‘paraded by many writers’ according to Crook.81
The Europeans had been viewed as a potential threat from independence onwards. The
division of Poland was a particular source of concern because it raised the spectre of
European cooperation to carve up the United States. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was a
formal attempt by the United States to establish a prohibition to any extension of
European power in the Western hemisphere. This was a position that the Europeans were
not willing to accept. For example, after 1836, when Texas broke away from Mexico, the
British and French wished to ensure that Texas remained independent. As Perkins puts it
‘Far from recognizing American hegemony on the North American continent, these two
powers set to work to counteract the influence of the young republic and to invoke the
European doctrine of the balance of power as a principle that might regulate the affairs of
76
Adams 1925, vol 1, 53).
Benson and Esher, 1907, vol 3, 538
78
3.30.1861, Lyons to Russell, FO/5/754. Mercier’ the French ambassador to Washington argued that the
US could hardly object to early recognition for the South, since they had attempted to recognize the
Hungarian revolutionary government in 1848 before it had fully succeeded in establishing itself. See Case
and Spencer (1970:47)
79
4.20.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754
80
6.10.1861, Lyons to Russell, cited in Newton,1913,vol2,37
81
Crook (1974:374). The Russian minister to London noted at the start of 1861 that the British ‘desires the
separation of North America into two republics, which will watch each other jealously and counterbalance
each other’ Cited in Mahin (2000:24)
77
15
the New World as it already did those of the old.’82 In 1840, for example, when the
United States was in the process of annexing Texas, Guizot, the French Prime Minister,
announced to the Chamber of Deputies that North America was a divided continent and
that it was in France’s interest ‘that the independent states should retain their
independence - that the balance of the Great Powers among which America is divided
should continue, and that no one should become preponderant’. President Polk responded
sharply that the balance of power was an undesirable European practice and that it
‘cannot be permitted to have any application on the North American continent’.83
As the prospect of a permanent division loomed, however, what primarily
concerned Britain was the vulnerability of Canada. In the 1850s, when possibility of
seccession was raised, the fear was expressed that the United States would precipitate a
war with Britain in order to bind the country together again.84 With the onset of the
secession crisis in 1860, these fears were raised again when William Seward, Lincoln’s
new Secretary of State argued that the North and South might be reunited by a foreign
war, although Lyons doubted that Seward would actually contemplate war.85 But by the
time the civil war started, the British were conscious of Seward’s threat to acquire
Canada if the United States lost the South.86 The threats were taken seriously and Lyons
stated that he believed ‘the danger to be sufficiently imminent to render it only a matter
of prudence to put Canada into a state of defence’.87 Palmerston agreed, saying that ‘The
Northern States may find that it is beyond their power to reunite the broken federal link
and they may think of indemnifying themselves in the North for what they have
irrevocably lost in the South’.88 The British sent military reinforcements to both the West
Indies and Canada.89
When the American Civil War broke out, Palmerston maintained that ‘our best
and true policy seems to me to go on as we have begun and to keep clear of the conflict
between North and South’.90 In the same vein, Russell, the Foreign Secretary had asserted
two years earlier, when advising the new ambassador in Washington about the civil war
in Mexico, that ‘nothing but imperative necessity could induce HMG under any
circumstances to depart from their general principle of abstaining from all interference in
the affairs of other states’.91 Some time later, when relations between North and South
seriously deteriorated in the United States, Lyons was instructed not to give any comment
on the situation, in case this could be construed as intervention.92 At much the same time,
the Admiralty gave instructions for the navy to ‘abstain from any measures or
demonstrations likely to give umbrage to any party in the United States, or bear the
82
Perkins (1955[1940]:76)
Cited in Sellers 1966,342. Merk(1966,Ch.3) argues that Guizot was careful not to use the French
equivalent of a balance of power in America (équilibre américain) and that Polk’s hostile reference to the
balance of power was another attempt by an American President to warn Europeans not to intervene in
North America.
84
Crook, 1974:34-5
85
Mahin (2000:7)
86
4.22.1861, Lyons to Russell, FO/5/762.
87
5.20.1861, Lyons to Russell, FO/5/764
88
5.24.1861, Palmerston Papers, BM48582
89
5.2.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754
90
10.18.1861, Palmerston to Russell, Russell Papers, PRO/30/22/14B
91
2.15.1959, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/708
92
1.5.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/374
83
16
appearance of partisanship on either side’.93 Russell told Dallas, the United States
ambassador in London, that Britain was in no hurry to recognise the separation between
north and south as ‘complete and final. But on the other hand I could not bind HMG nor
tell how or when circumstances might arise which would make a decision necessary’.94
Within a month of the attack on Fort Sumter, the event generally seen to
symbolise the start of the civil war, Russell asserted that the situation in the United States
‘cannot be designated otherwise than as a civil war’ and it followed, he insisted, that the
British government ‘cannot question the right of the Southern States to claim to be
recognized as a belligerent’.95 Nevertheless, the British felt that a clear justification was
needed to account for such a significant move. They found it in the decision by the
United States to implement a blockade against the southern states. In international law, a
blockade is tantamount to a declaration of war and would, therefore, entitle foreign
powers to identify the Southerners as belligerents rather than rebels. The British had been
concerned about this possible development even before the conflict started. In February,
Russell wrote to Lyons ‘Above all things, endeavour to prevent a blockade of the
Southern coast. It would produce misery, discord and enmity incalculable’.96 Lyons
indicated that he was doing all he could ‘to make the Government here aware of the
disastrous effect of their blockading the Southern ports or attempting to interfere in
Southern commerce’.97 In an attempt to deter the implementation of a blockade he
indicated that such a move might leave foreign states with little choice but to recognize
the Southern confederacy, since the alternative was to tolerate an interruption of their
shipping. Such a move, however, could legitimately be regarded by the North as
intervention and Seward reacted very strongly to the suggestion, threatening, in turn, to
confiscate any ships that came out of southern ports without the paper required by US
law.98 On the day that Fort Sumter was attacked, Lyons indicated that the naval
preparations ‘look painfully like a blockade’99 and a week later, on April 19th, a
proclamation was made announcing that a blockade was to be established by the northern
states.100 Mahin argues that in making this move, Lincoln was undoubtedly influenced by
discussion with Lyons who argued that a Union blockade would be more acceptable to
the British government and less hazardous for the United States than the proposal to
‘close the ports’ because ‘the rules of a blockade are to a great extent determined and
known’.101
The British could hardly object in principle to the implementation of a blockade
by the North. They had used the strategy themselves during the Napoleonic Wars and
knew that they might need to use it again in the future. Moreover, the British government
93
12.12.1860, Admiralty to Admiral Milne. Cited in Baxter 1928, 10
4.12.1861 Russell to Lyons FO/5/820
95
5.6.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754
96
Cited in Adams 1925, vol 1, 58
97
4.9.1861 cited in Adams 1915, 224
98
See Crook, 1974: 50
99
4.12.1861, cited in Adams 1915, 224
100
The economic consequences of the blockade have long been debated. In a recent and detailed economic
assessment, Surdam (2001:209) concludes that ‘for the resources expended, the blockade appears to have
been a worthwhile investment’.
101
Mahin (2000: 45-46)
94
17
had signed the Declaration of Paris in 1856 that established a new code of maritime law,
that acknowledged the legality of blockades, provided they were effectively
implemented. In addition, privateers were outlawed and those engaged in privateering
were to be treated as pirates and hanged if captured.102 By 1861 over forty states had
signed the Declaration, although this did not include the United States. This posed a
problem for the North because on April 17th 1861, Jefferson Davis stated in a formal
proclamation that the Confederacy would under the ‘law of nations and the usages of
civilized warfare’ issue letters of marque and reprisal to privateers to attack Northern
shipping.
These two developments had serious implications for British shipping. Russell
sought the legal advice of the Attorney-General on the propriety of recognizing southern
belligerency. The Attorney-General advised that the conflict should be treated as a
regular war and that the southerners were entitled to issue letters of marque although he
suggested the possibility of a deal whereby belligerency could be recognized on condition
that the south agreed to abide by the Treaty of Paris.103 Russell informed Lyons that
Britain must consider the civil war as a regular war and adopt a policy of neutrality.104
The Government accorded the southern states belligerent status and issued a
Proclamation of Neutrality on May 14th. They also informed the French of their decision,
an indication of the close consultation that was sustained between the two countries
throughout the civil war. Thouvenel, the French foreign minister, followed a similar
procedure to Russell, establishing a committee of experts on international law and
precedents and it too concluded that the Southern states should be recognized as
belligerents.105
Dallas, the United States ambassador in London, claimed, however, that the
British had acted precipitously. He compared the short time taken to accord the southern
states with belligerent status with the time that elapsed before classifying the Greeks as
belligerents in the struggle with the Turks. Russell contended that the conflict in the
United States was of greater importance and demanded more speedy attention.106 In the
House of Commons he went on to refer to the ‘sound maxim of policy enumerated by
Mr. Canning that the question of belligerent rights is not one of principle but of fact’.107
The British position was effectively endorsed the following year when the United States
Supreme Court stated that the President’s Declaration of April 19th 1861 was ‘official and
conclusive evidence to the court that a state of war existed’.108
Nevertheless, Seward and Lincoln were determined to do whatever they could to
avoid acknowledging that the Europeans had granted belligerent status to the south and to
prevent the Europeans from giving any additional recognition to the Southern states. U.S.
ambassadors were told that diplomatic recognition of the independence of the rebel
government by any European government would constitute ‘gross interference in the
domestic affairs of the United States and would lead to war between that country and the
102
Privateers were vessels authorized to prey on enemy shipping in wartime.
See Crook(1974:77). Crook argues that Russell rightly ignored the suggested deal that was ‘impractical
and poor law’
104
5.4.1861. See Adams 1925, vol 1,86
105
Case and Spencer (1970:Ch.2) provide a very full account of the French moves.
106
5.21.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754.
107
6.21.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754. For Canning’s use of this phrase, see Temperley (1966,326)
108
Cited in Foster 1901, 367
103
18
United States’.109 Adams, who replaced Dallas as the US ambassador in London told the
British Government that the United States would be forced to break off diplomatic
relations with the British Government if there was any contact with the Confederate
agents sent to Europe to secure recognition for the South.110 Russell, in line with
established practice, only saw the agents in an unofficial capacity and was surprised by
vehemence of the US response.111 Nevertheless, Lyons went on to insist that Washington
had to ‘clearly understand that the British must and will hold unofficial communications
with the Southern Government on matters concerning the interests of their subjects’.112
He also suggested that the French must be contacted and that an announcement ‘should if
possible be made collectively and in such a form as to preclude the cabinet pretending to
find a difference between the conduct of France and Britain’.113 The British and French
ambassadors did attempt to hold a joint meeting with Seward on June 15th to discuss the
recognition of belligerency, but he refused to see them together.114
British sympathies were deeply divided by the civil war and Blackett concludes
that no other issue at the time ‘engaged public interest so extensively as did the debate
over the war in America’.115 Nevertheless, the traditional interpretation that progressives
favoured the Unionists and conservatives favoured the Confederates is now regarded as
oversimplified.116 For example, Gladstone, a staunch liberal, favoured the independence
of the southern states because of his belief in the right to self-determination.117 At the
same time, a radical, like Cobden, although unequivocal about wanting to eliminate
slavery, noted at the start of 1862 that he did not ‘believe that the North and the South
can ever lie in the same bed again’.118 Palmerston and Russell may have hoped that the
North and South would separate, but they were careful to avoid expressing this view in
public.119 In practice, they were pragmatists and wished to stay at arm’s length from the
conflict. Campbell’s analysis suggests, moreover, that there was considerable scepticism
in Parliament about both the Unionist and the Confederate causes and, as a consequence,
there was very broad support for the policy of nonintervention120. Disraeli, the leader of
the conservative opposition, said that he had exerted ‘whatever influence he might
possess in endeavouring to dissuade his friends from embarrassing Her Majesty’s
Government in their position of “politic and dignified reserve”’.121 When a member of
parliament wished to table a motion concerning the recognition of the southern states,
109
Mahin, (2000:13)
5.18.1861. See Temple 1923,53
111
4.20.1861, Russell to Lyons, FO/5/754
112
6.10.1861, Lyons to Russell. Cited in Newton 1913 vol 1,37
113
Cited in Newton 1913, vol 1, 45 At this stage, the British but not the French had issued a Proclamation
of Neutrality
114
See the account in Case and Spencer (1970:70-71). They argue that Seward pursued an ‘averted glance’
strategy ‘He would not react to the Anglo-French recognition of Southern belligerency if the two powers
did not tell him of it officially and if they did nothing to raise the issue’(p.590).
115
Blackett(2001:168)
116
See Grant (1998);Blackett (2001); and Campbell(2003)
117
Morley 1904, vol 2, 70-3
118
Read 1967,220
119
As Gladstone said later ‘Lord Palmerston desired the severance as a diminution of a dangerous power,
but prudently held his tongue’ Morely (1904: 1:535). See also Jones(1953)
120
Campbell, 2003
121
Buckle 1920, vol 4, 332
110
19
Russell said that he could not, of course, prevent him from doing so ‘but looking to the
interests of the public service, I cannot say that I think it desirable that it should come
on’.122 The motion was voluntarily withdrawn sine die.
There was, however, a brief period during the war, in 1862, when the British
contemplated mediation, with the clear intention of consolidating the division between
the northern and southern states.123 Russell suggested that terms should be put to the two
sides that were ‘fair and equitable’. Each side would then be told that if the terms were
accepted ‘well and good. But if your adversary accepts them and you refuse them, our
mediation is at an end and you may expect to see us as your enemy’.124 In Parliament,
however, Palmerston insisted that mediation was out of the question ‘unless a different
state of things should arise, and a fair opening appears, for any step which might be likely
to meet with the acquiescence of the two parties’.125 In debate, William Forster, who
supported the north, was intensely critical of the suggestion that ‘an offer of mediation
should be accompanied by a threat’.126 In September 1862, however, Palmerston began to
reconsider Russell’s original position. Following the ‘complete smashing’ of the northern
forces, he raised the possibility of threatening to recognise the southern states if the
northern states ‘refuse to negotiate’.127 But Palmerston almost immediately backed off
from this position. Once the British decision makers thought about the possibility of
mediation in detail, it was agreed that not only must mediation be acceptable to both sides
in the conflict, but also, the offer would need to come from Britain, France and Russia.128
He also argued that since the two sides were now ‘pretty equally balanced and that
neither side are likely to overpower the other’ then this was the right time ‘for the
stepping in of friends’.129 But he also recognised that the northern states would refuse to
negotiate at this stage.130 He argued that the north required ‘a good deal more
pummelling by the South’ before mediation was likely to be successful.131 So the issue of
mediation could only come back on the agenda in the event of some southern military
successes. Even then, he suggested that there ‘might not be an absolute offer of mediation
but a friendly suggestion’ opening the way to an agreement based on the ‘principle of
separation’.132 All thought of mediation came to an end, however, once the news of
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, made on September 22, reached the British. As
Palmerston saw it, the military struggle was now joined by a ‘political struggle’, but the
‘slavery question was from the beginning the obvious difficulty in our way as
mediators’.133 He acknowledged that Britain could ‘hardly frame a proposal which the
south would accept and the people of England would approve of’.134 Russell, however,
122
6.6.1861 Parliamentary Debates vol 163, 631
For accounts of the discussion surrounding the possibility of mediation see Case and Spencer (1970:
Ch. 9); Crook (1974:Ch 8); Mahin (2000: Ch 9)
124
Walpole1889,vol 2,344
125
6.30.1862 Parliamentary Debates vol 167, 1214
126
7.18.1862 Parliamentary Debates vol 168, 537
127
9.14.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
128
9.17.1862 Russell to Palmerston Russell Papers 30/22/14D
129
9.30.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
130
9.22.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
131
10.8.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
132
10.2.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
133
10.21.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
134
11.2.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
123
20
was still reluctant to forego the mediation option. He argued that ‘if the Great Powers of
Europe were to offer their good offices and those were rejected by the North we should
be fairly entitled to choose our own time to recognize the Southern States.’135 Sir George
Lewis, the Secretary for War, strongly resisted this argument and insisted that Britain
could only recognise the independence of the southern states after the northern states had
done so.136 Palmerston argued that the Lewis Doctrine was not consistent with historical
events, but he was sure that ‘the pugilists must fight a few more rounds before the
bystanders can decide that the states should be divided between them’.137 In the final
analysis, however, Palmerston agreed with Lyons that it would be preferable if Britain
did not play any ‘prominent part in the final settlement of the quarrel’.138 This formal
position persisted to the end of the war.
Analysis
The dispute between the English school and the offensive realists does not revolve
around whether or not great powers are influenced by the distribution of power in the
international system but whether or not the preoccupation with power is tempered by an
appreciation of legal and normative constraints. There is no doubt that the Europeans
were very conscious of the expanding power of the United States during the course of the
nineteenth century. But whereas the French and British were both interested in curbing
US power in the 1840s, by the start of the civil war the French certainly regarded the
expansion of the United States as an accomplished fact. Although they did not
acknowledge the Monroe Doctrine prohibition on European involvement in the Western
hemisphere, they did count on the United States as a ‘powerful ally against Britain’s
naval preponderance’.139 By the same token, the British were acutely aware of the
American challenge to their naval strength. During the decade before the civil war, the
United States became the world’s leading shipbuilding nation and the total tonnage of
American commercial shipping almost equaled that of Britain.140 But Britain was also
deeply enmeshed in the American economy. The chronic British balance of payments
deficit was offset by overseas investments and there was far more British investment in
the United States, mainly in the north, than in any European country.141 Nevertheless,
diplomatic relations between the two countries were not good and even issues over which
they attempted to cooperate, such as monitoring the illegal international slave trade, gave
rise to friction.142
135
10.26.1862 Russell to Lewis Russell Papers 30/22/14D
Adams 1914, 405
137
10.21.1862 Palmerston to Russell Russell Papers 30/22/14D
138
2.2.1863 Lyons to Russell FO/5/876
139
Case and Spencer (1970:590). Their analysis unquestionably undermines Elman’s(2004) hypothesis that
continental states have an interest in extra-regional balancing. It suggests that all the continental great
powers had an interest in the establishment of a counterweight to British naval power. This would certainly
explain the predisposition on the part of the Russians to favour the North. See Crook, (1974:252-3; 285-6;
317-8)
140
Jenkins (1974:74)
141
Crook (1974:4-9)
142
See Campbell (2003, ch.1) who surveys the areas of friction between Britain and the United States
during the decade before the civil war.
136
21
Throughout the civil war there was persistent mistrust between the two countries.
Seward and Lincoln did not consider the British position to be neutral. They were seen to
favour the South and to pursue tactics that aimed to promote the division of the United
States. There was a perennial fear that the British would intervene on the side of the
South. At the same time, the British were also constantly concerned that the United States
wanted to draw Britain into a war and then to annex Canada. Palmerston wrote in
November 7 1861 that relations with the United States were on a ‘precarious footing’ and
that Seward and Lincoln ‘may at any time and on any pretence come to a rupture with
us’. He went on to argue that what might tempt them to go to war with Britain was
Canada’s ‘imperfect state of Defence’.143 The following day, a US warship stopped and
searched the Trent, a British mail packet and, without any authorization from
Washington, removed John Slidell and James Mason, along with their dispatch bags - the
two men had been appointed by the Confederates to act as ambassadors in Paris and
London. The British demanded an apology from the United States as well as the release
of the two confederates. Neither side wanted war, but both were suspicious of the other’s
motives. Although the French helped to persuade the Americans to back down, the
British took the prospect of war with the United States very seriously. 144 There is no
evidence at this time, therefore, to support Elman’s thesis that the British favoured
American expansion because they assumed that the United States would act as a balancer
of last resort in Europe. On the contrary, the evidence supports Mearsheimer’s
assumption that the British did not relish the thought of a regional hegemon in the
Western hemisphere. On the other hand, the evidence does not support his notion that the
British assumed that the South would lose, even with British support. For some time it
was widely believed that the North would be unable to hold onto the South.145 But at no
point was there any thought of giving military assistance to the South.
The British adopted a position of neutrality because it was in their interest to do
so. They were resigned to US hegemony in the Western hemisphere in the 1850s. As
Palmerston noted in 1857 ‘we have given way Step by Step to the North Americans on
almost every disputed matter, and I fear that we shall have more or less to do so upon
every other Question except the maintenance of our own Provinces and of our West
Indian Islands’.146 Although Palmerston believed that it would badly damage Britain’s
position to lose their possessions in the Western hemisphere, he acknowledged during the
civil war that there were those in the Colonial Office ‘who think that our chief duty is to
try to get rid of them all as soon as possible’.147 There was no debate about maintaining a
143
11.7.1861, Palmerston to Newcastle, BM48582
For a very full account of the French role, see Case and Spencer (1970: Ch. 6). See also Crook (1974:Ch
5) and Mahin (2000: Ch.5). As a result of the crisis, 17,000 regulars added to the existing forces in Canada.
Wellard (2000)
145
As Crook (1974:375) notes ‘The long-term problem for Britain must have seemed not how to exploit
American weakness, but how best to face up to the international results of the rebellion’s inevitable
success’.
146
Documents American Historical Review 42, No 34, 1936-37, p 500. cited in Crook (1974:3). See also
Jenkins(1974:75) who suggests that ‘forebearance and concessions were the perpetual price of friendship
with the United States’. The evidence suggests that the United States was adopting a hegemonic position
through much of the nineteenth century.
147
11.7.1861, Palmerston to Newcastle, BM48582
144
22
balance of power in North America during the American Civil War and so
Mearsheimer’s position, like Eman’s does not come close to fitting the facts.
At the same time, the absence of any discussion of the balance of power also
poses the English school with a problem because of the central role it plays in their
thinking. Crook concludes that fortunately for the Union ‘the civil war coincided with the
first major revision of the European power balance which had lasted since the Napoleonic
wars’.148 He presumes, in other words, that regional considerations outweighed any
concern about a major potential change in the global balance of power. But this argument
overlooks the extent to which the Europeans had already accepted American hegemony
in the Western hemisphere and his own argument that the British may well have accepted
that their interests were more likely to flourish ‘in a stable hemisphere based upon United
States power’.149 In any event, developments in North America certainly fit
Mearsheimer’s regionalized framework better than Bull’s notion that concern with the
global balance of power will take precedence over local balances of power. On the other
hand, if power politics only became global in the second half of the twentieth century,
then the normative framework associated with international society could assume much
more significance for an understanding of the global dimensions of the nineteenth
century. The American Civil War certainly indicates that a common normative
framework shared by the North Americans and the Europeans was very significant in tha
way international events played out.150
Even before the attack on Fort Sumter it was reasonably clear what the
parameters of the international framework within which the civil war operated would
look like. There were three possible options. The outside powers could have recognised
the secession states (i) as rebels; (ii) as belligerents in a regular war; or (iii) a new state in
the international system. Lincoln and Seward were adamant that the confederates should
be treated as rebels and felt very bitter that the European states and in particular Britain,
recognized the Confederates as belligerents. Seward, however, was particularly irritated
with Dayton, the US ambassador in Paris who had accepted that the confederates were
belligerents. What Seward wanted to do was to deny the constitutive nature of the state.
He argued that it was not possible for declarations by France and Britain to ‘impair the
sovereignty of the United States over the insurgents nor confer upon them any public
rights whatsoever’.151 But, of course, this was exactly what the declarations accomplished
and there was nothing that Seward could do to change the situation. As Thouvenel
argued, ‘the status of belligerent is a question of fact rather than of principle’ and what
the insurgents had to do was to establish ‘doubt as to the final outcome’ in the eyes of
outside powers. Once they did that, then international law requires that foreign powers,
without prejudice to the final results of the clash of forces ‘keep an attitude of
impartiality toward the two contestants’.152 This was not, however, a question of fact, but
a question of judgement. But in this instance, the Europeans were able to argue that the
United States, by implementing a blockade were concurring with this judgment, because
148
Crook (1974:372)
Crook (1974:374)
150
International law plays a significant role in the analysis of the international dimensions of civil war
provided by Case and Spencer(1970) and Crook(1974).
151
July 1st 1861 cited in Case and Spencer (1970:74)
152
From the instructions given to Mercier. See Case and Spencer (1970:55)
149
23
a blockade constituted the Confederates as belligerents just as effectively as the French
and British declarations. The Unionists by the ‘averted glance’ strategy attempted to
ignore the European declarations, but they were unable to prevent the European from
treating the blockade as a constitutive act. Moreover they had to deal with the fact that
the Europeans constituted themselves as neutrals. They could have ignored this
development, but only at the risk of precipitating war. One of the first moves, therefore,
was to attempt to adhere to the 1856 Declaration of Paris. The aim of such a move was to
render American privateers illegal, thereby forcing the French and British to treat the
Southern privateers as pirates. But the French and British argued that such a move would
infringe their status as neutrals and they rejected the offer of adherence until the civil war
was over.153 By contrast, when the British demanded an apology for the boarding of the
Trent, the Americans recognized that this represented a marked and liberal shift in the
British position on neutral rights at sea. The Unionists then unsuccessfully mooted the
idea of a conference on international law of the sea to consolidate what had always been
their view of neutral rights at sea.154
Much of the tension that existed between Britain and the United States during the
civil war revolved around disputes that arose from the legal rights and duties of neutrals.
The Americans were particularly aggrieved by the British interpretation of their neutrality
law of 1819 (modeled on the 1818 US neutrality law). The law outlawed the fitting out,
equipping or arming vessels for military purposes in a war in which Britain was neutral.
According to the British interpretation, however, the law was not contravened if the
equipping and arming of the vessel was accomplished as a separate operation from the
building of the vessel. Foreign Office legal advisers, however, favoured a more stringent
interpretation ‘because they were apprehensive about Britain’s naval interests in a future
war’.155 The Alabama, a cruiser built in Liverpool sailed down the Mersey in July 1862
for the Azores, where it then took on British supplied arms and went onto cause very
substantial damage to Northern shipping. There had, however, been a prolonged legal
tussle about whether there was evidence that would stand up in a British court to allow
the British government to seize the vessel. Eventually, on advice from the SolicitorGeneral and the Attorney-General, Russell did order the Alabama to be detained, but the
order arrived too late.156 Crook notes that while the Americans had been ‘notoriously
ardent in the cause of neutral profiteering in other people’s wars’ their views changed
dramatically during the civil war.157 Compensation was demanded for the damage caused
by the Alabama and other costs incurred as the result of British actions during the civil
war. Initially the British refused to accept that they had failed to meet the obligations of a
neutral government. But they recognized that the Alabama established a dangerous
precedent and they wanted to clarify that neutrals were not permitted to build vessels that
could be used as warships in an ongoing war. After a Royal Commission in 1870, new
153
See Case and Spencer (1970:391)
The British had in the past regularly boarded neutral ships. See Case and Spencer (1970:Ch 6) and
Crook(1974:Ch 5) for a very full discussion of the legal consequences of the Trent incident.
155
Crook (1974:259)
156
By contrast, the British had agreed in March that the Florida could leave Liverpool on the grounds that
it was unarmed. It was then armed in Nassau in the Bahamas. By contrast, after the Alabama escaped,
British customs did then seize a series of cruisers that were identified as destined for the Confederates.
157
Crook (1974:261). Crook (1974:295) also notes that it is often forgotten that the United States had
earlier refused to concert with the British to clarify the law.
154
24
legislation was enacted to clarify this point. The British then agreed to arbitrate the
Alabama claims under the new legislation rather than the 1819 legislation that had been
in place during the civil war.158 The price that the British had to pay to repair relations
with the United States and consolidate a new view of neutrality was $15 million.
It is not possible to understand relations between Britain and the United States
during the American Civil War if the existence of a mutually constituted and
intersubjective framework of norms is not taken into account. All the interactions
throughout the conflict were informed by these rules. There is no question of the rules
being regarded as non-consequential or that the various parties regarded themselves as
operating under a regime of organized hypocrisy. On the contrary, each side was very
determined to demonstrate that they were operating within the letter of law and that the
other parties are operating according to their interpretation of the law. When the British
government permitted the Florida to leave Britain, they did so because they did not
accept that they were legally entitled to detain the ship. There was a disagreement
amongst the British officials, but it arose from divergent views about how the law should
be interpreted. As the damage caused by the Alabama mounted, and the potential
compensation claims against Britain increased, it is unsurprising to find that those
officials who favoured a more flexible interpretation of the law, allowing ships to be
seized even when there was insufficient evidence to ascertain the destination of the ship,
should have become more influential. But this shift in Britain’s position still fails to
provide support for the organized hypocrisy thesis.
Conclusion
The American Civil War represents a crucial event in modern international history that
has been insufficiently accommodated within the contemporary study of international
relations. What this paper attempts to do is to demonstrate the significance of the case for
contemporary theorists. It acknowledges the importance of Mearsheimer’s conception of
offensive realism in the sense that his framework points to the importance of establishing
a regional focus. Developments in North America during the nineteenth century are
essentially out of kilter with almost all IR theory. There has been a failure by IR theorists
to capture the reality international relations during that century. Wohlforth moves in the
right direction when he argues that we should stop thinking of the nineteenth century in
terms of a Pax Britannica.159 But he fails to grasp the importance of the establishment of
US hegemony over North America. What the rise of the United States demonstrates is
that although it may make sense to talk of an offshore or extra-regional balancer in the
twentieth century, there was no equivalent during the nineteenth century. Elman is
undoubtedly correct when he argues that there was no state that was willing to act as a
balancer in North America in the nineteenth century.160 Where he goes wrong is to
postulate that the British were able to envisage the United States acting as an extraregional balancer to help Britain in the future. But this was not because they were
incapable of thinking in global terms. Russell was acutely conscious during the American
Civil War of the consequences of victory for the North and saw that a Russo-American
158
See Crook (1974: Ch 10) and Mahin (2000: Epilogue 2)
Wohlforth(1999:39) argues that we should see the first half as a Pax Britannica et Russica, between
1853 to 1871 there were no dominant powers, and then from 1871 it was a Pax Britannica et Germanica.
160
Elman (2004)
159
25
agreement had the capacity to produce a new balance of power in the world with these
two states establishing primacy on the world stage. Ultimately, he argued, they could
establish two spheres of influence, one in the East and the other in the West.161 But
contrary to Mearsheimer’s thesis, there was simply no thought of attempting to curb
American power. The British were much too preoccupied with Russian hegemony. The
system was more hemispherically regionalized that Mearsheimer acknowledges.
Although members of the English school fully recognize the importance of
power politics, they too have failed to think through the implications of the
hemispherically regionalized nature of the international system. But while they overlook
the essentially fragmented nature of the power political system, their framework does
presuppose that the United States was tied very tightly into the legal and normative
framework established by the Europeans. So, paradoxically, although the Europeans were
unable to make any effective moves to prevent the expansion of the United States, they
were nevertheless constrained by the complex body of rules that helped to define the
nineteenth century international society. Although both the North and the South
complained persistently about how the rules were being implemented, there is no doubt
that the Europeans were constrained by these rules and that there was an intersubjective
understanding that Europe and the Americas were part of a rule governed international
society. Although Crook insists that the unity of the United States was ultimately
preserved by European power politics, this assessment underestimates both the
hemispherically regionalized nature of the international system and significance of
normative framework that bound the Europeans and the North Americans together.162
Although English school theory remains underdeveloped, by acknowledging that there is
a need to take account of both power politics and rule governed behaviour, it is moving in
the right direction.
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