Most Americans and Britons felt relief that war had been averted, at least for the time being. To Bostonians, the surrender of Mason and Slidell “was taken a good deal as a man swallows an emetic—not because he loves it, but because it is the best way of ridding himself of an unpleasant matter.” Not everyone was so stoic. Like Lincoln, many of his constituents harbored a grudge and looked forward to an opportunity for revenge. His good friend, Joseph Gillespie, took it badly; writing from Illinois, he noted that the “[p]eople are almost frantic with rage[.] We feel disgraced dishonored & outraged. … This blunder as I regard it of succumbing to England has ruined the Administration beyond redemption and if the war is not pushed on with becoming energy the cause of the Country and the Union is likewise gone.” “We have eaten our peck of dirt—and all at once!” exclaimed Henry Winter Davis in disgust. In a similar vein, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper remarked: “If we are compelled to eat dirt, let us improve the disgusting process to our profit.” An Illinois congressman reported from Washington that things “look very blue here. The humiliation of this country by the conduct of the Cabinet in giving up Slidell & Mason is almost too much to bear.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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