CDV OF CONFEDERATE POLITICIAN JOHN SLIDELL OF THE FAMOUS “TRENT AFFAIR.”

$200.00

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Item Code: 1139-421

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Image has Slidell posed with one hand on his hip and the other resting on top of a book on a table. He wears a black suit, white shirt and dark bowtie.

Contrast and clarity are good. Mount is good. The bottom edge of the paper has some light surface wear.

Reverse has a photographer’s imprint for E & H. T. ANTHONY… FROM A BRADY NEGATIVE. Top has a period pencil ID of “SLIDELL.”

John Slidell was born in New York City in 1793. He graduated from Columbia College in 1810.

Prior to the Mexican War, Slidell was sent to Mexico, by President James Knox Polk, to negotiate an agreement whereby the Rio Grande would be the southern border of Texas. He also was instructed to offer, among other alternatives, a maximum of $25 million for California by Polk and his administration. Slidell warned Polk that the Mexican reluctance to negotiate a peaceful solution might require a show of military force to defend the border by the United States. Under the command of General Zachary Taylor, U.S. troops were sent into the disputed area between the Rio Grande and Nueces Rivers. The Mexican government, in a state of chaos at the time, rejected Slidell's mission. After Mexican forces repelled a U.S. scouting expedition, the United States declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846.

Slidell was elected to the Senate in 1853 and cast his lot with other pro-Southern congressmen to repeal the Missouri Compromise, acquire Cuba, and admit Kansas as a slave state. In the 1860 campaign Slidell supported Democratic presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge, but remained a pro-Union moderate until Abraham Lincoln's election resulted in the Southern states seceding. At the Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860, Slidell plotted with "Fire-Eaters" such as William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama to stymie the nomination of the popular Northern Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.

Slidell soon accepted a diplomatic appointment to represent the Confederacy in France. Slidell was one of the two Confederate diplomats involved in the Trent Affair in November 1861. After he was appointed the Confederate commissioner to France in September, 1861, he ran the blockade from Charleston, South Carolina, with James Murray Mason of Virginia. They then set sail from Havana on the British mail boat steamer RMS Trent but were intercepted by the US Navy while en route and taken into captivity at Fort Warren in Boston.

The Northern public erupted with a huge display of triumphalism at this dramatic capture. Even the cool-headed Lincoln was swept along in the celebratory spirit, but when he and his cabinet studied the likely consequences of a war with Britain, their enthusiasm waned. After some careful diplomatic exchanges, they admitted that the capture had been conducted contrary to maritime law and that private citizens could not be classified as "enemy dispatches." Slidell and Mason were released, and war was averted.

After the resolution of the Trent Affair, the two diplomats set sail for England on January 1, 1862. From England, Slidell at once went to Paris, where, in February 1862, he paid his first visit to the French minister of foreign affairs. His mission to gain recognition of the Confederate States by France failed, as did his effort to negotiate a commercial agreement for France to get control of Southern cotton if the blockade were broken. In both cases, France refused to move without the co-operation of England. He succeeded in negotiating a loan of $15,000,000 from Emile Erlanger & Co. and in securing the ship "Stonewall" for the Confederate government.

Slidell moved to Paris, France, after the Civil War. He died on the Isle of Wight, England, at age 78. He is interred in the Saint-Roman family private cemetery near Paris.  [ad] [ph:L]

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