The Most Famous Statesman in the World
William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) was arguably the most popular prime minister in British history, and he undoubtedly ranks among the period’s most eminent Victorians. Yet what more can be written about him? The published literature now exceeds 600 works and will likely keep growing, if at a slower pace than during the bicentennials of his death and birth. Perhaps Colin Matthew best captured the continued fascination: “An assessment of Gladstone is a personification of an assessment of Britain’s moment in world history.” He was the towering figure of that moment. By the mid-1860s he was known affectionately as the “People’s William” and, from the early 1880s, the “Grand Old Man.” His populist brand of political oratory—more American in style than British—was embraced by commoners, and his cult-like following at home spread throughout the English-speaking world and beyond.1 As leader of the Liberal Party for almost 30 years, Gladstone’s career in public affairs was nothing short of legendary, comprising 62 years as an MP and an unprecedented four terms as prime minister. In later years, his celebrity status was exploited, as his name was affixed to commercial products such as umbrellas, carriages, claret, and, most famously, the Gladstone Bag.2 By century’s end, countless towns, parks, and streets were named “Gladstone” from New Zealand to North America. He was the most famous statesman in the world and that was no less true in the United States.
The primary objective of this book is to demonstrate the extent to which Gladstone acted as a catalyst for opinions in the American press, an aspect of the statesman heretofore not considered, but one cannot fully appreciate his influence without some sense of how famous he was in the United States during the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Few in our time know, for example, that no fewer than 14 cities and villages throughout the United States are named Gladstone.3 By 1887, his star shone so brightly in the American firmament that the US Constitutional Centennial Commission invited him to preside as sole foreign dignitary at the Philadelphia commemoration, a request he reluctantly declined.4 That same year, a delegation of distinguished Americans—headed by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer and US Congressman Perry Belmont—traveled to London and presented him with an elaborate three-foot-high silver testimonial trophy on behalf of over 10,000 New Yorkers in honor of his service to the cause of Irish Home Rule and religious liberty.5 And among Gladstone’s American admirers was a future president, Woodrow Wilson, who in his teenage years purportedly hung a portrait of the statesman above his desk at home. When a visiting cousin inquired about it, he declared, “That is Gladstone, the greatest statesman who ever lived. I intend to be a statesman too.”6
If Gladstone became a legend in life, he achieved virtual sainthood in death. Granted a state funeral, an honor rarely afforded those outside the monarchy, thousands of ordinary citizens filed past his body as it lay in repose at Westminster Hall. His apotheosis was consummated in 1903, when an over-life-sized marble statue in his likeness was placed in Westminster Abbey.7 In the United States, news of his death set off a wave of national grief more closely resembling the passing of an American president. As Chap. 9 will highlight, mourners across the country crowded churches to hear Gladstone eulogized as the greatest Christian statesman of the century. Comparisons to Abraham Lincoln appeared in published memorials and obituaries, and from the nation’s capital Vice President Garret Hobart cabled the London Daily Chronicle declaring: “Not even in his own land was Mr. Gladstone more highly esteemed and venerated than in the United States.”8 The Chicago Tribune pronounced his career “unsurpassed if not unequaled by that of any other statesman in the long history of civil and religious liberty in all Christendom.”9 As will become apparent in this study, Gladstone was not without his critics in the United States, but millions of its citizens idolized him as a standard-bearer of their values. Considering that popularity, it is perhaps only slightly overstated to call him “America’s William.”
Yet given the troubled history of Anglo-American relations during the nineteenth century, it is reasonable to ask: how did a British statesman become such an iconic personality in the United States? After all, formal rapprochement between the two nations would not be achieved until World War I, and the so-called special relationship would not be forged until World War II. Diplomatic tensions arose frequently throughout the nineteenth century over the Monroe Doctrine, the disputed Oregon territory, and US complicity in the slave trade.10 The American Civil War had been especially problematic. Despite an official government position of neutrality, many in Britain harbored sympathies toward the South even if they objected to slavery. A chief concern was the loss of southern cotton, a vital component of the lucrative British textile industry. For his part, Gladstone was ambivalent about the war. His firm belief in the principle of national self-determination had given him pause, and, with news of Confederate triumphs early on in the conflict, he had publicly betrayed his doubts about Union success during his 1862 Newcastle speech. There he infamously declared that Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy had “made a nation.” Given that Gladstone was Palmerston’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, the pronouncement at Newcastle had violated the spirit if not the letter of British neutrality.11
Although Gladstone later took pains to distance himself from the remarks, the speech was considered hostile by the Lincoln administration, and it was excoriated in the northern press. An article of November 2, 1862, in the New York Times titled “A Rebuke to Mr. Gladstone” brought the issue to the attention of Americans. It contained several reprinted articles from various British papers critical of the speech. A piece in the Daily News argued that the Cabinet should either acknowledge Gladstone’s statement as true or remove him from his position as Chancellor.12 Moreover, the speech had come just months after relations between Britain and the Union government had been strained by an incident involving the British mail carrier HMS Trent, which had raised the specter of war between the two nations. In November 1861 the vessel had been intercepted by USS San Jacinto in international waters and two Confederate diplomats aboard the Trent were taken into custody. The incident was at last resolved when the Lincoln administration agreed to release them.13 A second source of tension revolved around British-built Confederate ships, which had wreaked havoc on Union merchant marine vessels. The issue at stake concerned the extent to which the British should pay for damages inflicted by vessels such as the Confederate Alabama. (The lengthy controversy was eventually resolved through international arbitration at Geneva in 1872, an event brought about in large part through the efforts of Gladstone.14) The war had left Anglo-American relations deeply strained, and Gladstone had risen to leadership in the Liberal Party just two years after its conclusion.
As late as 1869, the memory of Gladstone’s offense of 1862 could still be found in America’s most respe...