THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 249 



the profound suggestion that this simple ex 

 pedient would remove for all time the tension 

 on the Canadian frontier due to the activities 

 of the Fenians. 



This project of Sumner s is illuminating as to 

 the practical quality of his statesmanship. He 

 assumed that the dismemberment of the British 

 Empire, because it was considered as an ideal 

 by politicians concerned in the internal prob 

 lems of England, could be demanded with im 

 punity by a foreign power as a sort of war 

 indemnity for a purely constructive war. 



Hamilton Fish became secretary of state in 

 the spring of 1869, and devoted himself from 

 the outset to a serious but not ostentatious 

 effort to overcome the ill effects of Sumner s 

 speech and bring the negotiations back to at 

 least as hopeful a situation as that in which 

 Seward had left them. The Gladstone cabinet, 

 with Lord Clarendon at the Foreign Office, was 

 as eager as Fish to work toward an adjustment. 

 On both sides, however, the difficulties were 

 great. British susceptibilities had been so out 

 raged by Sumner s extravagant demands that 

 any sign of concession to them by Clarendon 

 would destroy the Gladstone government. On 

 the other hand, American popular sentiment 



