John Henry Temple, better known to students of British history as Lord Palmerston, stood at or near the apex of the British government for nearly 50 years. He was prime minister during the U.S. Civil War and was the powerful and nearly independent-of-everyone foreign minister for 16 years.
“Palmy” also had a stint as the home secretary — another of the “four great offices” of the British government, charged with maintaining law and order within the United Kingdom. Palmerston’s early career included two decades as the “secretary of war” — a junior minister at the time, where he was charged with overseeing the finances of the British military’s far-flung army.
A short portrait of Palmerston is contained within historian Peter Ackroyd’s Dominion, the fifth volume in Ackroyd’s compelling six-volume history of Great Britain. Dominion covers the years from Waterloo in 1815 to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and through to her death in January 1901.
She did not much care for Palmerston, but Lord Melbourne, the young Victoria’s first and perhaps favorite prime minister, explained to the queen that “there is no use in trying to stop Palmerston.”
On another occasion, Melbourne explained to the young monarch that her foreign minister possessed unequaled self-confidence, and that his “practice too is that nothing fails except weakness and timidity.”
“And this doctrine is generally right,” Melbourne added.
Elsewhere, Ackroyd recounts that Palmerston believed deeply that “commerce is the pioneer of civilization.”
Palmerston is most widely remembered for this maxim:
“Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
There is foreign policy “realism” in a nutshell.
The most relevant example to Americans of Palmerston’s realism was his conduct during our Civil War. As prime minister during the South’s long and bloody effort to secede from the United States, Palmerston did not allow the moral abomination of slavery to enter into his assessment of the course of the war and Great Britain’s neutrality during it.
During the early phase of the conflict, “Palmy” thought the South was likely to prevail but adopted a wait-and-see neutrality. England needed the Confederacy’s cotton exports, so he leaned toward recognizing and even helping the South until the Army of the Potomac prevailed at Antietam and repulsed the Army of Virginia’s first invasion of the North on Sept. 17, 1862.
The longtime (off and on from 1830 to 1865) British foreign secretary and prime minister Lord Palmerston said his nation has no permanent allies or enemies, but did have permanent interests. Palmerstonian policies enjoyed political support and served Britain and the world well for many years. Will Trump’s policies do so well? (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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The longtime (off and on from 1830 to 1865) British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston said his nation has no permanent allies or enemies but did have permanent interests — a similar approach to President Donald Trump. Palmerstonian policies enjoyed political support and served Britain and the world well for many years. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Palmerston, of course, knew England prohibited slavery and that the empire had worked for decades to end the slave trade from Africa to both North and South America, but “cotton was king” in that era, Great Britain’s economic health required a great volume of cotton imports, and the British prime minister acted in what he saw as the best interests of the United Kingdom.
Palmerston could and did hold forth for hours on British foreign policy. His most famous address concerned the “Don Pacifco” affair, which he delivered to the House of Commons on June 15, 1850. That single speech lasted nearly five hours.
In it, Palmerston defended Britain’s naval blockade of Greece, one designed to secure compensation for a British citizen, David Pacifico, whose property had been destroyed by an antisemitic mob in Athens. Pacifico, born in Gibraltar and thus a British citizen from birth, was a Jew whose Athens home and business were destroyed by violence fueled by antisemitism around Easter in 1847. Diplomacy had not worked to secure compensation for Pacifico, so Palmerston ordered a naval blockade to be imposed. The issue, he argued, was not the money, but justice for British citizens abroad.
That speech concluded with a famous comparison of all British citizens to Roman citizens of the ancient world: “As the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity when he could say, ‘Civis Romanus sum,’ so also a British subject … shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.”
The “Civis Romanus Sum” doctrine requires a superpower’s reach to back it up, but Imperial Britain had the Royal Navy, which closed the ports of Greece and set about seizing British shipping. After the Parliament backed Palmerston, Greece paid some of Pacifico’s claim, and Palmerston accepted that as a victory. The British public admired the speech and generally esteemed “Palmy” to his death in 1865. He was prime minister then and had been since 1859. That was his second term as PM, having first served in the position from 1855-1858.
There are no good ways to compare leaders from different eras, but if you haven’t yet thought about President Donald Trump when reading about Lord Palmerston, then either you haven’t been reading closely or don’t follow current events.
PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH BEGINS WITH FORWARD PLANNING
Trump is a unique figure in American political history, but the practice of putting national interest ahead of every other goal usually brings success in one’s own era, as well as the respect of history. Trump has done exactly that for most of his first six years as president.
If he stays that course, especially with regards to the battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 160 years down the road, the same sort of respect shown “Palmy” today will be shown “45-47” then.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
