Such Certainly Had Been My Belief As To The Country.
I speak here
of my opinion as to the ultimate success of secession and the folly
of the war, repudiating any concurrence of my own in the ignoble
but natural sentiment alluded to in the last paragraph.
I
certainly did think that the Northern States, if wise, would have
let the Southern States go. I had blamed Buchanan as a traitor for
allowing the germ of secession to make any growth; and as I thought
him a traitor then, so do I think him a traitor now. But I had
also blamed Lincoln, or rather the government of which Mr. Lincoln
in this matter is no more than the exponent, for his efforts to
avoid that which is inevitable. In this I think that I - or as I
believe I may say we, we Englishmen - were wrong. I do not see how
the North, treated as it was and had been, could have submitted to
secession without resistance. We all remember what Shakspeare says
of the great armies which were led out to fight for a piece of
ground not large enough to cover the bodies of those who would be
slain in the battle; but I do not remember that Shakspeare says
that the battle was on this account necessarily unreasonable. It
is the old point of honor which, till it had been made absurd by
certain changes of circumstances, was always grand and usually
beneficent. These changes of circumstances have altered the manner
in which appeal may be made, but have not altered the point of
honor.
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