But Such Ascendency Could Only
Fall To The North By Reason Of Their Command Of The Sea.
The
Northern ports were all open, and the Southern ports were all
closed.
But if this should be reversed. If by England's action
the Southern ports should be opened, and the Northern ports closed,
the North could have no fair expectation of success. The
ascendency in that case would all be with the South. Up to that
moment - the Christmas of 1861 - Maryland was kept in subjection by
the guns which General Dix had planted over the City of Baltimore.
Two-thirds of Virginia were in active rebellion, coerced originally
into that position by her dependence for the sale of her slaves on
the cotton States. Kentucky was doubtful, and divided. When the
Federal troops prevailed, Kentucky was loyal; when the Confederate
troops prevailed, Kentucky was rebellious. The condition in
Missouri was much the same. These four States, by two of which the
capital, with its District of Columbia, is surrounded, might be
gained or might be lost. And these four States are susceptible of
white labor - as much so as Ohio and Illinois - are rich in
fertility, and rich also in all associations which must be dear to
Americans. Without Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, without the
Potomac, the Chesapeake, and Mount Vernon, the North would indeed
be shorn of its glory! But it seemed to be in the power of the
North to say under what terms secession should take place, and
where should be the line. A Senator from South Carolina could
never again sit in the same chamber with one from Massachusetts;
but there need be no such bar against the border States. So much
might at any rate be gained, and might stand hereafter as the
product of all that money spent on 600,000 soldiers. But if the
Northerners should now elect to throw themselves into a quarrel
with England, if in the gratification of a shameless braggadocio
they should insist on doing what they liked, not only with their
own, but with the property of all others also, it certainly did
seem as though utter ruin must await their cause. With England, or
one might say with Europe, against them, secession must be
accomplished, not on Northern terms, but on terms dictated by the
South. The choice was then for them to make; and just at that time
it seemed as though they were resolved to throw away every good
card out of their hand. Such had been the ministerial wisdom of
Mr. Seward. I remember hearing the matter discussed in easy terms
by one of the United States Senators. "Remember, Mr. Trollope," he
said to me, "we don't want a war with England. If the choice is
given to us, we had rather not fight England. Fighting is a bad
thing. But remember this also, Mr. Trollope, that if the matter is
pressed on us, we have no great objection. We had rather not, but
we don't care much one way or the other." What one individual may
say to another is not of much moment, but this Senator was
expressing the feelings of his constituents, who were the
legislature of the State from whence he came. He was expressing
the general idea on the subject of a large body of Americans. It
was not that he and his State had really no objection to the war.
Such a war loomed terribly large before the minds of them all.
They know it to be fraught with the saddest consequences. It was
so regarded in the mind of that Senator. But the braggadocio could
not be omitted. Had be omitted it, he would have been untrue to
his constituency.
When I left Boston for Washington, nothing was as yet known of what
the English government or the English lawyers might say. This was
in the first week in December, and the expected voice from England
could not be heard till the end of the second week. It was a
period of great suspense, and of great sorrow also to the more
sober-minded Americans. To me the idea of such a war was terrible.
It seemed that in these days all the hopes of our youth were being
shattered. That poetic turning of the sword into a sickle, which
gladdened our hearts ten or twelve years since, had been clean
banished from men's minds. To belong to a peace party was to be
either a fanatic, an idiot, or a driveler. The arts of war had
become everything. Armstrong guns, themselves indestructible but
capable of destroying everything within sight, and most things out
of sight, were the only recognized results of man's inventive
faculties. To build bigger, stronger, and more ships than the
French was England's glory. To hit a speck with a rifle bullet at
800 yards distance was an Englishman's first duty. The proper use
for a young man's leisure hours was the practice of drilling. All
this had come upon us with very quick steps since the beginning of
the Russian war. But if fighting must needs be done, one did not
feel special grief at fighting a Russian. That the Indian mutiny
should be put down was a matter of course. That those Chinese
rascals should be forced into the harness of civilization was a
good thing. That England should be as strong as France - or,
perhaps, if possible a little stronger - recommended itself to an
Englishman's mind as a State necessity. But a war with the States
of America! In thinking of it I began to believe that the world
was going backward. Over sixty millions sterling of stock - railway
stock and such like - are held in America by Englishmen, and the
chances would be that before such a war could be finished the whole
of that would be confiscated. Family connections between the
States and the British isles are almost as close as between one of
those islands and another. The commercial intercourse between the
two countries has given bread to millions of Englishmen, and a
break in it would rob millions of their bread.
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