But I Hold
That Citizen King Of The French In Small Esteem, Seeing That He
Made No Fight; And I Know That England Was Bound To Struggle When
The Boston People Threw Her Tea Into The Water.
Spain keeps a
tighter hand on Cuba than we thought she would some ten years
since, and therefore she stands higher in the world's respect.
It may be well that the South should be divided from the North. I
am inclined to think that it would be well - at any rate for the
North; but the South must have been aware that such division could
only be effected in two ways: either by agreement, in which case
the proposition must have been brought forward by the South and
discussed by the North, or by violence. They chose the latter way,
as being the readier and the surer, as most seceding nations have
done. O'Connell, when struggling for the secession of Ireland,
chose the other, and nothing came of it. The South chose violence,
and prepared for it secretly and with great adroitness. If that be
not rebellion, there never has been rebellion since history began;
and if civil war was ever justified in one portion of a nation by
turbulence in another, it has now been justified in the Northern
States of America.
What was the North to do; this foolish North, which has been so
liberally told by us that she has taken up arms for nothing, that
she is fighting for nothing, and will ruin herself for nothing?
When was she to take the first step toward peace? Surely every
Englishman will remember that when the earliest tidings of the
coming quarrel reached us on the election of Mr. Lincoln, we all
declared that any division was impossible; it was a mere madness to
speak of it. The States, which were so great in their unity, would
never consent to break up all their prestige and all their power by
a separation! Would it have been well for the North then to say,
"If the South wish it we will certainly separate?" After that,
when Mr. Lincoln assumed the power to which he had been elected,
and declared with sufficient manliness, and sufficient dignity
also, that he would make no war upon the South, but would collect
the customs and carry on the government, did we turn round and
advise him that he was wrong? No. The idea in England then was
that his message was, if anything, too mild. "If he means to be
President of the whole Union," England said, "he must come out with
something stronger than that." Then came Mr. Seward's speech,
which was, in truth, weak enough. Mr. Seward had ran Mr. Lincoln
very hard for the President's chair on the Republican interest, and
was, most unfortunately, as I think, made Secretary of State by Mr.
Lincoln, or by his party. The Secretary of State holds the highest
office in the United States government under the President.
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