"What!" The English
Reader Will Say, "Sundry States In The Union Refuse To Obey The
Laws Of The Union - Refuse To Submit To The Constitutional Action Of
Their Own Congress?" Yes.
Such has been the position of this
country!
To such a dead lock has it been brought by the attempted
but impossible amalgamation of North and South. Mr. Crittenden's
compromise was moonshine. It was utterly out of the question that
the free States should bind themselves to the rendition of escaped
slaves, or that Mr. Lincoln, who had just been brought in by their
voices, should agree to any compromise which should attempt so to
bind them. Lord Palmerston might as well attempt to reenact the
Corn Laws.
Then comes the question whether Mr. Lincoln or his government could
have prevented the war after he had entered upon his office in
March, 1861? I do not suppose that any one thinks that he could
have avoided secession and avoided the war also; that by any
ordinary effort of government he could have secured the adhesion of
the Gulf States to the Union after the first shot had been fired at
Fort Sumter. The general opinion in England is, I take it, this -
that secession then was manifestly necessary, and that all the
blood-shed and money-shed, and all this destruction of commerce and
of agriculture might have been prevented by a graceful adhesion to
an indisputable fact. But there are some facts, even some
indisputable facts, to which a graceful adherence is not possible.
Could King Bomba have welcomed Garibaldi to Naples?
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