Remonstrance Was Made To Him, Pointing
Out The Misfortunes Which His Action, Or Want Of Action, Would Bring
Upon The Country.
"Not in my time," he answered.
"It will not be
in my time." So that he might escape unscathed out of the fire,
this chief ruler of a nation of thirty millions of men was content
to allow treason and rebellion to work their way! I venture to say
so much here as showing how impossible it was that Mr. Lincoln's
government, on its coming into office, should have given to the
South, not what the South had asked, for the South had not asked,
but what the South had taken, what the South had tried to filch.
Had the South waited for secession till Mr. Lincoln had been in his
chair, I could understand that England should sympathize with her.
For myself I cannot agree to that scuttling of the ship by the
captain on the day which was to see the transfer of his command to
another officer.
The Southern States were driven into rebellion by no wrongs
inflicted on them; but their desire for secession is not on that
account matter for astonishment. It would have been surprising had
they not desired secession. Secession of one kind, a very practical
secession, had already been forced upon them by circumstances. They
had become a separate people, dissevered from the North by habits,
morals, institutions, pursuits, and every conceivable difference in
their modes of thought and action. They still spoke the same
language, as do Austria and Prussia; but beyond that tie of language
they had no bond but that of a meager political union in their
Congress at Washington.
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