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. Had the Southern States sought to obtain secession by
constitutional means, they might or might not have been successful;
but if successful, there would have been no war. I do not mean to
brand all the Southern States with treason, nor do I intend to say
that, having secession at heart, they could have obtained it by
constitutional means. But I do intend to say that, acting as they
did, demanding secession not constitutionally, but in opposition to
the constitution, taking upon themselves the right of breaking up a
nationality of which they formed only a part, and doing that
without consent of the other part, opposition from the North and
war was an inevitable consequence.
It is, I think, only necessary to look back to the Revolution by
which the United States separated themselves from England to see
this. There is hardly to be met, here and there, an Englishman who
now regrets the loss of the revolted American colonies; who now
thinks that civilization was retarded and the world injured by that
revolt; who now conceives that England should have expended more
treasure and more lives in the hope of retaining those colonies.
It is agreed that the revolt was a good thing; that those who were
then rebels became patriots by success, and that they deserved well
of all coming ages of mankind. But not the less absolutely
necessary was it that England should endeavor to hold her own. She
was as the mother bird when the young bird will fly alone. She
suffered those pangs which Nature calls upon mothers to endure.
As was the necessity of British opposition to American
independence, so was the necessity of Northern opposition to
Southern secession. I do not say that in other respects the two
cases were parallel. The States separated from us because they
would not endure taxation without representation - in other words,
because they were old enough and big enough to go alone. The South
is seceding from the North because the two are not homogeneous.
They have different instincts, different appetites, different
morals, and a different culture. It is well for one man to say
that slavery has caused the separation, and for another to say that
slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying speaks the truth.
Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the great point on
which the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has not caused
it, seeing that other points of difference are to be found in every
circumstance and feature of the two people. The North and the
South must ever be dissimilar. In the North labor will always be
honorable, and because honorable, successful. In the South labor
has ever been servile - at least in some sense - and therefore
dishonorable; and because dishonorable, has not, to itself, been
successful. In the South, I say, labor ever has been dishonorable;
and I am driven to confess that I have not hitherto seen a sign of
any change in the Creator's fiat on this matter. That labor will
be honorable all the world over as years advance and the millennium
draws nigh, I for one never doubt.
So much for English opinion about America in August last. And now
I will venture to say a word or two as to American feeling
respecting this English opinion at that period. It will of course
be remembered by all my readers that, at the beginning of the war,
Lord Russell, who was then in the lower house, declared, as Foreign
Secretary of State, that England would regard the North and South
as belligerents, and would remain neutral as to both of them. This
declaration gave violent offense to the North, and has been taken
as indicating British sympathy with the cause of the seceders. I
am not going to explain - indeed, it would be necessary that I
should first understand - the laws of nations with regard to
blockaded ports, privateering, ships and men and goods contraband
of war, and all those semi-nautical, semi-military rules and axioms
which it is necessary that all attorneys-general and such like
should, at the present moment, have at their fingers' end. But it
must be evident to the most ignorant in those matters, among which
large crowd I certainly include myself, that it was essentially
necessary that Lord John Russell should at that time declare openly
what England intended to do.
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