neighbors.

And do others spare us? will be the instant reply of all who may
read this. In my counter reply I make bold to place myself and my
country on very high ground, and to say that we, the older and
therefore more experienced people as regards the United States, and
the better governed as regards France, and the stronger as regards
all the world beyond, should not throw mud again even though mud be
thrown at us. I yield the path to a small chimney-sweeper as
readily as to a lady; and forbear from an interchange of courtesies
with a Billingsgate heroine, even though at heart I may have a
proud consciousness that I should not altogether go to the wall in
such an encounter.

I left England in August last--August, 1861. At that time, and for
some months previous, I think that the general English feeling on
the American question was as follows: "This wide-spread nationality
of the United States, with its enormous territorial possessions and
increasing population, has fallen asunder, torn to pieces by the
weight of its own discordant parts--as a congregation when its size
has become unwieldy will separate, and reform itself into two
wholesome wholes. It is well that this should be so, for the
people are not homogeneous, as a people should be who are called to
live together as one nation. They have attempted to combine free-
soil sentiments with the practice of slavery, and to make these two
antagonists live together in peace and unity under the same roof;
but, as we have long expected, they have failed. Now has come the
period for separation; and if the people would only see this, and
act in accordance with the circumstances which Providence and the
inevitable hand of the world's Ruler has prepared for them, all
would be well. But they will not do this. They will go to war
with each other. The South will make her demands for secession
with an arrogance and instant pressure which exasperates the North;
and the North, forgetting that an equable temper in such matters is
the most powerful of all weapons, will not recognize the strength
of its own position. It allows itself to be exasperated, and goes
to war for that which if regained would only be injurious to it.
Thus millions on millions sterling will be spent. A heavy debt
will be incurred; and the North, which divided from the South might
take its place among the greatest of nations, will throw itself
back for half a century, and perhaps injure the splendor of its
ultimate prospects. If only they would be wise, throw down their
arms, and agree to part! But they will not."

This was I think the general opinion when I left England. It would
not, however, be necessary to go back many months to reach the time
when Englishmen were saying how impossible it was that so great a
national power should ignore its own greatness and destroy its own
power by an internecine separation. But in August last all that
had gone by, and we in England had realized the probability of
actual secession.

To these feelings on the subject maybe added another, which was
natural enough though perhaps not noble. "These western cocks have
crowed loudly," we said; "too loudly for the comfort of those who
live after all at no such great distance from them. It is well
that their combs should be clipped. Cocks who crow so very loudly
are a nuisance. It might have gone so far that the clipping would
become a work necessarily to be done from without. But it is ten
times better for all parties that it should be done from within;
and as the cocks are now clipping their own combs, in God's name
let them do it, and the whole world will be the quieter." That, I
say, was not a very noble idea; but it was natural enough, and
certainly has done somewhat in mitigating that grief which the
horrors of civil war and the want of cotton have caused to us in
England.

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.


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