North America, vol 1 | Page 6

be some
failure. But even the moonshine does good if it be not offensive
moonshine. What I would deprecate is, that aptness at reproach which
we assume; the readiness with scorn, the quiet words of insult, the
instant judgment and condemnation with which we are so inclined to
visit, not the great outward acts, but the smaller inward politics of our
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