"Editorial: England and a Southern Confederacy – 7-8"
- "Those persons, South or North, who look for the speedy recognition of the independence of a Southern Confederacy by the Government of the United States, would do well to dismiss that delusion as speedily as possible.
That recognition will come when the South compel it, and not before.
It is all very well to talk of the horrors of war, the blessings of peace, and the shameful spectacle which civil war would present in this enlightened age.
But there are other things which are "shameful" as well as war.
There are other sources of blessing besides peace.
Human nature has not essentially changed since the age of CROMWELL and the Puritans.
And those who expect the people of this country to sit down quietly and see this FREE REPUBLIC prostrated in the dust, -- its liberties overthrown with its Constitution, -- its power defied and its flag disgraced, -- the fairest portion of its territory severed from the Union, -- a great Slave Empire planted on its Southern section, -- aiming at nothing but the extinction of every lingering vestige of humanity from millions of men, -- grasping the whole tropical continent and dedicating it forever to the dominion of the most absolute and infamous system of human Slavery the world has ever seen, -- prostrating all our commerce, all our national growth, all the instincts and impulses of an ambitious, aspiring civilization at the feet of this one idea, abhorrent to the heart and the conscience of the world -- have much to learn of the temper of our people and of the spirit of the age in which they live.
If the Southern States have more power, more wealth, more courage to do and to endure, and a better cause to fight for, than the North, they may, after five or six years of war, establish their independence and compel us to recognize it.
If not -- not.
One of the most unmistakable marks of the insanity that has overtaken the people of the Southern States is this expectation of help from England.
No wilder dream ever entered the head of the inmate of a lunatic asylum.
Lord PALMERSTON said only the other day that England wished only for continued prosperity to the United States.
She has no interest in our disruption, -- nothing to gain and much to lose by giving that disastrous step the slightest aid or encouragement..."