“I’m glad to see, Mr. President, you characterize the Northern scum as they deserve,—descendants of the refuse sent over by Cromwell.”
“Yes, Mr. Ratcliff, you and I who are gentlemen by birth and education,—and whose ancestors, further back than the Norman Conquest, were all gentlemen,[[41]]—can poorly disguise our disgust at any association with Yankees.”
“Gladstone says you’ve created a nation, Mr. President.”
“Yes; Gladstone is a high-toned gentleman. His ancestors made their fortunes in the Liverpool slave-trade.”
“Have you any assurances yet from Mason?”
“Nothing decisive. But the eagerness of the Ministry to humble the North in the Trent affair shows the real animus of the ruling classes in England. Lord John disappoints me occasionally. Bad blood there. But the rest are all right.”
“A pity they couldn’t put their peasantry into the condition of our slaves!”
“A thousand pities! But the new Confederacy must be a Missionary to the Nations,[[42]] to teach the ruling classes throughout the world, that slavery is the normal status for the mechanic and the laborer. Meanwhile the friends of monarchy in Europe must foresee that such a triumph as republicanism would have in the restoration of the old Union, with slavery no longer a power in the land, and with an army and navy the first in the world, would be an appalling spectacle.”
“What do you hear from Washington, Mr. President?”
“The last I heard of the gorilla, he was investigating the so-called spiritual phenomena. The letter-writers tell of a medium having been entertained at the White House.”