STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
A war between America and England would fill your homes with desolation and bring ruin to the whole country. Do your sins of omission merit such a punishment? I am here to tell you what to expect if such a hurricane of disaster ever sweeps the two countries.
Millions of people are under the impression that the United States can act independently of the conditions prevailing in the other great nations. This suggestion, coming, as it did, from a professional joker in England, has met with eager response from revolutionary emissaries now in your midst, supported by political fillibusters who are masking the truth.
If England ever starts such a war she will lose India. Her direction of the reins of civilization in many quarters of the world would cease on the day hostilities began. But I am speaking for America.
A war with England would Russianize the United States within three months. Even if the navy could keep the enemy at a safe distance the destructive forces at home would loot the principal cities and spread terror from ocean to ocean.
The first to lose in such an upheaval would be the wealthy propagandists of disorder and violence, who, living in security now, would be hurled with destructive force against the weapons of their own creation.
GENERAL BENJAMIN H. GRIERSON
Late Commander of the Military Department of
Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico