[226] Crown Princess of Germany.
[227] Prince Alfred.
[228] The anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death.
[229] Writing to Mr. T. B. Potter on the 23rd of February, Mr. Cobden says, “Shall I confess the thought that troubles me in connection with this subject? I have seen with disgust the altered tone with which America has been treated since she was believed to have committed suicide, or something like it. In our diplomacy, our Press, and with our public speakers, all hasten to kick the dead lion. Now in a few months everybody will know that the North will triumph, and what troubles me is lest I should live to see our ruling class—which can understand and respect power better than any other class—grovel once more, and more basely than before, to the giant of democracy. This would not only inspire me with disgust and indignation, but with shame and humiliation. I think I see signs that it is coming. The Times is less insolent, and Lord Palmerston is more civil.”—Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXXIV.
[230] Sterne’s Constitutional History of the United States, p. 199.
[231] A note may be here added with some details of one of the most startling and tragic events that marked the history of the English-speaking race during the Queen’s reign. President Lincoln was assassinated while the play called “Our American Cousin,” memorable for the late Mr. Sothern’s impersonation of Lord Dundreary, was going on. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth, a native of Maryland. He was an actor, and a relative of the celebrated American tragedian, Junius Brutus Booth. He was a half-crazy partisan of the Southern States, and had often threatened to kill the President. He fled to St. Mary’s County, and was ultimately discovered hiding in a barn about three miles from Port Royal. He and his companions refused to surrender, and the barn was set on fire. Sergeant Corbet, of the 16th New York Cavalry, fired his carbine through one of the windows and shot Booth in the head. He died two hours and a half after he was wounded. His three companions were tried by court-martial and executed.
[232] “The Civil Rights Bill,” says Mr. Sterne, “declared freedmen citizens of the United States. The reasons against this declaration were sound in themselves, because it admitted to the rights of citizenship a large number of persons whose prior conditions of servitude and enforced labour made them dangerous citizens. As the right to vote implies not only the right of the voter to protect himself against the aggression of others, but also involves the power, through the instrumentality of taxation, which is placed in the official hands created by the voters, to confiscate the property of others, it was apprehended by many that demagogues and adventurers would win the freemen by illusory promises of personal benefits to give them their votes, and that by the creation of public debts and the exercise of the power of taxation, they would mercilessly confiscate the property of citizens subjected to their sway.”—Constitutional History and Political Development of the United States, by Simon Sterne, of the New York Bar. Cassell and Co., pp. 202, 203.
[233] “Bismarck in the Franco-German War,” quoted in Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 347.
[234] For the conflicting accounts of this interview, see Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 352.
[235] This scandal, which was one of the sensational events of the Session of 1865, was made the most of by the Churchmen, to whom Westbury had been studiously insolent. Some little time after his fall Westbury met his old antagonist, the Bishop of Oxford, in the lobby of the House of Lords. He held out his hand, saying, “My Lord Bishop, as a Christian and a Bishop, you will not refuse to shake hands.” Wilberforce generously shook hands with him, but that did not put an end to the war of wit between them. Westbury said, “Do you remember where we last met?’ “No,” replied Wilberforce. “It was in the hour of my humiliation, when I was leaving the Queen’s Closet, having given up the Great Seal. I met you on the stairs as I was coming out, and I felt inclined to say, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’” Wilberforce retorted, “Does your lordship remember the end of the quotation?” to which Westbury answered, “We lawyers, my Lord Bishop, are not in the habit of quoting part of a passage without knowing the whole.” But, as Wilberforce used to say in telling the story, Westbury no doubt looked it out in his family Bible when he went home, and found that the end of the quotation was, “Yea, I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to iniquity.”—See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 144.