“My dear Sir,—I thank you very much for giving me the Thirteen Months. Will you think that I belie the expression I have used if I tell you candidly the effect this book has produced upon my mind? I think you will not; I do not believe that you or your countrymen are among those who desire that any one should purchase your favor by speaking what is false, or by forbearing to speak what is true. The book, then, impresses me even more deeply than I was before impressed with the heavy responsibility you incur in persevering with this destructive and hopeless war at the cost of such dangers and evils to yourselves, to say nothing of your adversaries, or of an amount of misery inflicted upon Europe such as no other civil war in the history of man has ever brought upon those beyond its immediate range. Your frightful conflict may be regarded from many points of view. The competency of the Southern States to secede, the rightfulness of their conduct in seceding (two matters wholly distinct and a great deal too much confounded), the natural reluctance of Northern Americans to acquiesce in the severance of the Union, and the apparent loss of strength and glory to their country; the bearing of the separation on the real interests and on the moral character of the North; again, for an Englishman, its bearing with respect to British interests—all these are texts of which any one affords ample matter for reflection. But I will only state, as regards the last of them, that I, for one, have never hesitated to maintain that, in my opinion, the separate and special interests of England were all on the side of the maintenance of the old Union; and if I were to look at those interests alone, and had the power of choosing in what way the war should end, I would choose for its ending by the restoration of the old Union this very day. Another view of the matter not to be overlooked is its bearing on the interests of the black and colored race. I believe the separation to be one of the few happy events that have marked their mournful history; and although English opinion may be wrong upon this subject, yet it is headed by three men perhaps the best entitled to represent on this side of the water the old champions of the anti-slavery cause—Lord Brougham, the Bishop of Oxford, and Mr. Buxton.
“But there is an aspect of the war which transcends every other: the possibility of success. The prospect of success will not justify a war in itself unjust, but the impossibility of success in a war of conquest of itself suffices to make it unjust; when that impossibility is reasonably proved, all the horror, all the bloodshed, all the evil passions, all the dangers to liberty and order with which such a war abounds, come to lie at the door of the party which refuses to hold its hand and let its neighbor be.
“You know that in the opinion of Europe this impossibility has been proved. It is proved by every page of this book, and every copy of this book which circulates will carry the proof wider and stamp it more clearly. Depend upon it, to place the matter upon a single issue, you cannot conquer and keep down a country where the women behave like the women of New Orleans, where, as this author says, they would be ready to form regiments, if such regiments could be of use. And how idle it is to talk, as some of your people do, and some of ours, of the slackness with which the war has been carried on, and of its accounting for the want of success! You have no cause to be ashamed of your military character and efforts. You have proved what wanted no proof—your spirit, hardihood, immense powers, and rapidity and variety of resources. You have spent as much money, and have armed and perhaps have destroyed as many men, taking the two sides together, as all Europe spent in the first years of the Revolutionary war. Is not this enough? Why have you not more faith in the future of a nation which should lead for ages to come the American continent, which in five or ten years will make up its apparent loss or first loss of strength and numbers, and which, with a career unencumbered by the terrible calamity and curse of slavery, will even from the first be liberated from a position morally and incurably false, and will from the first enjoy a permanent gain in credit and character such as will much more than compensate for its temporary material losses? I am, in short, a follower of General Scott. With him I say, ‘Wayward sisters, go in peace.’ Immortal fame be to him for his wise and courageous advice, amounting to a prophecy.
“Finally, you have done what men could do; you have failed because you resolved to do what men could not do.
“Laws stronger than human will are on the side of earnest self-defence; and the aim at the impossible, which in other things may be folly only, when the path of search is dark with misery and red with blood, is not folly only, but guilt to boot. I should not have used so largely in this letter the privileges of free utterance had I not been conscious that I vie with yourselves in my admiration of the founders of your republic, and that I have no lurking sentiment either of hostility or of indifference to America; nor, I may add, even then had I not believed that you are lovers of sincerity, and that you can bear even the rudeness of its tongue.
“I remain, dear sir, very faithfully yours,
“W. E. Gladstone.
“Cyrus Field, Esq.”
LAST TWO PAGES OF LETTER FROM MR. GLADSTONE, DATED NOVEMBER 27, 1862.
[See pp. [146-149].]
