Why, then, is it that there is so much ill-feeling in America toward England, while none is felt toward France,—England being, as it were, our shield against that French sword which is raised over our head, upon which its holder would bring it down with imperial force? Principally the difference is due to that peculiarity in the human character which leads men to think much of insults and but little of injuries. We doubt if any strong enmity was ever created in the minds of men or nations through the infliction of injuries, though injuring parties have an undoubted right to hate their victims; and we are sure that an insult was never yet forgiven by any nation, or by any individual, whose resentment was of any account. Now, England has poured insults upon us, or rather Englishmen have done so, until we have become as sore as bears who have been assailed by bees. English statesmen and politicians have told us that we were wrong in fighting for the restoration of the Union, violating our own principles, and literally committing the grossest, of crimes,—taking care to add, that our sins would provide their own punishment, for we could not put down the Rebels. Even moderate-minded men in England have not hesitated to condemn our course, while admitting that our conduct was natural, on the ground that we had no hope of success, and that useless wars are simply horrible. Our English enemies have been fierce and vindictive blackguards,—as witness Roebuck, Lyndsay, and Lord R. Cecil,—while most of our friends there have deemed it the best policy to make use of very moderate language, when speaking of our cause, or of the conduct of our public men. Englishmen of distinction, some of whom have long been held in high esteem here, have not hesitated to express a desire for our overthrow, because we were becoming too strong, though our free population is not materially different, as regards numbers, from that of the British Islands, and is as nothing when compared with the number of Queen Victoria's subjects. They were not ashamed to be so thoroughly un-English as to admit the existence of fear in their minds of a people living three thousand miles from their country: a circumstance to be noted; for your Englishman is apt to err on the side of contempt for others, and as a rule he fears nobody. Others have so wantonly misrepresented the character of our cause,—Mr. Carlyle is a notable member of this class,—that it is impossible not to be offended, when listening to their astounding falsehoods. But it is the British press that has done most to array Americans against England. That press is very ably conducted, and the most noted of its members have displayed a degree of hostility toward us that could not have been predicted without the prophet being suspected of madness, or of diabolical inspiration. All its articles attacking us are reproduced here, and are read by everybody, and the effect thereof can be imagined. Toward us British journalists are playing the same part that was played by their predecessors toward France sixty years since, and which converted what was meant to be a permanent peace into the mere truce of Amiens. Insolent and egotistical as a class, though there are highly honorable exceptions, those journalists have done more to make their country the object of dislike than has been accomplished by all other Englishmen. Their deeds show that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that its conquests are permanent. It has been said that France has been as unfriendly to us as England, and that, therefore, we ought to feel for her the same dislike as that of which England is the object. But, admitting the assertion to be true, we know little of what the French have said or written concerning us. The difference of language prevents us from taking much offence at Gallic criticism. Not one American in a hundred reads French; and of those who do read it, not one in a thousand, journalists apart, ever sees a French quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily publication. Occasionally, an article from a French journal is translated for some one of our newspapers, but it is oftener of a friendly character than otherwise. The best French publications support the Union cause, at their head standing the "Débats," which is not the inferior of the "Times" in respect to ability, and is far its superior in all other respects. Besides, judging from such articles from the French presses devoted to Secession interests as have come under our observation, they are neither so able nor so venomous as those which appear in British Secession journals and magazines. Most of them might be translated for the purpose of showing that the French have no wish for our destruction, while the language of the British articles indicates the existence of an intense personal hostility, and an eager desire to see the United States partitioned like Poland. We should be something much above, or as much below, the standard of humanity, if we were not moved deeply by such evidences of fierce hatred, expressed in the fiercest of language.
In assuming a strictly impartial position, England follows a sense of interest, which is proper and praiseworthy. She cannot, supposing her to be wise, be desirous of our destruction; for, that accomplished, she would be more open than ever to a French attack. Let Napoleon III. accomplish those European purposes to which his mind is now directed, and he would be impelled to quarrel with England by a variety of considerations, should this Republic be broken up into half a dozen feeble and quarrelsome confederacies. But with the United States in existence, and powerful enough to command respect, he would not dare to seek the overthrow of the British Empire. We could not permit him to head a crusade for England's annihilation, no matter what might be our feeling toward the mother-land. A just regard for our own interests would impel us to side with her, should she be placed in serious danger. Such was, substantially, President Jefferson's opinion, sixty years ago, when the first Napoleon was so bent upon the conquest of England; and we think that his views are applicable to the existing circumstances of the world. Where should we have been now, if England had quarrelled with and been conquered by Napoleon III.? We must distinguish between the English nation and Englishmen,—between the English Government, which has, perhaps, borne itself as favorably toward us as it could, and that English aristocracy which has, as a rule, exhibited so strong a desire to have us extinguished, even while it has repeatedly refused to take steps preparatory to war; and the two countries should be persuaded to understand that neither can perish without the life of the other being placed in great danger. The best answer to be made to the wordy attacks of Englishmen is to be found in success. That answer would be complete; and if it cannot be made, what will it signify to us what shall be said of us by foreigners? The bitterest attacks can never disturb the dead.
One cause of the change of England's course toward us is to be found in our own change of moral position. The President's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on the first of January, 1863; and from that time the anti-slavery people of England have been on our side; and their influence is great, and bears upon the supporters of the Palmerston Ministry with peculiar force. Had our Government persisted in the pro-slavery policy which it favored down to the autumn of 1862, it is not at all unlikely that the English intervention party would have been strong enough to compel their country to go with France in her mediation scheme,—and the step from mediation to intervention would have been but a short one; but the committal of the North to anti-slavery views, and the union of their cause with that of emancipation, threw the English Abolitionists, men who largely represent England's moral worth, on our side. The Proclamation, therefore, even if it could be proved that it had not led to the liberation of one slave, has been of immense service to us, and the President deserves the thanks of every loyal American for having issued it. He threw a shell into the foreign Secession camp, the explosion of which was fatal to that "cordial understanding" that was to have operated for our annihilation.
Such was the year of the Proclamation, and its history is marvellous in our eyes. It stands in striking contrast to the other years of the war, both of which closed badly for us, and left the impression that the enemy's case was a good one, speaking militarily. Our improved condition should be attributed to the true cause. When, in the Parliament of 1601, Mr. Speaker Croke said that the kingdom of England "had been defended by the mighty arm of the Queen," Elizabeth exclaimed from the throne, "No, Mr. Speaker, but rather by the mighty hand of God!" So with us. We have been saved "by the mighty hand of God." Neither "malice domestic" nor "foreign levy" has prevailed at our expense. Whether we had the right to expect Heaven's aid, we cannot undertake to say; but we know that we should not have deserved it, had we continued to link the nation's cause to that of oppression, and had we shed blood and expended gold in order to restore the system of slavery and the sway of slaveholders.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker, Minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society, Boston. By John Weiss. In Two Volumes. 8vo. London.
Such a life of Theodore Parker as Mr. Parton has written of Andrew Jackson would be accepted as an American classic. For such a life, however, it is manifestly unreasonable to look. Not until the present generation has passed away, not until the perilous questions which vex men's souls to-day shall rest forever, could any competent biographer regard the "iconoclast of the Music Hall" as a subject for complacent literary speculation or calm judicial discourse. For us, this life of Parker must be interpreted by one of the family. He shall best use these precious letters and journals who is spiritually related to their writer, if not bound to him by the feebler tie of blood. And assuming the necessity of a partisan, or, as it might more gently be expressed, wholly sympathetic biographer, there is little but commendation for Mr. Weiss. With admirable clearness and strength he rings out the full tone of thought and belief among that earnest school of thinkers and doers of which Theodore Parker was the representative. Full as are these goodly octavos with the best legacies of him whose life is written, we have returned no less frequently to the deeply reflective arguments and acute criticisms of Mr. Weiss. Let the keen discrimination of a passage taken almost at random justify us, if it may.