Under the cloak of a pretended neutrality, the ministry have had opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the Confederates, or intended for their use, have been allowed to escape from the Clyde, and to put into British ports to refit. Frequent conflicts on questions of international law have arisen, in which our Government has invariably insisted upon the known precedents set by Great Britain, and which that power has generally deemed it prudent to follow. In the case of the Trent, if we lost the possession of two valuable prisoners of war, we at all events, by promptly disavowing the act of Commodore Wilkes, set England an example of fairness which she has been loath to follow, but which it would have been folly totally to disregard. Yet it has been apparent that the British ministers have borne us no good-will. Whatever justice has been done us has been done grudgingly,—with the moroseness of an enemy who is compelled to yield. While Lord Russell has been cautious how he offended our Government in acts, his repeated sneers in Parliament, at dinners, and on the hustings have exhibited the rancor of a jealous mind. There has been no hearty will to do justice, no word other than of discouragement. Even the amicable assurances which customarily pass between the statesmen of two nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very time he is advocating a favorable course toward us.
The ministry have constantly been met with the fact that our Government has assumed throughout that the Union was to be preserved, and both the act and the possibility of secession forever crushed. They cannot have failed to observe, that, while the inevitable fortune of war has at times brought momentary depression to our arms, the field of the Rebellion has steadily contracted,—that those great conflicts which have seemed drawn games have contributed in every instance to the general end,—that repulse has been invariably followed by overbalancing success. They must have been aware that the contrast between the feeling of the North and that of the South has tended to foreshadow the issue. Upon grounds of political economy, a life-long study to them, they must have viewed with vast suspicion the ability of a people to attain independence, who are trammelled by a blockade which they are themselves fain to acknowledge effectual, prevented from the usual methods of subsistence by inferiority of population, and under dreadful apprehensions from the existence in their midst of millions of malcontent slaves. They have not needed a subtle knowledge of political philosophy to teach them that during the progress of the war the Federal idea has received new strength, which its success will make permanent, and which only total failure can diminish. Their favorite doctrine, that governments within a government cannot exist, and that our Constitution is weakened by the accession of every new State and the rise of every new disagreement, is meeting its refutation every day. A concentration of extraordinary power at the centre does not seem to shatter every bond of union, as they have predicted,—and the States hold together and work together with amazing zeal for so feeble a tie as that they have represented. In their intercourse with our Government, they have illustrated the effect which events have had on their policy.
The course pursued by our Government seems to us to present a favorable contrast to that pursued by Great Britain. The United States has always manifested an anxiety to preserve amity. But the effort to preserve amity has been dignified. We have claimed to be treated as a friendly sovereign State. We have urged that the war should be regarded by foreign powers as the rightful exercise of a complete nationality to suppress insurrection. That the insurgents should be put upon a par with the Government, that they should enjoy the benefits of an established system, that they should have every right and every immunity as if the quarrel were between equal powers, has seemed to us a fallacy tinctured with deep prejudice. That feeling has been courteously, but firmly represented by our ministers. Since it pleased the European courts to proclaim their neutrality, we have borne the injustice temperately, and have confined our demands to our rights under that status. When the conduct of Great Britain has been of so irritating a nature as to produce universal indignation throughout the community, our statesmen have moderated the popular anger, and have remonstrated patiently as well as firmly. They have discerned more accurately than the multitude could do the evils of a twofold war, and yet have not avoided the danger, when to avoid it would have been disgraceful. Whatever may be the opinion of any as to Mr. Seward's political career, it is generally admitted that as Secretary of State he has accomplished the better thought of the nation. In his hands our foreign relations have been administered with prudence, with minute attention, and with great dignity. He has constantly maintained the idea of our national integrity, the full expectation of our final success, the continued efficacy of the Federal system, and our right to be considered none the less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian practices of their soldiery. There has been no appeal to the moral sympathies of the Old World, by harping upon the enormities of slavery, and by announcing a crusade against it. Foreign communities have been left to the ordinary modes of information, to the press and the accounts of American and European orators, for the events which have been passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we have only desired to sustain out admitted rights, and to be free from external interference.
It is surprising that Earl Russell should intimate his dissatisfaction that we have been less quick to offence from France than from England. The reason why we should not, in his opinion, feel so is the very reason why we should. He thinks, because our relations have been more intimate with England, because we speak the same language and inherit the same Anglo-Saxon genius, that therefore we should be more patient with her. But these circumstances seem to us to aggravate the treatment we have received at her hands. It has appeared to us unnatural that a nation so identified with us should mistrust us, and embrace every occasion to slight us where they could safely do so. The closer the tie, the deeper the wound. Besides, despite the common ground upon which England and America have stood, the past bequeaths us little grudge against France, much against England. France was the patron, England the bitter enemy, of our national infancy. Our arms have never closed with those of France; we have fought England twice, and virulently. Our diplomatic intercourse with England has been a series of misunderstandings; that with France has been, in general, harmonious. In later times, French essayists and journalists have been tolerant of our faults, and eloquent over our virtues; and not a little good feeling has been produced among our educated classes by the fairness and acuteness with which one of the greatest of modern Frenchmen, De Tocqueville, has considered our institutions. On the other hand, the English press and the English Parliament have been outspoken in their contempt of America; and the offence has been enhanced by the peculiarly insulting terms in which the feeling has been expressed. Such facts cannot but intensify our chagrin at finding that power which we had always regarded as our companion in the march of modern progress ill-disposed to sympathy now in the time of our trouble.
Mr. Seward has well expressed our attitude towards England in a few words:—"The whole case may be summed up in this. The United States claim, and they must continually claim, that in this war they are a whole sovereign nation, and entitled to the same respect, as such, that they accord to Great Britain. Great Britain does not treat them as such a sovereign, and hence all the evils that disturb their intercourse and endanger their friendship. Great Britain justifies her course, and perseveres. The United States do not admit the justification, and so they are obliged to complain and stand upon their guard. Those in either country who desire to see the two nations remain in this relation are not well-advised friends of either of them."
Our relations with France during the war have not been dissimilar to those with England, but have been less grating and more courteous. The same difficulties in regard to neutral rights have arisen; and the Imperial cabinet have seemed throughout favorable to the South. But the popular feeling, as far as it is patent, is decidedly more favorable to us than that of England; whatever has been said against us has been said considerately and temperately; and there has been at no period any imminent danger of war. The design of Napoleon to mediate was interpreted by the community as hostile and aggressive in its object. The President, we think justly, took what appears a more simple view,—that the Emperor miscalculated the actual condition of the country, and a mistaken desire to advise induced him to take the course he did. But those who know France best tell us that the Imperial opinion is far from being the index of the popular opinion, on any subject; and every evidence induces the conclusion that there is a strong undercurrent of sympathy for America throughout France.
Of all the foreign powers, Russia has been the only one which has given us cordial, unstinted encouragement. The sovereign, the most liberal and enlightened Czar who ever ascended the Muscovite throne, has expressed himself again and again the constant friend of the Union. It is agreeable to reflect that that vast empire, now far on its way to a liberal constitution, and hastened, instead of retarded by its august head, should lend the moral force of its unqualified good-will to the cause of American liberty. The noble words of Prince Gortschakoff to our envoy will be grateful to every loyal American heart:—"We desire above all things the maintenance of the American Union, as one indivisible nation. Russia has declared her position, and will maintain it. There will be proposals for intervention. Russia will refuse any invitation of the kind. She will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change."
Our relations with other nations have not been important, and are quite similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been formed. When the war shall have been brought to a successful issue, we shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican system over an intelligent people. Our own sinews will be compact, and our spirit will be infused into the aspirations of distant peoples. It may not be presumptuous to feel that our efforts are not for ourselves alone, but that they tell upon the fate of the earnest and hopeful millions who are striving for disenthralment in the Old World. Let us, then, expand our just ambition beyond the object of our national integrity; let us embrace within our own hopes the dawning fortunes of a free Italy and a free Hungary, of Poland liberated, of Greece regenerated. While nerving ourselves for the final struggle, let the sublime thought that our success will reach in its vast results the limits of the Christian world bring us redoubled strength. For if we should fall, the thrones of despots are fixed for centuries; if we triumph, in due time they will vanish and crumble to the dust. Those sovereigns who are wise will appear in the van, leading their people to the blessings of the liberty they have so long yearned for; those who throw themselves in the way will be overwhelmed by the resistless tide. To such an end we fight, and suffer, and wait; the greater the stake, the more fearful the ordeal; but Providence smiles upon those whose aim is freedom, and through danger guides to consummation.