The European nations are kept in order by what is called the Balance of Power, and this policy they would delight to see established on this continent. Should the different States of the American Union be occupied, like the European states, in checking each other, they could not act as a unit, and their terrific rate of growth in wealth and population, as compared with that of the nations across the Atlantic, would not excite in the latter such irritation and alarm. The magic which has changed English abolitionists into partisans of slaveholders, and French imperialists into champions of insurrection, came from the figures of the Census Reports. It is calculated that the United States, if the rate of growth which obtained between 1850 and 1860 is continued, will have, forty years hence, a hundred millions of inhabitants, and four hundred and twenty thousand millions of dollars of taxable wealth,—over three times the present population, and over ten times the present wealth, of the richest of European nations. It is probable that this concrete fact exerts more influence on the long-headed statesmen of Europe than any abstract dislike of democracy. The only union which they could bring against such a power would be a league, a confederacy, a continuous and subsisting treaty, between sovereign powers. Is it surprising that they should wish our union to be of the same character? Is it surprising that the contemplation of a government, whether despotic or democratic, which could act directly on a hundred millions of people, with the supreme right of taxing property to the amount of four hundred and twenty billions of dollars, should fill them with dismay?
The inherent weakness of a league, even when its general object is such as to influence the passions of the nations which compose it, is well known to all European statesmen. The various alliances against France show the insuperable difficulties in the way of giving to confederacies of sovereign states a unity and efficiency corresponding to their aggregate strength, and the necessity which the leaders of such alliances are always under of expending half their skill and energy in preventing the loosely compacted league from falling to pieces. The alliance under the lead of William III. barely sustained itself against Louis XIV., though William was the ablest statesman in Europe, and had been trained in the tactics of confederacies from his cradle. The alliance under the lead of Marlborough owed its measure of success to his infinite address and miraculous patience as much as to his consummate military genius; and the ignominious "secession" of England, in the treaty of Utrecht, ended in making it one of the most conspicuous examples of the weakness of such combinations. When the exceptional military genius, as in the case of Frederick and Napoleon, has been on the side of the single power assailed, the results have been all the more remarkable. The coalition against Frederick, the ruler of five millions of people, was composed of sovereigns who ruled a hundred millions; and at the end of seven years of war they had not succeeded in wringing permanently from his grasp a square mile of territory. The first coalitions against Napoleon resulted only in making him the master of Europe; and he was crushed at last merely by the dead weight of the nations which the senselessness of his political passions brought down upon his empire. Indeed, the trouble with all leagues is, that they are commanded, more or less, by debating-societies; and a debating-society is weak before a man. The Southern Confederacy is a confederacy only in name; for no despotism in Europe or Asia has more relentless unity of purpose, and in none does debate exercise less control over executive affairs. All the powers of the government are practically absorbed in Jefferson Davis, and a rebellion in the name of State Rights has ended in a military autocracy, in which all rights, personal and State, are suspended.
Now, as it is impossible for European governments to combine efficiently against such a colossal power as the United States promise within a few generations to be, provided the unity of the nation is preserved with its growth, they naturally favor every element of disintegration which will reduce the separate States to the condition of European states. Earl Russell's famous saying, that "the North is fighting for power, the South for independence," is to be interpreted in this sense. What he overlooked was the striking fact which distinguishes the States of the American Republic from the states of Europe. The latter are generally separated by race and nationality, or, where composed of heterogeneous materials, are held together by military power. The people of the United States are homogeneous, and rapidly assimilate into American citizens the foreigners they so cordially welcome. No man has lifted his hand against the government as an Irishman, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a Dane, but only as a slaveholder, or as a citizen of a State controlled by slaveholders. The insurrection was started in the interest of an institution, and not of a race. To compare such a rebellion with European rebellions is to confuse things essentially distinct. The American government is so constituted that nobody has an interest in overturning it, unless his interest is opposed to that of the mass of the citizens with whom he is place on an equality; and hence his treason is necessarily a revolt against the principle of equal rights. In Europe, it is needless to say, every rebellion with which an American can sympathise is a rebellion in favor of the principle against which the slaveholders' rebellion is an armed protest. An insurrection in Russia to restore serfdom, an insurrection in Italy to restore the dethroned despots, an insurrection in England to restore the Stuart system of kingly government, an insurrection anywhere to restore what the progress of civilization had made contemptible or accursed, would be the only fit parallel to the insurrection of the Southern Confederates. The North is fighting for power which is its due, because it is just and right; the South is fighting for independence, in order to remove all checks on its purpose to oppress and enslave. The fact that the power for which the North fights is a very different thing from the power which a European monarchy struggles to preserve and extend, the fact that it is the kind of power which oppressed nationalities seek in their efforts for independence, only makes our foreign critics more apprehensive of its effects. It is a dangerous power to them, because, founded in the consent of the people, there is no limit to its possible extension, except in the madness or guilt of that portion of the people who are restive under the restraints of justice and impatient under the rule of freedom.
It would be doing cruel wrong to Earl Russell's intelligence to suppose that he really believed what he said, when he drew a parallel between the American Revolution and the Rebellion of the Confederate States, and asserted that the right of the Southern States to secede from the American Union was identical with the right of the Colonies to sever their connection with Great Britain. We believe the Colonies were right in their revolt. But if the circumstances had been different,—if since the reign of William III. they had nominated or controlled almost every Prime Minister, had shaped the policy of the British Empire, had enjoyed not only a representation in Parliament, but in the basis of representation had been favored with a special discrimination in their favor against Kent and Yorkshire,—if both in the House of Lords and the House of Commons they had not only been dominant, but had treated the Bentincks, Cavendishes, and Russells, the Montagus, Walpoles, and Pitts, with overbearing insolence,—and if, after wielding power so long and so arrogantly, they had rebelled at the first turn in political affairs which seemed to indicate that they were to be reduced from a position of superiority to one of equality,—if our forefathers had acted after this wild fashion, we should not only think that the Revolution they achieved was altogether unjustifiable, but we should blush at the thought of being descended from such despot-demagogues. This is a very feeble statement of the case which would connect the Revolt of the American Colonies with the Revolt of the American Liberticides; and Earl Russell is too well-informed a statesman not to know that his parallel fails in every essential particular. He threw it out, as he threw out his sounding antithesis about "power" and "independence," to catch ears not specially blessed with brains between them.
But European statesmen, in order to promote the causes of American dissensions, are willing not only to hazard fallacies which do not impose on their own understandings, but to give aid and comfort to iniquities which in Europe have long been antiquated. They thus tolerate chattel slavery, not because they sympathize with it, but because it is an element of disturbance in the growth of American power. Though it has for centuries been outgrown by the nations of Western Europe, and is repugnant to all their ideas and sentiments, they are willing to give it their moral support, provided it will break up the union of the people of the States, or remain as a constantly operating cause of enmity between the sections of a reconstructed Union. They would tolerate Mormonism or Atheism or Diabolism, if they thought it would have a similar effect; but at the same time they would not themselves legalize polygamy, or deny the existence of God, or inaugurate the worship of the Devil. Indeed, while giving slavery a politic sanction, they despise in their hearts the people who are so barbarous as to maintain such an institution; and the Southern rebel or Northern demagogue who thinks his championship of slavery really earns him any European respect is under that kind of delusion which it is always for the interest of the plotter to cultivate in the tool. It was common, a few years ago, to represent the Abolitionist as the dupe or agent of the aristocracies of Europe. It certainly might be supposed that persons who made this foolish charge were competent at least to see that the present enemy of the unity of the American people is the pro-slavery fanatic, and that it is on his knavery or stupidity that the ill-wishers to American unity now chiefly rely.
For the war has compelled these ill-wishers to modify their most cherished theory of democracy in the United States. They thought that the marvellous energy for military combination, developed by a democracy suddenly emancipated from oppression, such as was presented by the French people in the Revolution of 1789, was not the characteristic of a democracy which had grown up under democratic institutions. The first was anarchy plus the dictator; the second was merely "anarchy plus the constable." They had an obstinate prepossession, that, in a settled democracy like ours, the selfishness of the individual was so stimulated that he became incapable of self-sacrifice for the public good. The ease with which the government of the United States has raised men by the million and money by the billion has overturned this theory, and shown that a republic, of which individual liberty and general equality form the animating principles, can still rapidly avail itself of the property and personal service of all the individuals who compose it, and that self-seeking is not more characteristic of a democracy in time of peace than self-sacrifice is characteristic of the same democracy in time of war. The overwhelming and apparently unlimited power of a government thus of the people and for the people is what the war has demonstrated, and it very naturally excites the fear and jealousy of governments which are based on less firm foundations in the popular mind and heart and will.
It is doubtless true that many candid foreign thinkers favor the disintegration of the American Union because they believe that the consolidation of its power would make it the meddlesome tyrant of the world. They admit that the enterprise, skill, and labor of the people, applied to the unbounded undeveloped resources of the country, will enable them to create wealth very much faster than other nations, and that the population, fed by continual streams of immigration, will also increase with a corresponding rapidity. They admit, that, if kept united, a few generations will be sufficient to make them the richest, largest, and most powerful nation in the world. But they also fear that this nation will be an armed and aggressive democracy, deficient in public reason and public conscience, disposed to push unjust claims with insolent pertinacity, and impelled by a spirit of propagandism which will continually disturb the peace of Europe. It is curious that this impression is derived from the actions of the government while it was controlled by the traitors now in rebellion against it, and from the professions of those Northern demagogues who are most in sympathy with European opinion concerning the justice and policy of the war. Mr. Fernando Wood, the most resolute of all the Northern advocates of peace, recommended from his seat in Congress but a month ago, that a compromise be patched up with the Rebels on the principle of sacrificing the negro, and then that both sections unite to seize Canada, Cuba, and Mexico. The kind of "democracy" which Mr. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Fernando Wood represent is the kind of democracy which has always been the great disturber of our foreign relations, and it is a democracy which will be rendered powerless by the triumph of the national arms. The United States of 1900, with their population of a hundred millions, and their wealth of four hundred and twenty billions, will, we believe, be a power for good, and not for evil. They will be strong enough to make their rights respected everywhere; but they will not force their ideas on other nations at the point of the bayonet; they will not waste their energies in playing the part of the armed propagandist of democratic opinions in Europe; and the contagion of their principles will only be the natural result of the example of peace, prosperity, freedom, and justice, which they will present to the world. In Europe, where power commonly exists only to be abused, this statement would be received with an incredulous smile; but we have no reason to doubt, that, among the earnest patriots who are urging on the present war for Liberty and Union to a victorious conclusion, it would be considered the most commonplace of truths.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
The Seer, or Commonplaces Refreshed. By Leigh Hunt. In Two Volumes. Boston: Roberts Brothers.