There is an excuse for every folly New York commits and the country imitates, for she is blessed with papers and politicians more than others practised to flatter vanity and mislead ignorance. When New York strews palm leaves before the feet of the Prince of Wales, it is done to cement the bond of love that links the New World to its venerable mother; when she runs after the Japanese, it is in search of a trans-oceanic brother, just discovered, and soon lovingly to be embraced (witness our doings in the Japanese waters); when she kisses the knout and collects Russian relics, it is done to inaugurate a sistership of the future, already dawning upon her in Muscovite smiles of friendship, in diplomatic hints of the czar, and in the hurrahs for the Union of Lissoffski's crews! In this case she only pays with American sympathy for Russian sympathy, and at the same time frowns a rebuke upon England and France for their un-Russian-like behavior, and insinuates a threat which may save this country from the perils of European intervention.
But Russian imperial sympathy, with its diplomatic smiles and compulsory hurrahs, is nothing but a bait; he must be blind who does not see it. What is the natural tendency that would lead the czar, the upholder of despotism in the East, to sympathize with the model republic of the West? the empire which is again and again covered with the blood of Poland, divided by it and its accomplices, to have, amid its troubles, so much tender feeling for the indivisibility of this country? Is Alexander's friendship kindled by our acts of emancipation? It is true he has freed more than twenty millions of serfs in his empire, and, though following the dictates of political necessity, he may have acted with no more real anti-slavery sentiment than that which makes many avowed pro-slavery men emancipationists among ourselves, yet he certainly has achieved a noble glory, which even his monstrous reign in Poland may not entirely blot out from the pages of history. The same friendly disposition toward the United States was, however, ostentatiously evinced by Nicholas, who lived and died the true representative and guardian of unmitigated tyranny; it was as ostentatiously shown by Alexander at the time when Fremont's proclamation was repudiated as it is now, after the first of January, 1863; and it is he of all the monarchs of Europe who, as early as July, 1861, diplomatically advised this country to save the Union by compromise, as neither of the contending parties could be finally crushed down; that is to say, flagrantly to sacrifice liberty in order to save power. The Russian nobility will naturally sympathize with the slaveholders of the South, and the lower classes of the Russian people are too ignorant to think about transatlantic affairs. Russian imperial and diplomatic sympathy will cordially be bestowed upon any nation and cause which promises to become hostile to England (or, on a given time, to France), on Nena Sahib no less than on Abraham Lincoln. The never-discarded aim of Russia to plant its double cross on the banks of the Byzantine Bosporus, and its batteries on those of the Hellespont, and thus to transfer its centre of gravity from the secluded shores of the Baltic to the gates of the Mediterranean; the never-slumbering dread of this expansion, which has made the integrity of Turkey an inviolable principle with the British statesmen of every sect; and the growing inevitability of a bloody collision on the fields of central Asia of the two powers, one of which is master of the north, and the other of the south of that continent, have rendered Russia and Great Britain inveterate foes. To strengthen itself against its deadliest opponent, one courts the alliance of France, the other that of the American Union, both not from sympathy, but in spite of inveterate or natural antipathy. Against a common enemy we have seen the pope allying himself with the sultan. Russia always hates England, and from time to time fears France; both these powers continue to offend the United States, and at least one of them now threatens a Polish campaign: why should not the czar lavish his flattering marks of friendship on a great power which he hopes to entice into an unnatural alliance? It is not American freedom which the czars are fond of; they court American power as naturally antagonistic to that of England, at least on the seas. Wielded entire by a Jeff. Davis, with all the Southern spirit of aggression, it would be to them a more desirable object of an entente cordiale.
But why should we not accept the proffered aid, though the offer be prompted by selfish motives? Threatened by a wicked interference in our affairs, which might prove dangerous to our national existence, why refuse additional means to guard it, though these be derived from an impure source? Will an innocent man, attacked by assassins, repulse the aid of one hastening to save him, on the ground that he, too, is a murderer? Certainly not. History, too, proves it by noble examples. Pelopidas, the Theban hero, invokes the aid of the Persian king, the natural enemy of the Greeks; Cato, who prefers a free death by his own hand to life under a Cæsar, fights side by side with Juba, a king of barbarians; Gustavus Adolphus, the champion of Protestantism in Germany, acts in concert with Richelieu, the reducer of La Rochelle, its last stronghold in France; Pulaski, who fights for freedom in Poland and dies for it in America, accepts the aid of the sultan; Franklin calls upon the master of the Bastille to defend the Declaration of Independence; Ypsilanti raises the standard of Neo-Grecian liberty in hope of aid from Czar Alexander I, and happier Hellenes obtain it from Czar Nicholas, and conquer; the heroic defender of Rome in 1849, Garibaldi, fights in 1859, so to say, under the lead of Louis Napoleon, the destroyer of that republic.
But what has all this to do with the question before us? Has it come to this? Is the cause of this great republic reduced to such extremities? Is this nation of twenty millions of freemen, so richly endowed with all the faculties, resources, and artificial means which constitute power, unable to preserve its national existence, independence, and liberty, without help from the contaminating hand of tyranny, without sacrificing its honor by basely singing hosannas to the imperial butcher of Poland, at the very moment when the blood of the people of Kosciuszko and Pulaski cries to Heaven and mankind for vengeance? Is the peril so great? so imminent? Is Hannibal ante portas? Has the French fleet dispersed Secretary Welles's five hundred and eighty-eight vessels of war, broken the Southern blockade, and appeared before our Northern harbors? Are all Jeff. Davis's bitter complaints against the English cabinet but a sham, covering a deep-laid conspiracy with treacherous Albion? Is Emperor Maximilian quietly seated on the throne of Montezuma, and already marching his armies upon the Rio Grande? The talk of foreign intervention has been going on for years, and not a threatening cloud is yet to be seen on our horizon. Both England and France deprecate the idea of hostile interference in American affairs. It is Russia that is menaced, an alliance with her can serve only herself, and her artifices have caused all the foolish clamor that threatens to disgrace this country.
And then, accepting aid is not forming an alliance, still less an alliance defensive and offensive. Not to speak of examples too remote, every one familiar with the historical characters of the men, will know that neither Pulaski, Franklin, Ypsilanti, or Garibaldi would ever have so degraded his cause—the cause of liberty—as to promise to the despot, whose aid he desired, a compensatory assistance in trampling down a people rising for freedom. No innocent man attacked by assassins will promise, with honest intent, to one who offers to save him, his assistance in continuing a work of murder and resisting the arm of justice.
For it must be supposed that nobody is foolish enough to believe that Russia would offer us her aid—say, against France—without requiring from us a mutual service; that merely in order to inflict a punishment on Louis Napoleon for the recognition of the South, or the establishment of monarchy in Mexico, she would, still bleeding from the wounds inflicted by the Polish insurrection, madly launch her armies upon the Rhine, or start her hiding fleet from behind the fortified shelters of Cronstadt and Helsingfors, make it pass the Sound and Skager Rack, unmindful of the frowning batteries of Landscrona and Marstrand, pass the Strait of Dover, and the English Channel, and enter the Atlantic, quietly leaving behind Calais, Boulogne, Cherbourg, and Brest, and all this with the certainty of raising a storm which might carry the armies of France and her allies into the heart of Poland, and ultimately, by restoring that country, press czardom back, where it ought to be, behind the Dnieper. Such assistance she would and could not honestly promise were we even to vouch a similar boon to her in case Napoleon should really enter upon a campaign for the deliverance of Poland. For neither promise could be executed with the slightest chance of real success, and without exposing the naval and land forces despatched across the seas to almost certain total destruction. The only practical military result of a Russo-American alliance could be an attack by the forces of the United States on the French in Mexico, serving as a powerful diversion for the benefit of Russia assailed by France in Europe. This is what Russia knows and our eager demonstrationists are unable to perceive. The sword of France hangs over Russia, just engaged in finishing the slaughter of Poland. The menace of a Russo-American alliance may induce Napoleon, who is entangled in Mexico, to put that sword back into the scabbard. He is too proud and too little magnanimous to give up, yielding to our menace, his Mexican work—a work so long begun, and so costly in blood and treasure—and turn all his attention, all his forces toward Poland and Russia. He may give up Poland, for which he has not yet sacrificed anything, and turn all his attention toward Mexico and the United States. Thus our philo-Russian enthusiasm can bear no good fruits for ourselves; it can serve Russia, prevent the deliverance of Poland, and dishonor the fair name of the American republic.
Yes, dishonor it. Already, speaking of the demonstrations in favor of the Russians, that patriot soldier, Sigel, exclaims: 'They make me almost doubt the common sense of the American people.' And it is not Sigel that speaks thus: it is the voice of enlightened Germany, of the freedom-loving men of Europe.
May the people of America heed this warning before it is too late!