The hostility of foreign governments to the United States is due as much
at least to dread of their growing power as dislike of their democracy;
and accordingly the theory of the Secessionists as to the character of
our Union has been as acceptable to the understandings of our foreign
enemies as the acts of the Rebels against its government have been
pleasing to their sympathies. They well know that a union of States
whose government recognized the right of Secession would be as weak as
an ordinary league between independent sovereignties; and as the rapid
growth of the States in population, wealth, and power is certain, they
naturally desire, that, if united, these States shall be an aggregation
of forces, neutralizing each other, rather than a fusion of forces,
which, for general purposes, would make them a giant nationality.
Accordingly, centralized France reads to us edifying homilies on the
advantages of disintegration; and England, rich with the spoils of
suppressed insurrections, adjures us most plaintively to respect the
sacred rights of rebellion. The simple explanation of this hypocrisy or
irony is, that both France and England are anxious that the strength of
the United States shall not correspond to their bulk. The looser the tie
of union, the greater the number of confederacies into which the nation
should split, the safer they would feel. The doctrine of the inherent
and undivided sovereignty of the States will therefore find resolute
champions abroad as long as it has the most inconsiderable faction to
support it at home.
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.