Doc. 45.--an English protest against Southern recognition.
Mr. Gregory has given notice that on an early day he will call the attention of her Majesty's government to the expediency of a prompt recognition of the Southern Confederacy of
America.
There is no occasion for Mr. Gregory or any one else to be anxious to get our government to acknowledge the so-called Southern Confederacy of American States. The practice of the
British government in such cases is firmly established and well understood, viz., to recognize all
de facto governments, irrespective of opinions, origin, or any circumstance but the fact of being the actually established ruling power.
If ever and whenever that happens with the
Southern States, which now professes to be a confederacy, there can be no doubt about their being recognized by all the
European powers; and by
England, with the utmost certainty and distinctness.
But the case has not reached this stage ; and it is very far from reaching it. The secession leaders who have assumed office do not pretend to be more than a provisional body;
no appeal has been made to the people of their States; none of the constitutional conditions of republican organization have as yet been complied with; and none of the antecedents which were specified by the founders of the republic as justifying rebellion have occurred.
The movers in the case have begged the question in regard to the right of secession; and there has as yet been no opportunity of reply on the other side.
The whole matter remains for treatment; and, in the most democratic country in the world, the great body of the people has been silent during a whole winter of crisis, from actual want of opportunity to declare their opinion and will.
There can be no recognition from without of any new claims put forth in such an interval; and
the American nation has a right to expect front its foreign allies patience to wait till the people have spoken and taken their course of action.
[
42]
The inauguration address of the
Provisional President of the
South was intended to produce just such an effect as it seems to have produced on
Mr. Gregory's mind.
This audacious parody on the Declaration of Independence might, it was evidently thought, catch the ear of
Americans, to whom that Declaration is as familiar as the
Lord's Prayer; and it might entrap the imagination of foreigners who might not have paid sufficient attention to the course of American affairs to detect its inapplicability.
One does not look for extreme accuracy or for any impartiality in political manifestoes issued by revolutionary officials, on their first attempt to rule the people they have raised; but
it may be doubted whether in any European conflict within this revolutionary century any document has appeared more impudently false than Mfr. Jefferson Davis's Address. It is so incredible that he and any hearers qualified for political action can be self-deceived to such a point as to believe what he was saying, that we can only suppose the object to be to lead the ignorant people about them by the sound of familiar and venerated words, trusting to their inability to perceive the baselessness of the thoughts.
If the poor whites of the
Southern section, who constitute nearly three-fourths of the white population, can really be led by such an address as this to fancy themselves resisting oppression, and establishing free government under the special blessing of Heaven, in imitation of their fathers ninety years ago, they are indeed fit only for such subjection to oligarchical government as has long been, and still will be, required of them.
In citing the familiar and venerable statement of the
Declaration of Independence, as to the causes which justify rebellion, and the principles on which the resulting polity should be framed and organized,
Mr. Jefferson Davis pronounced the most crushing condemnation of his own case, in terms of the keenest irony.
The staunchest Republican of the
North might have taken up the same parable as the aptest speech he could make.
The
Philadelphia patriots exhibited the long course of oppressions the colonies had endured before they lost patience, and the actual extremities of injury they underwent before they raised a hostile flag.
In the present case the Southern party has enjoyed thirty years possession of the
Federal Government--thirty years of domination over the whole Union--during which they have altered the laws, undermined the
Constitution, carved out territory, restricted liberty and created license, for their own sectional objects and interests.
So much for the long oppression which has driven them to resistance.
And what outrage roused the reluctant men of peace at last?
What was the Stamp Act of the present occasion?
It was the loss of an election, a constitutional election, conducted in a regular and orderly way.--
London News, March 12.