Recall of our Commissioners from Europe.
The opinion has become general that national self-respect requires a withdrawal of our Commissioners from the courts of
Europe.
We have sued for recognition long enough, and
Mr. Yancey, with the true instincts of a Southern gentleman, did right in declining to hold his commissionership longer, and preferring to become a Senator of the
Confederacy, at home.
We have been lurking in the antechambers of foreign ministers long enough.--It is time that our suit was abandoned.
It is time that our Commissioners were recalled, and that they should depart in the most public and conspicuous manner.
The spectacle of their retirement under advice from their Government, would certainly inspire a higher respect for our cause than a patient and obsequious continuance as beggars at the doors of foreign powers.
The resolution lately introduced by
Mr. Swann into Congress, to this effect, rings of the true metal, and accords with the manly feeling of the country.
When we first erected our Government it was proper that we should dispatch messengers to
Europe to represent the interests of our cause in that quarter.
During the first months of our struggle with the enemy, it was natural that foreign powers should request them to consider of the propriety, or rather policy, of our recognition.
It was even excusable that our permanent government when organised should have representatives near the leading courts to afford them a last opportunity for our recognition.
But the time has now come when we should cause these supplications.
The withdrawal of our Commissioners would be a public announcement of our self-assured independence.
It would be a proclamation to
Europe that we did not need recognition or interference in accomplishing it. It would be a declaration that while we had been anxious to open relations of a city and commerce with great powers, we considered those relations no more important to ourselves than to them, and would now await their own action on the subject.
The withdrawal of our Commissioners would be a politic and judicious step with reference to our interests, even if it were not demanded imperatively by our honor.
The withdrawal of these functionaries would not leave us unrepresented abroad Many intelligent citizens and friends of our cause would be left behind to advocate our cause, and to be the means of communication whenever any of the several powers might desire to confer with us. In fact, our interests would not suffer at all, while our self-respect and dignity imperatively demand the cessation of all public representation near the foreign courts.
