The French Press on the Southern Confederacy.
The
Paris Pays, (the official paper of
Napoleon,) of the 13th ult., contains a long article on the separation which has taken place from the
American Republic.
It draws a picture of the effects which would follow a stoppage of the cotton and tobacco crops were the
North allowed to attack the
South, and adds:
Let us not be deceived; the
North exhibits so much rashness and audacity only from the belief taught it by the
European press, that the inhabitants of the
South, too weak in numbers to resist its attacks, will not find on this side of the
Atlantic a single generous sentiment, much less a moral support.
Will philanthropy so far blind
European commerce as to make it forgetful of its own interests?
We do not think so, and already
England, profoundly moved, awakes at length to the reality; she begins to measure the whole extent of the disaster which menaces her manufactures; she no longer disguises the fact, in spite of her abolition tendencies, that her commercial interests depend in a great measure on the prosperity of the
South, which
Europe has a deep interest in seeing preserve, at least temporarily, her institutions, now attacked with so much vehemence.
The question is a plain one; we have previously said that the
South, far from being the aggressor, as it seems to be generally supposed, was the victim of Northern pretensions.
Those recent words of the
Emperor also find an echo in the bottom of our hearts: ‘"
France has no desire to meddle in any way where her interests are not at stake; in fine, if she has sympathies for what is great and noble, she does not hesitate to condemn everything that violates justice and the rights of nations."’ Public opinion will appreciate them on both sides of the
Atlantic, and will find for the great interests at stake in the
American crisis, a solution which may be satisfactory to all — namely, an amicable separation, without conflict and without war, instead of a secession by violence, or a Union maintained by force.
