The English Press on the American excitement.
The
London press is running over with gall and bitterness against the
Southern States. --In this good work the
Times leads the way. It gives the
South fair warning that, in the event of disunion, it need not look to English friendship or cooperation.
In spite of all this fine talk we have little doubt that the failure of one year's cotton crop would bring
Great Britain to her marrow bones.
Whilst an alliance with
England, in the event of disunion, is, just at present, as impracticable as undesirable, we are at a loss to understand the persistent hatred manifested towards the
Southern people.
Their peculiar institutions are of English origin; their peculiar productions are the great support of English manufactures and commerce; their peculiar conservatism ought to be agreeable to English sympathies, and their political influence has always been exerted in behalf of friendly relations with
Great Britain, and has, on more than one occasion, successfully resisted the efforts of Western and Northern politicians to involve the
United States in a war with
England.
Nevertheless, for the last thirty years, an English crusade has been carried on against Southern institutions; the whole power of the press has been brought to bear upon slavery and slaveholders, till they are execrated throughout
Great Britain, till Southerners are shunned socially, as well as proscribed politically, and made to assume the same hideous guise in
European imaginations that "Bomba" and
Francis Joseph are in those of our countrymen, by the malignant falsehoods of the same prostituted journals.
Unless the object of all this has been, and is, the dissolution of the
Union, involving the overthrow of the only commercial and manufacturing rival that
Great Britain has to fear, it is perfectly inexplicable.--We trust that she will be disappointed.
If disunion cannot be averted, the
South can stand alone; or, if she desires allies, she will far sooner find them among our gallant Northern friends in the
Island of Manhattan than in the
Islands of
Great Britain.
Since the above was in type, we perceive that the London
Times is coming to its senses.
It finds that it cannot rely on the statements of the
Black Republican papers — it even makes war upon the blessed
Beecher family — it declares that
Liverpool, Manchester, London, is as much interested in slavery as
New York. This looks like a much earlier adhesion than we had anticipated to the authority of King Cotton. We think the game of
England in this whole thing is palpable.
But is not the
Times showing its hand too soon?--Ought it not to have kept on denouncing the
South till the Republicans, emboldened by the assurance of British co-operation, had forced the
Southern States to cross the Rubicon?--Now, only one has gone, and it is possible that, scared by the new position of the "Thunderer," the haughty and uncompromising fanatics will back down, and the
Springfield oracle break its significant silence.--Dumb amid the weepings and wailings of a distracted country; having no lips to speak one word of cheer and hope amid this awful gloom; silent as the grave while multitudes of working men and working women are out of employment and in danger of perishing by famine, and revelling on the thought of coercing the seceding States with fire and sword, it may be that this long shadow of coming events, from the other side of the
Atlantic, will unseal even
Lincoln's lips, unbend his obstinate purpose, relax his
Puritan rigidity, and cause him to cry aloud and spare not. It is too late for
South Carolina; she has gone, and, we fear, irrecoverably, but, if
Lincoln would save the remainder, if he would not see the
Union split forever in twain, and
Great Britain accomplish by her profound policy what a seven years war failed to achieve, he and they who are with him must speak, and not only speak, but act, and not only act, but give the most complete and satisfactory guarantees that they will observe the national compact hereafter in good faith, and in the letter and in the spirit.
