Cassius M. Clay and the London Times--"Our Foreign Relations."
The letter from
Cassius M. Clay to the London
Times was briefly referred to yesterday.
We do not propose to burden our columns with the text of this letter, preferring to give the comments of the London
Times thereon, which are as follows:
‘
This lively letter writer proposes six questions--three relating to his own country, three relating to
England.
The first question he is more successful in asking than answering: --"What are we fighting for?" "We are fighting," says
Mr. Clay, "for nationality and liberty." We can understand a fight for nationality between different races, but a fight for nationality between men of the same nationality is to us, we candidly confess it, an inexplicable enigma; nor can we better understand how a people fighting to put down a rebellion, to force their fellow-citizens to remain in a confederacy which they detest, and to submit to institutions which they repudiate, can be called the champions of liberty.
If the
South seriously threatened to conquer the
North, to put down trial by jury, freedom of the press and representative government, the contest might be for liberty; but, as this is not so, the introduction of such topics is mere rhetorical amplification. "Can you subdue the revolted States?" "Of course we can," says
Mr. Clay.
So on that point there is no more to be said.--"Can you re-construct the
Union when one-half of it has conquered the other?" "Nothing easier," says
Mr. Clay.
The victim of today will become the confederate of to-morrow; the traitors will be cast out, and the
Union firmer than ever — witness the happy results of the conquest of
Ireland by
England, repeated over and over again, and always repeated in vain.
Having answered the questions which he supposes to be addressed to him by
England,
Mr. Clay becomes the questioner, and asks us where our honor would place us in this contest.
Clearly by the side of the
Union, because, he says, if slavery be extended in
America, it must be restored in the
West Indies.--If any one doubts the force of this demonstration, we are sorry for it, for
Mr. Clay has no other to offer.
Our examiner next asks us to consider our interests.
Clearly, he says, it is to stand by the
Union, because they are our best customers, and because, though they have done all they can, since the separation of the
South gave them the power, to ruin their trade with us, they will, in spite of their own hostile tariff, remain our best customers.
Lastly comes the momentous question, ‘"Can
England afford to offend the
United States? "’ ‘"Certainly not,"’ says
Mr. Clay, ‘"for in half a century they will amount to a hundred millions of people, and will have railways four thousand miles long. "’ But is
Mr. Clay quite sure that, even if we should offend them now, the people of
America will bear malice for half a century; and, if they do, is he quite certain that his hundred millions will all be members of one Confederacy, and that we may not then, as we might now, secure either half of the
Union as our ally in a war against the other?
Mr. Clay must really allow us to give our own version of the honor and interest of
England.
Our honor and interest is to stand aloof from contests which in no way concern us: to be content with our own laws and liberties, without seeking to impose them upon others; ‘"to seek peace and insure it,"’ and to leave those who take to the sword to fall by the sword.
In war we will be strictly neutral; in peace we will be the friends of whatever power may emerge out of the frightful chaos through which
Mr. Clay sees his way so clearly.
And that neutrality which is recommended alike by our interest and our honor we will not violate through fear — no, not of a hundred millions of unborn men. Let
Mr. Clay and his countrymen look well to the present, and they will find enough to occupy their attention, without troubling themselves with long visions of humiliation and retribution, which no man now alive will ever see accomplished.
’
The New York Journal of Commerce has the good sense to comment as follows upon the impertinent effusion of the
Kentucky Cassius — a man who bears the name of
Clay to disgrace it, both at home and abroad:
‘
The present Administration has the fortune to have secured the services of a jealous and earnest, if not a discreet champion, in the person of its newly-appointed Minister to
Russia, the valiant
Cassius M. Clay, of
Kentucky.
That gentleman lately arrived in
England on his way to the field of his official labors, and finding the tone of public sentiment there not quite in conformity with his own views of the
American question, forthwith writes a letter to the London Times, to instruct the
English nation in their duty and their interests.
To say nothing of the lack of propriety and of dignity, in thus forcing his opinions, unsolicited and probably undesired, upon the people of a country through which he was passing, on the way to another to which he was officially accredited, the letter of
Mr. Clay was in bad taste, and liable to damage the cause which it was doubtless intended to advance.
It does not appear to have occurred to
Mr. Clay that in the first place he was insulting the
British public by thus thrusting his opinions in their faces, while simply halting for a day or a few days on his passage to
Russia; and secondly, granting the propriety of place and occasion, that "British honor," "British interests," and the question whether "
England can afford to offend the great nation which will still be the '
United States of America,' even should we lose part of the
South," are delicate subjects for an American diplomat to handle in the columns of an English newspaper, where no provocation or occasion has been given for such a departure from the usage of the
Representatives of our country abroad.
Had
Mr. Clay been the
Ambassador of the
United States to
England instead of
Russia, it would have been manifestly improper thus to thrust great questions of the character discussed in his letter to the
Times before the
British people; and we cannot see how the case is materially changed by the fact that his mission is to
Russia instead, unless it be to give to the transaction an air of impudence when otherwise it would have been one of impropriety.
We need no better proof of the indiscretion of the act to which we refer, than the comments of the
English papers thereon.
They regard it as an impertinent interference with questions belonging to the
British Government and people, and it can scarcely be doubted that the effect of the course pursued by
Mr. Clay, however well intended, must be to damage rather than promote the cause of our Government abroad.
Had he been a private citizen, invested with no official importance, his undertaking might pass for a specimen of the vanity which sometimes characterizes the action of
Americans in
Europe; but the importance attached to his connection with the Administration, whose confidence in him has so recently been manifested by his selection for an important mission, will be likely to give undue prominence to the views which he has so unwisely sought to thrust upon the people of
England.
’
"our Foreign Relations."
The New York Herald, of Thursday, editorially says:
‘
Secretary Seward's dispatch to
Mr. Dayton is again criticised in a very sneering manner by the London Times, and another English journal does not hesitate to class
Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet and the insurgent Southern conclave of rebels as the two American factions.
Lord Palmerston says, through his
London organ, the Post, that
Canada will soon become the centre of commerce and emigration for the
American continent.
Our compilation from the foreign files, given to-day, in such connection, is worthy of serious consideration, and exhibits a manifest tendency towards an unfriendly policy to the
Government at
Washington, which, if carried out, may result in giving
England a severe lesson, for which she is probably not prepared.
Mr. Lindsay, M. P., who recently visited this country, in a speech to his constituents at
Sunderland, has gone far towards indoctrinating them with the idea of the right of secession at the
South and the necessity of maintaining the rebel cause.
This gentleman advises
France and
England to step forward and proclaim the independence of the Southern Confederacy as the only means of allaying the thirst for blood which he says prevails at the
North.
The
London Morning Post, Lord Palmerston's organ, asserts that the
Southern States were
de facto independent at the moment.
’
"Misplaced Confidence."
Under this heading the New York Express observes:
‘
It was a favorite notion with not a few of our contemporaries quite lately that, if the present British Ministry would be so infatuated as to espouse the cause of the
Montgomery Confederacy, it would find its speedy account in ejection from office.
The opposition led on by the
Earl of
Derby, it was never doubted, would be but too happy to avail themselves of
Palmerston and
Russell's leanings towards the
Cotton Confederacy, to make them uncomfortable, at least, in their places, if not ultimately to compel her Majesty to seek other advisers.
This expectation was not an unreasonable one.
It was predicted upon the fallacy that the
British anti-slavery feeling was something more substantial than a sentiment, and that in a hand-to-hand contest with a "Government," the chief corner-stone of which, as acknowledged by
Mr. Vice- President Stephens, is negro slavery, English sympathy must all be on the side of the
North. --Never was there a greater delusion, as everybody may now see.
The
Earl of
Derby, so far from espous- ing "the cause of freedom," and making that cause a lever with which to oust
Palmerston and
Russell from office, has taken the first opportunity to go a step or two in advance of them even, in favor of the
Confederates!
Witness his speech, on the 16th, in favor of treating privateers, not as pirates, but (we had almost said) as gentlemen.
That speech, now, together with the cold shoulder Lord Brougham has given them, ought to open the eyes of the Beechers, and Cheevers, here at home, to the truth we have ever been trying (in vain) to impress upon them — that the Abolitionists of Exeter Hall have for years and years only been using them to bring about a dissolution of the
Union--and that all their lip sympathy for "Liberty and Humanity" was but a bubble, which would collapse — as it has already collapsed — the moment "sentiment" came in contact with interest.
’
