Not to deal, however,
with generalities, we proceed to make three distinct points of an
argument that crowds us with materials.
Foremost among the grievances which we at the North may allege against
our brethren across the water--foremost, both in time and in the harmful
influence of its working--we may specify this fact, that the English
press, with scarce an exception, made haste, in the very earliest stages
of the Southern Rebellion, to judge and announce the hopeless partition
of our Union, as an event accomplished and irrevocable. The way in which
this judgment was reached and pronounced, the time and circumstances of
its utterance, and the foregone conclusions which were drawn from it,
gave to it a threatening and mischievous agency, only less prejudicial
to our cause, we verily believe, than would have been an open alliance
between England and the enemies of the Republic. This haste to announce
the positive and accomplished dissolution of our National Union was
forced most painfully upon our notice in the darkest days of our opening
strife. Those who undertook to guide and instruct English opinion in
the matter had easy means of informing themselves about the strangely
fortuitous and deplorable, though most opportune and favoring
combination of circumstances under which "Secession" was initiated and
strengthened.
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