We confess that we have looked through the English papers for
months for some magnanimous and high-souled tribute of this sort to the
Man who thus nobly represents a sacred and imperilled cause. If such
tribute has been rendered, it has escaped our notice.
Now, as we are reflecting upon the tone and spirit of the English press
at the opening of the Rebellion, we have to recall to the minds of our
readers the fact, that in all its early stages, even down to and almost
after the proclamation of the President summoning a volunteer force to
resist it, we ourselves, at the North, utterly refused to consider the
Seceders as in earnest. We may have been stupid, besotted, infatuated
even, in our blindness and incredulity. But none the less did we, that
is, the great majority of us, regard all the threats and measures of the
South as something less formidable and actual than open war and probable
or threatening revolution. We were persuaded that the people of the
South had been wrought up by artful and ambitious leaders to wild alarm
that the new Administration would visit outrages upon them and try to
turn them into a state of vassalage. Utterly unconscious as we were of
any purpose to trespass upon or reduce their fullest constitutional
rights, we knew how grossly our intentions were misrepresented to them.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321