Why else were the Rebels so sure of a
triumph? Was it because of their superior strength or resources? A very
little inquiry would have set aside that suggestion. Was it because
of the nobleness of their cause? A very frank avowal from the
Vice-President of the assumed Confederacy announced to liberty-loving
Englishmen that that cause was identified with a slavocracy. Or was
the Rebel cause to succeed through the dignity and purity of the means
enlisted in its service? It was equally well known on both sides of the
water by what means and appliances of fraud, perfidy, treachery, and
other outrages, the schemes of the Rebellion were initiated and pursued.
If, in spite of all these negatives, the English press prophesies
success to the Rebels, was not the prophecy a great comfort and spur
to them?--Again, this prophecy of our sure discomfiture prejudiced us
before the world. It gave a public character and aspect of hopelessness
to our cause; it invited coldness of treatment towards us; it seemed to
warn off all nations from giving us aid or comfort; and it virtually
affirmed that any outlay of means or life by us in a cause seen to be
impracticable would be reckless, sanguinary, cruel, and inhuman.--And,
once more, to those among ourselves who are influenced by evil
prognostications, it was most dispiriting to be told, as if by cool,
unprejudiced observers from outside, that no uprising of patriotism, no
heroism of sacrifice, no combination of wisdom and power would be of any
avail to resist a foreordained catastrophe.
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