There are evidently a great many
bubbles in this world, and, for all that we know to the contrary, they
are all equally liable to burst. Some famous ones, bright in royal
hues, have burst within the century. Some more of the same may, not
impossibly, suffer a collapse before the century has closed. So that,
for this matter, "the bubble of Democracy" must take its chance with the
rest.
We have one more specification to make under our general statement
of reasons why the North feels aggrieved with the prevailing tone of
sentiment and comment in the English journals in reference to our great
calamity. We protest against the verdict which finds expression in all
sorts of ways and with various aggravations, that, in attempting to
rupture our Union, and to withdraw from it on their own terms, at their
own pleasure, the seceding States are but repeating the course of the
old Thirteen Colonies in declaring themselves independent, and sundering
their ties to the mother country. There is evidently the rankling of an
old smart in this plea for rebels, which, while it is not intended to
justify rebellion in itself, is devised as a vindication of rebels
against rebels. There is manifest satisfaction and a high zest, and
something of the morally awful and solemnly remonstrative, in the way in
which the past is evoked to visit its ghostly retribution upon us.
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