Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. LXI.]

FAILURE OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE.

529

ed from it by the Southern secessionists;

Was there ever such a catalogue of disappointed exThe results obtain- pectations as is presented by this Mexican tragedy? The Southern secession leaders engaged in it dreaming of a tropical empire which they never realized; they hoped it would bring a recognition of their independence, and they were betray. ed. The English were beguiled into it as a means of by the English checking the growth of a commercial rival, government; and of protecting their West Indian possessions. They were duped into the belief that there was no purpose of interfering with the government of Mexi co. They consented to the perilous measure of admitting the belligerent rights of the South. They lent what aid they could to the partition of a nation with which they were at peace. They found that the secret intention was the establishment of an empire in the interest of France, the conciliation of Austria for military reverses in Italy, and the curbing of the Anglo-Saxon by the Latin race. England expected to destroy a democracy, and has gathered her reward by becoming more democratical herself. The Pope gave his countenance to the plot, having reby the Papal gov- ceived a promise of the elevation of the Mexican Church to her pristine splendor, and the restoration of her mortmain estates; but the Archbishop La Bastida, who was one of the three regents representing her great influence, was insulted and removed from his political office by the French. In impotent retaliation, he discharged at his assailants the rusty ecclesiastical blunderbuss of past days-he excommunicated the French army. The Spaniards did not regain their former colony; the brow of the Count de Reuss by the Spaniards; was never adorned with a vice-regal coronet. The noble and devoted wife of Maximilian was made a wanderer in the sight of all Europe, her diadem removed, her reason dethroned.

ernment;

by the Austrians;

by France;

For Maximilian himself there was not reserved the pag eantry of an imperial court in the Indian palaces of Montezuma, but the death-volley of a grim file of Mexican sol diers, under the frowning shadow of the heights of Quere taro. For the Emperor of Austria there was not the hom age of a transatlantic crown; Mexico sent him across the ocean a coffin and a corpse. For France, ever great and just, in whose name so many crimes were perpetrated, but who is responsible for none of them, there was a loss of that which in her eyes is of infinitely more value than the six hundred millions of francs which were cast into this Mexican abyss. For the and by the Emperor Emperor-can any thing be more terrible than the dispatch which was sent to Amer ica at the closing of the great Exposition?"There remain now no sovereigns in Paris except the Emperor Napoleon III. and the spectre of Maximilian at his elbow."

Napoleon.

CHAPTER LXII..

STATE OF EUROPEAN OPINION ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS (Continued).

THE TRENT QUESTION.

The Mexican expedition led to the propagation in Europe of views unfavorable to the American republic.

Some Confederate officials were forcibly taken by an American captain from the Trent, an English mail steam-ship. The British government demanded their restoration and a suitable apology. The American government acceded to that demand.

Attack of Euro

the Union.

THE engagements which had been mutually contracted by the French Emperor and the ministry of pean journals on Lord Palmerston in relation to American af fairs were essentially based on the disruption of the United States. The journalism of both England and France, suitably inspired, spared no labor to accomplish that result. Thus we read:

Ferocity and folly of the American

war.

"The ferocity with which this war has been entered on shows that the government of Washing. ton will soon lose all control over events. It is a mere quarrel for territory, a struggle for aggrandizement. With the deepest sorrow we see this people precipitating itself into civil war like the halfbreeds of Mexico. Lord John Russell and his advisers have come to the conclusion that the Southern Confeder acy must be treated as a belligerent; it has acquired a certain degree of force and consistency. The South has not understood the war. It calculated on a war with men holding its own opinions about slavery. Even Mr. Lincoln declared that he would not meddle with that matter. On the part of the North it is a war to keep South

ern debtors and their property from going beyond the grasp of Northern merchants.

"Stripped of its trappings, it is a mere quarrel for ter It is a savage quar- ritory. The antagonists are acting like Delrel about territory. awares or Pawnees. War to the knife, pushed to absolute extermination, is what they have resolved on; government and people breathe language of massa cre and extermination. Massachusetts is enforcing the doctrines of legitimacy and Toryism. It is a congregation of seceders protesting against a repetition of secession. Mr. Seward's letter to Mr. Dayton, the Amer sulted the French. ican representative in Paris, is a message defiance, if not of insult, to France.

Mr. Seward has in

of

"The march of events has made us regard this dispute as a more commonplace quarrel than at first it appeared to be. The South received no provocation and enjoyed Absurdity of Lin- no sovereign prerogatives, and Mr. Lincoln coln's views. is invoking resolutions made by one tenth of the present population nearly eighty years ago; he thinks that by such a document as that all living Amer icans must be bound.

"Lord John Russell's accordance of belligerent rights to the South is discussed in a tone highly hostile to England; but what have we done to deserve this American tornado of abuse? We are neither to have liberty of action nor of inaction. That people has acquired a habit of petulance and insolence. The grievance is simply this —that we think as they thought six weeks before; and yet we are expected to join in hounding on the invaders. But the French emperor has followed our example without a word of explanation. The terms he uses are like those that we employed. He places the two on an equality-" one or other of the belligerents." The North has had to take a great moral "cocktail," but it is of its own mixing. Nei

France views the

matter in accord

with England.

CHAP. LXII.] THE NORTH CAN NOT CONQUER THE SOUTH.

The war a mere quarrel between two rival shops.

533

ther England, nor France, nor any other state supposes there to be any rights or any wrongs about it. It is simply a quarrel. This is intensely disagreeable to the North, who thinks that heaven and earth are bound to avenge its cause. People give themselves no concern about a quarrel between two rival shops, or are only concerned that there is a breach of the peace and public scandal. For some unknown reason the Northern States empty all their vials of wrath on the English nation. They are wounded because we have not admired their movements sufficiently. Our course, however, has been followed by the French government."

On the news of the battle of Bull Run reaching EuDerision at the bat- rope, it was said, "The North has lost alltle of Bull Run. even military honor; her people were bellowing behind the army. It is a complete victory for the South-as complete a victory as Austerlitz. We have been cheated out of our sympathies; we don't like to laugh. They are shaking their knives at each other and their fists at us. But an American battle is not as dangerous as an American steam-boat. It is carried on upon strict humanitarian principles. Seventy-five thousand American patriots have fled twenty miles in an agony of fear, though there was nobody pursuing them."

The solemn resolution passed by the houses of ConThe gasconding gress on the national defeat at Bull Run (p. vote of Congress. 185) is stigmatized as a "gasconading vote." "The two sections of the late republic had better part and be friends. The North is undertaking more than Napoleon did in his Russian ampaign. It is better for it to accept the situation, as we did eighty years ago on their own soil. Let it consider if it

The North can no more conquer the South than Napo

leon could conquer can do what Napoleon could not. The United States of America have ceased to

Russia.

« PreviousContinue »