XI.

Our Foreign Relations, such as they are, such as they may be.

SOMETIMES it is as true with nations as with individuals that an age is crowded into an hour,—that the flash of a sabre may do in a second what a whole generation has waited for,—that exhausted patience among men and governments may assume the prerogatives of the Almighty, and let the bolt and the flash come together. But beware where the bolt strikes.

This has had a full application in our recent experience at home. We found our enemies had become those of our own household. They attempted to break up our Government, to overthrow our Union, to destroy our prosperity, and wind up our history as a first-class Power. The Government of the United States had never deviated from the accomplishment of its legitimate objects. It was made for all, and it had protected all. No State could claim that it had been wronged in any measure, without instantly having its wrong adjusted by the supreme legislative, judicial, or executive power.

And thus, without any infraction of law or any invasion of prerogative, one section of the country was arrayed in hostility against the other; and suddenly we found ourselves threatened with the choice of two evils,-a struggle to the death, if necessary, against dismemberment, if not indeed. against total destruction, or to submit tamely to inevitable. ruin.

This was a new spectacle for the nations of Europe to look on; and, as might be expected, it gave them a good chance for showing how truly they had rejoiced in our prosperity or how glad they would be in our misfortune.

RUSSIA,-by all odds the grandest of all European structures,-without waiting an hour for consultation with other Powers, sent back her assurances of sympathy with us in our efforts to frustrate this treasonable attempt to break up a free and prosperous Government, which had proved so powerful and beneficent a shield for the protection of all its people.

Russia is the natural ally of the United States. She has a vast territory, and all her people look to her for protection. She has, during a thousand years, been slowly but surely emerging from Asiatic barbarism into the light and strength of modern civilization. She has, moreover, done what few other nations have done: she has carried the masses of her people along with her as fast as she has travelled herself.

Oriental in her origin, she has maintained a patriarchal government. If it has ever been a despotism in form, it was manifestly the only machinery strong enough to govern, protect, and bless all her people.

She undertook a work far more difficult than Rome had to do. She had to aggregate, harmonize, and blend together the great nomadic tribes of the East. When from the affluent social systems of Asia, bursting with crowded populations, they drifted westward on her now European territories, Russia was submerged by wild, strange, and savage races. She had the most stupendous task given to her which any nation has ever had to perform. Contending with difficulties which had never before been encountered, she has at last presented to the world the wonderful spectacle of a mighty empire made up of countless dissevered and warring communities, all ferocious, all untamed, all nomadic, all speaking different tongues, and representing all the religious superstitions of the East, but now all blended in a homogeneous social and political system, which has not only eclipsed, in the culture of its upper classes, the refinement of European courts, and matched them in the arts of war and peace, but has boldly struck the shackles of

slavery from the limbs of as many million men as now make up the population of all our free States.*

The later hands that built so well

The work sublime which these began,
And up from base to pinnacle

Wrought out the Empire's mighty plan,—

All these to-day are crown'd anew,

And rule in splendor where they trod,

While Russia's children throng to view
Her holy cradle, Novgorod,-

From Volga's banks, from Dwina's side,
From pine-clad Ural, dark and long,

Or where the foaming Terek's tide

Leaps down from Kasbek, bright with song,

From Altai's chain of mountain-cones,

Mongolian deserts far and free,

And lands that bind, through changing zones,
The Eastern and the Western Sea.

To every race she gives a home,

And creeds and laws enjoy her shade,
Till far beyond the dreams of Rome
Her Cæsar's mandate is obey'd.

She blends the virtues they impart,
And holds within her life combined

The patient faith of Asia's heart,

The force of Europe's restless mind.

That involuntary servitude should be abolished by the most despotic of nations, with the applause of the world, and the day of emancipation (March 3, 1863) be ushered in by chimes of gratitude and thanksgiving from every church-spire in the Russian Empire, while the great Republic of the world still binds the fetters upon four million slaves, will hereafter read strangely in history.

But a wiser and broader statesmanship than ours guides the destinies of Russia.

It was from such a nation that the earliest words of sympathy and confidence came when our first domestic troubles began; and it will not be forgotten hereafter by the Ameri

She bids the nomad's wandering cease
She binds the wild marauder fast;
Her ploughshares turn to homes of peace
The battle-fields of ages past.

And, nobler far, she dares to know

Her future's task,-nor knows in vain,
But strikes at once the generous blow
That makes her millions men again!

So, firmer based, her power expands,
Nor yet has seen its crowning hour,
Still teaching to the struggling lands
That Peace the offspring is of Power.

Build up the storied bronze, to tell

The steps whereby this height she trod,

The thousand years that chronicle

The toil of Man, the help of God!

And may the thousand years to come-
The future ages, wise and free-
Still see her flag and hear her drum

Across the world, from sea to sea,

Still find, a symbol stern and grand,

Her ancient eagle's strength unshorn,
One head to watch the western land

And one to guard the land of morn!

NOVGOROD, RUSSIA, Sept. 20, 1862.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

can people when this tempest has swept by us. We see new storms gathering over Europe, and our aid may be invoked against Russia, and invoked in vain. Statesmen know that, while individuals may forgive, nations never do.

HOW HAS ENGLAND LOOKED ON THIS CONTEST?

Strange enough has been the course she has taken. She will hardly be able hereafter to explain it to others: it is doubtful if she can do it now even to herself.

England lives in America to-day, and is dying at home.

England is clinging to her sepulchres,--and she may well do it; for the places where her great ones repose are the greenest spots on her island.

We Americans cheated ourselves most egregiously when we thought England-once the head of the slave-trade, and only a few years ago the front of the abolitionism of the worldwould turn her slavery-hating back on the only organized band of slavery propagandism on the earth!

Poor fools we! Just as though the British aristocracy (the true name for the British Government) meant any thing but interference and trouble for us when her Grace the Duchess of Sutherland chaperoned the gifted Harriet Beecher Stowe through the court of her Majesty, simply because Mrs. Stowe, by writing a great dramatic novel against slavery, could be made a cat's-paw to pull the chestnuts of the British aristocracy out of the fire !

Yes, abolitionism suited the purposes of the British aristocracy just then; and lords and ladies swarmed at negroemancipation gatherings at Exeter Hall. On all such occasions three standing jokes were played off, to the infinite amusement of dukes and duchesses,-duchesses more particularly.

First, there must be a live American negro,—the blacker the better, sometimes; but they generally got one as little black as possible, and an octoroon threw them into the highest state of