The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

And weeps and prays alone!

OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS

The founders of the American Republic were wise alike in their grasp of temporary difficulties and in the forethought they bestowed upon the period of construction which was to come. Before a government was formed, its necessary elements had attained something of order, much of efficacy. In the very inception of revolution, the beginning was made of that elaborate diplomatic system which became the medium by which we have asserted rights, elicited respect, and received amenities from the great powers of the earth.

In the early days of our Revolution, the conduct of the foreign correspondence was intrusted to the care of a Committee, composed of men of established reputation for capacity and patriotism. Through their labors, not only did we receive substantial sympathy from those unselfish men in the mother-country who discountenanced the hateful oppression of the crown: France, guided by the generous Vergennes, was also attracted to our active defence; the independent spirit of the Low Countries cheered and helped us; Tuscany, inheriting the sentiment of liberty from Dante and Macchiavelli, extended loans with a liberal hand; Spain and Portugal rose superior to their traditional bigotry, and sent us money, ships, and stores. So efficient was our infant system of diplomacy, that, long before the war had ended, England stood absolutely without the countenance of a single Continental power, and confronted boldly by her most ancient and most dreaded enemy. Proudly as she entered into the conflict with her colonies, she became humbled as well by the skill with which they attracted monarchies and empires to their aid as by the valor with which they met her armies. It is hardly to be doubted that our final success is to be in a great degree attributed to the excellent diplomacy of Franklin, Lee, and Izard. Certain it is that their labors vastly accelerated that success. How gigantic those labors must have been, to bring the representatives and supporters of mediæval systems of state-craft to countenance not only rebellion, but the sentiment of republican liberty which rebellion matured, and which successful revolution was to lay at the foundation of a new government!

The Confederation, established for the more easy transition to a permanent system, included almost as its corner-stone a Department of Foreign Affairs. The duties of the Secretary were confined to the performance of the specific acts authorized by Congress, at that time at once the executive and the legislative power,—and consisted chiefly in the preservation of the papers and records of the office, and conducting the correspondence with ministers and agents abroad; he had likewise a seat, but without a vote, in Congress, to give information and answer inquiries. He was powerless to perform any executive act; he could not negotiate a treaty; he could not give positive instructions to ministers; and he was removable at the pleasure of Congress. Under the Constitution, the duties of the Secretary of State became more responsible; and the office was recognized as the highest in dignity, next to the Executive.

We may attribute our present rank among nations in no little degree to the conspicuous fitness of our envoys at foreign courts for the peculiar mission which it was their duty to fulfil, in the first quarter of a century of our national existence. As soon as the British ministry recognized the nationality of the United States, it was clear, that, on the new footing, our relations with the mother-country must of necessity be more intimate than those with any other nation. To pave the way for the establishment of such an intercourse, no man could have been more aptly chosen than John Adams. While his high-toned manners opened the way to favor, his nervous logic followed up the advantage so gracefully won, and drove home his purpose to its end. Franklin was equally felicitous in attaching to himself the good-will of the court of Versailles. Their successors well sustained the respect which they had inspired; and it was a matter of surprise among the best educated Europeans that such cultivated and capable men should proceed from a country which they had thought to be a wilderness, and from a people of whom they expected only the most flagrant barbarisms.

That the elevated standard thus set up by our early diplomacy has been preserved with but little exception is a simple matter of history. We have been almost uniformly fortunate in the choice of our ministers abroad, especially those to Great Britain. It is rightly regarded as a distinction hardly inferior to any in the State, to occupy the post of Plenipotentiary to St. James's or Versailles,—and this no less because the incumbent has generally been one of our most honored statesmen than because of the essential dignity and importance of the office.

If we consider, in connection with this fact, the persistency with which the Government has asserted the rights of an equal power, the promptness with which it has resented every indignity offered to our flag, and the vigor with which it has enforced in our favor the principles of international law, it can be no matter of surprise that we should stand, as we assuredly have stood, second to none in the estimate of our physical and moral power.

Starting on a totally new system,—a system which, if successful, would disprove the universally received dogmas of the political philosophers of Europe,—running counter to every prejudice and every conclusion of the Old-World statesmen,—the United States had to work their way through difficulties innumerable to their present rank, and were forced to prove their institutions by experience, before they could assume the dignity of a first-class power.

When the present Rebellion arose, America had thus far proved the success of democratic institutions. In military and naval power, in education, in the administration of justice, in commercial thrift, in mechanical and agricultural enterprise, in the development of the national resources, the progress had been steady and rapid. The politicians of Europe had been amazed to find that their unanimous prediction of the frailty of our political system had totally failed. The idea of a political centre combined with separate State organizations was as firmly fixed as ever. The General Government wielded an undiminished power in aid of the general good; the local Legislatures controlled, within the original limits, local interests. The people had suffered no curtailment of their liberties from the delegation of political power; the executive had not been weakened either by the accession of new States or the disaffection of old ones. The most philosophic of the English statesmen had predicted again and again that one of these alternatives must occur,—but they had begun to doubt their own theories, and wellnigh confessed that our institutions were a success. It was difficult for them to conceive that an entirely novel frame of government, deriving its genius from an idea, and regardless of precedent, could live to shame a system which had received the sanction of centuries of success, which was seemingly Providential in its stability, which had everywhere superseded every other form, which had absorbed into itself the elements of all other systems. Our Government was an anomaly; as such, there were ten chances to one against it. And now, the Englishman who, above all others, is, on both sides of the Atlantic, regarded as the ablest of modern political theorists, has in a series of papers triumphantly vindicated the wisdom of the founders of this Republic, and placed in the clearest logical sequence the origin and tendency of our institutions. Every American feels gratitude and reverence toward John Stuart Mill, who, in the disinterestedness and courage of a great mind, has led the honest opinion of England to appreciate at its value the system in which our reason and our feelings are alike bound up.

The confident belief, that an unusual strain on the supposed weak points of the Federal Constitution would involve it in the fate of the Cromwell dynasty and the French Revolution had begun to sleep, at the time of the Secession movement, and but one ray of hope yet remained to the enemies of republican government. They watched Slavery with an anxious eye. There was their only chance. In that they saw the apple of discord which might destroy our Union. They observed with exultation the increasing influence of those who warred upon slavery in the North, and the increasing insolence of those who would nationalize it in the South. On this ground State and Federal authority must, they thought, come in conflict. And as far as foresight could avail them, they had some reason to be encouraged. That question has always been, without doubt, our greatest, almost our only danger.

There is reason to believe, then, that, when the Rebellion broke out, the theorists of Europe deemed the test to have come, and that the final success or failure of the Federal Constitution was staked on the result. The people of the United States have been willing to accept that issue. We have been ready to test the doctrines of Democracy by the practicability of maintaining the Union, and to demonstrate, that, if need be, the General Government may receive at the hands of the people greater strength without endangering either their liberties or the order of law.

The diplomatic correspondence between the State Department and our ministers to foreign powers during the present contest is contained in two large volumes, published by the Government, which are full of valuable matter. In the limited space permitted us, but little more than a general survey of this correspondence can be attempted; and as our relations with England far exceed all others in closeness and interest,—a striking proof of which is found in the fact that the room occupied in these volumes by communications with that country is greater than that given to all the world besides,—we mainly confine ourselves to the portion which regards her.

England stands in the somewhat anomalous attitude of being to us the champion of the old monarchical principle, and to Europe the champion of Anglo-Saxon progress; so that the dicta of her thinkers (those who have opposed our Republic) may be regarded as the best thought of the most enlightened monarchists in the world. As the ministry are obliged, however unwillingly, to represent as well the popular as the aristocratic ideas, through them there comes to us a pretty correct exposition of the different opinions entertained by all classes. We may regard two facts as well established, one leading out of the other,—that England has ever been, and is, the most selfish of nationalities, and that she does not desire the prosperity of any power which may become a rival. With her politicians and her philosophers, Tory and Whig, Churchmen and Dissenters, the ascendancy of Great Britain has lain at the bottom of every policy, and has been the postulate of every theory. Her history is that of a nationality eager to attain the distinction of the first of powers. This fact, and this alone, can reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of her record. At one time the bold accuser of Despotism, she has with marvellous celerity turned to the inthralment of oppressed races. Maxim has superseded maxim, until her code of international law is a bewildering complication of anomaly and contradiction. To humble her rivals by every means, and to encourage the efforts of a people striving for freedom only when decided advantage would accrue to herself, has been her constant policy. This is true of the general tone of her successive cabinets, of the press, and of those politicians who have by comfortable doctrines most successfully gained the public ear.

The classes who look at questions of policy with an eye to expediency are, the leading statesmen of both parties, who regard as the proper end of their labors the interests of Great Britain, and the business-community, who judge of every political event by the manner in which it affects their pockets. There are two other classes, who take a higher view,—those who are conservative and fearful of innovation, and those who believe in the progressive tendency of the Anglo-Saxon. Within the last quarter of a century, the public opinion of England has been undergoing a great change, especially that part of it which is influenced by the lower-middle class. The people have been growing up to the adoption of liberal principles of government. The Reform Bill of 1832 was a great stride in that direction; and the measures which have followed upon it have widened the observation of the masses, made the sense of political wrong quicker, and the appreciation of a free system much more vivid. As a natural result, the attention of this class has been drawn toward America, as the exponent of a government before which all men are equal,—and so it is, that, as the Rebellion goes on, we receive weekly evidence that the sober, honest thought of English opinion is with us of the North. The class to which we refer, if it is not now, will very shortly be, the governing element. The tendency is irresistibly that way; the signs of its growing power are daily more and more manifest. That it should be deeply interested in the perpetuity of American institutions, as affecting its own position, is natural. In the failure of man's self-governing capacity here, where every circumstance has been favorable to its exercise, the rising spirit of a broader liberty in England must foresee the death-blow to its own hopes. Our failure will not be fatal to us alone; it will involve the fate of the millions who are now seeking to plant themselves against the tremendous force of kingly and patrician prestige. They have hitherto derived from our example all the inspiration with which they have struggled upward. They have been able to accomplish, step by step, important alterations in the unwritten constitution, by the apt comparisons their leaders have been able to make between American and British civilization. So that, in considering the forces at work to influence those at the head of affairs, it is necessary to consider that force which is imperceptibly, but subtly, brought to bear upon them by the working-class. Mr. Beecher, and other eminent Americans who have lately visited England, tell us that this class are almost to a man sympathizers with us; and that this sympathy has in many cases worked favorably to us cannot be doubted. Even the operatives and manufacturers of Manchester and Leeds, at first, a little morose because of the effect of the war on their industry, seem to have come to a better second-thought, and are now outspoken for the North.

The different elements of English feeling toward us may be, we think, stated thus. The aristocracy would view with complacency the disruption of the Union, because we are a rival power, and they are thoroughly pledged to British aggrandizement; because the success of the Union would belie the principle whence they derive their prerogative, and encourage the opposing element of popular rights to greater exertions for ascendancy; because hatred of democracy is a sentiment inherited, as well as a principle of self-preservation; and because they have not forgotten the former dependence of America on England. The ministry feel toward us as the servants of a jealous power would naturally feel toward a rival. The theorists are eager for events to crown them with the flattery of verified prediction. The commercial classes are ill pleased that their thrift should be curtailed; the manufacturers grumble about the scarcity of cotton. The timid minds of some honest thinkers did not see the real issue, until the regular developments of the war satisfied them; the lower orders had to be told before they could comprehend that in our destiny they must read the counterpart of their own. Those pretentious philanthropists who have assumed to direct the anti-slavery party in England have mostly espoused the Southern side of the quarrel; thus demonstrating that their moral scruples have no higher source than their own political advantage, and no more lofty end than to divide and distract a sister-nation. Of these we may instance the most conspicuous of all, Lord Brougham,—who, after having for half a century derived all the benefit he could from the striking and pathetic points in slavery to vivify his eloquence, turns the bitter vial of his dotage against those who stake everything upon its extinction. But everybody knows that Lord Brougham is a type of those statesmen who stand by the people in the Commons and grind the people in the Lords; who, after crying down public wrongs, upon finding the responsibility of a coronet on their shoulders, suddenly become arrant sticklers for hereditary rights. We are amused to notice, among those peers who have risen above the selfishness by which they are surrounded, and have given us a well-timed sympathy, but few who are of new creations: for the Duke of Argyle and the Earls of Carlisle and Clarendon are descendants of the oldest and proudest houses in the realm.

It is gratifying to observe that those forces which are operating against us are those which are rapidly losing that control in public affairs which belonged to past phases of society; while those forces which are proper to the present, and are inevitably to assume the preponderance in the future, appear as they develop to be more and more sympathetic with the cause of our national integrity. Aristocratic prestige is shrinking back before an advancing enlightenment which elevates all to equal dignity.

The present ministry is a fair type of the selfishness of British statesmanship. The antecedents of its principal members are those of timeserving politicians. Lord Palmerston, starting on his career as a Tory of the Wellington stamp, has veered round as the tide has turned against his former associates, and is the still distrusted representative of the Liberal party. Lord Russell, in the youth of his public service a Radical reformer, and the eager disciple of Sir Francis Burdett when Sir Francis Burdett could not lead a corporal's guard, once the prop and hope of those who sought a wider suffrage, has again and again eaten his own words, and the history of his political life is a ludicrous illustration of the perplexities of politicians. His invariable course as a diplomatist has been to leave the way open to prevarication, to keep his opinions in a cloud, and to confound sense with ambiguity. It would be pure credulity to place much confidence in the expressions of a statesman who within two months boldly censured and then as boldly favored the designs of Victor Emmanuel on Venice, officially and unblushingly before all Europe. Both these noble lords, however, are fortunate in a keen appreciation of the national prejudices, and know how to make use of the existing tone of public feeling. A long vicissitude of successes and failures has taught both a lesson which is every day a practical benefit; and after finding that they were powerless when mutually opposed, they have succeeded in swallowing the hatred of half a century, that they may join and divide the power. The fact that there has been for some time a Tory majority in the House of Commons shows the cunning with which Palmerston manœuvres his machinery. If we could conclude at all from his acts what his sentiments are toward America, there is little love wasted on us from that quarter; and Lord Russell, even while addressing the House of Lords in terms favorable to us, never lets the occasion pass without slipping in a sneer between his praises.

Selfishness, national or individual, is ever cautious and ever suspicious. It seldom rashly grasps the thing coveted: it oftener lets the apt occasion pass without improvement. The diplomatic intercourse between Lord Palmerston's government and our own for the last year or two amply illustrates this. He had in the first place no prepossession in favor of the United States. We believe that he was not at all unwilling to see the Union dissolved. It was natural for a statesman hardened by fifty years of intrigue and devotion to politics to look with absolute gratification upon what seemed the dissolution of a great, and, because a near, a hated rival. We do not think it too much to assume, that, as far as Palmerston's personal feelings were concerned, he was ready for the chance of Southern recognition at the outset. In such a sentiment, he had the sympathy of the aristocracy, and of all others who take the low standard of self-aggrandizement in determining opinions. Two circumstances, however, were a restraint upon him, and appealed with controlling force to his caution. He was not only an aristocrat and a hater of republics, he was also the Prime-Minister of all England. He was absolutely dependent to a great degree upon the lower orders for the permanence of his present dignity. Was it wise in him to disregard the sentiments of those who were advancing to the predominance, and resort for support to those whose power was rapidly waning, whose opinions were yielding to the newer intelligence? Would it not be fatally inconsistent in a Liberal statesman to override every Liberal maxim and belie every Liberal profession? Was not the popular current too strong to be safely defied? There were Liberal statesmen enough of conspicuous merit to take his place at the helm, should he make the misstep: Gladstone, Gibson, Herbert, Granville, would fully answer the popular demand: his downfall, if it came, would doubtless be final. His private feelings, therefore, even his political wishes, must yield to policy. His love of place is too strong to succumb either to personal prejudice or national jealousy; and the long habit has made the self-denial more easy.

The other reason why Lord Palmerston has withheld open comfort from the Rebels is doubtless to be found in the steady adherence of our Government to the position which it assumed at the beginning,—in the promptness with which we have insisted upon our rights throughout the world,—the grace with which we have disavowed the evident errors of public servants,—the steadiness of our military progress,—the ease with which we have borne the strain upon our resources in respect both of men and money,—the possible, if not probable, success of the war,—the certainty that that success would strengthen our system, and render us capable of resenting foreign insult. For while Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell are very apt to stalk about and threaten and talk very loudly at nations whose weakness causes them not to be feared, and by bullying whom some power or money may slide into British hands, they are slow to provoke nations whose resentment either is or may become formidable to British weal. The British lion roars over the impotence of Brazil: he lies still and watches before the might of Napoleon. In the one case he stands forth the lordly king of beasts; in the other he seems metamorphosed into the fox. The hope that America would descend incontinently to the rank of an inferior power was quickly dispelled; so the lion crouched and the foxy head appeared. The everlasting caution came in and said,—"Wait your chance; a hasty judgment is always a poor judgment; let events take their course, and if occasion offers, strike the right blow at the right time; but do not decree away the stability of the Union either by the illusion of hope or by an expectation as yet ill-founded." It was the wisdom of the serpent, eager, and conquering eagerness.

Under the cloak of a pretended neutrality, the ministry have had opportunity to watch the course of events, to connive at aid to the Rebellion, and to leave themselves unembarrassed when the success of one side or the other should make it expedient to declare in its favor. It has been with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Adams has been able to bring the Foreign Office to exert its authority against violations of that neutrality. Vessels, known well enough to be in the service of the Confederates, or intended for their use, have been allowed to escape from the Clyde, and to put into British ports to refit. Frequent conflicts on questions of international law have arisen, in which our Government has invariably insisted upon the known precedents set by Great Britain, and which that power has generally deemed it prudent to follow. In the case of the Trent, if we lost the possession of two valuable prisoners of war, we at all events, by promptly disavowing the act of Commodore Wilkes, set England an example of fairness which she has been loath to follow, but which it would have been folly totally to disregard. Yet it has been apparent that the British ministers have borne us no good-will. Whatever justice has been done us has been done grudgingly,—with the moroseness of an enemy who is compelled to yield. While Lord Russell has been cautious how he offended our Government in acts, his repeated sneers in Parliament, at dinners, and on the hustings have exhibited the rancor of a jealous mind. There has been no hearty will to do justice, no word other than of discouragement. Even the amicable assurances which customarily pass between the statesmen of two nations seem to have been dropped. We believe that any American would rather bear the manly and outspoken denunciations of the Earl of Derby, consistent and honest in his hostility, than the sly, covert insinuations to which the Foreign Secretary gives utterance, at the very time he is advocating a favorable course toward us.

The ministry have constantly been met with the fact that our Government has assumed throughout that the Union was to be preserved, and both the act and the possibility of secession forever crushed. They cannot have failed to observe, that, while the inevitable fortune of war has at times brought momentary depression to our arms, the field of the Rebellion has steadily contracted,—that those great conflicts which have seemed drawn games have contributed in every instance to the general end,—that repulse has been invariably followed by overbalancing success. They must have been aware that the contrast between the feeling of the North and that of the South has tended to foreshadow the issue. Upon grounds of political economy, a life-long study to them, they must have viewed with vast suspicion the ability of a people to attain independence, who are trammelled by a blockade which they are themselves fain to acknowledge effectual, prevented from the usual methods of subsistence by inferiority of population, and under dreadful apprehensions from the existence in their midst of millions of malcontent slaves. They have not needed a subtle knowledge of political philosophy to teach them that during the progress of the war the Federal idea has received new strength, which its success will make permanent, and which only total failure can diminish. Their favorite doctrine, that governments within a government cannot exist, and that our Constitution is weakened by the accession of every new State and the rise of every new disagreement, is meeting its refutation every day. A concentration of extraordinary power at the centre does not seem to shatter every bond of union, as they have predicted,—and the States hold together and work together with amazing zeal for so feeble a tie as that they have represented. In their intercourse with our Government, they have illustrated the effect which events have had on their policy.

The course pursued by our Government seems to us to present a favorable contrast to that pursued by Great Britain. The United States has always manifested an anxiety to preserve amity. But the effort to preserve amity has been dignified. We have claimed to be treated as a friendly sovereign State. We have urged that the war should be regarded by foreign powers as the rightful exercise of a complete nationality to suppress insurrection. That the insurgents should be put upon a par with the Government, that they should enjoy the benefits of an established system, that they should have every right and every immunity as if the quarrel were between equal powers, has seemed to us a fallacy tinctured with deep prejudice. That feeling has been courteously, but firmly represented by our ministers. Since it pleased the European courts to proclaim their neutrality, we have borne the injustice temperately, and have confined our demands to our rights under that status. When the conduct of Great Britain has been of so irritating a nature as to produce universal indignation throughout the community, our statesmen have moderated the popular anger, and have remonstrated patiently as well as firmly. They have discerned more accurately than the multitude could do the evils of a twofold war, and yet have not avoided the danger, when to avoid it would have been disgraceful. Whatever may be the opinion of any as to Mr. Seward's political career, it is generally admitted that as Secretary of State he has accomplished the better thought of the nation. In his hands our foreign relations have been administered with prudence, with minute attention, and with great dignity. He has constantly maintained the idea of our national integrity, the full expectation of our final success, the continued efficacy of the Federal system, and our right to be considered none the less a compact nationality because the insurrection has taken the form of State secession. Our diplomatic intercourse has been confined to strictly diplomatic etiquette. No attempt has been made to justify, for the satisfaction of foreign courts, either the origin of the war, or the modes which have been adopted in its prosecution. It has not been deemed necessary to retaliate upon the Confederate agents who fill Europe with their tale of woe, by retorting upon them a reference to the unchristian practices of their soldiery. There has been no appeal to the moral sympathies of the Old World, by harping upon the enormities of slavery, and by announcing a crusade against it. Foreign communities have been left to the ordinary modes of information, to the press and the accounts of American and European orators, for the events which have been passing. It has contented us to let the record speak for itself, to attach infamy where it is due, to extort praise where praise is merited. We have not shown an ungenerous exultation at the embroilments of European politics, as diverting the hostile attention of enemies from our own affairs. "We are content," says Mr. Seward, in a despatch to Mr. Adams, "to rely upon the justice of our cause, and our own resources and ability to maintain it." We have not sought the aid of any power; we have only desired to sustain out admitted rights, and to be free from external interference.

It is surprising that Earl Russell should intimate his dissatisfaction that we have been less quick to offence from France than from England. The reason why we should not, in his opinion, feel so is the very reason why we should. He thinks, because our relations have been more intimate with England, because we speak the same language and inherit the same Anglo-Saxon genius, that therefore we should be more patient with her. But these circumstances seem to us to aggravate the treatment we have received at her hands. It has appeared to us unnatural that a nation so identified with us should mistrust us, and embrace every occasion to slight us where they could safely do so. The closer the tie, the deeper the wound. Besides, despite the common ground upon which England and America have stood, the past bequeaths us little grudge against France, much against England. France was the patron, England the bitter enemy, of our national infancy. Our arms have never closed with those of France; we have fought England twice, and virulently. Our diplomatic intercourse with England has been a series of misunderstandings; that with France has been, in general, harmonious. In later times, French essayists and journalists have been tolerant of our faults, and eloquent over our virtues; and not a little good feeling has been produced among our educated classes by the fairness and acuteness with which one of the greatest of modern Frenchmen, De Tocqueville, has considered our institutions. On the other hand, the English press and the English Parliament have been outspoken in their contempt of America; and the offence has been enhanced by the peculiarly insulting terms in which the feeling has been expressed. Such facts cannot but intensify our chagrin at finding that power which we had always regarded as our companion in the march of modern progress ill-disposed to sympathy now in the time of our trouble.

Mr. Seward has well expressed our attitude towards England in a few words:—"The whole case may be summed up in this. The United States claim, and they must continually claim, that in this war they are a whole sovereign nation, and entitled to the same respect, as such, that they accord to Great Britain. Great Britain does not treat them as such a sovereign, and hence all the evils that disturb their intercourse and endanger their friendship. Great Britain justifies her course, and perseveres. The United States do not admit the justification, and so they are obliged to complain and stand upon their guard. Those in either country who desire to see the two nations remain in this relation are not well-advised friends of either of them."

Our relations with France during the war have not been dissimilar to those with England, but have been less grating and more courteous. The same difficulties in regard to neutral rights have arisen; and the Imperial cabinet have seemed throughout favorable to the South. But the popular feeling, as far as it is patent, is decidedly more favorable to us than that of England; whatever has been said against us has been said considerately and temperately; and there has been at no period any imminent danger of war. The design of Napoleon to mediate was interpreted by the community as hostile and aggressive in its object. The President, we think justly, took what appears a more simple view,—that the Emperor miscalculated the actual condition of the country, and a mistaken desire to advise induced him to take the course he did. But those who know France best tell us that the Imperial opinion is far from being the index of the popular opinion, on any subject; and every evidence induces the conclusion that there is a strong undercurrent of sympathy for America throughout France.

Of all the foreign powers, Russia has been the only one which has given us cordial, unstinted encouragement. The sovereign, the most liberal and enlightened Czar who ever ascended the Muscovite throne, has expressed himself again and again the constant friend of the Union. It is agreeable to reflect that that vast empire, now far on its way to a liberal constitution, and hastened, instead of retarded by its august head, should lend the moral force of its unqualified good-will to the cause of American liberty. The noble words of Prince Gortschakoff to our envoy will be grateful to every loyal American heart:—"We desire above all things the maintenance of the American Union, as one indivisible nation. Russia has declared her position, and will maintain it. There will be proposals for intervention. Russia will refuse any invitation of the kind. She will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change."

Our relations with other nations have not been important, and are quite similar to those with England and France. But, generally, the belief and hope in the final success of the Union have been steadily strengthening throughout Europe. The idea of our centralization has become more vivid; and far juster estimates of our character and institutions have been formed. When the war shall have been brought to a successful issue, we shall have afforded a noble proof of the full efficiency of a republican system over an intelligent people. Our own sinews will be compact, and our spirit will be infused into the aspirations of distant peoples. It may not be presumptuous to feel that our efforts are not for ourselves alone, but that they tell upon the fate of the earnest and hopeful millions who are striving for disenthralment in the Old World. Let us, then, expand our just ambition beyond the object of our national integrity; let us embrace within our own hopes the dawning fortunes of a free Italy and a free Hungary, of Poland liberated, of Greece regenerated. While nerving ourselves for the final struggle, let the sublime thought that our success will reach in its vast results the limits of the Christian world bring us redoubled strength. For if we should fall, the thrones of despots are fixed for centuries; if we triumph, in due time they will vanish and crumble to the dust. Those sovereigns who are wise will appear in the van, leading their people to the blessings of the liberty they have so long yearned for; those who throw themselves in the way will be overwhelmed by the resistless tide. To such an end we fight, and suffer, and wait; the greater the stake, the more fearful the ordeal; but Providence smiles upon those whose aim is freedom, and through danger guides to consummation.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES

The Roman and the Teuton: A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge. By CHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A., Professor of Modern History. Cambridge and London: Macmillan & Co.

Mr. Kingsley is a vivid and entertaining mediator between Carlyle and commonplace. In his younger days and writings he mediated between his master and commonplace radicalism,—representing the great Scot's antagonism to existing institutions, his sympathy with man as man, and his hope of a more human society, but representing it with sufficient admixture of vague fancy, Chartist catchword, weak passionateness, and spasmodic audacity, based, as such ever is, on moral cowardice. Of late he has gone to the other side of his master, and now mediates between him and the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Hanover family,—representing Carlyle's passionate craving for supereminent persons, his passionate abhorrence of democracy, his admiration of strong character, his disposition to work from historical bases rather than from absolute principles, but representing them at once with a prudence of common sense and a prudence of self-seeking and timidity which are alike foreign to his master's spirit.

We prefer the second phase of the man. It belongs more properly to him. He is ambitious; and the rôle which he first assumed is one which ambition can only spoil. He has but a weak faith in principles, and flinches and flies off to "Prester John," or somewhere into the clouds, when at last principle and sentiment must either fly off or fairly take the stubborn British taurus by the horns. And in truth, his early creed was in part merely passionate and foolish, and with courage and disinterestedness to do more he would have professed less. His present position is better,—that is, sounder and sincerer. Better for him, because more limited and British, leaving him room still to toil at good work, and not calling upon him to break with Church and State, which he really has not the heart to do. As head of the hierarchy of beadles, he is an effective and even admirable man, pious, zealous, and reformatory; but institutions are more necessary to him than principles, and any attempt to plant himself purely on the latter places him in a false position.

Mr. Kingsley has fine gifts and good purposes. He has a rare power of realizing scenes and characters,—a power equally rare of presenting them in vivid, pictorial delineation. He must be a very engaging lecturer, imparting to his official labor an interest which does not always belong to labors of like kind.

For discoursing upon history he has important qualifications, which it would be uncandid not to acknowledge. Of these it is the first that he clings manfully, despite the tendencies of our time, to the human, rather than the extra-human stand-point. He respects personality; he treats of men, not of puppets; he is old-fashioned enough to believe that men may be moved from within no less than from without, and does not attempt, as Quinet has it, to abolish human history and add a chapter to natural history instead. Here, too, he follows Carlyle, but in a way which is highly to his credit. The enthusiasm for science which marks these later centuries breeds in many minds a powerful desire to establish "laws" for the history of man,—that is, to establish for man's history an invariable programme. To this end an effort is made to render all results in history dependent on a few simple and tangible conditions. The intrepid prosaic logic of Spencer, the discursive boldness of Buckle, the rigid dogmatism of Draper are all engaged in this endeavor. But, while eager to make history simple and orderly, they forget to make it human. There is an order and progress, perhaps, but an order and progress of what? Of men? Of human souls, self-moved? No, of sticks floating on a current, of straws blown by the wind! Men, according to this theory, are but ninepins in an alley which Nature sets up only to bowl them down again; and what avails it, if Nature makes improvement and learns to set them up better and better? The triumphs are hers, not theirs. They are but ninepins, after all. Progress? Yes, indeed; but wooden progress, observe.

Mr. Kingsley recognizes human beings, and recognizes them heartily,—loves, hates, admires, despises; in fine, he deals with history not merely as a scientist or theorist, but first of all as a man. There are those who will think this weak. They are superior to this partiality of man for himself, they! They would be ashamed not to sink the man in the savant. But Mr. Kingsley refuses to dehumanize himself in order to become historian and philosopher. He does well.

Again, it is partly Mr. Kingsley's merit, and partly it expresses his limitation, that he is treating history more distinctively as a moralizer than any other noted writer of the time. He assumes in this respect the Hebraistic point of view, and looks out from it with an undoubting heartiness which in these days is really refreshing. He believes in the Old Testament, and doubts not that riches and honors are the rewards of right-doing. And in this, too, there is a vast deal of truth; and it is truly delightful to find one who affirms it, not with perfunctory drawl, but with hearty human zest, a little red in the face.

It adds to the color of Mr. Kingsley's pages, while detracting from his authority, that he is always and inevitably a partisan. He must have somebody to cry up and somebody to cry down. In "Sir Amyas Leigh," his hatred of the Spanish and admiration of the English were like those of a man who had suffered intolerable wrongs from the one and received invaluable rescue from the other. The same element appears powerfully in the volume above named. The Teuton stands for all that is best, and the Roman for all that is worst in humanity. He makes no secret, indeed, of his deliberate belief that the whole future of the human race depends upon the Teutonic family. Deliberate, we say; but in truth Mr. Kingsley is little capable of believing anything deliberately. He is always precipitate. His opinions have the force which can be given them by warm espousal, vivid expression, a certain desire to be fair, and a constant appeal to the moral nature of man; but the impression of hasty and heated partisanship goes with them always, and two words from a broad and balanced judgment might overturn many a chapter of this red-hot advocacy.

The present volume derives an interest for Americans from its relation to our great contest. Mr. Kingsley has been represented as intensely hostile to the North, and as using all his endeavor to infect his pupils with his opinions. These lectures, however, hardly sustain such representations. He is, indeed, anti-democratic in a high degree. He is so as a disciple of Carlyle, as a prosperous Englishman, not destitute of flunkyism, and also as a man whose very best power is that of passionately admiring individual greatness. He is a believer in natural aristocracy, in the British nobility, and in Carlyle; and democracy could, of course, find small place in his creed. Hence he has a sentimental sympathy with the South, and once in a foot-note speaks of "the Southern gentleman" in a maudlin way. There is also another passage in which he makes the South stand for the Teuton, whom he worships, and the North for the Roman, whom he abhors. Yet this very passage occurs in connection with a denunciation of deserved doom upon the Southern Confederacy. He had been describing the last great battle of the Eastern Goths, after which they literally disappeared from history. And the reason of their defeat and destruction, he avers, was simply this, that they were a slaveholding aristocracy. As such they must perish; the earth, he declares, will not and cannot afford them a dwelling-place. Indeed, he repeatedly lays it down as a law of history that slaveholding aristocracies must go down before the progress of the world, and must go down in blood.

The Small House at Allington. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. New York: Harper & Brothers.

This is probably the best of Mr. Trollope's numerous works. It is by no means different in kind from its predecessors; for it stands in the path struck out by "The Warden" ten years ago. But it is better, inasmuch as it is later; that is, it is by ten years better than "The Warden," and by four years better than "Framley Parsonage." Mr. Trollope's course has been very even,—too even, almost, to be called brilliant; for success has become almost monotonous with him. His first novel was a triumph, after its kind; and a list of his subsequent works would be but a record of repeated triumphs. He has closely adhered to the method which he found so serviceable at first; and although it is not for the general critic to say whether he has felt temptations to turn aside, we may be sure, in view of his unbroken popularity, that he has either been very happy or very wise. His works, as they stand, are probably the exact measure of his strength.

We do not mean that he has exhausted his strength. It seems to be the prime quality of such a genius as Mr. Trollope's that it is exempt from accident,—that it accumulates, rather than loses force with age. Mr. Trollope's work is simple observation. He is secure, therefore, as long as he retains this faculty. And his observation is the more efficient that it is hampered by no concomitant purpose, rooted to no underlying beliefs or desires. It is firmly anchored, but above-ground. We have often heard Mr. Trollope compared with Thackeray,—but never without resenting the comparison. In no point are they more dissimilar than in the above. Thackeray is a moralist, a satirist; he tells his story for its lesson: whereas Mr. Trollope tells his story wholly for its own sake. Thackeray is almost as much a preacher as he is a novelist; while Mr. Trollope is the latter simply. Both writers are humorists, which seems to be the inevitable mood of all shrewd observers; and both incline to what is called quiet humor. But we know that there are many kinds of laughter. Think of the different kinds of humorists we find in Shakspeare's comedies. Mr. Trollope's merriment is evoked wholly by the actual presence of an oddity; and Thackeray's, although it be, by the way, abundantly sympathetic with superficial comedy, by its existence, by its history, by some shadow it casts. Of course all humorists have an immense common fund. When Cradell, in the present tale, talks about Mrs. Lupex's fine torso, we are reminded both of Thackeray and Dickens. But when the Squire, coming down to the Small House to discuss his niece's marriage, just avoids a quarrel with his sister about the propriety of early fires, we acknowledge, that, as it stands, the trait belongs to Trollope alone. Dickens would have eschewed it, and Thackeray would have expanded it. The same remark applies to their pathos. With Trollope we weep, if it so happen we can, for a given shame or wrong. Our sympathy in the work before us is for the jilted Lily Dale, our indignation for her false lover. But our compassion for Amelia Osborne and Colonel Newcome goes to the whole race of the oppressed.

Mr. Trollope's greatest value we take to be that he is so purely a novelist. The chief requisite for writing a novel in the present age seems to be that the writer should be everything else. It implies that the story-telling gift is very well in its way, but that the inner substance of a tale must repose on some direct professional experience. This fashion is of very recent date. Formerly the novelist had no personality; he was a simple chronicler; his accidental stand-point was as impertinent as the painter's attitude before his canvas. But now the main question lies in the pose, not of the model, but of the artist. It will fare ill with the second-rate writer of fiction, unless he can give conclusive proof that he is well qualified in certain practical functions. And the public is very vigilant on this point. It has become wonderfully acute in discriminating true and false lore. The critic's office is gradually reduced to a search for inaccuracies. We do not stop to weigh these truths; we merely indicate them. But we confess, that, if Mr. Trollope is somewhat dear to us, it is because they are not true of him. The central purpose of a work of fiction is assuredly the portrayal of human passions. To this principle Mr. Trollope steadfastly adheres,—how consciously, how wilfully, we know not,—but with a constancy which is almost a proof of conviction, and a degree of success which lends great force to his example. The interest of the work before us is emphatically a moral interest: it is a story of feeling, the narrative of certain feelings.

Mr. Troliope's tales give us a very sound sense of their reality. It may seem paradoxical to attribute this to the narrowness of the author's imagination; but we cannot help doing so. On reflection, we shall see that it is not so much persons as events that Mr. Trollope aims at depicting, not so much characters as scenes. His pictures are real, on the whole. Their reality, we take it, is owing to the happy balance of the writer's judgment and his invention. Had his invention been a little more tinged with fancy, it is probable that he would have known certain temptations of which he appears to be ignorant. Even should he have successfully resisted them, the struggle, the contest, the necessity of choice would have robbed his manner of that easy self-sufficiency which is one of its greatest charms. Had he succumbed, he would often have fallen away from sober fidelity to Nature. As the matter stands, his great felicity is that he never goes beyond his depth,—and this, not so much from fear, as from ignorance. His insight is anything but profound. He has no suspicion of deeper waters. Through the whole course of the present story, he never attempts to fathom Crosbie's feelings, to retrace his motives, to refine upon his character. Mr. Trollope has learned much in what is called the realist school; but he has not taken lessons in psychology. Even while looking into Crosbie's heart, we never lose sight of Courcy Castle, of his Club, of his London life; we cross the threshold of his inner being, we knock at the door of his soul, but we remain within call of Lily Dale and the Lady Alexandrina. We never see Crosbie the man, but always Crosbie the gentleman, the Government clerk. We feel at times as if we had a right to know him better,—to know him at least as well as he knew himself. It is significant of Mr. Trollope's temperament—a temperament, as it seems to us, eminently English—that he can have told such a story with so little preoccupation with certain spiritual questions. It is evident that this spiritual reticence, if we may so term it, is not a parti pris; for no fixed principle, save perhaps the one hinted at above, is apparent in the book. It belongs to a species of single-sightedness, by which Mr. Trollope, in common with his countrymen, is largely characterized,—an indifference to secondary considerations, an abstinence from sidelong glances. It is akin to an intense literalness of perception, of which we might find an example on every page Mr. Trollope has written. He is conscious of seeing the surface of things so clearly, perhaps, that he deems himself exempt from all profounder obligations. To describe accurately what he sees is a point of conscience with him. In these matters an omission is almost a crime. We remember an instance somewhat to the purpose. After describing Mrs. Dale's tea-party at length, in the beginning of the book, he wanders off with Crosbie and his sweetheart on a moonlight-stroll, and so interests us in the feelings of the young couple, and in Crosbie's plans and promises for the future, (which we begin faintly to foresee,) that we have forgotten all about the party. And, indeed, how could the story of the party end better than by gently passing out of the reader's mind, superseded by a stronger interest, to which it is merely accessory? But such is not the author's view of the case. Dropping Crosbie, Lilian, and the more serious objects of our recent concern, he begins a new line and ends his chapter thus:—"After that they all went to bed." It recalls the manner of "Harry and Lucy," friends of our childhood.

But to return to our starting-point,—in "The Small House at Allington" Mr. Trollope has outdone his previous efforts. He has used his best gifts in unwonted fulness. Never before has he described young ladies and the loves of young ladies in so charming and so natural a fashion. Never before has he reproduced so faithfully—to say no more—certain phases of the life and conversation of the youth of the other sex. Never before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly makes very easy reading.

A Class-Book of Chemistry; in which the Latest Facts and Principles of the Science are explained and applied to the Arts of Life and the Phenomena of Nature. A New Edition, entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L. YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Though Science has been often vaguely supposed to be something generally distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet the slightest consideration will suffice to show us that this is not the case. Scientific knowledge is only a highly developed form of the common information of ordinary minds. The specific attribute by which it is distinguished from the latter is quantitative prevision. Mere prevision is not peculiar to science. When the school-boy throws a stone into the air, he can predict its fall as certainly as the astronomer can predict the recurrence of an eclipse; but his prevision, though certain, is rude and indefinite: though he can foretell the kind of effect which will follow the given mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect—the height to which the stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall—is something utterly beyond his ken. The servant-girl has no need of chemistry to teach her, that, when the match is applied, the fire will burn and smoke ascend the chimney; but she is far from being able to predict the proportional weights of oxygen and carbon which will unite, the volume of the gases which are to be given off, or the intensity of the radiation which is to warm the room: her prevision is qualitative, not quantitative, in its character. But when Galileo discovers the increment of the velocity of falling bodies, and when Dalton and De Morveau discover the exact proportions in which chemical union takes place, it is evident that knowledge has advanced from a rudely qualitative to an accurately quantitative stage; and it does not admit of dispute that the progress of science is thus a progress from the indefinite to the definite.

From the point of view here taken it would appear that during the present century no science has made such rapid and unprecedented strides as Chemistry; and its progress becomes all the more striking, when we consider the state of the science previous to the French Revolution. For centuries nothing had been done in it whatever. Besides the commonest previsions of every-day life, the ancients knew scarcely anything either of chemistry or physics, except that amber possessed attractive properties. The discovery of the strong acids by the Arabs Giafar and Rhazes, and of phosphorus by Bechil, are almost the only landmarks in the history of the science, until the discovery of oxygen and the destruction of the phlogistic theory by Priestley and Lavoisier, together with the introduction of the balance and the thermometer into the laboratory, rendered quantitative experiments possible. Since then its progress has been unexampled. The law of definite proportions, not long since disputed or unwillingly accepted, has been proved to hold even among organic compounds. A nomenclature has been invented and perfected, such as no other science can boast of, whether we consider the extent to which it facilitates practical operations, or its logical value as a means of mental discipline. Chemistry has also interacted with the different branches of physics, giving us the voltaic battery, the telegraph, and the wonderful results of spectrum-analysis. On the other hand, it has analyzed the proximate constituents of animal and vegetal structures, and has even gone far toward determining some of the conditions of organic existence; while every one of the arts, whether æsthetic, therapeutic, or industrial, has received from it many and important suggestions.

In a science which advances so rapidly there is great need of popular books which shall clearly and succinctly present the very latest results of investigation, without burdening the reader with technical details. For some time there has been no such work in this country. To ascertain the newest discoveries, it has been necessary to consult the journals and memoirs of learned societies, the excellent works of Professor Miller being too cumbrous to be of much service either to the unscientific reader or to the general scholar. On the other hand, the text-books in common use have been positively detestable. The information furnished by many of them is worse than ignorance. We are tired of works on chemical physics which discourse of "calorie" and "the electric fluid,"—of works on organic chemistry which ascribe the phenomena of life to "a vital principle which overrides chemical laws." A book at once clear, concise, and modern has long been the great desideratum.

This need is most amply supplied by the recent work of Dr. Youmans. Laying no claim to the character of an exposition of original discoveries, and thus keeping aloof from involved discussion, it is at the same time so lucid in its statements, so pertinent in its illustrations, and so philosophic in its reflections, as to invest with a new charm every subject of which it treats. The author deserves high praise for taking into account the circumstance that the reading public is not entirely composed of physicists and chemists. It has been too much the fashion for writers on scientific subjects to give definitions which can be rendered intelligible only by an intimate acquaintance with the very matters defined. It would be tedious to enumerate the countless absurd explanations given in elementary text-books of the phenomena of interference, polarization, and double refraction,—explanations as enigmatical as the inscriptions at Memphis and Karnak,—explanations useless to the optician because needless, and to the student because obscure. It would seem that subjects so simple and beautiful as these could not be rendered difficult of comprehension, except by the most awkward treatment; and yet we know of no work previous to that of Dr. Youmans which does not utterly fail to give the general scientific reader any idea whatever of their nature and theory. Here, however, they are explained with clearness and elegance, and their bearing on the undulatory theory of light is distinctly shown. As other instances of most admirable exposition, we may call attention to the paragraphs on crystallization, on the atomic theory, on isomerism and allotropism, on diamagnetism, magnetic induction, and electric "currents," on the sources of heat, on the chemical and thermal spectra, on the correlation and equivalence of the forces, on the theory of ozone, on the exceptional expansion of water and the supposed complexity of its atom, on the structure of flame, on the constitution of salts, on the colloid condition of matter, on types and compound radicles, on the dynamics of vegetable growth and the production of animal power, and, above all, to the passage which describes the phenomena of latent heat. Throughout, in treating of these subjects, the author's felicity of exposition never fails him. The most difficult phenomena are rendered perfectly easy of comprehension, and their mutual relations are not left out of account. Each set of facts is treated, not as forming an isolated body of truth, but as an integral portion of the complex and logically indivisible universe. In this respect Dr. Youmans's work is far superior to the recent production of Dr. Hooker, in which, for example, the mere existence of such a doctrine as that of the correlation of forces is grudgingly noticed, and its ultimate significance entirely overlooked.

Far different is Dr. Youmans's treatment of the same doctrine. Indeed, we think that the chapters on chemical physics form the most interesting portion of his work, and their value consists chiefly in the constant reference to the modern ideas of force which pervades them. In a work intended for the education of youth, such a feature cannot be too highly praised. It is time that the old material superstitions about force were eradicated from men's minds, and as far as possible from their language. It is already more than half a century since Count Rumford demonstrated the immaterial nature of heat, and Young established the undulatory theory of light,—ideas which had germinated two hundred years ago in the lofty minds of Huygens and Hooke. Since then have been discovered the polarization and interference of heat, the triple constitution of the solar ray, the identity of magnetism and electricity, the polar nature of chemical affinity, the optical polarities of crystals, and the interaction of magnetism and light. Since then the once meagre and fragmentary science of physics has become one of the grandest and richest departments of human thought; and the illustrious names of Helmholtz, Joule, and Mayer, of Grove, Faraday, and Tyndall, may be fitly named beside those of the leading thinkers of past ages. The physical forces are no longer to be looked upon as inscrutable material entities,—forms of matter imponderable, and therefore inconceivable; but they have been shown to be diverse, but interchangeable modes of molecular motion, omnipresent, ceaselessly active. The wondrous phenomena of light, heat, and electricity are seen to be due to the rhythmical vibration of atoms. There is thus no such thing as rest: from the planet to the ultimate particle, all things are endlessly moving: and the mystic song of the Earth-Spirit in "Faust" is recognized as the expression of the sublimest truth of science:—