The Daily Dispatch: June 12, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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English views of American affairs.
[from the London morning Chronicle]

We have now to deal with a civil war on the largest possible scale, in which, perhaps, years may be wasted in conflict, and during which the industry of every part of America will suffer. A blockade in the Gulf of Mexico must restrict the export of cotton to Europe; and if the naval forces at the command of the Federal Government can also effectually blockade the seaboard of the Southern States, the greatest possible disaster may arise to European industry. A thought of the consequences to mankind at large does not appear to occur to the minds of American statesmen on either side. Mr. Seward, and Mr. Cassius M. Clay, one of whom is the natural and another the self-appointed and very ungenerous advocate of Federal views, content themselves with assuming the power of the North to subdue what they term the ‘"rebellion"’ in the South, and restore the people of those States to liberty and reason. It is easy to count up the totals of population, wealth, commerce, ships and military forces, and argue that victory must be eventually with the North. But the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, although there are doubtless advantages in favor of the swift and strong men of the North. A very singular correspondence has found its way to the papers, in which Mr. Seward instructs Mr. Dayton, the new American Minister at Paris, to make representations to the French Government, and bearing date so late as the 4th inst. The language is somewhat grandiloquent, and the letter of Mr. Seward contains suggestions of counsel to Europe entirely out of place in a dispatch addressed to a neutral Power: ‘"You cannot be too decided or two explicit in making known to the French Government that there is not now, nor has there been, nor will there be any — the least — idea existing in this Government of suffering a dissolution of this Union to take place in any way whatever."’ &c.

We wish we could view this most serious contest in the same light as Mr. Seward. It would be most satisfactory to be able to believe that, in North America, ‘"there will only be one nation and one Government."’ As Englishmen, it is equally our duty and our interest to hope so; but we dare scarcely venture to confide in the boastful expressions of Mr. Seward, when he promises that ‘"there will be the same Republic and the same constitutional Union that have already survived a dozen national changes and changes of Government in almost every country."’ Mr. Seward ought not to confound the plastic changes of policy and forms of Government which have taken place in Europe with the probable consequences of the terrible struggle only now commenced, between the Confederated and Federal States. The Union de facto is at an end; and it will never be rehabilitated except on the basis of the triumph of the Slaveholders, or the Freeholders' demand being complied with. The Union was based upon and permeated by the institution of slavery; and so long as it was so, and so long as it is so in the future, the Constitution may be a subject of ‘"human wonder, "’ but never of ‘"human affection."’ We care not how high rises the spirit of the North to meet the present emergency; the designs of the South evidently will lead to the necessity of its subjugation, or to its demands being conceded. In the meantime, we can only regret that the pens employed to expound American views can only employ themselves in hints, threats and taunts to Europe and England, which are all certainly undeserved. We are content to be neutral in this vast contest between brothers of our own kin, and we must, we fear, also be content to have injury inflicted upon us by the necessary action of the civil belligerents. All this we will do and bear, but it is really more than human nature can endure to be told that because the thought of a dissolution of the Union, peaceably or by force, has never entered the mind of any candid statesman ‘"in America, so it is high time for it to be dismissed by the statesmen of Europe."’ The statesmen of Europe would gladly do so if they could overlook facts and cease to draw inferences and deductions.