31, Hertford Street,
February 9th,
1861.
My Dearest Mother,
. . . . I wrote you a long letter of
eight pages yesterday, and then tossed it into the fire, because I found I had
been talking of nothing but American politics. Although this is a subject
which, as you may suppose, occupies my mind almost exclusively for the time
being, yet you have enough of it at home, as before this letter reaches you it
will perhaps be decided whether there is to be civil war, peaceable
dissolution, or a patch up; it is idle for me to express any opinions on the
subject. I do little else but read American newspapers, and we wait with
extreme anxiety to know whether the pro-slavery party will be able to break up
the whole compact at its own caprice, to seize Washington, and prevent by force
of arms the inauguration of Lincoln. That event must necessarily be followed by
civil war, I should think. Otherwise, I suppose it may be avoided. But whatever
be the result, it is now proved beyond all possibility of dispute that we never
have had a government, and that the much eulogised constitution of the United
States never was a constitution at all, for the triumphant secession of the
Southern States shows that we have only had a league or treaty among two or three
dozen petty sovereignties, each of them insignificant in itself, but each
having the power to break up the whole compact at its own caprice. Whether the
separation takes place now, or whether there is a patch up, there is no escaping
the conclusion that a government proved to be incapable of protecting its own
property and the honour of its own flag is no government at all, and may fall
to pieces at any moment. The pretence of a people governing itself, without the
need of central force and a powerful army, is an exploded fallacy which can
never be revived. If there is a compromise now, which seems possible enough,
because the Northern States are likely to give way, as they invariably have
done, to the bluster of the South, it will perhaps be the North which will next
try the secession dodge, when we find ourselves engaged in a war with Spain for
the possession of Cuba, or with England on account of the reopened African
slave trade, either of which events are in the immediate future.
But I find myself getting constantly into this maelstrom of
American politics and must break off short.
I send you by this mail the London Times of the 7th
of February. You will find there (in the parliamentary reports) a very
interesting speech of Lord John Russell; but it will be the more interesting to
you because it contains a very handsome compliment to me, and one that is very
gratifying. I have not sent you the different papers in which my book has been
reviewed, excepting three consecutive Times, which contain a long article.
I suppose that “Littell's Living Age” reprints most of these notices. And the Edinburgh,
Quarterly, and Westminster Reviews (in each of whose January numbers
the work has been reviewed) are, I know, immediately reprinted. If yon will let
me know, however, what notices you have seen, I will send you the others in
case you care for them.
We are going on rather quietly. We made pleasant country
visits at Sidney Herbert's, Lord Palmerston's, Lady Stanhope's, Lord Ashburton's,
but now the country season is pretty well over, parliament opened, and the
London season begun. I am hard at work in the State Paper Office every day, but
it will be a good while before I can get to writing again.
I am most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Volume 1, p. 357-9
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