Marien Villa, Vöslau,
August 18, 1862.
My Dearest Mother: It
seems to me at times as if I could not sit out this war in exile. I console
myself with reflecting that I could be of little use were I at home, and that I
may occasionally be of some service abroad. The men whom I most envy are those
who are thirty years of age and who were educated at West Point, or rather that
portion of them who did not imbibe a love for the noble institution of slavery
together with their other requirements at that college.
There is no doubt,
I believe, that Louis Napoleon passes most of his time in urging the English
government to unite with him in interfering on behalf of the slave-dealing,
negro-breeding Confederacy, and that the agents of that concern have offered to
go down and worship him in any way he likes, even to the promising of some kind
of bogus abolition scheme, to take effect this time next century, in case he
will help them cut the throat of the United States government. Thus far the
English government have resisted his importunities. But their resistance will
not last long. The only thing that saves us as yet from a war with the
slaveholders allied with both France and England is the antislavery feeling of
a very considerable portion of the British public. Infinite pains are taken by
the agents of the slaveholders to convince the world that the North is as much
in favor of slavery as the South, but the antislavery acts of the present
Congress have given the lie to these assertions. Nevertheless, I am entirely convinced,
not as a matter of theory, but as fact, that nothing but a proclamation of
emancipation to every negro in the country will save us from war with England
and France combined.
I began this note
determined not to say a single word on the subject of the war, as if it were
possible to detach one's thoughts from it for a moment. I continue to believe
in McClellan's military capacity as, on the whole, equal to that of any of his
opponents. I do not think that this war has developed any very great military
genius as yet. But it is not a military war, if such a contradiction can be
used. It is a great political and moral revolution, and we are in the first
stage of it. The coming man, whoever he may be, must have military genius
united with intense faith in something. In the old civil wars of Holland,
France, and England, the men who did the work were the men who either believed
intensely in the Pope and the Inquisition, or who intensely hated those
institutions; who either believed in the crown or in the people; who either adored
or detested civil and religious liberty. And in our war, supposing other
nations let us fight it out, which they are not likely to do, the coming man is
some tremendous negro-seller with vast military capacity, or some John Brown
with ditto. I have an abiding faith in the American people, in its courage,
love of duty, and determination to pursue the right when it has made up its
mind. So I believe this conspiracy of the slaveholders will yet be squashed,
but it will not be till the people has made a longer stride than it has yet
made. Pardon me for this effusion. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth
speaketh. And these are times when every man not only has a right, but is urged
by the most sacred duty, to speak his mind. We are very tranquil externally,
speaking here in Vöslau, where we shall remain till the middle of October. God
bless you, my dear mother. All send love to you and the governor, and I remain
Most affectionately your son,
J. L. M.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition,
Volume 2, p. 263-5
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