Saint-Virain, Avignon,
September 17, 1862.
My Dear Sir: I
value the permission you gave me to correspond with you much too highly not to
avail myself of it thus early, although I have very little to say that will be
new, and at the same time interesting, to one whose thoughts are engrossed as
yours must be. If you see “Macmillan's Magazine,” which has from the beginning
been steadily on the right side in American affairs, you must have remarked the
“Notes of a Journey in America,” which have been in the course of publication
for some months, ending with a general summing up in the September number. This
last paper especially appears to me excellent, and likely to do much good in
England. The whole series has been reprinted in a volume, with the name of the
writer, Mr. Edward Dicey, author of a recent book on Italy and Rome. You will
probably see the “Westminster Review” of next month, which will contain an
article of mine on the American question, apropos of Mr. Cairnes’s book. It is
hastily written, and slight, for such a subject, but “every little helps,” as
the nursery proverb says. I am not at all uneasy about public opinion here, if
only the North is successful. The great number of well-meaning people and
sincere enemies of slavery, who have been led into disapproving of your
resistance to the South when carried to the length of war, have been chiefly
influenced by thinking the reconquest of the South impossible. If you prove it
to be possible, if you bring the slave States under your power, if you make use
of that power to reconstitute Southern society on the basis of freedom, and if
finally you wind up the financial results without breaking faith with any of
the national creditors (among whom must be reckoned the holders of depreciated
currency), you will have all our public with you, except the Tories, who will
be mortified that what they absurdly think an example of the failure of
democracy should be exchanged for a splendid example of its success. If you
come well and honorably through one of the severest trials which a nation has
ever undergone, the whole futurity of mankind will assume a brighter aspect. If
not, it will for some time to come be very much darkened.
I have read lately two writings of Northern Americans on the
subject of England, which show a very liberal appreciation of the misdirection
of English opinion and feeling respecting the contest. One is Mr. Thurlow
Weed's letter, which was published in the newspapers, and in which those just
and generous allowances are made for us which many of us have not made for you.
The other is the Rev. Dr. Thompson's “England
during our War,” reprinted from the “New Englander,” which is even
over-indulgent to our people, but too severe on our government. I believe that
our government has felt more rightly all through than a majority of the public.
We shall be at this address until the end of November; afterward
at Blackheath Park, Kent. I need hardly say that if your occupations would
allow of your writing to me it would not only give me great pleasure, but would
make me better able to be of use to a cause which I have as much at heart as
even yourself.
I am, my dear sir,
Very truly yours,
J. S. Mill.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition,
Volume 2, p. 281-3
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