The Ostend Manifesto,* October 18, 1854

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, October 18th, 1854.

TO THE HON. WM. L. MARCY,
        Secretary of State.

SIR: The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by the President in the several confidential despatches you have addressed to us respectively to that effect, have met in conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th instant, and then at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, up to the date hereof.

There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views and sentiments between us, which, we are most happy to inform you, has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave and important subjects submitted to our consideration.

We have arrived at the conclusion and are thoroughly convinced that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made by the Government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain, at any price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding the sum of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.

The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented, through the necessary diplomatic forms, to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people both of Spain and the United States are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the World.

We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale as those of the United States in the purchase of the Island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.

Under these circumstances, we cannot anticipate a failure, unless, possibly, through the malign influence of foreign Powers who possess no right whatever to interfere in the matter.

We proceed to state some of the reasons which have brought us to this conclusion; and, for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct heads:

1. The United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible.

2. The probability is great that the Government and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because this would essentially promote the highest and best interests of the Spanish people.

Then—1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position and the considerations attendant on it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American Republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of States of which the Union is the Providential Nursery.

From its locality it commands the mouth of the Mississippi and the immense and annually increasing trade which must seek this avenue to the ocean.

On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, which disembogue themselves through this magnificent river into the Gulf of Mexico, the increase of the population, within the last ten years, amounts to more than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was annexed to it.

The natural and main outlet of the products of this entire population, the highway of their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a dependency of a distant Power, in whose possession it has proved to be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their interests.

Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.

Its immediate acquisition by our Government is of paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants.

The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts begets and encourages between them and the citizens of the United States has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended their fortunes, that they now look upon each other as if they were one people and had but one destiny.

Considerations exist which render delay in the acquisition of this Island exceedingly dangerous to the United States.

The system of emigration and labor lately organized within its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection, at every moment, which may result in direful consequences to the American People.

Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.

But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign Powers, in violation of international law, would interpose their influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of the Island. Its inhabitants are now suffering under the worst of all possible Governments,—that of absolute despotism, delegated by a distant Power to irresponsible agents who are changed at short intervals, and who are tempted to improve the brief opportunity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the basest means.

As long as this system shall endure, humanity may in vain demand the suppression of the African Slave trade in the Island. This is rendered impossible whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a source of immense profit to needy and avaricious officials who, to attain their end, scruple not to trample the most sacred principles under foot.

The Spanish Government at home may be well disposed, but experience has proved that it cannot control these remote depositories of its power.

Besides, the commercial nations of the world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate the great advantages which would result to their people from a dissolution of the forced and unnatural connection between Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. The trade of England and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume at once an important and profitable character, and rapidly extend with the increasing population and prosperity of the Island.

2. But if the United States and every commercial nation would be benefited by this transfer, the interests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially promoted.

She cannot but see that such a sum of money as we are willing to pay for the Island would effect in the development of her vast natural resources.

Two thirds of this sum, if employed in the construction of a system of Railroads, would ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish people than that opened to their vision by Cortes. Their prosperity would date from the ratification of the Treaty of cession. France has already constructed continuous lines of Railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend these roads, through her Northern provinces, to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers of Portugal.

This object once accomplished, Spain would become a centre of attraction for the travelling world and secure a permanent and profitable market for her various productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to industry by remunerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain would speedily become, what a bountiful Providence intended she should be, one of the first Nations of Continental Europe, rich, powerful, and contented.

Whilst two thirds of the price of the Island would be ample for the completion of her most important public improvements, she might, with the remaining forty millions, satisfy the demands now pressing so heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund which would gradually relieve her from the overwhelming debt now paralysing her energies.

Such is her present wretched financial condition, that her best bonds are sold, upon her own Bourse, at about one third of their par value; whilst another class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nominal value and are quoted at about one sixth of the amount for which they were issued. Besides, these latter are held principally by British creditors, who may, from day to day, obtain the effective interposition of their own Government, for the purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have been already thrown out from high quarters, and unless some new, source of revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not improbable that they may be realized.

Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources and removing her present financial embarrassments, it may never again return.

Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded her Exchequer, after deducting the expenses of its Government, a clear annual income of more than a million and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased to such a degree as to leave a deficit chargeable on the Treasury of Spain to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars.

In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the Island is an encumbrance instead of a source of profit to the Mother Country.

Under no probable circumstances can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per cent. on the large amount which the United States are willing to pay for its acquisition.

But Spain is in imminent danger of losing Cuba without remuneration.

Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve themselves from the yoke of their oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, arbitrary, and unrelenting local administration necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of Cuba cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often manifested. In this condition of affairs, it is vain to expect that the sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.

We know that the President is justly inflexible in his determination to execute the neutrality laws, but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt against the oppressions which they suffer, no human power could prevent citizens of the United States and liberal minded men of other countries from rushing to their assistance.

Besides, the present is an age of adventure, in which restless and daring spirits abound in every portion of the world.

It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution; and in that event, she will lose both the Island and the price which we are now willing to pay for it—a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to another for any province.

It may also be here remarked that the settlement of this vexed question, by the cession of Cuba to the United States, would forever prevent the dangerous complications between nations to which it may otherwise give birth.

It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an insurrection against the Spanish Government, and should other independent nations come to the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power could, in our opinion, prevent the people and Government of the United States from taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and friends.

But if Spain, deaf to the voice of her own interest, and actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, what ought to be the course of the American Government under such circumstances?

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, with States as well as with individuals. All nations have, at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Although it has been made the pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and other similar cases which history records, yet the principle itself, though often abused, has always been recognized.

The United States have never acquired a foot of territory, except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of the people of that independent State, who desired to blend their destinies with our own.

Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no exception to this rule, because, although we might have claimed them by the right of conquest in a just way, yet we purchased them for what was then considered by both parties a full and ample equivalent.

Our past history forbids that we should acquire the Island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must in any event preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.

Whilst pursuing this course, we can afford to disregard the censures of the world to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed.

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba, far beyond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question, does Cuba in the possession of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union?

Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this, upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor, if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.

Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the Island would justify such a measure.

We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union.

We fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, though we ought certainly to be prepared for the worst.

We also forbear to investigate the present condition of the questions at issue between the United States and Spain,

A long series of injuries to our people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish officials, and are unredressed. But recently a most flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens, and on the flag of the United States, was perpetrated in the harbor of Havana, under circumstances which without immediate redress would have justified a resort to measures of war, in vindication of national honor. That outrage is not only unatoned, but the Spanish Government has deliberately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates and assumed the responsibility attaching to them.

Nothing could more impressively teach us the danger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been the policy of the United States to cherish with foreign nations are constantly exposed than the circumstances of that case.

Situated as Spain and the United States are, the latter have forborne to resort to extreme measures. But this course cannot, with due regard to their own dignity as an independent nation, continue; and our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the only effective mode of settling all past differences and of securing the two countries against future collisions.

We have already witnessed the happy results for both countries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida.

Yours very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

J. Y. MASON.

PIERRE SOULÉ.

_______________

* MSS. Department of State, 66 Despatches from England. Printed in H. Ex. Doc. 93. 33 Cong. 2 Sess. 127-132; Horton's Buchanan, 392-399. An extract is given in Curtis's Buchanan, II. 139.

SOURCE: John Bassett Moore, The Works of James Buchanan: Comprising His Speeches, State Papers and Private Correspondence, Volume 9: 1853-1855, p. 260-6

John L. Motley to Lady William Russell, March 17, 1864

Vienna, March 17, 1864.

Dear Lady William: A thousand thanks for your letter, which gave us inexpressible delight, not alone for its wit and its wisdom, which would have made it charming to read even if it had been addressed to any one else, but because it brings a fresh assurance that we are not quite forgotten yet by one of whom we think and speak every day. I should write oftener, dear Lady William, but for two reasons: one, that I am grown such a dull and dismal eremite, although always in a crowd, that I consider it polizeiwidrig to expose any one to the contagion of such complaints; secondly, because yours is an answer to my last, after the interval of a year, and I never venture to write a second letter till the first one has been completed by its answer. It is an old superstition of mine that a correspondence can't go on one leg. I always think of letters in pairs, like scissors, inexpressibles, lovers, what you will. This is a serious statement, not an excuse, for I have often wished to write, and have been repelled by the thought. It was most charitable of you, therefore, to send me one of your green leaves fluttering out of the bowers of Mayfair as the first welcome harbinger of spring after this very fierce winter:

Frigora mitescunt zephyris: ver proterit restas.

How well I remember that sequestered village of Mayfair, and the charming simplicity of its unsophisticated population! “Auch ich war in Arcadien geboren.” I, too, once hired a house in Hertford Street, as you will observe. Would that I could walk out of it to No. 2 Audley Square, as it was once my privilege to do! I infer from what you say, and from what I hear others say, that you are on the whole better in regard to the consequences of that horrible accident in Rome, and I rejoice in the thought that you are enjoying so much, notwithstanding, for a most brilliant planetary system is plainly revolving around you, as the center of light and warmth. I am so glad you see so much of the Hugheses. They are among our eternal regrets. I echo everything you say about both, and am alternately jealous of them that they can see you every day, and almost envious of you for having so much of them. So you see that I am full of evil passions. Nevertheless, I shall ever love perfidious Albion for the sake of such friends as these, notwithstanding her high crimes and misdemeanors toward a certain republic in difficulties which shall be nameless. What can I say to you that can possibly amuse you from this place?

Perhaps I had better go into the haute politique. We live, of course, in an atmosphere of Schleswig-Holsteinismus, which is as good as a London fog in this dry climate. I don't attribute so much influence as you do to the “early associations with Hamlet on the British mind.” Rather do I think it an ancient instinct of the British mind to prefer a small power in that important little peninsula, that it may be perpetually under the British thumb. For myself, I take great comfort in being comparatively indifferent to the results of the contest. As to its being decided on the merits, that is of course out of the question. A war about Poland was saved, after a most heroic effusion of ink in all the chanceries of Europe, by knocking Poland on the head. And a war about Denmark may be saved by knocking Denmark on the head. As to the merits of Schleswig-Holstein, are there any? Considered as private property, these eligible little estates may be proved to belong to almost anybody. Early in the ninth century the sand-banks of the Elbe were incorporated in the Germanic empires, while those beyond the Eider were under the suzerainty of Denmark. In the first half of the eleventh century all Schleswig was Danish, and at the beginning of the thirteenth Holstein, including Lübeck and Dithmarschen, was incorporated in the kingdom of Denmark. Then there were revolutions, shindies of all kinds, republics, que sais-je? Then came 1460, the election of King Christian I. of Denmark as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. There is much virtue in the hyphen. The patent of that excellent monarch is extant, written in choice Plattdeutsch, by which he declares the hyphen eternal. The provinces shall remain eternally together, undivided, says the patent. What a pity the king, too, couldn't have been eternal! The bon Roi d'Yvetot himself could n't have settled matters in his domain more comfortably for all future times.

But I forbear. Who can help approving the pluck with which little Denmark stands up to her two gigantic antagonists? But I am afraid there has been too much judicious bottle-holding. Anyhow, it is amusing to watch the chaos in the councils at Frankfort. The Diet is at its last gasp. Everybody has a different proposition of' “combination” to make every day; everybody is defeated, and yet there are no conquerors. The Bund means mischief, and wriggles about, full of the most insane excitement, to the thirty-fourth joint of its tail, but can do no harm to any one. Decidedly the poor old Bund is moribund. What do you think of your young friend Maximilian, Montezuma I.? I was never a great admirer of the much-admired sagacity of Louis Napoleon. But I have been forced to give in at last. The way in which he has bamboozled that poor young man is one of the neatest pieces of escamotage ever performed. If he does succeed in getting the archduke in, and his own troops out, and the costs of his expedition paid, certainly it will be a Kunststiick. The priest party, who called in the French, are now most furiously denouncing them, and swear that they have been more cruelly despoiled by them than by Juarez and his friends. So poor Maximilian will put his foot in a hornets' nest as soon as he gets there. Such a swarm of black, venomous insects haven't been seen since the good old days of the Inquisition. Now, irritare crabrones is a good rule, and so Max is to have the Pope's blessing before he goes. But if the priests are against him, and the Liberals are for a republic, who is for the empire?

Meantime he has had smart new liveries made at Brussels, to amaze the Mexican heart. Likewise he has been seen trying on an imperial crown of gilt pasteboard, to see in the glass if it is becoming. This I believe to be authentic. But I am told he hasn't got a penny. Louis Napoleon is squeezing everything out of him that he may have in prospect. In one of the collections of curiosities in Vienna there is a staff or scepter of Montezuma, but I believe his successor is not even to have that, which is, I think, unjust. The celebrated bed of roses is, however, airing for him, I doubt not. I put into this envelop a wedding-card of Rechberg and Bismarck,¹ which has been thought rather a good joke here, so much so as to be suppressed by the police. It has occurred to me, too, that it might amuse you to look over a few of the Vienna “Punches.” “Figaro” is the name of the chief Witzblatt here, and sometimes the fooling is good enough. The caricatures of Rechberg are very like; those of Bismarck less so.

Julian Fane has been shut up a good while, but, I am happy to say, is almost himself again. I saw him a few days ago, and he bid fair to be soon perfectly well, and he is as handsome and fascinating as ever. Dear Lady William, can't you send me your photograph? You promised it me many times. We have no picture of you of any kind. We should like much to have your three sons. We have one of Odo, however. Likewise we should exceedingly like to have one of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, if you think you could get it for us, with his autograph written below. He once promised it. Will you remember us most sincerely and respectfully to him, and prefer this request? I shall venture also to ask you sometimes to give our earnest remembrances to Lord and Lady Palmerston. We never forget all their kindness to us. But if I begin to recall myself to the memory of those I never forget, I should fill another sheet, so I shall trust to you to do this to all who remember us. And pray do not forget us.

Most sincerely yours,

J. L. M.

_______________

¹ Caricature of the time.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, Volume III, p. 9-14

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, November 17, 1863

November 17, 1863.

My Dearest Mother: . . . I shall say nothing of our home affairs save that I am overjoyed at the results of the elections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, without being at all surprised. As to Massachusetts, of course I should as soon have thought of the sun's forgetting to rise as of her joining the pro-slavery Copperheads. The result of the elections in Missouri and Maryland has not yet reached me, but I entertain a strong hope that the latter State has elected an emancipation legislature, and that before next summer the accursed institution will be wiped out of "my Maryland."

The elections I consider of far more consequence than the battles, or rather the success of the antislavery party and its steadily increasing strength make it a mathematical certainty that, however the tide of battle may ebb and flow with varying results, the progress of the war is steadily in one direction. The peculiar institution will be washed away, and with it the only possible dissolvent of the Union.

We are in a great mess in Europe. The Emperor of the French, whom the littleness of his contemporaries has converted into a species of great man, which will much amuse posterity, is proceeding in his self-appointed capacity of European dictator. His last dodge is to call a Congress of Sovereigns, without telling them what they are to do when they have obeyed his summons. All sorts of tremendous things are anticipated, for when you have a professional conspirator on the most important throne in Christendom, there is no dark intrigue that doesn't seem possible. Our poor people in Vienna are in an awful fidget, and the telegraph-wires between London, St. Petersburg, and Paris are quivering hourly with the distracted messages which are speeding to and fro, and people go about telling each other the most insane stories. If Austria doesn't go to the Congress out of deference to England, then France, Russia, Prussia, and Italy are to meet together and make a new map of Europe. France is to take the provinces of the Rhine from Prussia, and give her in exchange the kingdom of Hanover, the duchy of Brunswick, and other little bits of property to round off her estate. Austria is to be deprived of Venice, which is to be given to Victor Emmanuel. Russia is to set up Poland as a kind of kingdom in leading-strings, when she has finished her Warsaw massacres, and is to take possession of the Danubian Principalities in exchange. These schemes are absolutely broached and believed in. Meantime the Schleswig-Holstein question, which has been whisking its long tail about through the European system, and shaking war from its horrid hair till the guns were ready to fire, has suddenly taken a new turn. Day before yesterday the King of Denmark, in the most melodramatic manner, died unexpectedly, just as he was about to sign the new constitution, which made war with the Germanic Confederation certain. Then everybody breathed again. The new king would wait, would turn out all the old ministers, would repudiate the new constitution, would shake hands with the German Bund, and be at peace, when, lo! just as the innocent bigwigs were making sure of this consummation so devoutly wished, comes a telegram that his new Majesty has sworn to the new constitution and kept in the old ministers.

Our weather has become gray, sullen, and wintry, but not cold. There has hardly been a frost yet, but the days are short and fires indispensable. The festivities will begin before long. Thus far I have been able to work steadily and get on pretty well.

Ever your most affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 348-50

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: Jaunt to Vermont, October 20, 1838

We have recently journeyed through a portion of this free state, and it is not all imagination in us, that sees, in its bold scenery, — its uninfected, inland position, its mountainous, but fertile and verdant surface, the secret of the noble and antislavery predisposition of its people. They are located for freedom. Liberty's home is on their Green Mountains. Their farmer-republic no where touches the ocean — “the highway of the” world's crimes, as well as its “nations.” It has no seaport for the importation of slavery, or the exportation of its own highland republicanism. Vermont is accordingly the earliest anti-slavery state, and should slavery ever prevail over this nation to its utter subjugation, the last, lingering footsteps of retiring liberty will be seen — not, as Daniel Webster said, in the proud old commonwealth of Massachusetts, about Bunker hill and Faneuil hall, (places long since deserted of freedom) — but wailing, like Jephtha's daughter, among the “hollows,” and along the sides of the Green Mountains.

Vermont shows gloriously at this autumn season. Frost has gently laid hands on her exuberant vegetation, tinging her rockmaple woods, without abating the deep verdure of her herbage. Every where along her peopled hollows and her bold hill-slopes and summits is alive with green, while her endless hard-wood forests are uniformed with all the hues of early fall — richer than the regimentals of the kings that glittered in the train of Napoleon on the confines of Poland, when he lingered there on the last outposts of summer, before plunging into the snow-drifts of the North — more gorgeous than the “array” of Saladin's lifeguard in the wars of the Crusaders — or of “Solomon in all his glory” — decked in all colors and hues, but still the hues of life. Vegetation touched, but not dead, or if killed, not bereft yet of  “signs of life.” “Decay's effacing fingers” had not yet “swept the ‘hills,’ where beauty lingers.” All looked fresh as growing foliage. Vermont frosts don't seem to be “killing frosts.” They only change aspects of beauty. The mountain pastures, verdant to the peaks, and over the peaks of the high, steep hills, were covered with the amplest feed, and clothed with countless sheep; — the hay-fields heavy with second crop, in some partly cut and abandoned, as if in very weariness and satiety, blooming with honey-suckle, contrasting strangely with the colors on the woods — the fat cattle and the long-tailed colts and close-built Morgans wallowing in it, up to the eyes, or the cattle down to rest, with full bellies, by ten in the morning. Fine but narrow roads wound along among the hills — free, almost entirely, of stone, and so smooth as to be safe for the most rapid driving — made of their rich, dark, powder-looking soil. Beautiful villages or scattered settlements breaking upon the delighted view, on the meandering way, making the ride a continued scene of excitement and animation. The air fresh, free and wholesome, — no steaming of the fever and ague of the West, or the rank slaveholding of the South,—the road almost dead level for miles and miles among mountains that lay over the land like the great swells of the sea, and looking, in the prospect, as though there could be no passage. On the whole, we never, in our limited travel, experienced any thing like it, and we commend any one, given to despondency or dumps, to a ride, in beginning of October, chaise-top back, fleet horses tandem, fresh from the generous fodder and thorough-going groomage of Steel's tavern, a forenoon Tide, from White-river Sharon, through Tunbridge, to Chelsea Hollow. There's nothing on Salem turnpike like the road, and nothing, any where, a match for “the lay of the land” and the ever-varying, animating landscape.

We can't praise Vermonters for their fences or their barns, and it seems to us their out-houses and door-yards hardly correspond with the well-built dwellings. But they have no stones for wall — no red oak or granite for posts, or pine growth for rails and boards in their hard-wood forests, and we queried, as we observed their “insufficient fences” and lack of pounds, whether such barriers as our side of the Connecticut we have to rear about an occasional patch of feed, could be necessary in a country where no “creatures” appeared to run in the road, and where there was not choice enough in field and pasture, to make it an object for any body to be breachy, or to stray — and where every hoof seemed to have its hands full at home. Poor fences there seemed to answer all purposes of good ones among us, where every blade of grass has to be watched and guarded from the furtive voracity of hungry New Hampshire stock.

The farmers looked easy and care-free. We saw none that seemed back-broken with hard work, or brow-wrinkled with fear of coming to want. How do your crops come in, sir? “O, middlin’.” — How much wheat? “Well, about three hundred. Wheat han't filled well.” — How much hay do you cut? “Well, sir, from eighty to one hundred ton.” Corn? “Over four hundred; corn is good.” How many potatoes? “Well, I don't know; we've dug from eight hundred to one thousand.” How many cattle do you keep? “Only thirty odd head this year; cattle are scarce.” Sheep? “Three hundred and odd.” Horse kind? “Five,” and so on. And yet the Vermont farmers are leaving for the West.

The only thing we saw, that looked anti-republican, was their magnificent State House, which gleams among their hills more like some ancient Greek temple, than the agency house of a self-governed democracy. It is a very imposing object. Of the severest and most compact proportions, its form and material (the solid granite) comporting capitally with the surrounding scenery. About one hundred and fifty feet long, and some eighty or one hundred wide, we should judge, an oblong square, with a central projection in front, the roof of it supported on a magnificent row of granite pillars — the top a dome without spire. It looks as if it had been translated from old Thebes or Athens, and planted down among Ethan Allen's Green Mountains. It stands on a ledge of rock; close behind it a hill, somewhat rocky and rugged for Vermont; and before it, descends an exceedingly fine and extensive yard, fenced with granite and iron in good keeping with the building, the ground covered with the richest verdure, broken into wide walks, and planted with young trees. It is a very costly structure; but Vermont can afford it, though we hold to cheap and very plain State houses, inasmuch as the seat of government with us is, or should be, at the people's homes. We want to see the dwelling-houses of the “owners of the soil,” the palaces of the country. There the sovereignty of the country should hold its court, and there its wealth should be expended. Let despots and slaveholders build their pompous public piles and their pyramids of Egypt.

The apartments and furniture of the State House within are very rich, and, we should judge, highly commodious. The Representatives' Hall a semicircular, with cushioned seats, a luxury hardly suited to the humor of the stout old Aliens and Warners of early times, and comporting but slightly with the hardy habits of the Green Mountain boys, who now come there, and in brief session pass anti-slavery resolutions, to the dismay of the haughty South, and the shame of the neighboring dough-faced North.

Their legislature was about to sit — and an anti-slavery friend, one of their state officers, informed us that Alvan Stewart was expected there, to attend their anti-slavery anniversary. We should have rejoiced to stay and hear him handle southern slavery in that Vermont State House. — We trust yet to hear George Thompson there. It shall be our voice, when he comes again, that he go directly into Vermont; that he land there from Canada. Let him leave England in some man-of-war, that hoists the “meteor flag,” and mounts guns only in chase of the slave ship, and enter the continent by way of the gulf of St. Lawrence. Let him tarry some months among the farmers of Vermont, and tell them the whole mysteries of slavery, and infuse into their yeoman-hearts his own burning abhorrence of it, till they shall loathe slaveholding as they loathe the most dastardly thieving, and with one stern voice, from the Connecticut to Champlain, demand its annihilation. We would have him go into the upland farming towns — not to the shores of the lake, where the steamboat touches, to land the plague of pro-slavery — nor to the capital, where “property and standing” might turn up the nose at the negro's equal humanity, or the vassals of “the northern man with southern principles” veto the anti-slavery meeting with a drunken mob — but to Randolph Hill, to Danville Green, the swells of Peacham, and the plains of St. Johnsbury, to Strafford Hollow and the vales of Tunbridge and Sharon — William Slade's Middlebury, and up among James Bell's Caledonia hills. Let the South learn that George Thompson Was Stirring The Vermonters Up Among The Green Mountains. See if Alabama would send a requisition for him to Anti-slavery Governor Jennison, or Anti-slavery Lieut. Gov. Camp. And what response, think ye, she would get back? — a Gilchrist report — or the thundering judgment rather of stout old Justice Harrington to the shivering slave-chaser— “Show Me Your Bill Of Sale Of This Man From The Almighty!” [“]A decision,” said a judge of the present truly upright and learned bench of that state, “no less honorable to Judge Harrington's head than his heart, and Good Law.”

Let George Thompson land in Vermont, and stay there, till other states shall learn the courage to guaranty him his rights within their own borders, if they have not learned it already for shame. He can do anti-slavery's work, and all of it, in Vermont. He need go no farther south. They can hear him distinctly, every word he says, from Randolph Green clear down to Texas. John C. Calhoun would catch every blast of his bugle; and assassin Preston startle at its note, in the rotunda at Charleston. And by and by, when every Vermont farmer shall have heard his voice, and shaken his hand and welcomed him to his hearth-stone, let him come down into Montpelier and shake that granite State House; and mayhap to fair Burlington, to that University — where the colored student can now enjoy, unrestricted, all the equal privileges of “field recitation;” where he may come, under cloud of night, to gaze at the stars on the very same common with the young New-Yorker, and the son of the rich merchant of this fair city of the lake, or accompany them, in broad day, on an excursion of trigonometry, in the open fields. The doors of that college chapel would open wide to George Thompson, after the Green Mountain boys had once heard him speak.

But we are lingering too long for our readers or ourselves, m this noble state. We hasten back to our own native, sturdy quarry of rocks and party politics.

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 34-8 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of October 20, 1838.

John L. Motley to Lady William Russell, May 31, 1863

Vienna,

May 31, 1863.

Dear Lady william: If I have not written of late, it is simply and purely because I am so very stupid. I don't know whether you ever read a very favorite author of mine — Charles Lamb. He says somewhere, “I have lived to find myself a disreputable character.”' Now, I don't know (nor very much care) whether I am disreputable or not, but I am conscious of being a bore, both to myself and others. It has been growing steadily upon me. I always had a natural tendency that way, and the development in the Vienna atmosphere has been rapid. As I know you hate bores worse than anything else human (if they are human), I have been disposed to suppress myself. What can I say to you about Vienna? I don't wish to say anything against people who have civilly entreated me, who are kindly in manner, and are certainly as well dressed, as well bred, as good-looking as could be desired. A Vienna salon, with its Comtessen Zimmer adjoining, full of young beauties, with their worshipers buzzing about them like great golden humblebees, is as good a specimen of the human tropical-conservatory sort of thing as exists. But I must look at it all objectively, not subjectively. The society is very small in number. As you know, one soon gets to know every one — gets a radiant smile from the fair women and a pressure of the hand from the brave men; exchanges a heartfelt word or two about the Prater, or the last piece at the Burg; groans aloud over the badness of the opera and the prevalence of the dust, und damit Punktum.

Your friend Prince Paul is better of late. But he has been shut up all the winter. A few nights ago we saw him at the Opera. You are at the headquarters of intelligence, so you know better than I do whether you are going to war about Poland. I take it for granted that no sharper instrument than the pen will be used by the two “great powers,” and that they will shed nothing more precious than ink this year, which can be manufactured very cheap in all countries. At any rate, people talk very pacifically here, except in the newspapers. The Duc de Gramont has gone to Karlsbad to drink the waters for six weeks; the first secretary of his embassy is absent; Lord Bloomfield has gone into the country; Count Rechberg has been ailing for some weeks; and meantime we are informed this morning by telegraph that engineer officers in London and Paris have arranged the plan of the campaign. Finland is at once to be occupied, a great battle is to be fought, in which the Allies are to be victorious, after which St. Petersburg is to be immediately captured — simple comme bonjour. The newspapers give you this telegram, all of them exactly as I state it. Ah, if campaigning in the field were only as easy and bloodless as in the newspapers! But the poor Poles are shedding something warmer than ink, and I can't say it seems very fair to encourage them to go on, if you are going to help them with nothing harder than fine phrases, which have small effect on Cossacks; for what is called in the jargon of the day “moral influence” (whatever it may be) is no doubt a very valuable dispensation, but gunpowder carries nearer to the mark.

There seems something very grand in this occult power, called the Committee of Public Safety, at Warsaw, a new vehmgericht. I am told that General Berg, on being asked the other day by Grand Duke Constantine if he had made any discoveries yet as to the people who composed the Committee, replied in the affirmative. “Who are they?” said the grand duke. “Let me first tell you who don't belong to it,” said the general. “I don't, for one; your Imperial Highness does not, I think, for another; but for all the rest of Warsaw I can't say.” A comfortable situation for a grand duke! This invisible Committee send as far as Vienna for recruits, and men start off without a murmur, go and get themselves shot, or come back again, as the case may be, and nobody knows who sent for them or how. I have heard of several instances of this occurring in high and well-known families. I am just now much interested in watching the set-to between crown and Parliament in Berlin. By the way, Bismarck-Schonhausen is one of my oldest and most intimate friends.

We lived together almost in the same rooms for two years, — some ages ago, when we were both juvenes imberbes, — and have renewed our friendship since. He is a man of great talent and most undaunted courage. We have got a little parliament here, which we call the Beichsrath, and are as proud as Punch of it. It has worked two years admirably well, only the opposition members, who make up two thirds of it, never come, which makes it easier for the administration. My wife and daughters join me in warmest regards and most fervent wishes for your happiness and restoration to health, and I remain

Most sincerely and devotedly yours,

Varius Variorum.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 332-5

John L. Motley to Ann Lothrop Motley, May 12, 1863

Vienna, May 12, 1863.

My Dearest Mother: Since Easter brought an end to the Lenten entertainments which succeeded the carnival, there has been absolutely nothing going on in the social world. To-morrow there is a ceremony at the chapel of the imperial palace, the presentation of the cardinal's hat by the emperor to our colleague here, the internuncio, who has just been cardinalized by the Pope. I wish it had taken place yesterday, for then I might have a topic for my letter, besides having got through the bore of witnessing it.

There is much talk about war in Europe, but I can hardly believe it will come to blows. I don't exactly see how France or England is to get any benefit from the war. The Crimean War was different. Without it, it is probable that Russia would have got Constantinople, which England, of course, can never stand. France would like to fight Prussia and get the Rhine provinces, but England couldn't stand that, nor Austria either, much as she hates Prussia. So it would seem difficult to get up a war. As for Austria's going into such a shindy, the idea is ridiculous. To go to war to gain a province is conceivable; to do so expressly to lose one is not the disinterested fashion of European potentates. As for the Poles, nothing will satisfy them but complete independence, and in this object I don't believe that France or England means to aid them. So there will be guerrilla fighting all summer. Blood will flow in Poland, and ink in all the European cabinets very profusely, and the result will be that Russia will end by reducing the Poles to submission. At least this is the way things look now; but “on the other hand,” as Editor Clapp used to say, there is such a thing as drift, and kings and politicians don't govern the world, but move with the current, so that the war may really come before the summer is over, for the political question (to use the diplomatic jargon) is quite insoluble, as the diplomatic correspondence has already proved. There, I have given you politics enough for this little letter, and now I have only to say how much love we all send to you and the governor. I hope this summer will bring warmth and comfort and health to you. Give my love to my little Mary. Our news from America is to April 29, and things look bright on the Mississippi. I hope to hear good accounts from Hooker, but Virginia seems a fatal place for us.

Good-by, my dearest mother.

Ever your affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 330-2

John L. Motley to Ann Lothrop Motley, March 3, 1863

Legation of the United States,

March 3, 1863.           

My Dearest Mother: As I have now made up my mind that our war is to be protracted indefinitely, I am trying to withdraw my attention from it, and to plunge into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again. While I am occupying myself with the events of a civil war which lasted eighty years and engaged and exhausted the energies of all the leading powers of Europe, perhaps I may grow less impatient with military operations extended over a much larger and less populated area, and which have not yet continued for two years. Attention in Europe, I am happy to say, is somewhat diverted from our affairs by the events which are taking place in Poland.

Meetings are held day by day all over England, in which the strongest sympathy is expressed for the United States government, and detestation for the slaveholders and their cause, by people belonging to the working and humbler classes, who, however, make up the mass of the nation, and whose sentiments no English ministry (Whig or Tory) dares to oppose. As for Poland, I suppose the insurrection will be crushed, although it will last for months. I don't believe in any intervention on the part of the Western powers. There will only be a great deal of remonstrating, and a great talk about liberty and free institutions on the part of that apostle of liberty and civilization, Louis Napoleon.

I feel very much grieved that our only well-wisher in Europe, the Russian government, and one which has just carried out at great risks the noblest measure of the age, the emancipation of 25,000,000 slaves, should now be contending in arms with its own subjects, and that it is impossible for us to sympathize with our only friends. The government here keeps very quiet.

Ever your most affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 317-8

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, February 17, 1863

Vienna, February 17, 1863.

My Dearest Little Mary: I hope that you will accept this note from me as the family contribution for to-day.

I assure you, when you know Vienna as well as we do, you will agree that to screw out a letter once a week is a Kunststück to be proud of. I can't very well write to you, as I write to the State Department, about the movements in Montenegro, the Polish insurrection, or the Prussian-French treaty of commerce, although I dare say these things would amuse you about as much as they do the people at Washington just now, where they have so much other fish to fry. To-day is the last day of the carnival, which we celebrate by remaining calmly within doors in the bosom of our respected family. The great ball at Prince Schwarzenberg's took place last Sunday, so that we were obliged respectfully but firmly to decline. Soon begins the season of “salons.” Now, if there is one thing more distasteful to me than a ball, it is a salon. Of course I don't object to young people liking to dance, and the few balls in the great houses here are as magnificent festivals as could be got up anywhere, and Lily had always plenty of partners and danced to her heart's content, notwithstanding that nearly all the nice youths of the French and English embassies have been transplanted to other realms. But I think that no reasonable being ought to like a salon. There are three topics — the Opera, the Prater, the Burg Theater; when these are exhausted, you are floored. Conversazioni where the one thing that does not exist is conversation are not the most cheerful of institutions.

The truth is that our hostile friends the English spoil me for other society. There is nothing like London or England in the social line on the Continent. The Duke of Argyll writes to me pretty constantly, and remains a believer in the justice of our cause, although rather desponding as to the issue; and Mr. John Stuart Mill, who corresponds with me regularly and is as enthusiastic as I am, tells me that the number of men who agree with him in wishing us success is daily increasing. Among others he mentioned our old friend the distinguished Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity (with whom we stayed three days at Cambridge when I received my degree there), who, he says, is positively rude to those who talk against the North. He won't allow the “Times” to come into the house. Well, I hope the recent and remarkable demonstrations in England will convince the true lovers of union and liberty in America where our true strength lies, and who our true lovers are.

We have given four diplomatic dinners. The last was five days ago. Sixteen guests, beginning with Count Rechberg and the Prince and Princess Callimaki (Turkish ambassador), and ending with a French and Belgian attache or two. The French and English ambassadors and secretaries dined with us the week before. I think we shall give no more at present, unless we have a smaller one, to which we shall invite the Rothschild of the period, as we have had several good dinners at his house. I am very glad that you are to dine with Mrs. Amory to meet General McClellan. We feel very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Amory and S—— for their kindness to you. Pray never forget to give all our loves to them. Did Mrs. Amory ever get a letter I wrote her? Its date was May 12. Pray remember us most kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie. I am so glad that you have been seeing so much of them lately. It is impossible for you not to be fond of them when you know them. Give my love also to Miss “Pussie,” and to my Nahant contemporary, who I hope continues on the rampage as delightfully as ever. You will tell us, of course, what impression General McClellan makes upon you. Personally there seems much that is agreeable, almost fascinating, about him. I only saw him for a single moment, but was much impressed by his manner. I wish it had been his destiny to lead our armies to victory, for I don't see that we have any better man. But no one man will ever end this war except he be an abolitionist heart and soul, and a man of military genius besides.

Things have gone a million miles beyond compromise. Pray tell me what you learn of Hooker.

We all join in kindest love to you, my darling, and to your grandmama and grandpapa, and all at home.

Your ever-affectionate

P. G.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 314-6

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, June 9, 1862

Vienna,

June 9, 1862.

My Dearest Mother: I am pretty busy now with my “History,” and work on regularly enough, but of course I am disturbed by perpetual thoughts about our own country. I am convinced, however, that it is a mistake in us all to have been expecting a premature result. It is not a war; it is not exactly a revolution; it is the sanguinary development of great political and social problems, which it was the will of the Great Ruler of the Universe should be reserved as the work of the generation now on the stage and their immediate successors. The more I reflect upon this Civil War, and try to regard it as a series of historical phenomena, disengaging myself for the moment from all personal feelings or interests, the more I am convinced that the conflict is the result of antagonisms the violent collision of which could no longer be deferred, and that its duration must necessarily be longer than most of us anticipated. In truth, it is almost always idle to measure a sequence of great historical events by the mere lapse of time, which does very well to mark the ordinary succession of commonplace human affairs. The worst of it is, so far as we are all individually concerned, that men are short-lived, while man is immortal even on the earth, for aught that we know to the contrary. It will take half a century, perhaps, before the necessary conclusion to the great strife in which we are all individually concerned has been reached, and there are few of us now living destined to see the vast result. But it is of little consequence, I suppose, to the Supreme Disposer whether Brown, Jones, and Robinson understand now or are likely to live long enough to learn what he means by the general scheme according to which he governs the universe in which we play for a time our little parts. If we do our best to find out, try to conform ourselves to the inevitable, and walk as straight as we can by such light as we honestly can get for ourselves, even though it be but a tallow candle, we shall escape tumbling over our noses more than half a dozen times daily.

I look at the mass of the United States, and it seems impossible for me to imagine for physical and geographical and ethnographical reasons that its territory can be permanently cut up into two or more independent governments. A thousand years ago this happened to Europe, and the result was the parceling out of two or three hundred millions of human creatures into fifty or five hundred (it matters not how many) different nations, who thus came to have different languages, religions, manners, customs, and histories. As I am not writing a historical lecture, and as I am a wonderful son who can always astonish his mother with his wisdom, it will be sufficient for my present audience to say that not one of the causes which ten centuries ago disintegrated and decomposed the European world, with a territory about the size of the United States, and with essentially the same population, is present at this moment in America. The tendency of the age everywhere, and the strongest instinct of the American people, is to consolidation, unification. It is the tendency of all the great scientific discoveries and improvements which make the age of utilitarianism at which we have arrived. I do not believe the American people (of course I mean a large majority) will ever make such asses of themselves as to go to work in the middle of the nineteenth century and establish a Chinese wall of custom-houses and forts across the widest part of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and keep an army of 300,000 men perpetually on foot, with a navy of corresponding proportion, in order to watch the nation on the south side of the said Chinese wall, and fight it every half-dozen years or so, together with its European allies. The present war, sanguinary and expensive as it is, even if it lasts ten years longer, is cheaper both in blood and in money than the adoption of such a system; and I am so much of a democrat (far more now that I ever was in my life) as to feel confident that the great mass of the people will instinctively perceive that truth, and act in accordance with it. Therefore I have no fear that it will ever acknowledge a rival sovereignty to its own. The Union I do not believe can be severed. Therefore I believe the war must go on until this great popular force has beaten down and utterly annihilated the other force which has arranged itself in plump opposition to it. The world moves by forces.

The popular force, where land is half a dollar an acre and limitless in supply, for a century to come must prove irresistible. How long the conflict will last I know not, but slavery must go down and free labor prevail at last; but those of us whose blood is flowing or whose hearts are aching (like Mrs. W. D 's, for instance, mother of heroes) may find it small consolation that the United States of 1900 will be a greater and happier power than ever existed in the world, thanks to the sacrifices of this generation. But we have only to accept the action of great moral and political forces even as we must instinctively those of physical nature. There, you see what I am reduced to in the utter lack of topics. Instead of writing a letter I preach a sermon. We are going on very quietly. There is nothing doing now. Vienna has decanted itself into the country, and we are left like “lees for the vault to brag of.” The summer, after much preliminary sulking and blustering, seems willing to begin, and our garden is a great resource. There is small prospect of a war in Europe. The poor Poles will be put down at last. What is called moral influence will be bestowed upon them by England and France as generously as the same commodity has been bestowed upon our slaveholders, and it will do about as much good. Fine words have small effect on Cossacks or parsnips.

Give our love to the governor and to all the family far and near, and with a boundless quantity for yourself,

I am, my dearest mother,

Ever your most affectionate son,

J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 256-9

Foreign News

HALIFAX, Jan. 26. – The Europa from Liverpool 11th, Queenstown 12th, arrived last night.

A Cadiz telegram says the American Consul has received orders to protest against the admission of the Sumter.

It was said Spain would protect the prisoners brought by the Sumter.

RUSSIA. – It is reported that Russia has sent an embarrassing ultimatum to Rome that if the Pope don’t condemn the conduct of the Polish Clergy Russia will recognize the Kingdom of Italy.

CHINA. – A new regency has been established at [Peam] under the 2d Empresses.

FRANCE. – The pacific termination of the Trent affair caused a rise in the Bourse of 1 per cent.

The Moniteur says the feeling of profound regret and indignation has been aroused in England and France by the vindictive act of destroying the port of Charleston.  Rentes firm – 68f 60s.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 4

Trouble Brewing in Europe

If all the ages of the times do not fail, there is a crisis approaching in European affairs, that will require the whole attention of the transatlantic powers, and which will probably leave us at leisure to settle our own difficulties in our own way.  The financial embarrassments of all the European nations, with, perhaps, the exception of England, are among the least threatening of the dangers which are imminent.  In Russia, the Serfs are dissatisfied with the law which makes them free, because it makes them pay for their freedom, and the nobility are sour because the Serfs have been freed at all.  And the much abused inhabitants of Poland and Finland are ever on the alert to take advantage of every pre-occupation of the Government to strike another blow to their independence.  In Germany also there are evidences of coming trouble.  Hungary is awaiting the march of events in Italy, and the moment Garibaldi attempts his long cherished enterprise of wresting Venitia from the dominion of Austria, Hungary will rise en masse to throw off the same yoke.  Secret societies exist in every town, and secret agents are traveling over the country, warning the inhabitants to be ready for the emergency.  A similar state of things is noticeable in the Turkish Provinces of Montenegro and Herzegovina, which are giving the Sultan much trouble.  The recent assertion of Prussia, too, that she considers “the German Confederation as an international and not a federal part of Prussia,” has irritated Austria and thrown the little German principalities into an interesting flutter of excitement, presaging trouble in that quarter.

But the Italian question is the most dangerous and complicated of the whole, and is daily growing more difficult of solution.  Garibaldi has just written a letter intimating that he intends to commence operations for the recovery of Venitia early in the spring, and Austria is taking active measures to resist the attack.  The Bourbons are adding new fuel to the flame of the Neapolitan rebellion, and fresh hostilities are momentarily expected in Naples and Sicily.  The Pope continues to hold on doggedly to his temporal power in spite of the warning of France, and the recent and numerous exhibitions of popular feelings on the subject in the Italian cities, shows that he is daily becoming more unpopular.  If Napoleon should withdraw his forces from Rome, as he threatens to do, the Pope is in a fair way to lose not only his temporal but his spiritual authority as well.  Verily, coming events in Europe cast their shadows before.  At this late day we hardly need the repeated assertions of neutrality in our affairs on the part of England and France.  Matters at home promise to furnish abundant scope for the exercise of all the diplomatic skill of the European nations, if indeed a general appeal to arms is not necessary.  The scales which hold the “balance of power,” never at an exact equipoise, now seem more likely to be put of equilibrium than ever before.  It will require time to get things right again, and meanwhile our little difficulties will be settled up.  In view of the troubles abroad, and the signs of returning peace at home, there is no good reason why we should be further haunted by the ghost of “European intervention.”

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 2