The King of Prussia1
died yesterday at Sans-Souci.
The American
Secession question now occupies public attention more than any other subject.
Mr. Motley, who is here, considers it as certain, but does not think the
Northern States will thereby lose any of their importance.
Fanny Kemble writes
to me, December 9:
'What can I tell
you, except that the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency appears to be
precipitating the feud between the Northern and Southern States to immediate
and most disastrous issues? The Cotton-growing States declare their purpose of
at once seceding from the Union—the Slave-growing States depend upon them for
their market, but depend still more upon the undisturbed security of the Union
for the possibility of raising in safety their human cattle.
‘The Northern States
seem at last inclined to let the Southern act upon their long threatened
separation from them—the country is in a frightful state of excitement from one
end to the other.
'The commercial and
financial interests of all the States are already suffering severely from the
impending crisis. It is a shame and a grief to all good men to think of the
dissolution of this, in some respects, noble and prosperous confederacy of
States. It is a horror to contemplate the fate of these insane Southerners if,
but for one day, their slaves should rise upon them, when they have
ascertained, which they will be quick enough to do, that they are no longer
sure of the co-operation of the North in coercing their servile population. In
short, there is no point of view from which the present position of this
country can be contemplated which is not full of dismay. Conceive the position
of the English in India if they had known beforehand of the murderous projected
rising of the natives against them and had been without troops, arms, means of
escape, or hope of assistance, and you have something like the present position
of the Southern planters. God knows how fervently I bless that Providence which
turned the worldly loss of my children's property, by their father's
unprincipled extravagance, into so great a gain. Their shares were sold more
than a year ago, and it will never be their fate to inflict injustice and
oppression, or tremble before impending retribution.'
_______________
1 Frederick William IV.
SOURCE: Alice
Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the
Diary of Henry Greville: 1857-1861, p. 339-41