OUR HOME r FOREIGN POLICt, BY HENRY ST. PAUL « NOVEMBER, 1863. PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE DAILY HE i "i KU AND /LDVEBTlSMB. I ■\ 'mtJIOW -CTiON OUR HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY. T. If one error, amongst the many errors, vices and crimes, of the late U. S., was prevalent more than any other, it was that by which, yet untried, the people of that defunct Republic, confi- dently asserted and complacently believed in their superiority as a family of the Human Race Mistaking their prodigious mate- rial developement for an evidence of intellectual power and moral progress their blind and rapacious vanity led them to ignore the real sources of that prosperity, namely : Extent of territory and sparsity of population, whilst they boastingly prided themselves on being a "j-oung people" instead of admit- ting they were merely a new and experimental society. That these illusions have been roughly dispelled, must remain an eternal source of joy to the friends of human progress, civil lib- erty and religious tolerance. The scaffolding of lying pledges and fallacious theories raised up by that refuse of the English Rabble, the " Pilgrim Fathers," has at last Crumbled down, leaving exposed to the naked eye, its basis of hypocrisy, falsehood and crime. Yet, such was the effect of the Philosophical teachings of the French Encyclopedists of thelatter part of the XVIII Century, that this abominable fraud and cheat, heralded by the high sounding name of Liberty, extended the delusion even beyond the borders of the late Republic and found advocates and admirers in the old world : that Lamchefor.cault, and even Chateaubriant in the last century, and Tocque\ 7 ille, Beaumont and Chevalier, in the present day, were the easy dupes of their senses and extolled before the world, as a model government and society, a mere experiment of a few years, yet untried by a course shorter than a man's life. Let the reader well understand that this judgment is based on the aspect presented by the late United States as they appeared before the world, exclusively through the medium of northern politics, northern ideas and northern journalism. The South, humbled and crushed, held up by the North as a temporary leprosy, of whieh they would soon rid themselves, the South was not counted as a component and integral part of the Political Body. Absorbed in agricultural pursuits for the benefit ot her P64135 task masters, the South had no press to expound her principles, no vessels to carry abroad a knowledge of her character. Her power, merely intellectual, was only felt within the ed orbit of national councils, where the towering eloquence of her gifted sons was lost in the petty squables of domestic feuds and pitiful party quarrels. But that eloquence never told on subjects interesting the great political world, and their splendid specimens will only be handed down and preserved, as amongst the most perfeot and polished of english oratory. That old, vicious people which left the shores of Albion, because they could not there carry out their execrable system of political and religious persecution, that corrupt element of Purit- anism had no sooner asserted its sway over the benighted natives of the Northern Continent, than they exercised the most tyra-ical and fanatical rule : a rule compared to which, the severe, but systematized discipline of the High Church of England was the very acme of Tolerance. That degraded and ignorant race had. not oven the external elegance of forms to diguise its revolting barbarity : The refinement of the English cavalier of the Carol- iuas^ and Virginia was, to the Northern Puritan, unknown and uncompreh ended : the greasy Psalm Singer, a perverted Bible in one hand and a set of falsified Scales in the other, lying and cheating, dirty and vulgar to obscenity, was the ideal of human nature brutalized. As they grew, every moral deficiency, the germ of which was in their slavish blood, sprung up in hideous difformity and that self styled young people had not lived fifty years, when every source of moral principle and virtue was totally extinguished: already, compeared to their chief cities, Paris, London and Venice were temples of sanctity. Their gross immorality had not even the mask of gallantry or the excuse of sentiment to conceal its hideousness : worshippers at the same altar and of the same Idol, man and woman was at any time read} r to barter honor for gold : In New York and in New York alone, of all the modern and ancient cities, could a Madam Restell have publicly set up the trade of infanticide — and in New York alone could conviction have been impossible, for the want of twelve honest men, unconcerned in her crimes. Yet, and as the road to perdition is smooth and tempting at first, the Northern States expanded in material power, based on Southern labor. But, as the worm which blasts the fruit, lies concealed and grows unperceived in its very cove, a just Provid- ence threw in amongst that people the seeds of rapid dissolution — Abolitionism — We think we can trace the almost invisible aperture through which the vengeful worm crept into that social corps, and this is, when about 1795, a body of puritanic elders humbly petitioned Congress to prohibit the running of mails on Sundays; and when, instead of being indignantly cast out of the National Hall, the petition was respectfully referred to a select 5 committee ! Insignificant as tins fact may appear, it is no less true that it w;is the first entering wedge by the force of which the Union was finally severed For, , Political and Religious Freedom go hand in hand, and like Coesar's wife, must not be suspected. A breath, the aspiration of a word sullies and tarnishes its brightness as much as the foulest slander or the grossest delinquency- The moment any man or body of men pretend to dictate what other men shall do or not do, on the Sabbath, they as much infringe on his freedom as if torn by the violent hand of a military ruler. — Between claiming that on a certain day you shall not receive or answer the letter of" one dear to you, and claiming that you shall not hold certain things or beings under certain conditions, there is bnt one stop. — That step was a short one for a nation, — hardly a day, — some sixty years, and the framer of tHe first Sunday law prohibition, in 1795, may well bo styled the father of the author of the Abolition Proclamation of 1S62. It is wonderful to note how the South, ignored, or if noticed at all, abused, could steer clear of northern infamy. How, throug- ont that life in common, which since the Missouri Compromise, was a standing insult and defiance, the South, escaped the con- tagious influence of northern immorality. With a few exceptions the spirit of the South, manly and sullen, stood up aloof, slowly and daily receding from that Union which to her was a client, finally drawing out alone and solitary in her proud, though inferior position. — But for those who will study the sources whence Both sections sprung, the problem is one of easy solution. The North owed its national life to, and derived its social organisation from that tribe of thieves, hypocrites and ruffians, called the "f i: Fathers" — who had left their country for their country's good — a sort of Voluntary Botany Bay Society. But, as Cape Hatteras first receives and breaks up the Great Gulf stream, so does it seem that it broke up and divided the flood of emigration, send- ing to the dark and gloomy North the mercenary and fanatical hordes of North of England covenanters and gently wafting to the smiling South the high minded, liberal cavalier and the daring Huguenot. And as these first elements became homogeneous to the soil, the generations which followed, agglomerated and harmonized themselves with each several original nucleus. Hence in the South, Northern stock got elevated and purified, and in the North, Southern blood bacarae corrupt and degenerated. In less than a quarter of a Century, the North hated the South and the South despised the North. The Chivalric valor of Southerners, whilst sitting in Congress in inferior numbers, secured to them at least outward marks of respect and in a conflict befoveen a Southerner and a Northerner, the Northerner often basely cowed and even submitted to personal chastisement. Yet, this constant, though forced association with that despica- ble race was slowly working its demoralizing effect on Southern P64135 6 manners and society. Intolerance occasionally showed its Hydra heads, Sunday law men crept in amongst us and Afikan coloni- sation associations, those ill disguised abolition schames, were already plotting the ' extinction of our domestic Institutions ! That magic, or, as events have proved, mystic word "Union" still held many under its spell and but for the hand of Providence which roughly awoke us t<> our fate, the filth, slime and scum of Northern ideas had well nigh invaded ihe threshold of Southern firesides. But t'hat spell haR vanished ; and after a glance cast on a gloomy past, we are left the stern task of surveying the dimly bright Horizon expanding before us. Far from pretending to be a youvg penjj/e, we si all take advice from the past and seek the lights of experience so dearly bought by us. IT. Having thus far alluded to the vain -glorious ignorance of the People of the late U. S., we now. will bring the same charge home to her so-called Statesmen. Although the nation owed its very existence to foreign sympa- thy and alliances, a Northern majority, as far back as the earliest days of the Republic, polluted its legislation with her mean and cowarclly spirit of Egotism and ingratitude. The U. S. had hardly taken place in the family of nations, when France, her steadiest friend and supporter, was thrown in the tumult of popular ro volution and soon afterwards, all Europe was arrayed in asms against her; She could not seek the feeble material assistance of the U. S., but she had a right to expect their moral support ; But, how different !! Whilst at the South, every heart was burning with sympathy for France in her gigantic struggles and her envoys feted and greeted wherever they passed, the men of the North were plotting the Alien Bill and the dismissal of Monsieur Genet, and short of actual war, (which they soon afterwards waged without even notice) the whole puritanic North was on the side of England. Shortly afterwards, Washington himself had so far forgotten that Jay and Franklin had long sought and finally obtained an alliance with Spain, Holland and France, that he was penning in his Farewell address those selfish words: "Beware of foreign alliances." — Thus expecting to sit at the common banquet of nations, be feasted and toasted, but when called on to contribute, coldly bowing themselves out ! A nation, like a man, who neither receives or renders favors, soon looses all sympathy and her welfare becomes simply for others a matter of material and personal interest. Thin selfish system grew upon her Statesmen to the extent of rendering them ignorant of the first rules of diplomacy and sneer- ingly deride that science which Pitt, Channing Talleyrand and Guizot had made their life study. The only departure from that easy road was dictated by their unbounded vanity, and that wa» when, uncalled for by any actual instance to protest against European aggressions, President Monroe, to his own Congress, announced the doctrine of non intervention on the western con- tinent : ■ That vaunting defiance was safely proclaimed at home, though intended for nations which had not the slightest inclination or necessity for American interference, and it was, as such, allow- ed to pass unnoticed ; but the disdainful indifference with which it was received, encouraged the belief that Europe had been badly scared and would so remain forever. They had forgotten that no nation takes notice of the principles and views of another, uttered within her own parliamentary Halls. The U. S. might have proclaimed a theory on tbe emancipation of Chinese Coolies or a scathing rebuke on the Hindoo Penal system with as much safety and self gratification : So long as this new priciple was not diplo- matically notified to other Governments, they abstained to notice it at all. But since that famous doctrine, what has been its working? England has actively interfered in the affairs of Honduras and Mosquito. France has taken possesion of Mexico and is about to establish there a permanent Monarchy, without even so much as condescending to notify the change to the U. S. government. In fact no theory, however absurd or offensive, ever startles the world, unless it be hushered in by the potent voice of cannon, and any jetty power may safely indulge in all those dictated by their fancy or vanity. Again, at the commencement of this war, the United States proclaimed to the world that the recognizing of the South as belligerents would by them be held as a "casus belli." — Yet, England, France, Spain and Holland so recognized ihe South : Later, it was announced that the recognition of the Confederacy or any attempt at mediation would be taken as an act of hostility : and yet the French Emperor, on two different occasions, has addressed circulars to the great powers of Europe, freely brand- ing the war as one unparalled in barbarity and proposing to put a stop to it : Why his beno violent intentions have not been carried out, we will hereafter consider, but let us state at once that it was owing simply to European complications and certainly not to any fear of the present U. S. And now, that torn and dismembered nation, having lost its richest and bravest population, is trying to enlist the sympathies of the pseudo philanthropists and Red Republicans of Europe by proclaiming the Equality of races, whilst, at the same time, it is licking the boots of the Russian Autocrat, still reeking with Polish blood, that blood which flowed in the veins of Kosciusko : the murderers of Poland, the Serfs of Russian oligarchy are being made the pet idols of the Empire City and the drunken Messa- line of the Modern Claudius leads in the revelry of the slavish crew. Yes : the boasting freemen of the North, aware of the abhor- rence with which all enlightened nations look down upon them, are fawning before the Russian Tzar and humbly begging for an alliance to crush at the same time and bury in the same grave, Southern and Polish Liberty ! The friends. of Constitutional freedom need not fear the result, but rather invoke the day when the monstrous assemblage will openly appear before the world, that the last veil be torn from the eyes of the few remaining advocates of Northern Re- publicanism. in- It is a sad fact, but one which may as well be honestly admit- ted, that when' the present war commenced, the self chosen leaders of the South had still , some lingering sympathy or at least, some surviving esteem for the North.' Contrary to the general rule, our Revolution was inaugurated by aged men, — men whose whole life had been passed in the demoralizing com- panionship of Northern Politicians, and they simply and credu- lously believed that the whole American Race, North and South, was sincerely and equally embued with the principles of the Constitution, as understood by their forefathers. Instead, there- fore, of accepting their position as one of open revolution, to be carried out as such, they sought to convince our enemies of their right constitutionally to secede from the Union : they preach- ed, argued and reasoned, whilst the wily foe was preparing for aggression : Instead of striking, they consulted : Envoys, nay, Ambassadors and plenipotentiaries were pompously sent to the Capitol and weeks elapsed before it became evident that our representatives were being trifled with. Then came the anxious expectations founded on the Crittenden's Resolutions, to which many of our people were looking up as a means of safety and reconciliation. Then, followed the over estimation of our power and the underrating that of the North ; • Although the President of the C. S. had promptly ordered the attack on Sumter and boldly levelled with the ground the arrogant flag of a country no longer in existence, yet, he himself and his advisers were only preparing for a short war. Twelve months armies were raised and moderate loans demanded. Old ricketty forts, like Jackson and St. Phillippe, were leisurely repaired as if expecting the slow and methodical attack of solemn sailing ships, with their obsolete armaments of 6 and 18 pounders! Meanwhile, the Provisional Congress had met : it was mostly composed of men who had been used to the slow deliberations of the TJ. S. legislative assemblies. Men having too much respect for forms and precedents and who could not be brought to believe, in the infamy of their former as- sociates, whom, outside of Congress, they were treating as friends and compatriots, only divided from them by political principles : Men who could^hot believe that the Northern declaimer, violent as he was at the tribune, yet would secretly plot the murder of a colleague's family. Even, after the endorsement by most of them of the infamous 9 Helper's Book, Southerners and Northerners had met at the same social board a .d exhausted the exciting topic over their wine ! John Brown's Raid itself had not been sufficient to un- seal their eyes and instill fire in their veins : No: they agreed to march out of the Union because, and solely because, they thought they had a right to do so. The word "Revolution" seemed to sound harshly hi their ears and Constitutional arguments were seriously urged to an enemy unrelenting in fury and maddened to every possible effort to re- cover the prize which alone gave him commercial life and politi- cal importance. They adopted a Constitution, which, with a few changes, was a verbatim reproduction of that under which they had been groaning for years Instead of breaking off with the Past and starting new ideas and neW emblems, they made up a name and unfolded a national standard by the alteration of a few letters and the. erasing of a feAv bars and stars: The absurd, unmilitary codes of the U. S. army were carefully reprinted and, but for the impossibility of procuring the necessary cloth and button dies, they would nearly have adopted the same uniform. So that the People, whom years of oppression had goaded into open and actual revolution, totally indifferent as to their Con- stitutional rights to secede, the People, which only wanted the dogs of war to be let loose, could hardly know the difference be- tween themselves and their hated enemy. This fatal delusion could not last long : But another soon fol- lowed : The brilliant victory vouchsafed our arms on the plains of Manassas exhalted our confidence in ourselves and there, the whole nation partook of the intoxicating draught.. The justly predicted and well demonstrated superiority of our soldiers led us into a supine sense of security and we sat on our arms, like Hannibal in Capua, whilst the untold mercenary legions of the North were slowly. gathering their formidable numbers: The fall of our River and sea coasts, the depletion of our armies un- der an unwise system of furloughs,forced us to relinquish the field where victory had perched on our banners and it was not until the ramparts of Richmond were threatened by the vandal hordes, that we recovered that brilliant dash and reassumed that supe- riority which conquered for us the admiration of the world and placed the' South amongst the first fighting nations of the earth. But we must now notice the worst of onr hallucinations and there charge it again to that disregard of diplomatic studies which was the boast of the late U. S. fancy statesmen. When it became apparent that this was not going to be a "Short War" some ill inspired politician picked up that Parody of Carlyle's maxim and exclaimed " tbtton is KinjfP This unfor- tunate quotation has cost us treasures of blood and gold which all the cotton fields of the South will never be able to compensate. That narrow doctrine unfortunately was but too'much in keeping with the want of political education and training of our former Statesmen. Affecting to take notice of the existence of other 1# nations, only so far as consumers, the Politicians of the old U. S. school were profoundly ignorant of European politics a d complications. Judging of other nations from a purely commer- cial point of view, and absorbed in their own admiration for them- selves, they neither cared for, nor studied the great book of the world. Balance of power for them was balance of trade, political treaties were " entangling alliances" and the study of modern history on the great European theatre was below the dignity of the prattling lawyers, rapacious iron mongers and low fanatical preachers who were ruling the destinies of the nation. For the men of the North, even those miscalled Statesmen, the history of the world dated from the 4th of July 1776 and as we said before, if they ever condescended to remember that there existed such nations as France and England, it was only because of a market for exchange being found within their borders. With the low and envious feeling of Northern puritans, and when the din of arms forcibly snatched them from their work sh ops or abolition lectures, they sided unvariably with the tyrants and against the weakest party. When the Crimean war broke cut, the sympathies of the whole Press North and a few sycophants South was with Russia, openly, avowedly and, when attempting to justify it, most ludicrously. Of that European system of the balance of Power, first inaugurated by the great Sully, the friend and Minister of Henry IV of France, they had never probably heard a word : of the importance to the civilized world of pre- venting the extension south of the colossal power of Russia, they could conceive no idea. A people, fed on the politics of the Tribunef and the novels of Ned Buntline, could not be expected to feel or the down trodden Circassian or the heroic Pole. A We-t em or Northern pettyfogger has no intrails, except for ne- groes, and this, no doubt, because of analogy in lying, baseness and brutality. Unluckily for us, when the cry of " Cotton is King" had been once started, speculations of every kind were set on foot. Cabinet ministers confidently urged that the war could not last six ty days longer ; that England would be starved into a terrific social Revolution and the Emperor of the French driven to escape at night from the Tuileries to avoid the rough hand of the Rouen and Lyons operatives. This sixty day note, like, that of the lying Seward, had, it is tru<>, to be renewed several times, and still remains unpaid. But, crop after crop was missed in Europe, Factory upon Factory closed, and yet, no volcano engulphed France or England. Sufferings, yet unknown, were inflicted on the working classes of England, but the poor house threw open its doors to the surviving wretches : In France, where the mechanic will not accept official alms, christian charity ministered to the wants of the aged and infirm, when the quick and sensitive found his place in the rai.ks of the army or accepted a farm on the fruitful soil of Algeria. In truth, Populations were displaced, industries were disarrang- ed, but yet, the world went on as before and showed only the 11 vanity and ignorance of those who dreamt that the failure of any crop could induce political changes. We challenge the advocates of M Cotton is King" to point out iu the history of the world a solitary instance where a dearth or a plague has produced a poli- cal collision. Had they looked beyond the limits of our former country, where the scarcity of hands early induced and encour- aged the employment of machinery, they would have seen that in Europe, in England chiefly, the introduction of steam threw out of employment at once thousands of families ; that in France, the running of Railroads displaced in two years upwards of sixty thousand families, whose heads were employed in the ser- vice of the Post mails, diligences, etc., etc., and yet, that no out- break of importance ever took, place, but only numerous instances of personal sufferings. They might, nay, they should have known that when the sceptre of manufactures was transferred from the free cities of Flanders to the rising boroughs of England, upwards of tbi'ee hundred thousand Tisserand.s of Ghent and Ypres were driven to starvation, and yet, no revolution followed. Ere this, industries have been prostrated, nay, annihilated, witnout any such results, and it was the height of folly, if not ignorance, to believe that thirty millions of British and forty mill- ions of French were to rush into all the horrors of war for a few bales of Cotton ; a calamity wbicb in the course of nature, the army worm or caterpillar might have as well brought on. Distrustful as we are, not of the British people, but of the Brit- ish government, we must state that England, which cannot be starved into war or even recognition by the want of Coiton, came never nearer making a hostile diversion in our favor as when the Pirate Wilkes insulted her flag by the seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell. If we base our hopes of foreign intervention on their mere material wants, we are indulging a fallacy, but when We find how this war may affect the honor, dignity and ambition of England or France, then we may safely expect, not assistance, but alliance. Hence, our home policy, as eloquently said by President Davis in his remarks at Mobile, in October last, is to be carried out re- gardless and, as it were, hopeless of foreign aid, or at least, of that aid which we expect to compel by the witholding of our cotton or tobacco crops from their manufactures. This childish play of v Cotton is Kmy" is now over, and it is with a sincere blush we remember that men placed at the helm of our affairs have been privately and publicly indulging in this misplaced pleasantry. Valor is King — the salvation of the South is within the South itself — it lies in those armies whose marlial tread shakes he soil and strikes terror in the enemy's heart. lis dangers are not of the cowardly foe, though in count- less numbers, but in the timid, the lukewarm, the indifferent ; it has dangers in the base speculator, who hoards up our produce to sell it to the enemy — in the extortioner, who sucks in the sub- . 12 stance of the soldier's family and drives him to desertion through despair. Let the people be frankly in revolution— let a few rulers feel the rough handlings of public opinion, and let a few extoi doners' shops be mobbed and devastated, so that our enemies at home, as well as those abroad, will acknowledge that we are " terribly in earnest." Let us beware of half measures in Legislation, as well as in battles : " those who are not with us are against us." Let a man, however high, who corresponds and trades at half profits with the enemy, pay the penalty due to traitors— and let a General who surrenders, without a fight, be shot as soon as taken : let in fact the words " Victory or death" be to them a stubborn reality. The new Congress about to meet (December, 1863) will contain many new members and members coming more directly from the People, and more deeply embued with the true Revolutionary spirit. Let them initiate vigorous measures, nay, arbitrary ones, if needed, to bring out the whole power of the nation. Let those playti;ings of peacetimes, Constitutions, Habeas Corpus, be for- gotten for the stern realities of public safety and national inde- pendence. Better a thousand times our country without any Constitution, than no conntry at all. There is no danger of per- manent power and hereditary empire in a popular or legisla- tive assemby ; where so many watch and so many govern, no one can seize the sceptre and hand it down to a successor. With the return of peace, their power, however absolute, will soon drop from their hands or be snatched by the people. There is danger in a Cromwell, a Bonaparte, but none in a " Long Parliament" or a " Convention Nationale." Public opinion, like waters whipped into a tempest, will finally settle and find its level. Let our Congress rule and govern as any absolute Monarch would rule and govern, responsible to God only for the abuse or misuse of their power. The introductory farce of " the most perfect government the world ever saw" 'is over and the sombre tragedy of life and death is now being enacted. " I come no more to make you laugh /" Let it be well understood that all the constitutions of the world are alike written on slender and perishable paper, which the first rude hand that attempts it, may tear to atoms and that this pre- tended " Chef d'oeuvre" of human wisdom, the U. S. Constitution lasted only as long as nobody cared to pull it down. It was no shield to us during nearly fifty years, and it is none now to the Yankee people who suffer under the most unmitigated one man rule the world ever witnessed; and if that defunct and impotent instrument of the " Founders of the Republic" is anywise differ- ent from any other, it is in this, that in Rome, England and France it takes a Csesar, a Cromwell or a Bonaparte to rob the people of their Freedom, giving them glory in exchange: whilst the American Constitution was cooly pocketed with a vulgar jefet, by a low clown, as a kin 1 of petty larceny, and that in ex- 13 change the people received ruin, shame, and the loss of prestige before the world. Let the people of the 0. S. feel the hand that steers their ship over the stormy seas of revolution. Let; them look up to" their Congress as the French of 1793 looked up to their Convention, with hope, confidence and dread. Let that Congress govern each new instance by its own merits and its own necessities, and if the constitution is either silent or adverse, let them ignore or set it aside. The a'rmy is with the Government, heart and soul, the army is fighting neither for domestic institutions, or the Rights of the States, but for a free, distinct and independent [dace amongst the nations of the earth. When that is conquered, we shall see about our internal affairs and chose what government will best please or suit us. Let stay-at-home politicians grumble, declaim and vituperate. Let them invoke those fancy idols of peace times, Constitutions and State Rights ! the arni}^ cares nothing for them ; they want powder and lead, they want their families fed and they will give us independence, and such independence that no Cromwell or Bonaparte will be able to rise and stand on the proud monument. Thanks to God, Jefferson Davis, with the errors incident on a passionate nature, is honest and firm, and History would search in vain a more daring chieftain than Longstreet, "the bravest of the brave," a more impetuous leader than Johnston, a greater General than Lee and a purer and more classical Hero than Beauregard.' "J'en passe, et des meilleurs." To them, to their victorious sword, let us intrust the conduct of our Home Policy. XTT. When this Revolution broke out, Europe was just entering upon a new era. A man who twenty years ago was a wanderer on the face of the Globe, had, by the sole force, of his genius, seized the reins of government of the first Power in the world. The pardoned convict of the Dungeon of Ham, the fugitive .revolutionist of Boulogne, who had, almost unknown, reentered the limits of France as too insignificant to be dreaded, had been proclaimed Emperor of the French and in a few years had re- conquered for that great nation the leading place in Europe. — Russia had been humbled and compelled to dismantle her frown- ing fortresses on the Danube. The treaties of 1815 had been torn, and five or six Royal families swept from their thrones to give existence to the kingdom of Italy, with a population of twenty-eight millions, ready to obey his imperial behests. Proud Austria had, after two bloody defeats, sued for peace and the precarious tenure of the Venetian Provinces. His vic- torious armies had marched through the burning sands of Syria to assert the free exercise of the Christian Religion, wherever the cross had been planted by the Crusaders.* England had deemed herself favored in being allowed to uuite the banner of 14 St. George with the imperial eagles and follow in the wake of their soaring vflight. Hungary, ;:< Poland were J convulsively throbbing after the day when they, too, would be allowed to commence the work of regeneration under the ample and pro- tecting folds of the tri-color flag. But, these sudden changes, this rapid elevation of one man, had" left many a sore on the hearts of the humbled autocrats. The long severed elements of the new kingdom were slow in cement- ing an alliance which Ten centuries of petty and barbarous war- fare had taught them to fear or to abhor. The imperial throne, though strongly founded on the affection of the French nation, was, in the eyes of Kings, occupied by an upstart, whose very name recalled past humiliations and defeats, and nothing but the terror of that name snatched from them an unwilling homage. * To leave unguarded the territories directly or indirectly annexed to his dominions, for the purpose of engaging in a far distant war with a power, till then, thought to be of some importance, would have forthwith induced a renewal of Kussian Hostilities in the East and Austrian intrigues in the West : England, wounded in her pride, would have given underhanded encouragement to the rising discontent and a few months might again have seen all Europe in arms against France. Such was the condition of Europe a the time of Lincoln's election and to such a condition ou Statesmen persisted in rem- aining blind and amusing the people with the dream * of speedy intervention — because, "Cotton was king." — On the other hand, standing on her antique foundations, the Fabric of English ins- titutions was not in any such danger. Her limits had remained the same and, having rather lost than gained in power and in- fluence, she could not be an object of jealousy and suspicions for other nations. Yet, her old ally and tool in the Napoleonic wars, Russia, bore her a deep grudge for the part she had taken in. Crimea, whilst Austria reproached her for allowing France to override the treaties concluded in Vienna under the guaranties of British Honor : She, herself, had to watch "closely her new friend and ally in whose fidelity she placed so little confidence that the inere establishing^" a fancy 'camp in France had been the cause of almost a panic, resulting in a t thorough organisation of the English militia. Yet, England M was still •better"than" France prepared for moral or^ actual interference : the common ties of origin and language, a closer connection in Social, Commercial and Financial inter- course, seemed to point her*out_as a natural umpire between the North and the South. Unfortunately^England, in her mad attempts to maritime sup- remacy, had long^waged a war against the Colonial system of other nations and waged that matter of fact war under the mask of Philanthropy. To destroy the value of their colonies was to strike a blow at the navalj)ower of her enemies and whilst her IJastings were 15 consigning millions of whites in the East to a doom far worse than African slavery, Wilberforce and his compeers were dealing their death blows to the Colonial system of the Western Hemis- phere. Calculating coldly the cost and profits of her Philanthropy, she emancipated a few thousand Blacks in Jamaica, whilst tightening the manacles around the wrists of her eastern white slaves and whilst consuming and thriving on the produce of our slave labor, she was making gigantic efforts to secure in her stolen possessions of India the production of the staple which gave her commercial importance. This, once accomplished, and as the labor of the degraded Hin- doo is obtained without almost any compensation at all, England would have thrown her manufactures on the markets of the world at such ruinous discounts as would have driven the American producer completely out of the reach of competition. This done, England cared little for slaves and slavery, and the fate of the four millions blacks supported by our agriculture would never have been inquired into by her. The Aristocracy which governs that country and at the same time owns its capital and wealth, the Aristocracy took the lead in the war on the Institutions of the South. Exeter Hall became the fashionable resort of her female gent- ility and was counted amongst the powers of the State, where ministers pandered to the vulgar taste which coufd entertain a Harriet Beecher Stowe and help her getting up cheating subs- criptions for imaginary Uncles Tom. Meanwhile, the honest british heart, we mean, the people, stood sullenly aloof, trying to understand how so much charity was lavished on distant and unknown negroes, whilst, at home, their wives were perishing of hunger and cold and their children doomed, generation after gen- eration, to the work house, or the gallows for the sons, and the poor house and lupanar for the daughters. Thus, it may be safely asserted that the British people is with us, because they want work and the British Government against us, because they want Power. But, how differently is France situated ? There, no real aris- tocracy in wealth is known, at least, none to compare with Eng- land and that same aristocracy never engages in Commercial or Financial enterprises. Their income, generally derived from the Public Funds, is by them spent in elegant leisure and never hoarded up : In short, more noble families are ruined than enrich- ed every year. In such a class of independent spirits, the sickly sentimentalism of negro worship could never find a hold. Present it under any form, the negro type will always be for them one of sensual best- iality, with no moral qualities to compensate for the absence of physical beauty. The ttfo decrees of Emancipation which, at sixty years interval, emanated from France were the mere out- bursts of wild political enthusiasm ; one by the Convention and 16 the other, by that fanciful Provisional Government of 1848, when Lamartine and Hugo attempted' with so little success to act up to their poetical noiions of Republican Government. But hardly had the nation subsided into anything like order, than the first Bonaparte arrested Toussaint Louverture and sent General Leclerc to re-establish order in San Domingo and Louis Napoleon not only reorganized labor inGuadelope and Martinique, but commenced his system of so-called African apprentices, which gave so much concern to England. In short, negro worship is unknown in France ; they neither trouble themselves or others about it. On her vast territory there is not one solitary abolition society, and Necrophilism has become simply a branch of ethics cultivated exclusively by that diminu- tive party, the Red Republicans. Thus, the French Government, which obeys the impulses of National feelings, watched closely and silently the developement of our carrier. They watched the progress of those gigantic armies of the North, and soon came to the conclusion that the apparent Colossus was standing on a sand basis. The boasted efforts of the North, their tremendous armaments, instead of demonstrating their military prowess, established clearly that they were the last 01 the military nations of the earth. A Government which embraces over twenty-five millions, raises armies of Fifteen hundred thousand men, and yet cannot succeed in crushing one less than five millions without calling to their aid foreign mercenaries and a servile element of Four mil- lions of blacks, such a Government demonstrates its weakness, and the same impotent rage which hurled Xerxes' millions on the little Republics of Greece. Contempt for such an adversary soon succeeded to amazement, and France, smiling with disdain at this huge humbug, the Monroe Doctrine, initiated the scheme of a Mexican Empire, founded on European alliance. England and Spain were first led in by her, under the plausible pretext of obtaining joint redress for private wrongs ; but Spain, still fearing for her Cuban possessions, and England for the Canadas, withdrew after having struck the first blow. Not so France. Left in the arena which she had skill- fully caused to be cleared by her allies, she came out alone before the world and openly avowed her designs. Those designs were the forming into a compact mass of the Latin Race in the new world, as she had already formed one in Europe by creating the Kingdom of Italy and as she had previ- ously attempted by demanding that Spain should be' recognized as one of the Great Powers. The Emperor's letter to General Forey, in a few terse and vigorous sentences exposed his views and these views were noth- ing less than the raising of an insuperable barrier to any further encroachments by the Anglo-American Race. It pointed directly to the U. S., and trampled under foot tfieir vain-glorious preten- sions to rule and adjust the affairs of the Western continent. 17 Had the Yankee ruler's been possessed of a particle of national honor and courage, this bold manifesto should have been sufficient provocation to pick up the gauntlet thus thrown in their face. But, as the buffoon of the White House, in his vulgar slang, ex- presssed it, " One war at a time" was sufficient, and the proud defiance of France was left unanswered. This new political axiom, diluted in a set and pompous speech by Senator Sumner, went down as an illustration of Yankee low cunning and Yankee cowardice ; yet, very foolishly at the same time, foreshadowing the policy which the Yankee Government intended to adopt, as soon as free from their internal troubles. It can be no disparagement of the people of the South to say that the proportion of Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins is not bo large as some would have it. By one of the secret workings of nature, climate and soil, man, like any plant, takes always from where he springs — although nei- ther France nor Spain, nor in fact any purely Latin Race still exercises any political power within the limits of the South- ern Statei, it is nevertheless a fact that most of those States were originally settled by French and Spaniards and that they formed the nucleus around which succeeding generations formed. Slight as it may be, a spark of their former spirit and habits lies con- cealed in the innermost recess of Southern habits and tastes. Even the bold Cavaliers of Virginia and Carolina themselves were the offspring of the Norman Knights of William the Con- queror, still glowing with the fire of daring and reckless chivalry — No one could cross South of that imaginary line of Mason and Dixon's, without feeling around him the free and bracing atmos- phere of liberal ideas, political freedom and religious tolerance. — The flood of emigration followed its former course and the "insouciant" Frenchman, the passionate, though dignified Span- iard and the quick, yet lazy, Italian, when seeking a permanent home in the New World, would ask it from the hospitable and tolerant Southerner. There and there only, no religious test was asked of him and he could raise his altar and worship his God without contumely. There also he could enjoy, if he chose, political privileges without almost any hinderance and, aside of a few ins- tances of violence committed exclusively by Northern assassins in the days of Knownothingism, his life, his property and his rights were sacredly respected. The affinity of the Southern with the latin race is also the great cause of the sympathy of the French Government, which well knows that the neighborhood of a purely latin and Catholic Empire would excite neither rivalry nor anti- pathy of race or Religion. In presence of such facts, what is "the object of France ? He has studied the history of the last few years with but little profit, who could believe that the Emperor of the French has an- nounced his will to the world, planted his Standards on the walls of Mexico and proclaimed an Empire, with no more thought of permanency than had the Knight errants who, in the 12th and 2 18 13th Centuries were founding ephemereal kingdoms in the East and the Greek Isles. The days of the Lusignans are over and Louis Napoleon is no romantic Tancrede. His carrier, commen- ced under the stern lessons of adversity, is one essentially positive and matter of fact, and he is now moving steadily towards his cherished object. That object is to give the House of Austria a compensation for the loss of her Italian provinces, and at the same time to open to his people a route to the gold field of Sonora. The reader has not forgotten perhaps the fool hardy expedition of the Count de Pindray on those tempting shores which, with a handful of French adventurers and Californians, he attempted to snatch from the Mexican Republic. — His courage, his indifference before death are still vividly present to us. — But, Count de Pin- dray had been one of the associates of the obscure Louis Napo- leon in the gloomy days of exile and whilst he was thus seeking a new empire for France, his former companion was already deeply scheming to secure the inheritance on him -bestowed by his uncle. The fate of Count de Pindray deeply moved 4he future ruler of France and must have left on his mind a living remembrance. To this, perhaps, we may trace the cause of the present con- quest of Mexico and the desire to subvert her former goverment. With such incentives of ambition and perhaps revenge, is it to be supposed that Louis Napolen, the ruler of the most potent modern nation, will condescend to abandon his prize, upon a mere lecture from the Yankee Goverment and shamefully sneak out of a land he has already conquered ! Even supposing that the present dismembered U. S. should still be the power that formerly ruled from Canada to the Rio Grande, his honor, the warlike sentiment of France would hinder him from taking the rash step. Though it should cost treasures of gold and blood, Imperial France can not leave the shores of Mexico until at least the new Emperor is firmly seated on his throne. But, Louis Napoleon is not only a warrior : he is also the profoundest diplomat of the day. However fond of military glory, he will not seek it where he can attain his end without resorting to arms. He well knows that so long, as the Northern Continent of America will remain under 'the rule of the United States, as they were, the Rio Grande will afford but an insufficient barrier to the new Empire — its extensive line would require a standing army of great magnitude and the close proximity of the Texas, Louisiana and Florida ports demand a no less expensive navy. Once re-unite4, the States would again swell up their army with the veterans of the South, the only ones capable to cope on equal terms with the soldiers of France, whilst the North, with her powerful war material, at the very doors of the new Empire, would stand in a constantly threatening attitude towards Mexico — 19 France, on the other hand, would have to import from her own country her expensive and bulky armaments and thus saddle her people with enormous expenses. — The scheme of a Mexican Em- pire, under French Protectorate, is not a new one. As far back as 1836, the cautious Louis Philippe had almost taken a prelimin- ary step towards it, when setting on foot diplomatic relations for the annexation, or rather protectorate of Texas : the scheme had so far progressed, that a powerful French party existed already in the new Republic, and but for the foppish conduct of the French envoy, Mr. De Saligny,that Party might well have succeeded. We have tod much respect for the official declaration of the French Government to believe that the late attempt alleged to have been made simultaneously in October 1862, by the French Consuls in Richmond and Galveston, was authorized by the Em- peror : but, it may well be construed into an unauthorized effort of those officials to start under their own responsibility a new Cel- lamare conspiracy, taking the chances of an official rebuke, if un- successful, but confident of reward, if successful. Louis Philippe's plan was, firstly to establish in Texas the po- litical influence of France, as England had established hers in the kingdom of Mosquito, and having once made Texas independent from Mexico, to set her up as a stumbling block in the way of the U. S. — against their aggrandizement South. The great error, however, was that Texas was too much americanized to remain long separated from a country which had given her life. The plan, also, was premature, as the encroachments of the North on Southern institutions had not yet reached their extreme point. The present Emperor of the French proceeds differently. He first aims at the coalition of such national elements as are, by instinct of race, hostile to the Anglo-Saxon blood or more truly, to the North American blood. — By cementing together all the Republics and States of South America, as he has cemented together the long severed fragments of a United Italy, he will in course of time build up a power fully equal in magnitude to that of the late United States. Whilst profiting by the present dismemberment of our former Republic and securing to Emigrants to Mexico and South Amer- ica, a durable and responsible government, he will divert the current of Emigration from North, to South America : The pow- erful ties of common origin and Religion will steadily keep up that current, in which the Catholic Irish will cheerfully join, as soon as quiet and comfort can be expected as the reward of hon- est and faithful labor. But, in dread of invasion from the North- ern pirates, and untill the final process of agglomeration is comp- leted, the new Empire will demand the support of France and, in case of danger, fight side by side with her patron. — Thus France, with her forty millions of population, backed in Europe by twen- ty-eight millions of Italians, and eighteen millions of Spaniards, equally interested in the supremacy of the latin race, will find in the New World a Southern Empire, which has nothing to fear, 20 and all to expect from her : This will be more than a fair equiv^ alent for British Power in the East. But, as we remarked, the erecting of such power, if attempted in defiance of the U. S.as they were, will be attended by difficult and expensive operations ; whilst, if the Southern Confederacy is finally established, the North dwindles into one of the Third or Fourth rate Powers of the world. Such a power could no more dream of entering the lists against France than the Prince of Monacco or the Duke of Hesse Cassel. — After the war the great bubble of Northern credit will explode with a crash — their man- ufactures, which only covered the Southern markets under the protection of a ruinous tariff, will find no opening in the world where to compete on equal terms with british industry : Their iron and coal mines, which could not live without the same forced pro- tection, will relapse into their original silence and waste and her only hopes will be based upon an occasional dearth in Europe, whereby to export the surplus of her cereals, say, once in ten years. Such a nation, with her demonstrated inferiority in soldiers and imbecility in generals, would not be a match for warlike and intelligent France,— and would soon sink into the insignificant position from which Southern Produces only ever raised her. Can any one believe that this master of political science, the French Emperor, will forego the advantages to be derived from dismemberment of the United-States, because of a local question of domestic institutions, which he has already shown to be wholly indifferent to him 1 Can one suppose that a nation which w*as the first to recognize Texas, with slavery and to give one of the sons of Louis Philippe as a husband to the daughter, and, probably, as a successor, ~to the Emperor of slave holding and slave trading Brazil, may hesitate to recognise our independence on that ground? No but as we said before, the delay comes not from any terror of that exploded bug bear, the United-States, but merely from the European complications to which we have alluded at length.— And a late event in Europe has again added to those complic- ations : the Revolution or rather, outbreak in Poland. At the very time when the Emperor was issuing his second circular to the British and Russian Courts, asking their concur- rence in offers of mediation, and asking it in such terms as plainly indicated his resolve to tender them alone, at that very time,Poland ^ThTdevotedandbut too often ill repaid love of Poland for France is well known : From the time when, in the 16th Century she sought a king in the son of queen Catherine Medici, to the time when her pitious appeals failed to rouse from his lazy couch the debauched Louis XV, who allowed her to perish in the united errasp of Russia, Austria and Prussia, Poland has been in the hands of the Republican Party in France, a standing reproach to her auccessive governments. •" To recognize and assist a distant people, or rather, fragment of a 21 people, estranged in language and origin, and allow Poland to renew unaided her death struggle, was even more than could have withstood the otherwise potent Imperial Government. Whilst Poland had on France every plausible claim to sym- pathy and assistance, the Southern States were only a detached part of a nation which had, we confess it, repaid her past assist- ance with the blackest ingratitude ; that ingratitude was the crime of the North, as parliamentary reports will show, but the South was involved in its odium. It was therefore impossible to recognize the Confederacy with- out first recognizing Poland , and the recognition of Poland was war against combined Russia, Austria and Prussia, with England closely watching the progress and her chances to side with the most powerful of the belligerents. ^ Our people, carried along in the pursuit of the war, lost sight of that incident and soon accused France of the same indifference manifested by England, but the truth is, that even the Powers of the French Empire would have been too severely tested by rush- ing into both conflicts at once. — The Emperor did what honor and public sentiment demanded of him he remonstrated strongly with Russia, demanded a change of her Policy towards Poland, and, whether successful or not, gave public opinion in France such satisfaction as the standing of the nation seemed to require. — The movement in Poland did not assume after all, the importance first expected and, however haughty, the answers of Russia seemed to imply that, though unwilling directly to yield to the demands of France, she would, of her own accord, extend to the Poles a more liberal treatment. Besides this, the dismemberment and eradication of Poland is not fortunately the work of the present century. Disgraceful as it is, this generation has had nothing to do with it, and the sober good sense of the French people finally taught them the folly of trying to ressucitate a nation which has been in her grave for nearly eighty years, though that grave be one over which all patriots will shed tears. Having thus quieted public opinion amongst his countrymen, the Emperor applied himself with renewed energy to the task of building up the Mexican Empire. His formal tender of the throne to the Austrian Prince, the acceptance of it under the guarantee of French arms and French credit, are no longer matters of speculation, but established histo- rical facts — and the Southern Confederacy has only now to improve this golden opportunity to give the finishing blow to the last hope of reconstruction indulged at the North. We say it boldly, that the time has come for us to enter upon a more extensive theatre than that of private revolutions. We say that the narrow, selfish policy of "no entangling alliances" is not suited to the times nor to the genius of our people ; we also say boldly that unless we intend to continue the present struggle for generations, it is time we should, like other nations, seek foreign 22 alliances for offence and defence. The unparalleled struggle which hardly five millions have maintained for nearly three years, has taught Europe, and chiefly France, the value of Southern courage and perseverance. To-day, though we may need assistance in ships, ammunitions and arms (not men !), we may, to-morrow, be counted as a powerful addition to the ranks of her braves. Once restored to our former condition, we would make ourselves and France greater, more powerful and more prosperous than we have ever been. Not only would our valiant sons, side by side with her soldiers, emulate their bravery, but we would pour at her feet the untold treasures of our agriculture, and jointly snatch from proud Albion the sceptre of manufactures. Once our domestic institutions restored to their former humane and profitable condition, we could offer to France in exchange of our great staples, an unlimited market for her thriving industry. The cotton and tobacco fields of the South, her boundless forests of the finest timber in the world — her iron and lead mines, and even her surplus cereals, united with the tropical products of Mexico — would render her'the mistress of the world in arts, man- ufactures, as well as in war. The Gulf of Mexico, inclosed be- tween the capes of Florida and Yucatan, encircled by Louisiana, Texas and Mexico, would emphatically become a French and Confederate lake, of whtch Cuba, and the French Islands would be the central key. From that lake the piratical flag of the United States coul-d at will be excluded, and England herself compelled to ask for admission. The Isthmus of Panama, Darien and Tehuantepec would be under our sole control, and the thiev- ing Yankee crafts compelled to breast the storms of Cape Horn to secure the precarious tenure of their Pacific possessions. This is no fancy dream — it is a reality which France has long contemplated and panted for, and which, favored by an intelligent policy on our part, would soon elevate us to the rank of one of he Great Powers of the New World. Dazzling as the prospect appears, there is solid foundation for t, and if our Government does but boldly enter the lists and frankly seek that alliance at any price, except national honor, we will have laid for our children the foundation of one of the great- est empires of modern times. But for this, a bold, innovating course is required. It is no longer sufficient to put forth before the world State papers couched in polished and chaste language. We are a power — we are a nation — albeit we are not yet publicly held as such ; but the time is not far distant when we will be able to reply to an offer of re- cognition as Bonaparte to the Austrian Envoys at Oampo Formio : " The Southern Republic, like the light of the sun, needs not be recognized." The time has passed for indulging in the selfish and contempti- ble American system of self-admiration and self-reliance. The present war has clearly established that our claims to mental and 23 political superiority were idle boasts, and that we are simply men, excited by the same passions and urged by the same impulses. Let us break off forever with the futilities of the exploded Am- erican Union : Societies, like men, require alliances ; like men^ they have enemies and they must have friends. Away with this selfish, narrow-minded and bigotted notion of self-estimation. It is idle to deny it, we cannot expect, for a long time, to be classed as a leading Power. Our territory is too vast, our popu- lation yet too sparse, and our domestic institutions too precarious to allow us to stand alone before the world, that world which despises the -weak and respects only the strong. Let us rather take example on the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which, whilst strug- gling for life against the gfgantic power of Spain, were courting offensive alliances with England, France and the Protestant States of Germany; which, instead of keeping aloof and distant from " entangling alliances," were rushing headlong in all the political combinations set on foot to humble the house of Austria, and which, in less than a century had raised seven petty provinces, smaller than any seven counties of our Confederacy, amongst the leading powers of the earth, which it required the combined efforts of Spain, England and France to stop in their gigantic increase. We have the spirit : we have the valor — and God never blessed a land with such natural advantages. What more do we want? Will / Let this will be our guide. Let the President of this Republic take advice only from his own genius and cast off the timid coun- sels of men who have proven themselves unequal to the emer- gencies of the time and in whom the country has, long since, lost all confidence.