New York [16]
of the point which it reached in the ages of pure military and arbitrary sway. The celebrated saying of Napoleon, "L'Europe sera, dans cinquante ans, ou republicaine ou cossaque," has a profound signification; yet it must be greatly qualified to be received with safety. The "cossaque" of the close of the nineteenth century will be a very different thing from the "cossaque" of the days of Paul. It now means little more than conservatism, and this, too, a conservatism that is not absolutely without that principle of concession to the spirits and wants of the passing moment. These quarrels and bitter conflicts of which we hear so much in the Old World, like some of our own, have their rise in abstractions quite as much as in actual oppression; and the alternative offered by change half the time amounts to but little more than the substitution of King Stork for King Log. It may not be agreeable to the pride, recollections, and national traditions of the Hungarian, or the Italian, to submit to the sway of a German; but it may well be questioned if the substitutes they would offer for the present form of government would greatly tend to the amelioration of the respective people.
{L'Europe sera.... = Europe will, in fifty years, be either republican or cossack [French]; Paul = Paul I, Tsar of Russia from 1796 to 1801; King Stork for King Log = from Aesop's Fables}
What is true in the Old World will, in the end, be found to be true here. To us, it would seem that the portion of the people of this country, whom we should term the disinterested, or those who have no direct connection with slavery, on the one hand, or with fanaticism, and its handmaid demagogism, on the other, should turn their attention solely to the achievement of a single object. They have the strength to do it, if they only had the will. By compelling the disturbers of the public peace to submit to the control of the government, and to cease their meddling and wanton invasion of the security and property of their brothers and neighbors, the question of slavery would soon take care of itself. A single generation would, probably, see it confined in a great measure to the extreme Southern and Southwestern States; for, under the present emigration from Europe, it cannot be long before the upper counties of even the Carolinas and Georgia will make the discovery that the introduction of a single white man will be really of more importance to them than that of a dozen negroes. Could Virginia be made to see her true interests in this behalf, the glory of the Old Dominion would speedily revive, and her fine population of gentlemen would shortly take its place again where it so properly belongs, in the foremost ranks of the nation. We require an exchange with that quarter of the country, for we could give that which she greatly needs, and receive in exchange that which would probably not a little benefit ourselves. Puritanism, most especially when it breaks out of bonds by the process of emigration, does not always produce the most acceptable fruits; while, on the other hand, the descendants of the Cavaliers might obtain homely lessons, of great practical benefit, from the utilitarian spirit of the whole North.
End
{L'Europe sera.... = Europe will, in fifty years, be either republican or cossack [French]; Paul = Paul I, Tsar of Russia from 1796 to 1801; King Stork for King Log = from Aesop's Fables}
What is true in the Old World will, in the end, be found to be true here. To us, it would seem that the portion of the people of this country, whom we should term the disinterested, or those who have no direct connection with slavery, on the one hand, or with fanaticism, and its handmaid demagogism, on the other, should turn their attention solely to the achievement of a single object. They have the strength to do it, if they only had the will. By compelling the disturbers of the public peace to submit to the control of the government, and to cease their meddling and wanton invasion of the security and property of their brothers and neighbors, the question of slavery would soon take care of itself. A single generation would, probably, see it confined in a great measure to the extreme Southern and Southwestern States; for, under the present emigration from Europe, it cannot be long before the upper counties of even the Carolinas and Georgia will make the discovery that the introduction of a single white man will be really of more importance to them than that of a dozen negroes. Could Virginia be made to see her true interests in this behalf, the glory of the Old Dominion would speedily revive, and her fine population of gentlemen would shortly take its place again where it so properly belongs, in the foremost ranks of the nation. We require an exchange with that quarter of the country, for we could give that which she greatly needs, and receive in exchange that which would probably not a little benefit ourselves. Puritanism, most especially when it breaks out of bonds by the process of emigration, does not always produce the most acceptable fruits; while, on the other hand, the descendants of the Cavaliers might obtain homely lessons, of great practical benefit, from the utilitarian spirit of the whole North.
End