John Mitchell on the American War.
Paris 20th May, 1861.
To the Editor of the Dublin Irishmen: Dear Sir:
You say that it is important to have the American question ‘"thoroughly discussed."’ I doubt this: It was the discussion of American questions, with which we had no concern, that helped to break up the Repeal Association; and I apprehend that Irishmen have quite enough of their own affairs to think of just at present, without getting into a dispute about those of other people.
To the Editor of the Dublin Irishmen: Dear Sir:
Nevertheless, as you have admitted an article from the pen of an able contributor, ‘" Fabricious"’ very strongly on the Northern side of the question, it may not be amiss to let your readers see what the Southerners have to say for themselves. ‘"Fabricious "’declares that ‘"he is not a partisan of North or South, but of the Republic one and indivisible"’--as if one were to say he is neither for England nor for Ireland, but for the ‘"Legislative Union"’ ‘" Fabricious"’ is no partizan; he only declares that one of the parties is carrying on an ‘"odious conspiracy"’ and a ‘"lawless rebellion,"’ that's all. Nobody can be more calmly indifferent than he — only one party consists of ‘"native anarchists guided by foreign murderers"’
I can easily conceive that, while sojourning in the United States, ‘"Fabricious"’ must have lived in the North. Everybody in the North, of every party, is an Unionist, just as every Englishman, Whig or Tory, is an Unionist with Ireland; and for the same reason — the North had the whole profit of the one Union, as England has of the other.
If the South had even an ‘"abstract right,"’says ‘"Fabricious,"’ to do what she has done, yet the exercise of that right was ‘"uncalled for"’ --but they who have called for it are the best judges of that. The North and the South are two nations, as much as France and England; their civilizations rest on different ba ; their systems revolve round different centres. For thirty years they have been kept in a species of uneasy ‘"union"’ by a series of compromises, which have were out at last. The Union is now repealed and broken forever. Both nations will be the stronger and the better for it.
This separation must have come; and there is no use in exciting or distressing ourselves about it. The two sections of the Confederacy have long read the Constitution in two different senses. Holding incompatible principles as to the rights both of person and property, it was only by equivocations they could pretend to be living under one Government. It is a necessity for the North to insist upon its reading of the Constitution, in order to secure the whole Continent as a field for free labor; and it is equally a necessity for the South to maintain its perfect equality in the Union, or else break the said Union.
‘"Fabricious"’ states the present issue with perfect accuracy; and I adopt it without altering a word: ‘"The simple principle involved in Lincoln's election was this --Shall the Territories not yet admitted as States into the Union be preserved free from the state of slavery, or shall the slaveholders be at liberty to drive their slaves there, as they would their cattle, and make them slave States?"’--Precisely so; there are vast territories for settlement, belonging equally to all the citizens of the late Confederacy; and the election of Lincoln affirms the principle that Northern men may go in there with their property and settle, but that Southern men may not. It involves the ‘"principle"’ that negro slavery is a stain, and slaveholders sinners, or rather indeed a species of lepers --not to be meddled with where they are, (being incurable,) but to be inclosed within a ring fence shut up at home with a plague mark upon their door, last they should infect sound and wholesome citizens.
The very idea of a Confederacy implies equality before the law; but this new principle establishes the most insulting kind of inequality; it enables the stronger party not only to thrust the weaker out of a portion of their inheritance, but to do it on the express ground that they are loathsome sinners. This would never do Apart from the right or wrong of slavery, (which I do not here argue,) you could hardly expect that Southern men, who are the most high-spaded of all men, would acquiesce in a ‘"principle"’ which brands them as malefactors.
As for the war — if war there is to be — and if multitudes of Irish born men are to bear a hand in it on both sides — all that can not be helped. Those Irishmen have lost their own country, and become citizens of another, of two others: they have all the rights and duties of native citizens and are bound to stand with their fellow citizens in weal and woe. There are about seven Irishmen at the North to one at the South; yet amongst those dwelling in the Southern States are some of the best Irishmen in the world, at home or abroad: thousands of slaves are owned by them; and those who are not owners of slaves, yet live by the produce of negro labor; they are bound up with the institutions of their adopted States, and will of necessity be quite as zealous in defense of their country as Northern men in crushing ‘"rebellion"’Thus. if the insane attempt at coercion is really to be made an Emmet Guard of N. York will cross bayonets with an Emmet Guard of New Orleans; the ‘"Montgomery"’ of Richmond will try conclusions with the Sixty-ninth; and the Meagher Guard of Charleston with the Meagher Zouaves of the North. Certainly, it would be much better if all those fine fellows on either side had their own native country to fight for, but Ireland has no army, no flag; if the Meagher Zouaves were in Dublin, they would be presently transported; if Irishmen in Ireland will handle arms, they must put on the livery of their enemies, and be trained and ready to cut the throats of their fathers and mothers-- Fifty thousand Irishmen are in the British service — here is the misery and the disgrace. Better far that they should fight in an American cause, or even two opposites American causes, as free citizens, than wear the scandalous scarlet of a British grenadier, as hired cut throats.
But ‘"Fabricious"’insists that whatever be the intrinsic merits of the American controversy, we ought to favor the North because England (as he says) favors the South. He declares, also, that it was under foreign influence the Southern States resolved on secession and that now England ‘"makes the Southern cause her own."’ All these surprising statements are new to me. For two years at the head of a Southern journal, I labored to bring the South to this very point which she has now happily reached, and assuredly I saw no symptom of ‘"the enemy of the human race"’ giving me any aid or sympathy in my patriotic work. On the contrary, all organs of British opinion that I have seen, ridiculed and denounced the movement of the Southern States at first. They denounce it still, though they ridicule it no longer — They think they see now that there must be a bloody struggle, and are only anxious that it may be short and decisive — that one party, no matter which, shall thrash the other at once, and so the cotton planting go on again as usual. England's chief interest in the matter is, peaceful production of cotton, and more and more cotton, and no end of cotton; and the termination of the war most agreeable to her, would be this; rapid, resistless invasion of the Southern States by Northern troops; Yankee garrisons in all their strong places; Yankee policemen in all their towns and on their plantations; an organic law shutting them up with their negroes within their present borders, and requiring a tribute of so many bales of cotton, to be delivered each year upon the wharves of New York.
But England treats the Southern States as a belligerent power; so does Erance; they cannot help it; the Southern State are a belligerent power. But this is far from implying a recognition of their independence. On the contrary, Queen Victorias proclamation uses this expression, ‘"Certain States calling themselves the Confederate States."’
And England did not ‘"offer the South Free Trade;"’ on the contrary, the South offered Free Trade both to England and to all the world — to you, if you only had ships and merchandize. France, also expects to reap great profits from the Southern trade, and both France and England will be prompt to recognize the Confederated States as soon as they shall have shown their ability to maintain their own national independence; and then they will not thank either France or England.
So much for the American question, and now, if you please, for a question whish touches us more nearly — the Irish question.
John Mitchell.
