sympathies of England? If slavery for fifty years had been unknown
among us, could there be found a hundred men, within the limits of the
United States, who would accept a British protectorate under any
circumstances or for any purpose whatever? And is it not therein
manifest, that our foreign and domestic perils are alike due to slavery?
And shall we not have dealt successfully with all our foreign
difficulties when we shall have established the jurisdiction of the
United States over the territory claimed by the rebels? But until that
happy day arrives, we shall not be relieved for an instant from the
danger of a foreign war; and if the rebellion last six months longer,
there is no reason to suppose that a foreign war can be averted. When we
offer so tempting a prize to nations that wish us ill, can we expect
them to put aside the opportunity which we have not the courage and
ability to master? We have observed the hot haste of England to
recognize the rebels as belligerents; we have seen the flimsy covering
of neutrality that she has thrown over the illegitimate commerce that
her citizens have carried on with the South, and from the time, manner,
and nature of her demand for the release of Mason and Slidell, we are
forced to infer that she will seize every opportunity to bring about an
open rupture with the United States. And though Mr. Seward has carried
the country successfully through the difficulty of the Trent, we ought
to expect the presentation of demands which we can not so readily and
justly meet. Indeed, enough is known of the Mexican question to suggest
the most serious apprehensions of foreign war on that account.

The necessity for speedily crushing the rebellion is as strong as it was
at the moment when Lord Lyons made the demand for the release of the
persons taken from the deck of the Trent.

Is there any reason, even the slightest, to suppose that by military and
naval means alone the rebellion can be crushed by the 19th of April
next?

Yet every day's delay gives the confederate States additional strength,
and renders them in the estimation of mankind more and more worthy of
recognition and independent government. Their recognition will be
followed by treaties of friendship and alliance; and those treaties will
give strength to the rebels and increase the embarrassments of our own
government. It is the necessity of our national life that the settlement
of this question should not be much longer pos