dingly vexatious,
was the constant suggestion of European mediation. For a couple of
years, at least, the air was full of this sort of talk. Once, in spite
of abundant discouragement, the French emperor actually committed the
folly of making the proposal. It came inopportunely on February 3, 1863,
after the defeat of Fredericksburg, like a carrion bird after a battle.
It was rejected very decisively, and if Napoleon III. appreciated Mr.
Seward's dispatch, he became aware that he had shown gross lack of
discernment. Yet he was not without some remarkable companions in this
incapacity to understand that which he was observing, as if from aloft,
with an air of superior wisdom. One would think that the condition of
feeling in the United States which had induced Governor Hicks, in the
early stage of the rebellion, to suggest a reference to Lord Lyons, as
arbitrator, had long since gone by. But it had not; and it is the
surprising truth that Horace Greeley had lately written to M. Mercier,
the French minister at Washington, suggesting precisely the step which
the emperor took; and there were other less conspicuous citizens who
manifested a similar lack of spirit and intelligence.

All this, however, was really of no serious consequence. Talk about
mediation coming from American citizens could do little actual injury,
and from foreigners it could do none. If the foreigners had only been
induced to offer it by reason of a friendly desire to help the country
in its hour of stress, the rejection might even have been accompanied
with sincere thanks. Unfortunately, however, it never came in this
guise; but, on the contrary, it always involved the offensive assumption
that the North could never restore the integrity of the Union by force.
Northern failure was established in advance, and was the unconcealed, if
not quite the avowed, basis of the whole transaction. Now though mere
unfriendliness, not overstepping the requirements of international law,
could inflict little substantial hurt, yet there was something very
discouraging in the unanimity and positiveness with which all these
experienced European statesmen assumed the success of the Confederacy
as the absolutely sure outcome; and in this time of extreme trial to
discourage was to injure. Furthermore, the undisguised pleasure with
which this prospect was contemplated was sorely trying to men oppressed
by the burdens of anxiety and trouble which rested on the President and
his