--By persistent exertions, the shameless
Federal Government of the
United States, which, boasting that it outnumbers the
South three to one, yet runs round the world begging for help, has succeeded in getting a sympathizing letter from
Garibaldi, and a partial promise that, if the war is protracted a year or two, he will come to the rescue.
Garibaldi, as an Italian patriot, elicited a good deal of enthusiasm in the
United States, whose people have always been ready to run mad over everything in the shape of revolt and revelation in all other parts of the world, and to make a lion of every foreigner whose aspect, beard, and roar are savage enough to entitle him to that distinction.
The
furore that was raised over
Kossuth must be fresh in the public recollection.
When we think how this man was made a demigod of in
America, the foolish acts of homage, the propitiatory banquets and adulatory speeches which were made in his honor, we have only this consolation, that it was the
North, and not the
South, which showed itself such a fool that the world began to think the
United States one vast asylum for idiots.
Nothing but the extraordinary aptitude of
Americans for making money has prevented the civilized nations from concluding that we are all madmen.
As long as a country has sense enough for the accumulation of coppers, it does not injure it much in its own esteem, or that of the majority of mankind, if in every other respect it is a collection of fools or lunatics.--If
Garibaldi had come to the
United States soon after his achievements in
Italy, every free and independent sovereign in
America would have bawled himself hoarse in his honor, and done anything in the world for him, except lend him five dollars. The same patriot was an exile once before on this continent, and everybody admired him amazingly, but he had to turn tallow chandler to pay his way. There can be but little reality in demonstrations of friendship which involve nothing but words.
Hence, if the frantic exhibitions of an absurd population over
European adventurers have not altogether convinced mankind that
Americans are fools, it has created a profound disgust and loathing for the shallowness and hypocrisy of their character.
We never had much faith in this man
Garibaldi.
We were so unfortunate at the time of the
Italian war as to differ from the majority in their estimate of both
Victor Emanuel and the guerilla chief.
Whilst we sympathize with every country which is seeking to throw off a foreign despotism, we believed that
Victor Emanuel was only actuated by a selfish ambition, and that
Garibaldi is a Red Republican, an enemy of law and order, and the chief of a party known to be hand and glove, heart and soul, with the abolition leaders in the
United States.
Moreover, whilst our own South is execrated in every country of
Europe; whilst these very Italians, whom we are called upon to sympathize with, were holding us up to scorn and hatred in their very drama, and producing in their theatres, amid shouts of applause, the most libellous and offensive representations of Southern character and institutions, we could not find it in our hearts to go into hysterias over their tribulations, or exalt to the seventh heaven either their cause or their leaders.
We are tired sick, and disgusted with the absurdity of patronizing all the revolts and revolutions of
Europe, and taking to our arms all its adventurous vagabonds.
In Heaven's name, what are they or their cause to us?
What is the spectacle we this moment witness?
The Europeans whom we have been sympathizing with so universally compose the vast bulk of the army which is invading our country.
And the great motive urged upon them for enlistment is, that if this ‘"rebellion"’ is not put down, the cause of freedom Abroad will suffer!
So that freedom in
America must perish in order that freedom in
Europe may be established; and our noble people of the
South--the best the bravest, the purest, and the most generous people on this earth — be made slaves, that the degraded slaves of
Europe may be made free!
We can assure our Northern persecutors that we have no idea, not the most remote, of any such hideous sacrifice.
At no time did we ever have faith in the red republican movements of
Europe, its revolutions or rebellions.
At no time could we ever debase ourselves as
Americans by feeling the slightest interest in struggles between the established order of things and red republican demagogues, who, under the hypocritical pretence of popular right and freedom, sought to use the people as stepping-stones to their own advancement.
Still less now than ever.
Every successful rebellion in
Europe has only been the exchange of one set of bloodsuckers for an other and more voracious.
The little factions of Reds that succeeded
Louis Phillippe was more tyrannical, extravagant, and ostentations in one hour than the
Citizen King had been in his whole reign.
The masses of mankind seem fated to be mere pawns in the great game of life for the benefit of the crafty and powerful few; it is a mere choice of masters shall King Log, the hereditary, or King Stork the demagogue, rule over them?
That is all. Well, between the two, give us King Log.--If there must be a monarch, let him have the name, lineage, and bearing of a monarch, and not a hypocritical tyrant under the lying name of consul or first citizen; if there must be an aristocracy, let it be a genuine affair, having at least a thousand years of good blood in its veins, mellowed and beautified by time, illustrated by heroic traditions and chivalric actions, and not a pretentious piece of plebeian vulgarity, covered with a thin plating of gold, and coarse, tyrannical and brutal, as servants proverbially are when they get authority over their fellows.
We care not how soon the adventurer
Garibaldi comes to this country.
He has not yet made his own country free.
His Holiness still occupies the
Eternal City.
The Fisherman has not yet surrendered his keys, and
Cardinal Antonelli, in the language of the late
Webster, ‘ "still lives."’ Let
Garibaldi come!
The success of his
Italian movement was because it was a movement of gentlemen, not of reds; just such a movement as the
South is making now, and against a foreign despotism, not as base and contemptible as the
Lincoln despotism.
It was successful, not because
Garibaldi was a great General, for he never pretended to possess any military skill, but because he was sustained by an army of volunteers, composed not of riff-raff or red republicans, but, like our Southern army, of the best gentlemen of the land.
If he should come to
America, he could add no military skill to the
Federal armies, and no moral weight, for he would be in opposition to the very principles for which he contended in
Italy.
No one denies individual prowess and daring, but we would raise our voice for unconditional surrender to the
North to-morrow, if we did not believe that ninety- nine out of every hundred men in the
Southern army is a Garibaldi in all heroic qualities, and superior to him in all that constitutes a man. For our part, we hope he will come, and that all who hate us, of every nation and every race, will show their hands, so that when the day of reckoning arrives we can remember our enemies as well as reward our friends.
