10 To offer to-day a peaceful intervention would be to expose ourselves to a refusal, Jf it did not even exasperate one of the parties and provoke it to measures of violence. It would lessen, too, the chances of our mediation being accepted at a more favorable moment. We are. thus forced to remain spectators of a deplorable war, which causes us innumerable evils. We caw only pray that exhaustion or suffering may at last appease the maddened combatants, and oblige them to accept reunion or separation. A sad position undoubtedly, but one which neutral powers have at all times been obliged to accept, and from which we cannot escape but at the risk of unknown perils. But if we have not the right to interfere, we have at least that of complaining, and of seeking to discover who is really guilty of this war, which so disturbs our well-being. -.The opinion of Europe is something. It may hasten events and bring about peace better than bayonets. Unfortunately, for two years, public opinion in Europe has been led astray and has taken a false direction. In arraying itself on the wrong side, it but prolongs the resistance, instead of arresting it. The South has found numerous and skilful advocates in France and England. They have presented her cause as that - of justice and liberty. They have proclaimed the right of separation, and have not quailed even before the necessity of apologizing for slavery. To-day these arguments begin to loose their force. Thanks to a few writers who do not chaffer with the great interests of humanity—thanks, above all, to M. de Gasparin, light has begun to break forth. We know now what to think of the origin and character of the rebellion. To every .impartial observer it is now evident that the wrong lies wholly with the South. It is not Necessary to be a Montesquieu to comprehend that a portion of a people, whose rights are in no way endangered, but who are led by pride and ambition to attempt the destruction of national unity and to rend assunder the country, have no claim to the sympathy of the French people. As to canonizing slavery, that is a work we must leave to southern preachers. Not all the ingenuity of the world will ever be able to retrieve that lost cause. Even if the confederates had a thousand reasons for complaining and revolting, there must always remain an ineffaceable stain on their rebelL
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