The republic., 1851-12-16
Intervention without War.

Intervention without War.
The American people are assured that the
adoption of the policy recommended by Kos
sUTH, in regard to foreign nations, does not In
volve the probability of war. 1t is enough. we
are told, that we should proclaim our determi-
nation to compel Russia to stand aloof from any
struggle that may occur between Austria and
Hungary Russia is expected to feel at once
that we mean what we say, and that it would
therefore be madness to run counter to our de-
cree. All this is to take place without any in
tention on our part to fight, or any preparation
to meet the consequences to which our inter-
ference may give BIRTH word from us is to
change the mind and purposes of absolutism,
and to guarantee the peace and freedom of the
world.
The cool confidence with which this view
has been pressed upon the attention Of our citi-
zens implies strange amount of self delusion,
or very high expectations of popular gullibility.
Either those who utter it have wrought them
selves up to kind of monomania, beyond the
reach of common sense, or they have assumed
that they are able to palm upon the bulk Of the
population notion that is in itself ridiculous,
and is in direct opposition to the lessons of all
experience.
Who that is acquainted with the conduct of
the Emperor of Russia, and his absolutist allies,
can for a moment imagine that he or they
would be arrested in course OF aggression by
she verbal or written protest of any country, OF
any combination of countries, if the protest did
not distinctly imply resort to arms to carry it
into effect2 To be worth any thing, protest
must be known to be the expression of a will,
able and ready to bring armies and navies into
Tequisition, if they be needed to enforce comp
ance. To interfere in an individual OF a ma
tional quarrel, with neither strength nor inten
tion to sustain the interference in the most de-
cided manner. is simply to expose oneself to
ridicule and contempt. We should be laughed
at for our pains, and the quarrel would all the
while 90 on as though we had preserved un-
broken silence.
Stripped Of its rhetoric, the proposition for
intervention by this country resolves itself into
plea for war; and KossUTH shows less than
his usual candor when he labors to convey any
other idea. The question is, not whether we
shall raise voice against the treachery and
tyranny of European governments, but whether
we shall apprize them of our fixed resolve to
step in between them and their victims, and TO
wage the battle of the latter with the cannon
and soldiers of America. 1t is upon this ques
tion that we have joined issue with KossUTH
and those who have committed themselves to
his demands.
The New York Times cites the successful
opposition Of the French and English cabi-
nets to the project of Germanic consolidation,
broached by Austria, supported by Russia, and
assented to by Hanover and Prussia; and dwels
upon the circumstance proof Of the efficacy
of peaceful Intervention. "There was no threat
of war; it says, in the protest of France or
England, and yet the devices of absolutsm
"'meltcd away like the ice-paace of the Russian
empress" Is the 7fmesi in such blssful ignorance
of European politics as TO imagine that when
the foreign ministers of France and England
denounce scheme. they do not act with an in
tention TO bring all the power Of their respective
countries into requisition, to enforce, if neces-
sary, their opposition Has il forgotten that,
throughout long public career, Lord PAIL
MERsroN has been quite as ready to fight as to
talk, and that he has never talked in such a
matter as this without having made up his
mind to encounter all the consequences of his
meddling policy? Is it green enough to be-
Neve that Russia and Austria care one iota for |
the "moral force' of English or French opin-
ion; or that they would deviate, however slight |
ly, from their path, if they did not feel that
without such deviation they would come into
bodily collision with nations as renowned in
war as in peace
The policy of England in cases Of this ma
ture is amongst the last that we desire to imi-
tate. For more than sixty years, at least, her
foreign policy has been an almost continuous
course Of meddling with the concerns of other
nations with which she had no right to in
teriere. She objected to the first French
revolution and for more than twenty years
lavished her blood and treasure to keep
down the republican principles of people quite
as entitled to selfgovernment as herself She
undertook an armed interference TO oxpe the
legitimate sovereign Of Portugal; and TO sustain
the claims of DoS PEDRO. She acted similarly in
reference TO the throne Of SPAIN and at this hour