The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1861-08-23
Darcy McGee on American Affairs.

Darcy MCGEE on American Affairs.
While the ministerial supporters and
organs of Canada are sneering at all the
efforts being made by the United States
Government, the opposition, while not
evir cling any particular psrtiality, are
nevertheless disposed to be candid in con-
sidering American affairs. Thos. Darcy
McGee, a distinguished Irish member of
the Canadian Parliament, few days since,
made general speech at Chauteguay,
and thus alluded to the United States:
1repeat here, at the earliest opportunity
have had, what | said in my place in the
last Parliament, that all this wretehed
small talk about the failure of the reputr-
lican experiment in the United States
ought to be frowned down wherever it ap-
pears among the Canadian public. | am
not republican in politics long before
these recent troubles came 10 head IN
the American Union, had ceased to dog
matlse upon any abstract scheme of gov>
ernment; but have no hesitation in de-
claring my own belief founded upon evil
denco accumulated through several years
Of observation-that the American sys,
tenn, SO far from having proved failure,
as tyrants and toad eaters all over the
world would wish it to be-that the sys-
tenn Will emerge from this its first great
domestic trial, purified, consolidated, dis
clpllned for greater usefulness and greater
achievements than ever before.
II iS tbn, ~ to ,,,o Il, J,,t- og
Canadian statesmen to look through the
temporary to the lasting relation we are
to sustain TO our next neighbor: to sup
press and discountenance all ungenerous
exultation at the trials aud tribulations,
which they are now undergoing; to show
them, on the contrary, in this the day of
their adversely, that, while preierring on
rational grounds, the system of constitu-
tional monarchy for themselves and our
children n-while preferring to lodge within
the precincts of the Constitution elabora-
ted through ages by the highest wisdom
Of the British Islands, we can at the same
time be just, nay, generous, to the merits
of the kindred system founded by their
fathers In the defensive and iustifiable wars
of their Revolution. If we are freemen,
so are they, and the public caamities
which 5efall one free people can never be
of exultation to another so long as the
world is half dalkened by despotism es
it is.
If the American experiment were in
deed to fail, the hope kindled on the altars
of the East-the old Greek fire of Free
dom-would at last be quenched, and for
ever, in the far West. If the American
experiment were to fail, not their fathers
alone, but all the ilustrious company of
freedoms martyrs would have lived and
bled in vain. In vain had RoiEan sirtus
fearlessly resisted Roman ambition; in
vain had Christian chivary Tended off the
cimetar and the superstition of the Mus
sulman; in vain had the great charter
been drawn, and Rannockburn been
fought, and Switzerland been freed,
"When time the hardy peasant safe
On Urls rock in close divan,
Ard winged the arrow, sure as fate,
That ascertained the rights of man."
American liberty is the product of the
nighest political intelligence of modern
times, working in the freest field, cast
adrift from all European ties, by the mad
ness of an arbitrary minister, blinded to
circumstances of time aud place if that
fabric should be destined to fall-as l
firmly believe it will not in our day, nor
at an early day-the whole world must
feel the shock, and the civilized parts of
the earth might well be clothed in mourn
ing, if they only knew the value of what
they had lost.