Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-06-15


The London Times HidIcuIed-The London
\ Saturday Review on our ClvlI War.
The London Saturday ReOieto in course
of long article says:
If there really is civil war in America
"the anachronism will be dreadful This
is not exactly the way Of looking at it which
would first have come into our heads. But
then we have not studied the art OF compost.
tlon at the feet of an imperial master. An
anschronism used to mean a blunder-
commonly wilful blunder-in chronology.
When Scotch novelist made Edward be
beaten at Bannockburn, that was a strong
case of .aDaehrenism. If then, an aRachrO.
nism means a chronological misstatemsnt
then the article on civil war is one "dread-
ful anachronism" from beginning to end.
Civil war, we are told, is something which
the States of the Old World have abandoned
for centuries rs utterly barbarous and shock
| ing" To get to the days Of civil war in
Europe, we must 60 back hundreds OF years.
1t sa species Of war such as no old country
would dream Of, or has dreamt Of for hun
dteds of years past. II is such a spectacle as
Europe has not seen since dark ages of his
tory. All this, we dare say, is very fine
W.T. ting but it is very odd arithmetic.
When the last European civil wars known
| in Printing house square took place we are
! happily informed by the writer, who goes on
to talk very grandly about Cavaliers and
Puritans, Catholics and Huguenots," "Jar-
| nae and Moncontour," "Marstou Moor and
! Naseby." How many "hund1eds of years.
does the Times think have passed away
| since the battle of Naseby2 As that is clearly
the last civil battle that the Times ever heard
| Of, it might be unfair to ask how many hun
| dIeds of years have passed since the battle of
! Newtown Butler; how many since the battle
of Cul1odin; how many since the last Irish
! rebellion; how many since the war of La
| 'Vendee; bow many since the war of the Son.
dersund; how many since that seige of
| Vienna in which the fortune of war obliged
a distinguished Englishman to fight first on
one side and then on the other. The war OF
the Sonderbund is particularly to our pur.
| poee. 90 t..-S --FA
The Times is specially horriied at ''the
| most purely democratic State in the whole
| world rushing headlong into species of war
such as no old country would ever, dream
| OF" &c. We do not know which State the
Times means as ''the most purely demo.
cratic Stste in the whole world" but GER
tain it is that there is no State in America
| go purely democratic as some of the Swiss
Cantons which took part in the civil war
of the Sonderbuud. Yet that war hardly
belongs to the dark ages of history;n-it hap
| pened within the memory of many who are
| legally infants, while-HUld men still Green
| US .MuU Gdu he-
| bellion, and the war of La Vendee. We dc
not quote the Partisan doings of September,
| 1892, or of December, 1851, because they SUR
| pass the limits Of what we understand By
civil war they belong to a class of horrors
| which have never been carried into any En-.
/ glish or American Homestead" even in the
| most dark ages of historylp .f1 trs.
The Times goes on to accept from the de.
fnitionsof civil war cases of sHpeople rising
Il.
/ or hurried, perhaps, into war of succession
as formerly in Spain.l The Times ia SO im.
| perially vague, that we really do not know
whether it means the Spanish war of success
| sion early in the last century, or that later
one in which Zumalacarfegui and Sir de Lacy
Evans won their fame Surely the latter
/ wasia civil war, if there ever was one; and
surely it carried more horrors into Spanish
homesteads than are at all likely to be now
carried into. American homesteads. And
| why are "risiDgs against misgovernment'
and wars "of succession" to be excluded from
the class of ucivil wars2n TN
We shohld have thought that nearly oil
civil wars came under those heads. To bt
suIo,- French mobiles In the sixteenth aut
teventeenth centuries would get MP civil
+ war purely for the fun of the thing, but tina
practice seems to hayebeen specially French
Other civil wars have always been eithel
wars of succession, or else they at leas
i protested to be ''risihes against misgoYern
ment" We suppose that the present Ameri
can struggle would be called by the seced
ing States ''Iising against stmisgovernment;'
and "a war of succession" it certainly is
though II is not about the succession of
King, but only about the succession of I
But what amuses us most of all is the wa,
in which the Times looks upon the actors il
the last European civil wars which it seem
ever to have heard of ~, p Il a.
/ When FTenchmen fought Frenchmen a
Jarnac and Moncontour it was for loft,
principles of religious faith. When English
men fought Englisbmen at Marston Moo
and Naseby it was for high principles of po
litical right. In those days, too, war wa
not thought so hateful as now. Nobod
I then doubted but that war in itself was a
allowable as any other form of action, an
each party took the field without scruple o
misgiving in defense Of convictions whic
could not be otherwise maintained. To thi
day, accordingly, we look upon the belliger
eDts,with respect. We recognize the rude
ness of their ideas and the -baFbarous natur
Of the arbitrament to which they appealed
but we. can not refuse them q certain kind 3
admiration. Cavaliers and Puritans, Oathc
hes and Huguenots, are all respectable char
acters. Their errors were the errors of tn
time, and such questions as were then raise
had practically but one solution. ~