Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1862-04-03

To Us who are not only at war, but as we may in
deed say in war, upon whose soil the contest is
waged to many of whose doors it has already come,
while it threatens to come many the time ante
ror to the present difficulties seems far removed, like
the world before the food it to be parted from
the present and the future by deep gulf We know
that the step is revocabe and feel thati ought to
be So Things are with Us not only matters OF convc-
ton, but of feeling also We parties, not specta
tors The sense of time with u.s. as with all Others, is
measured by events and by sensations and bow much OF
all these have been crowded into the life of The Sonth
ern people since the fifteenth day of last April!
These are our feelings convictions. Bat we can
hardly expect that other nations not parties in this
struggle will feel IS intensely We do who are. Would
we do so ourselves were NE merely spectators deeply in
teresed ones be sure but still only spectaors Let
US, ia order to obtain proper understanding OF tie
matter endeay0r if possible to place ourselves IN the
position of European governments Let US try to see
with their eyes, and from their stsndpont Let Us re-
member that what to is real heart-trying and vital
contest is to them only historical event, striking
movement which they contemplate from aar, IN which
it is true they have neresan interest to be at CT
ed by the solution of the question pending the or
brament Of the sword this continent. Outside of
that interest their feeling is simply one of excited curl
osty as ours was in regard to the Indian outbreak
the Crimean war. Apart from that interest the rec
ords of battles or seges advances retreats simply
matters of to them, the events IT India or
the Crimea to ug. What seems age to US is bat
little year to them. Questions of great weight and
moment in eyes appear to thfm perhaps, trivial
They cannot understand all feelings interests
Do or can IRE understand apprc iate all theirs Their
writer's, politicians and journalists make some awful
plumbers when they indulge in reference to tie geograph
ca political or cal situation Of things in this coQn-
try Do our people make bunders in referee &c 10
European matters geographical, POLITICAL social or his
torca? Do We not know that they have become sur
rounded by network OF circumstances, the growth OF
ages th result geographical position, of The conflicts OF
race of the war of systems of the rvars princes of the
differences in religion ard social Development DO We not
know that every leading power Europe founded upon
conquest or diplomacy, upon force or fraud? That
thus every power breads revolution and recos from the
idea of disinte grafton? Could we have reasonably
peced that England, which had just crused India with
an iron hand or Louis Napoleon, whose throne rests
upon volcano, which may at any time break out in
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cognz what must appear to the eyes Of Europe as rev.
OutiOn and disntegrat0n, example and mediation to
a similar movement among their own people? Could
England that had led the cutlery against slavery be the
first to virtually ally herself with republic avow
edIy determined defend aud perpetuae that nstltu
ton? Could expect the proud fabric of British
power ard British wealth to at once acknowledge its
weakness and, within few brief months bow down at
the foOtstoo of king cotton 10 humble acknowledgment
of bis supremacy aud its dependence? Not quite, we
think.
But it is ore thing to show ready zeal to push a
thing forward or to sid ard abet it, and another thing
to recognize thing when it is done. One thing to run
bolt against peudices and sentimentaes and another
thing to offset them by other senmentaIities England
aud France begin now to say through their highest
governmental authorities that the North and the South
ale rrevocaby disseyered-that dissolution is fact &C.
compished, aud facts accomplished " are now always
accepted This point being ached, how gracefully Car
hypocrisy preserve its consistency, aud justify interVen
ton by saying that such is not adopted out Of
love for revolution hatred of the North preference
for the South or tolerance for slavery but to stop bs
illusion OF blood.
We must think that many OF us have gone to queer
extremes on this point The oudest chaunters of hf
onlnipoence OF king cotton and all that, turn righ
round and commit fat treason against their feecj
idol Those who built most strongly upon European
Intervention now curse most loudly European GOODNESS
and deny the possibility of anything favorable from
that quarter. These people, and their name is legion
mistake blatancy for eoquence, paradox for wisdom
and abusiVeness for independence. They are Of tn
crowd that don't think, if they DO, think only Q
themselves.
We incline to the belief that things working ia
vorably-that ii fact, in better position an
nearer recognition and other substantial adyanta
ges now than at any previous period in the history
the Conftderacy, and that with stern and determine
effort the will be much less protracted than is ger
orally supposed. From the first, We never suppose
that the war could end before the close of the
year, even although this summer might break its bach
We still think that it cannot be protracted much b.
You'd the period originally assigned to it. The me-
= sage of Lincoln, urging willy scheme for detachin
certain border States from the Confederacy, indicate
pretty concusvey that the thing is rapidly presentn
itself to the Lincoln view, contest for boundare
and that ueror reconstruction, Or sutjugation, grow
IS fainter and fainter to the view. We want the Sout
IT the whole South, and nothing but the South!
About the Gun-bOat.
Having received many communications and son
contributions, with the assurances of any further amour
80 that might be needed to aid in the construction of
ronclad wGr steamer for the defence of this river
harbor and being ourselves convinced of the great
Of O volu Of uoh