Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-09-17

| 1t will be seen that to Intervention" as such,
general principles Of international obligation. On
the contrary, he deems it the past glory of Eng
land that for 80 many years she has intervened !"
against slavery. There is kind of " unarmed in
terventon which he says he cannot criticise /:
1t is where nation intercedes or interposes in
favor of human rights, or to secure the overthrow
of some enormous wrong, as where Cromwell plead
ed, with noble ntercession, for the secluded Pro-
testauts Of the Alpine Valleys; where Great Bri-
tain and France declared their sympathy with the
Greeks struggling for independence, and where
Great Britain alone, by an untiriRg diplomacy, set
herself against slavery every where throughout the
world" The Intervention of England against
slavery" assumed " its most positive character"
he rectes, while Lord Palmerston was Foreign Sc
cretary, and this fact Mr.. Sumner recalls to his
great honor" and Immediately adds:
Throughout his long life, among all the various con-
Germs in which he has acted there Is nothing which will
be remembered hereafter with such gratitude BY his d.
pomacy her Maestys Government constituted itself into
vast Abolition Society with the whole world for its ed
1t is in virtue of such traditions that Mr. Sum-
ner makes his appeal to the British Government
and people. He thinks cit is enough to show
and according also to those commanding principles
| of justice and humanity which cannot be set at
naught without shock to human nature itself, so
foul wrong as slavery can receive no voluntary
support from the Commonwealth of Nations. 1t is
not question of law, but question of morality"
If, then, the British Government and people shall
take different view of the moral aspects of the
American question from that taken by Mr.. Sum-
ner, he would be, so far as can perceive, at the
end of his argument. And he says, at the same
time, that I" it is in England, more even than in
France, that the strongest sentiment for rebel
slavemongers has been manifest, constituting
moral mania, which menaces pact and concorda,
with the rebellion itself-as when an early Pope,
the head of the Christian Church, did not hesitate
to execute piratical convention with pagan
enemy of the Christian name. 1t only remains
that the new coalition should be signed in order to
consummate the unutterable degradation" Ifsuch
be the altered state of British sentiment on this
great question, it is obvious that Mr. Sumner re.
poses his hopes of British forbearance on very
uncertain foundation.
We trust we are not unduly skeptical in appre-
ciating the force or value of "moral sentiments"
as prescribing the duties of nations. And yet we
do not permit ourselv to suppose that because of
slavery, there will bt the least reluctance on the
part of either Great Britain or France to concede
to the Southern nsu, gents the full measure of re-
aognition" to which they may vindicate their claim
by the success of thef arms. If hitherto recogn-
ton" has been delayed it is simply because the pro-
gress of events has not been such to justify it,
not because of any tenderness on the subject Of
slavery. And as it has been hitherto SO will it be
hereafter We therefore find more cause for mis-
giving than for confidence in calculations based on
any other considerations than those of international
law resulting from the d facto relations of the
Federal Government and the insurgents. And at
time when these de Jacto relations are becoming
day by day more and more corroborative of the
rights and pretensions of the National Govern
ment we can hardly consent to the latter rest
ed on the uncertain basis of "moral sentiments"
which, however noble and honorable, must depend
for their vitality on the degree In which they are
actualized by any people. When, therefore, Mr.
Sumner says:
The slavemongers may be corporation in fact but
such corporation find place in that sublime
monweslth As we'll admit the Thugs, whose first article
Of faith is to kill stranger the Buccaneers those old
brothers of the coast WHO puudered the or
better STILL revive the old Kingdom of the Assassns
where the king assassin surrounded by counseors
and generals who assassus and all bis subjects
assassins Or yet again, better at and openly
cognise sntChrsf who is the supreme and highest i'm
personation of the slaye-power'-
we have only to express the conviction that the
Governments OF the world will give little heed to
this aspect of the question, if ever the insurgent
States shall demonstraby become ga corporation
IN tdct." They will be recognised and received
in the family of nations just surely any other
people which have successfully vindicatcd their
pretension to independence. 1t will be quite in
vain, we fear, to exclaim as Mr.. Sumner does:
Better for the astancbored isle that it should be sunk
beneath the with s cathedras its Castles its fields
Of glory, Runnymede Westminster Hail. and the home Of
Shakespeare than that it should do this thing In other
days England has vaanty strven against slavery and
she proposes to surrender, at moment when more
be done than before against the wherever
it shows It's head for slavery every where has it's neck in
this rebellion In other days France valianty srven
for IDEAS and she proposes surrender although
all that she has proessed to have at heart is involved
the doom Of slavery, which word from her might hasten
beyond recall"
IL even nor these great Powers "propose" to