The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-07-05
BUYING THE WORLD UP.

that Mr.. Seward has negotiated treaty with
Denmark for the purchase of Greenland and
Iceland. If this announcement is not joke
of the telegraph, the affair to which it refers
will be apt to strike the casual observation of
the world as the most fantastic stroke of
humor yet perpetrated by the most facetious
foreign minister of the time. We are re-
minded by this third operation in real estate
imputed to Mr.. Seward, of the cosmophagic
genius darby alluded to in an ancient nursery
rhyme which speaks of the readiness of the
"gray eye," in its ipordinate greediness, to
seat all the world up" We feel a sort of
superstitious awe in thinking of this unex-
ampled diplomat, darting a look of prefer
natural jollity at Mr.. Burlingane's Chinese
show with one weird little gray eye, and
glazing hungrily at all the purchasable
territories of the world, with the other weird
little gray eye. Is Mr.. Seward seriously in
tent on buying all the world up? Does he
propose to devote the rest of his diplomatic
life to the abolition of the diplomatic bust
ness? Every successive purchase obliterates
an international boundary and lessons the
chances of international controversy. OH
habet terrain hdbd belllm, says an old state
maxim. There would be no war, and no dis
putes involving wars as the ultima ratio, if
there were no territories to be lost or con-
quered. Blessed is he who expects nothing,
for he shall not be disappointed Blessed is
he who has nothing, for he may live in peace,
with none to make him afraid. This is the
sermon which Mr.. Seward breaches to all the
foreign powers with reference to territorial
possessions and acquisitions. Whenever
they have pieces of territory which are
geographically inconvenient or which
contain troublesome populations, let
them offer these wares in the market
which Mr. Seward has opened for all the rest
of the world, and they may be relieved of the
geographical difficulties and of the popular
troubles on their own terms provided that
payment of the stipulated price is left to the
discretion of a Congress which demands
every cent of the public revenue for the use
of the most rapacious and profigate party
that ever abused legislation and drained an
exchequer. The logical sequence of this in
ternational barter may be easily foreseen.
Every territory is, geographically, more or
less inconvenient, and every population is,
politically, more or less troublesome. Con-
sequently, there will always be some occasion
for every foreign power to put in practice the
advice of Mr.. Stewards sermon by selling in
Mr.. Stewards market. But this process is
self-limiting for no national domain is
boundless, and the world is finite. The uni
versal purchaser must become at length the
universal possessor. All the foreign powers
will be deteIritorialized, and if they survive
their existence will be distracted from terra
fT7pa and from measurable space, and
they will have no more relevancy to
sublunary and practical affairs than
those spiritual beings which, in the
metaphysical speculation of the old scholias-
tics, used to dance, a million at a time, and
with plenty of elbow room, on the point
of needle. The prospect of such a con-
summation may well fill the prophetic soul of
Mr.. Seward with patriotic exultation. He
no voice and no example to contradict 'fim, to
his own government as the best government
on the face of the earth" for it would be the
only government visibly existing on the face
of the earth. Surprising it to continue under
its present. rule, there is clearly no other way to
establish the proposition. The United States,
thanks to this diplomatic magician, would be
the Aaron's rod of nations, having swallowed
all the rest. Nothing would remain for Amer
lean craftsmanship but to assist the digestion
of the heterogeneous contents of the Ameri-
can stomach.