The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-03-10
PROPOSED war WITH ENGLAND.

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ponents of advancing civilization to expos,
the inevitable retrogression of so-called mod
ern progress. Phillips is unquestionably the
brightest intellect of the Radical party of the
United States He has been its prophet
pioneer, magician; and the sum of his ex
ploits in those characters has been to fore.
shadow and anticipate the groupings out in
Radical policy of primal ignorance and bru.
tally, and to. throw around these an internal
glamour for the fascination of fanatical con.
ceit. The essential barbarism of the school
in which he is aristarch strikingly reveals it.
self in his commentator of Grants inaugural
on the ground, as it appears, that the docu-
ment breathes warlike tone towards Eng
land, and that vigorous, and if necessary,
a sanguinary policy" towards that country is
"the only means to secure a lasting peace.
And is the boosted progress of the age to
come 70 this, after all, that there can be no
enduring foundations of peace except
in the passions and desolations of
war? But history, Mr.. Phillips, is one long
crimson testimony to the hellish delusion of
this idea. Doves were never Matched from
the eggs of the vulture lambs were never
nurtured in the VOLTS lair. AS long as peace
is sought and accepted simply as deduction
of war, it never can, at the best, be anything
more than war suspended. 1t is not the
death, but only the safety and slumber, of
the glutted tiger. Europe is at this moment
stretched on the rack of organized agony in
its frenzied attempt to derive perpetual guar
antees of peace from perpetual conditions of
war. The expedient is just as much fraught
with failure now as it was in the days of the
republic or the empire of ancient Rome. 1t
addresses itself to an impossible problem,
and its final success is an impossible concep-
ton. 1t commences with the decomposition
of war, and can only end in war. There is
but one policy that can offer the assurance of
lasting peace-the policy that shall aim to do
away with the motives, the occasions, the
temptations and opportunities for war, and
that shall steadily and consistently base its
calculations of the future on the presupposi-
ton of peace
But let US take nearer and more practical
view of the way in which Mr.. Phillips hopes,
and apparently expects, that Gen. Grant will
illustrate his celebrated, but heretofore mys-
ferrous sentiment, &" let us have peace" 1t is
proposed as a cardinal feature of the new
peace policy to take measures looking to a
sanguinary foreign war. This is not novel
suggestion. A similar idea is believed to have
fitted across the capacious intellect of the
captor of Richmond at the conclusion of the
late civil conflict, and President johnson was
suspected of having inspired it. Then it was
that Gen. Sheridan went in hot haste to the
Rio Grande border, flashing denunciations
and threats against the Imperial free
booter" Macmillan, so-called in the polite
slang of the ruthless ravager and desolater of
the Virginia valley. 1t would be a master
stroke of policy, some thought, to precipitate
a war with France in which the veterans of
the Northern and Southern armies should
march shoulder to shoulder, forgetting the
passions and compromising the woes of their
internecine strife in the achievement
OF common victory and glory But
for several potent reasons, this idea persisted
in its infancy. The federal government was
One more year of war loans and expenditures
would have completed its bankruptcy. The
bondholders, therefore, saw clearly that
transition from a domestic conflict to foreign
war of indefinite duration with any first
rate power would be the doom OF their secu-
rites. And as for the Radical politicians
who soon usrrped absolute control of the |
government, they became so absorbed in |
appropriating as party property the spoils of |
domestic conquest that foreign insult and |
indignity could no more have diverted them |
from this preoccupation than either impreca-
tons or kicks can drive hungry ass from
his proyender. "One war at time con-
tinued to be their motto. Reconstruction |
was the secondary stage, the sequela of the |
struggle whose combats in the field had |
ceased at Richmond. Often the sequela is
more virulent and dangerous than the original
nalady. -Four years of Radical policy in a
state of nominal peace have been hardly less
pernicious to the financial interests of
he country, and much worse perhaps
ior its political interests, than were
he previous four years of fragrant war. And
yet Mr.. Phillips would have people believe
hat this leaves the country in an admirable
position for undertaking warlike measures
against the leading maritime power of Europe,
md therefore the most capable of defying
'ttack and inflicting injury. We, of course,
10 not forget the assailability of British Amer
Ca But England is prepared for the ulti-
nate REIMBURSEMENT of the whole of that
egion. That gone, the contest would turn
lpon maritime superiority. And what would
70 the chances in that field? We will admit
hat, other things equal, notwithstanding the
'resent inferiority of the American navy, the
government might, in year or two, attain to
n equality in this respect with England
3rt other things would not be equal: Sue
essful foreign war in this day is a question
# money. The success of aggressive naval
warfare is prominently so. The financial
bility of the United States government
would measure the efficiency of its
Layy. With its credit already at about |