The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1870-09-12
France and NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. HrW-
tcruity.


tcrnity.
Elsewhere we publish complete translation
of an address from enthusiastic and able advo-
Gates of the French democracy calling upon
Americans, as such, to give louder and more
emphatic testimony than they yet have done to
their sympathy for the newborn French repub-
lie. The Messenger Franco Amsfssc0sn of New
York, in whose columns we find this appeal.
complains that the American press has not
manifested a sufficiently warm and cordial
appreciation of the new order Of things. In
doing 80 the Messenger assuredly overlooks the
circumstances under which this third declara-
ton of the republic in France has taken
place--viz., at the very crisis Of war pro-
voked by French rulers, and while Q vlcto-
rious enemy is at the gates of Paris. The
it meant peace, brought to Europe and to Anne
RIGA q sword !; it was one almost continuous
succession of terrible wars, sometimes par
doned because apparently upon the side Of
struggling nationalities, but as often utterly
abhorrent to the sense Of universal justice,
because evidently waged for the purposes Of
dynastio ambition. OF the latter character
were the invasion of our sister republic, Mexico,
by an armed coalition headed and inspired by
France, and the recent war 80 defantly
declared by Napoleon Ill. against the German
Fatherland. 1t was not surprising, then, that
with SO recent an experience before them
Americans should hesitate to express the
boundless enthusiasm that the birth of legiti-
mate republics in the Old World must awaken
in their breasts when they saw the provisional
government about to continue the war policy
of the late empire. War was the first word
of the Spokesman Of the new regime, and war
the people saw meant fresh slaughter, fresh
devastation and impoverishment, fresh hatreds
and divisions, and at last fresh dictatorship
and military rule. From this prospect
American common sense-which is, after all,
the surest basis of liberal forms of
government-revolts We know that liberty
could not survive it. ''The republic is peace,
and with that motto and in that sign of frater-
nifty alone can the republic hope to conquer.
Do we counsel degrading submission on
any terms? MOI far from it. But we do
counsel moderation, concession, Cancellation,
and even the highest reasonable price for
liberty. Liberty is worth it. A thousand
millions and few battered fortresses are a
cheap consideration for the inestimable boon OF
freedom, which, towering to-day over the
domes of Paris, but prepares her triumphant
fight of tomorrow from city to city over the
broad Continent. To invoke the destruction of
that ''cradle of liberty" on the banks of the
Seine to which the address 80 elegantly refers,
would be crime against progress and HUI
mainly that would cause mankind to execrate,
for all time, the madmen whose obstinate
pride should entail so great loss upon Christ
endom. The German soldiery, who uncon-
sciously have borne liberty into France in their
knapsacks and have commingled their best
hearts blood with that of the French chivalry,
to plant her glorious standard on the fallen
ramparts of the military empire, will feel the
thrill of congenial sentiments when, as adj
mitted friends, they tread the pavements of the
old city of the Revolution; and in those same
knapsacks they will carry back an augmented
treasure of enlightened and fraternal memories
to their own land of toll and taxation, but of
sturdy love for truth and freedom beyond the
Rhine.
Peace, then let peace be the offering of the
young republic, and we warrant that all
America will ring with the watchwords of
brotherhood and affection for her, to flash out
in glittering steel at any hour when banded
despotism may venture to throw down the
gauntlet for death struggle against the spirit
of the time and the just rights of the long
suffering peoples.