New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-05-26
ON PRINCESS NELLIE.
''The Lady of the Highest Place in Amer
lea" Presented to the Queen-Hns She
a Secret Diplomatic Mission
-. L..

| terdaY informed the public that Miss Grant,
| the daughter of the President of the United
| States, was presented to the Queen at Buck
! ingham Palace, and the lady of the highest
| place in America has thus commenced her
! acquaintance with England and the English
| The event, though certainly of special note,
| is not altogether so remarkable as it would
have been in the last generation, for royal
|. personages now go freely on their travels
| and the Queens son himself visited the
| United States before any Presidents daugh-
| ter arrived in England. Travel, in fact
| from which were once excluded the classes
| at both extremities of the social scale, has
! now become the resource Of all. Crowned
| heads no longer stay at home, and classes
! beneath the middle class find opportunities
| of going abroad Nevertheless, the arrival
| of this lady in our country, and especially
| at this coniunctuPe in the relations of the
| two states, is an occurrence worthy Of re-
| Election. Miss Grant will naturally enjoy
| the advantages attached to her position,
| and she will be enabled to carry back with
| her to America a more than ordinary amount
| of that information in which, it is said, the
| people of both countries are, to their com
mon detriment, so singularly deficient.
| We are told that we know nothing of the
! Americans, and the Americans nothing of
us, and yet the assertion is surely rather
! strange. One-half of it receives a certain
| explanation from the doctrine maintained
| by the Americans themselves, who are
rather fond of saying that no foreigners did
or ever could understand them. This
would be a sufficient excuse for our own
| misconceptions; but as we do not consider
our own national character by any means
so unfathOmable, how is it that no Ameri-
can should appear to understand us The
| question is well worth asking, and, if pos
sible, answering. The citizens of the United
- -, 49,
| They are eminently a locomotive race. As
a nation they are wealthy, their education
is of high average order, they are acute
and Observant beyond most people, and
yet it is said, and We fear truly, that they
rarely form any true conception Of our
selves, our temper, our institutions or our
doings.
The whole question now pending, with its
accidental complication, between the two
governments, originated in this kind of un.
derstanding, or at least in feelings to which
such misunderstanding gave rise. Not
only was the Alabama question never really
a money question, as the Americans now
freely acknowledge, but it never was, in
truth, even question of substantial injury
or damage. The real abiding Offense was
given by the attitude and public opinion of
the country during the civil war. as inter
preted and regarded by the belligerents,
and those impressions, where they were not
false, were without moral or political justi-
ficatiOn. We neither said or did anything
which a free people would not be entitled
to say or do. We said, indeed, less than we
might have said, but it became perfectly clear
at the conclusion of the struggle that the
claims which the Americans believed them
selves to possess on our friendship and favor
were far greater than any we had ever sup
posed them to entertain. That was the
true origin of all the ranking which cul-
minated in the litigation now pending. We
committed, as American jurors have con-
fessed, no breach of neutrality. We were
never consciously, still less maliciously
wanting in the discharge of any interna-
tional duty. We never did or thought of
doing less for the Americans than we should
have done for the most favored European
ally.
All this, however, though really as much
as could be expected of US, fell short of the
expectations actually formed in the United
States. The American people had natural
~ high opinion of their own Union and
its policy, and strong persuasion of the
special indulgence which we were bound to
extend to them. The mere spectacle of
their institutions in danger ought to have
filed us with alarm. Theirs was the land
of freedom, equality and progre IS, open to
all strugglers and sufferers of the old world.
The break up of such country was a very
different thing from a revolution in Europe,
and we, of all people, ought to have recog-
nized the fact. So far American feeling was
natural, and perhaps not much Overstrained;
the misunderstanding occurred from the
impressions conceived of our actual Obliga-
tions at the critical moment 1t really
seems as if the Americans had believed
themselves to be our very best friends all
through period when we were constantly
disturbed by their complaints, objections
and remOnstrances.
For twenty years preceding the civil war,
our relations with the United States were
necessarily liable to arrangement, and yet
the Americans, it appears, never meant to
do us an Ill turn or give us an i'll word. All
the loud talk which came across the Allan
tic was empty sound. At heart, the Ameri-
can people regarded the old country with
something like affection, and calculated on
the same feeling in return. When, in their
extreme peril, they failed to find it, they
conceived a mortal resentment, and all
through the want of a mutual understand
ing. 1t the Americans could have taught
us ten years ago what kind of feelings they
thought should exist, and did exist, between
England and the United States, there would
never have been any Alabama question. A
privateer might we'll have escaped from our
ports, but the accident would never have
been imputed to enmity, nor made the
ground of an international charge.
When the project of secession was first
moOted at least half the people of this
country held it to be uniustifable, accord
ing to the theory of the federal constitu-
ton but the contrary belief was held by
many Americans of the North, and Ameri-
cans Of all classes had so long and so I'M
reseryedly advocated the abstract right of
popular instruction that we began to
think six millions of United States citizens
might be credited with knowing their own
mind and discerning their own interests as
well as any other people. Then came all
the heroic campaigns of the war, in which
each side naturally had its friends and SYM
pathlzers and then the end, after which
we found ourselves blamed for half the
consequences of the rebellion. But how is
1t that no American ever candidly estimated
or measured the feelings which would natu-
rally be created in this country by the
manner in which for years before the war
the people of the United States had appa-
rently treated us
How is it, we again ask, that with so con-
slant and general an interchange of visits,
Americans and Englishmen should have
gained so little knowledge of each others
views? The pervading assumption of all
American minds is complimentary to u.s.
They start with the idea that we, as kin
dred people, owe them special favor, and
we are perfectly willing to stand on that
footing. But then, in common fairness, we
should look also for similar consideration.
We are quite ready to give and take, pro-
vlded there is taking and giving on both
sides. We deplOre anything like differ
ence between the two countries; but, the
Americans should be prepared in turn to
deprecate any such Misrepresentation with
equal fervOr. We do not pretend to appor-
ton the blame of the case, but it really ap-
pears as If we were better understood in the