THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
measure, on the view the Emperor Louis Napoleon took of his personal or dynastic advantage. His sympathies were instinctively with the Southern Confederacy. He harbored in his mind vague schemes of aggrandizement, the execution of which would have been much facilitated by the dismemberment of the United States. He would, therefore, have been glad to break our blockade of the Southern ports, and even to interfere directly in our struggle in favor of the Southern Confederacy, could he have done so without running counter to a strong public opinion in his own country, and also without the risk of entangling himself, single-handed, in a conflict of such magnitude that it might compromise the position of France among the powers of Europe. For this reason he was anxious to obtain the co-operation of Great Britain in the enterprise. He sought that co-operation with great solicitude. With England, therefore, the final decision rested.
In England the government depended upon public opinion to a far greater extent than in France. If public opinion in England distinctly demanded the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and active interference in its behalf, those things would certainly come. If public opinion distinctly forbade them, they would certainly not come. The question now was,—what arguments could be brought forth in our favor to overcome those that were so assiduously and so effectively marshaled against us? The answer to that question, as I conceived it, was simply that we should tell the world the plain truth about the real nature of our struggle, and, upon that statement, appeal to the moral sense and the enlightened judgment of civilized mankind.
The truth to be brought home to the European mind so that it could not be obscured or lost sight of was simply this: that the election which made Mr. Lincoln President of the
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