We talked of America.
'I can understand,' said Madame de Tocqueville, 'the indignation of the
North against you. It is, of course, excessive, but they had a right to
expect you to be on their side in an anti-slavery war.'
'They had no right,' I said, 'to expect from our Government anything but
absolute neutrality.'
'But you need not,' she replied, 'have been so eager to put the South on
the footing of belligerents.'
'On what other footing,' I asked, 'could we put them? On what other
footing does the North put them? Have they ventured, or will they
venture, to hang a single seceder?'
'At least,' she said, 'you might have expressed more sympathy with the
North?'
'I think,' I answered, 'that we have expressed as much sympathy as it was
possible to feel. We deplore the combat, we hold the South responsible
for it, we think their capricious separation one of the most foolish and
one of the most wicked acts that have ever been committed; we hope that
the North will beat them, and we should bitterly regret their forcing
themselves back into the Union on terms making slavery worse, if
possible, than it is now. We wish the contest to end as quickly as
possible: but we do not think that it can end by the North subjugating
the Southerns and forcing them to be its subjects.
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