We expected that the
atonement, if atonement there were, would have been made with
reservations, perhaps under protest. We expected that the
correspondence would have been spun out, and a trial made to induce
England to be satisfied with less; or that there would have been a
proposal of arbitration; or that England would have been asked to make
concessions in return for justice; or that if submission was made, it
would have been made, ostensibly, to the opinions and wishes of
Continental Europe. We expected anything, in short, which would have
been weak and timid and paltry. The only thing which no one seemed to
expect, is what has actually happened. Mr. Lincoln's Government have
done none of these things. Like honest men, they have said in direct
terms, that our demand was right; that they yielded to it because it
was just; that if they themselves had received the same treatment,
they would have demanded the same reparation; and that if what seemed
to be the American side of a question was not the just side, they
would be on the side of justice; happy as they were to find after
their resolution had been taken, that it was also the side which
America had formerly defended.
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