ET Oe ee ee 
7. 49.] TO CHARLES DARWIN. 473 
mitted to if it ean be prevented at any sacrifice. God 
help us, indeed, if our honorable existence is to have 
no better safeguard than the generosity or sense of 
justice of more powerful nations! As to slavery, the 
course of things is getting to meet your views, as it is 
clear must be, if the South continues obstinate. If 
they give up war they may save their institution in 
their own States, to have the chance of abolishing it 
themselves in the only safe and easy way, with time 
and the gradual competition of white labor. But 
obstinate resistance will surely bring on wide-sweep- 
ing manumission. 
You see that we are not going to have war [with 
England] at present. And it appears that the deci- 
sion of our government will be as unitedly and thor- 
oughly sustained by the whole people as if it had 
been the other way; contrary to Mr. Russell’s pre- 
diction, and to our dear friend Dr. Boott’s, who writes 
about our “mob” in a way he would not if he were 
here to see. Look at an English mob urging up their 
government so that they felt obliged to back up their 
demands, with a menacing force on our borders ; and 
making such a peremptory demand as you justly say, 
“ entirely on Wilkes’ acting as judge ;”’ a matter which 
our government would as promptly concede as yours 
could ask. 
Seemann! wrote me that the general belief at the 
clubs and in the City was that our government wanted 
to get into war with England for an excuse to give up 
the South. A pretty sea they must have of our wis- 
dom and discretion! Dear Boott is firmly convinced 
that we have all along been trying to quarrel with 
id Seemann, shina ; editor of the Journal of Botany, 
British o ae Foreign, ete., 
