and that the profession of regard for justice was hypocrisy, even so,
the ground taken, even if insincerely, is the most hopeful sign of the
moral state of the American mind which has appeared for many years.
That a sense of justice should be the motive which the rulers of a
country rely on, to reconcile the public to an unpopular, and what
might seem a humiliating act; that the journalists, the orators, many
lawyers, the Lower House of Congress, and Mr. Lincoln's own naval
secretary, should be told in the face of the world, by their own
Government, that they have been giving public thanks, presents of
swords, freedom of cities, all manner of heroic honors to the author
of an act which, though not so intended, was lawless and wrong, and
for which the proper remedy is confession and atonement; that this
should be the accepted policy (supposing it to be nothing higher) of a
Democratic Republic, shows even unlimited democracy to be a better
thing than many Englishmen have lately been in the habit of
considering it, and goes some way towards proving that the aberrations
even of a ruling multitude are only fatal when the better instructed
have not the virtue or the courage to front them boldly. Nor ought it
to be forgotten, to the honor of Mr. Lincoln's Government, that in
doing what was in itself right, they have done also what was best
fitted to allay the animosity which was daily becoming more bitter
between the two nations so long as the question remained open. They
have put the brand of confessed injustice upon that rankling and
vindictive resentment with which the profligate and passionate part of
the American press has been threatening us in the event of concession,
and which is to be manifested by some dire revenge, to be taken, as
they pretend, after the nation is extricated from its present
difficulties. Mr. Lincoln has done what depended on him to make this
spirit expire with the occasion which raised it up; and we shall have
ourselves chiefly to blame if we keep it alive by the further