Page:Australian views of England.djvu/99

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VIII.]
OF ENGLAND.
87

racters of North and South marked them out to be separated. Others would tell you outright that the insolence of the Yankees ought to be curbed, and the offences committed in a special manner by the Southerners would be sure to be all fathered on the Northerners. But now the old North has gathered up her strength, and is advancing upon the rebels with crushing steps. Never in the history of the world was called forth in so short a time an army so powerful and so highly organised, under generals so brave and so skilful, as that which is now fast replanting the flag of the Republic in the rebel States. Still the one-sided haters of democracy in England, who could see such martial splendour in the first successes of the South, can discover nothing great in the men who, with such noble firmness and such glorious self-sacrifice, are successfully defending the Constitution handed down to them by Washington. The failure of democracy proved by this terrible civil war! Why, it has proved, as only such a tremendous crisis could prove, the vital strength of democratic institutions. What monarchy ever rose up from the lap of Peace to