betwen two hostile sections of an unmixed democracy.
Towards such a contest the ruling classes of the old world can only stand indifferent. It is true that blockade runners will be fitted out, and munitions of war will be sold to the belligerents, for avarice and greed are not the special privileges of ruling classes; but no Government official will take pains to be sick in order that privateers may escape, and no ship-builder will bid for applause in Parliament by declaring himself proud of having built them. The Captain Semmes of the future will not find pleasure yachts stationed conveniently at hand to convey them on shore after being beaten, nor will they be feted in London while their successful adversaries are being snubbed. The bonds of both parties will be sold for what they may be considered worth, and sympathy will not be dragged into the Stock Exchange to assist in the taking up of new cotton loans at a premium.
Aristocracy, as a principle, has ceased to exist in America, for it may hardly be presumed that the franchise will belong exclusively to the blacks of the South for a term of sufficient length to again build upa privileged class of color in that section, and there appears to be no other foundation for one. With the total destruction of aristocracy in America will have disappeared one great cause by which the sympathy of England towards our country could be invoked. If democracy should succeed in obtaining power in that land, and the governments be assimilated, there will be a still nearer approach to identity of interests between the two Anglo Saxon families. But this may not be in
the lifetime of any who read this article. The aristocracy of England is not the "ancient regime" of France— selfish, oppressive and corrupt—nor a turbulent and barbarous oligarchy like that of Poland in the seventeenth, or the South in the nineteenth century; nor effete and sunk in indolence and luxury like the princes of the East; but strong and vigorous and full of life and stamina, like itself and none other. It has outlived a thousand systems that are better in theory, and may survive as many more.
And when this has passed away, and when American principles, with petroleum and negro minstrelsy, with sewing machines and patent reapers, have run over sturdy old England, and destroyed the constitution, and when the ship of British oak has finally "shot Niagara," and escaped the rocks and whirlpools that lie below, and floated secure in the calm haven of democracy, will the two nations be any better friends than now? We think not. We have too much faith in the power of pride and arrogance of the haughty insolence of the Anglo Saxon spirit, the common birthright of both nations, together with the covetousness, the greed, and the avarice universal, of which each family has its just proportion. They will still, we fear, have too much resemblance to become as good friends as they ought to be. They each know well that the common interest of civilization demands that the families from which have sprung nearly all the world knows of constitutional liberty should advance shoulder to shoulder in the march of nations. But this is only a theory, and what have theories ever done against the prejudices or the selfishness of mankind?
