The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy.Various
General
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862: Devoted to Literature and National Policy.
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Mr. Trollope treats of our civil war at great length; in fact, the
reverberations of himself on this matter are quite as objectionable as
those in the Trent affair. But it is his treatment of this subject that
must ever be a source of regret to the earnest thinkers who are
gradually becoming the masters of our Government's policy, who
constitute the bone and muscle of the land, the rank and file of the
army, and who are changing the original character of the war into that
of a holy crusade. It is to be deplored, because Mr. Trollope's book
will no doubt influence English opinion, to a certain extent, and
therefore militate against us, and we already know how his mistaken
opinions have been seized upon by pro-slavery journals in this country
as a _bonne bouche_ which they rarely obtain from so respectable a
source; the more palatable to them, coming from that nationality which
we have always been taught to believe was more abolition in its creed
than William Lloyd Garrison himself, and from whose people we have
received most of our lectures on the sin of slavery. It is sad that so
fine a nature as that of Mr. Trollope should not feel
conscience-stricken in believing that 'to mix up the question of general
abolition with this war must be the work of a man too ignorant to
understand the real subject of the war, or too false to his country to
regard it.' Yet it is strange that these 'too ignorant' or 'too false'
men are the very ones that Mr. Trollope holds up to admiration, and
declares that any nation might be proud to claim their genius.
Longfellow and Lowell, Emerson and Motley, to whom we could add almost
all the well-known thinkers of the country, men after his own heart in
most things, belong to this 'ignorant' or 'false' sect. Is it their one
madness? That is a strange madness which besets our _greatest_ men and
women; a marvelous anomaly surely. Yet there must be something
sympathetic in abolitionism to Mr. Trollope, for he prefers Boston, the
centre of this ignorance, to all other American cities, and finds his
friends for the most part among these false ones, by which we are to
conclude that Mr. Trollope is by nature an abolitionist, but that
circumstances have been unfavorable to his proper development. And these
circumstances we ascribe to a hasty and superficial visit to the British
West-India colonies.
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