The Bund is the leading political journal of Switzerland, and the
semi-official organ of the Swiss government, and is largely the exponent
of the liberal sentiment of southern Germany.
Accompanying the Bund I send a translation of the article in question,
which, as you will perceive, the editor wishes should be laid before the
President. I will add that, in my judgment, the article does not
overestimate the results likely to follow in Europe the re-establishment
of the American Union, purified from the great evil which came so near
destroying our national life.
Congratulating you with my whole heart on the capitulation of General Lee
and his army, and the approaching return of peace, with liberty and
union, I have the honor to be, with the highest respect, your obedient
servant,
Hon. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State of the United States of
America.
[Translation.—From the Bund of
April
18. ]
The Fall of Richmond.
Richmond has fallen, after three days’ bloody fighting and the almost
complete annihilation of Lee’s army; under circumstances, therefore,
which, in the main point, are equal to the termination of the
American war! This is the news which Easter day has brought us—a
bloody news, but grand and of the most auspicious portent in the
history of the world.
Four years have already elapsed since the outbreak of the war. When
it began, there stood the slave empire full of arrogance and
confidence. It possessed an already formed army, nearly all the
schooled officers having sworn allegiance to its star. Statesmen of
reckless energy promised to lead it to victory. Upon its banner
stood the motto of national independence and free trade, and it
boldly denied, in Europe at least, that it was the slavery of the
black race for which it had drawn the sword. All the mighty and rich
men on its side, all the monarchs and aristocrats, all the material
interests of Europe and their hosts of dependents, sympathized with
it and made its cause their own. To its side at first inclined the
fortune of war and victory, and with it the admiration of all who
worshipped success. For a while, indeed, it seemed as if really the
young glorious republic on the other side of the ocean must crumble
into dust as a proof of the impracticability of popular
self-government and see itself trampled upon by slave aristocrats,
and soon, like the Roman republic, by absolute Cæsars.
Opposite to it stood, rich in resources, but hesitating and
undetermined, indisposed to war, and without military organization,
the democratic government of free labor. Unsuccessful [Page 218] as it was at first, the
monarchists and materialists of Europe derided it, ridiculed its
people as slaves of the dollar, just as if the dollar were not most
almighty with the mockers themselves; they laughed satirically at
the pretended abolitionism of the north; they desired and hoped from
the bottom of their hearts that it would succumb, and that every
hope of maintaining practical republican freedom would forever be
destroyed for mankind. Even in our country (Switzerland) there were
plenty of deluded people who would not see that the cause for which
the Union fought was neither more nor less than the vital principle
of their own existence.
And nevertheless there was a secret voice which whispered in all
those hearts who love freedom that the people of the north were
stronger than the slave-aristocrats of the south; and even when the
wails of the defeats of Chickahominy, of Fredericksburg, and
Chickamauga came across to us, the final triumph of the north was
nevertheless considered certain.
How are matters standing now? Even in the worst epoch, when no
military successes smiled on the north, when no able commanders had
yet appeared, the enemy were never able to enter the soil of the
Union without punishment. Mr. Lincoln, the head of the republic,
plain, but of thoroughly balanced mind, remained firm. Even if he
did not perform any brilliant exploits, so much the surer did he
adopt the right, and, in truth, the grander and more successful
policy, in which a genuine republican statesman is always superior
to over-wise diplomatic demagogues. He declared the black race free,
and the people of the north said amen. When the leaders in the south
called, in the agony of despair, for arming the slaves, the
slaveholders’ congress struggled against it even in the last
extremity, confessing openly that it was slavery for which the war
had been waged. At the same time it was in the north that the most
significant right was conferred upon a black man, to plead as an
attorney before the highest courts of the nation.
The moral victory over the plague spot of slavery was followed at
last by military success. Two years ago Vicksburg was conquered and
the confederacy cut in two halves. There were two men who achieved
this great feat by which the tide of victory was turned, namely,
Grant and Sherman. The same men are now finishing the war. While
Grant was approaching the rebel capital nearer than any one ever
before him, and holding with iron grasp the principal army of the
south, Sherman, by his march through Georgia, cut the eastern half
of the rebel States again in two halves, exposing thereby the
internal impotency of the rebel league. And at last, after Sherman
had captured Charleston, the very cradle of the rebellion, and took
his way northward towards Grant, Grant, at the right moment, grasped
the rebel capital, already pressed from every side, and now crushed
with one blow the organized power of the south.
The war is at an end. Even if Lee should escape from the hands of
Grant and Sheridan and not run into the arms of Thomas, no more
battles on a great scale need be expected. No more southern armies
exist, but only bodies of from twenty to thirty thousand men, which,
being without connexions between themselves, can, at the most, only
carry on a guerilla war. The probability is that the moral power of
the victory will prevent even this, and that the south will see that
nothing is left it but submission.
Since October 19, 1781, when Cornwallis surrendered himself to the
champions of liberty in North America, and by which event the
existence of the Union was sealed, no day is more memorable than
that on which Eichmond fell. Eight years had not elapsed after the
day of Yorktown when Europe witnessed the French revolution. As the
victory of the American republic called forth then in Europe the
greatest event which our continent has witnessed since the
reformation, so will the present victory of the American republic
send the surging waves over to Europe. We very much deceive
ourselves if all the potentates of Europe have not felt a peculiar
chill at the fall of Richmond. The people, on the contrary, feel in
their hearts the exultation of beaming hope.
Of all the nations, however, the Swiss are the first to congratulate
the Uuion on her victory—they, the only old republicans of Europe,
surrounded on all sides by monarchies, and trusting their future
only in the future of the democratic spirit of all the nations.
Switzerland alone would be too weak to be the rock and champion of
republicanism. Across the ocean, however, there stands now a great,
firm republic, powerful enough to cope with any enemy and to
maintain her position on the page of history. In the self-reliant
power with which she has herself healed the cancer on her heart; in
the fear which prevented even the mightiest monarchies of Europe,
notwithstanding their most sincere desire, from troubling her
convalescence, we draw the assurance of safety and the pledge that
our republic will also not perish, but may, perhaps, at some future
day, even take deeper root in Europe.
May the Union, noble and magnanimous towards the succumbed, but firm
as a rock in her principles, follow up her victory, and as a fruit
of it re-establish her national life, thoroughly healed from the
former evil, in order that it may become and always remain true that
“The cause of democracy and freedom must triumph!’”
