28/39 They somehow looked through Lincoln's express disavowal of any intention to interfere with slavery, and saw that at bottom our war was indeed against slavery, that slavery was behind the Southern camouflage about independence, and behind the Northern slogan about preserving the Union. "Rarely," writes Charles Francis Adams, "in the history of mankind, has there been a more creditable exhibition of human sympathy." France was likewise damaged by our blockade; and Napoleon III would have liked to recognize the South. He established, through Maximilian, an empire in Mexico, behind which lay hostility to our Democracy. He wished us defeat; but he was afraid to move without England, to whom he made a succession of indirect approaches. |