Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/41

Rh Russia, inveterate foe to liberty, that wintered in New York harbor to lend moral support to the cause of Northern aggression and conquest, as against the threatened aid of more enlightened England to the cause of the South (53)—England, always the well-wisher of a weaker people fighting for freedom, except only when she herself happens to be the oppressor—England, who at a later time crushed down the liberty-loving Boers in a war in many particulars most strikingly like the war on the Confederacy.

But now, thank God, the trend amongst progressive and, at heart, liberty-loving peoples is, once more, away from imperialism and forcible union. For, under imperialism and forcible union, there is no adequate protection for a sectional minority; remember that. Imperialism and forcible union are, in their workings, robbertyrobbery [sic] of the right of local self-government which is the alpha and omega of political liberty. From about the close of the nineteenth century on, what do we see? The waning of the centripetal force in government, the waxing of the centrifugal. In the world-old strife between Liberty and Power, Liberty begins again to prevail, in the renewed recognition of the saving principle of Home Rule and the rights of the minority.

We ourselves in 1898 helped Cuba in her stand for freedom. Five years later we aided and abetted Panama in her secession from the United States—of Colombia. We thereby officially and governmentally recognized (whether with due regard to our duty toward Colombia, we need not here inquire), solemnly recognized, that the interests and desires of the whole are not always paramount to the rights of a part; yea, even though the territorial integrity of the United States—of Colombia was thereby sacrificed. Shortly thereafter we see Norway resolutely sunder the bonds of union with her homogeneous sister, Sweden. And the wayward, weaker sister (with about the same proportion of area and population of the whole Scandinavian union as the South had of the whole American union) is in this instance allowed to go in peace, just as certain in the North were fair enough and brave enough to advocate, but vainly, be done with us in 1861. And later still we see something like secession from secession, in the case of Ulster and Ireland.