THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
effect of convincing the French Emperor and the leading statesmen of Great Britain that they could not defy the United States without running the risk of complications which might become very serious to them, for the time being, however disastrous they would be, in the end, to us. He probably deterred the French Emperor from taking any offensive steps without the consent and co-operation of Great Britain. But the greatness of the risk involved to them in such complications would depend upon the ability of the United States to hold the field against European enemies and against the Southern Confederacy at the same time, and this ability would in its turn depend upon the fortunes of war in our civil conflict. Unless we gained advantages in that conflict great enough to give us a decided superiority in our own country, Seward's bold words, sometimes bordering upon actual menace, would lose their impressive force and finally sound only like hollow thunder. And therein was danger—a danger which was visibly increasing after our defeat at Bull Run and several other mishaps on the field of military operations soon following it. It may have been ever so true that, as Seward said, the people of the North would not have given up their cause even if foreign powers had intervened in favor of the Southern Confederacy. But it must have been clear to every sober mind that against the combination of European powers and the Southern Confederacy the chances of the Union would have been desperate, almost to hopelessness.
All the more desirable did it appear that the moral power of the Union cause should be brought into action—and here Mr. Seward not only failed to do that which would have strengthened us abroad, but he actually did things which greatly weakened us. It could not, indeed, be expected of him that in addressing foreign powers he should have positively
[ 281 ]
