and learned Gentleman has put it to-night in
almost as offensive a way as he did before at Sheffield, and has said
that the United States would not bully the world if they were divided
and subdivided; for he went so far as to contemplate division into more
than two independent sections. I say that the whole of his ease rests
upon a miserable jealousy of the United States, or on what I may term a
base fear. It is a fear which appears to me just as groundless as any of
those panics by which the hon. and learned Gentleman has attempted to
frighten the country.
There never was a State in the world which was less capable of
aggression with regard to Europe than the United States of America. I
speak of its government, of its confederation, of the peculiarities of
its organization; for the House will agree with me, that nothing is more
peculiar than the fact of the great power which the separate States,
both of the North and South, exercise upon the policy and course of the
country. I will undertake to say, that, unless in a question of
overwhelming magnitude, which would be able to unite any people, it
would be utterly hopeless to expect that all the States of the American
Union would join together to support the central Government in any plan
of aggression on England or any other country of Europe.
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