Certainly
at this same time Seward was making it plain to Lyons that while opposed
to current Congressional expressions of antagonism to Napoleon's Mexican
policy, he was himself in favour, once the Civil War was ended, of
helping the republican Juarez drive the French from Mexico[1158].
For nearly three years Russell, like nearly all Englishmen, had held a
firm belief that the South could not be conquered and that ultimately
the North must accept the bitter pill of Southern independence. Now he
began to doubt, yet still held to the theory that even if conquered the
South would never yield peaceful obedience to the Federal Government.
As a reasoning and reasonable statesman he wished that the North could
be made to see this.
"... It is a pity," he wrote to Lyons, "the Federals think it
worth their while to go on with the war. The obedience they
are ever likely to obtain from the South will not be quiet or
lasting, and they must spend much money and blood to get it.
If they can obtain the right bank of the Mississippi, and New
Orleans, they might as well leave to the Confederates
Charleston and Savannah[1159]."
This was but private speculation with no intention of urging it upon the
United States. Yet it indicated a change in the view held as to the
warlike _power_ of the North.
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