Garibaldi: dissolution will bring "universal evil"
Garibaldi Weighs In
FromThe New-York Times May 27, 1861:
GARIBALDI ON ITALY AND AMERICA.
From the Louisville Democrat.
A friend sends us the following from the hero of Italy:
ISLAND DE CAPRERA, Italy, May 6, 1861.
MY DEAR OLD FRIEND: I shall never forget my happy sojourn in your great country, while an exile from my own, nor the many friends I made there while in humble retirement. After centuries of already[?] troubles and disunion, Italy is again almost entirely reunited, and soon will be entirety so. In the mean time it pains my heart to see that you are dissolving your great nation into fragments and initiating civil war. May God save you from such a calamity. You may rely on it no good, but universal evil will come of the dissolution of your Union. If I can aid you in any way my agent in New-York, Col. ——, is instructed to take and execute your orders.
Faithfully and forever your friend.
GARIBALDI.
Abe out of a job? Garibaldi would serve only as commander-in-chief (ca.1861 LOC - LC-DIG-ppmsca-08351)
According to Wikipedia Giuseppe Garibaldi did offer his services to the Union:
At the outbreak of the American Civil War (in 1861), Garibaldi volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln. Garibaldi was offered a Major General’s commission in the U. S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford, the U. S. Minister at Brussels, July 17, 1861. On September 18, 1861, Sanford sent the following reply to Seward:
He [Garibaldi] said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power—to be governed by events—of declaring the abolition of slavery; that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy.
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The Uprising of a Great People
The same issue of The Times reviewed a new book by Frenchman Agénor de Gasparin – Un grand peuple qui se relève (THE UPRISING OF A GREAT PEOPLE.). From the Introduction:
The title of this work will produce the effect of a paradox. The general opinion is that the United States continued to pursue an upward course until the election of Mr. Lincoln, and that since then they have been declining. It is not difficult, and it is very necessary, to show that this opinion is absolutely false. Before the recent victory of the adversaries of slavery, the American Confederation, in spite of its external progress and its apparent prosperity, was suffering from a fearful malady which had well-nigh proved mortal; now, an operation has taken place, the sufferings have increased, the gravity of the situation is revealed for the first time, perhaps, to inattentive eyes. Does this mean that the situation was not grave when it did not appear so? Does this mean that we must deplore a violent crisis which alone can bring the cure?
Garibaldi and de Gasparin seem to agree that Alexander Stephens’ Cornerstone is really more of a millstone around America’s neck – it must be removed.
