Reading The Education of Henry Adams has given me another analogy for Oh Blah Blah--William Ewart Gladstone, whose liberalism did not stand in the way of his supporting the Confederacy.
Gladstone replied the next day:"He was glad to learn what the Prime Minister had told him; and for two reasons especially he desired that the proceedings should be prompt: the first was the rapid progress of the Southern arms and the extension of the area of Southern feeling; the second was the risk of violent impatience in the cotton-towns of Lancashire such as would prejudice the dignity and disinterestedness of the proffered mediation."(p155)As morals, one could detect no shade of difference between Gladstone and Napoleon except to the advantage of Napoleon.(p156)No one knew so well as he that he {Gladstone}and his own officials and friends at Liverpool were alone "making" a rebel navy, and that Jefferson Davis had next to nothing to do with it. . .Never in the history of political turpitude had any brigand of modern civilization offered a worse example.(p.157)
The erudite Mr. Gladstone, intellectual upholder of all things liberal and enlightened, proposed to help destroy the Union in order to let Napoleon pursue imperial expansion in Mexico.
The only resolute, conscientious champion of {Lord John} Russell, Napoleon, and Jefferson Davis was Gladstone.(p.163)
And what did Gladstone, the liberal champion and would-be classical expert have to say about almost destroying the American Republic?
I really, though most strangely, believed that it was an act of friendliness to all America to recognize that the struggle was virtually at an end. (p.165).
So, like Harry Reid and Obama wanting to wave the white flag in 2007, Gladstone wished for the defeat of the American arms for only the most noble of intentions. And that thing of allowing non-democratic governments (France, Al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood) to triumph, well it was all for the best. Don't you get it--they were pursuing despotism to vindicate democracy!
Gladstone replied the next day:"He was glad to learn what the Prime Minister had told him; and for two reasons especially he desired that the proceedings should be prompt: the first was the rapid progress of the Southern arms and the extension of the area of Southern feeling; the second was the risk of violent impatience in the cotton-towns of Lancashire such as would prejudice the dignity and disinterestedness of the proffered mediation."(p155)As morals, one could detect no shade of difference between Gladstone and Napoleon except to the advantage of Napoleon.(p156)No one knew so well as he that he {Gladstone}and his own officials and friends at Liverpool were alone "making" a rebel navy, and that Jefferson Davis had next to nothing to do with it. . .Never in the history of political turpitude had any brigand of modern civilization offered a worse example.(p.157)
The erudite Mr. Gladstone, intellectual upholder of all things liberal and enlightened, proposed to help destroy the Union in order to let Napoleon pursue imperial expansion in Mexico.
The only resolute, conscientious champion of {Lord John} Russell, Napoleon, and Jefferson Davis was Gladstone.(p.163)
And what did Gladstone, the liberal champion and would-be classical expert have to say about almost destroying the American Republic?
I really, though most strangely, believed that it was an act of friendliness to all America to recognize that the struggle was virtually at an end. (p.165).
So, like Harry Reid and Obama wanting to wave the white flag in 2007, Gladstone wished for the defeat of the American arms for only the most noble of intentions. And that thing of allowing non-democratic governments (France, Al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood) to triumph, well it was all for the best. Don't you get it--they were pursuing despotism to vindicate democracy!
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