Nothing else, no compromise, no negotiations of any
sort, would suffice. This the Athenians never realized; this _we_ do not
seem to understand. Among ourselves, as among them, the peace-party--a
party in direct sympathy with the aims and purposes of the
enemy--blusters and intrigues. President Lincoln meets with the same
embarrassments in connection with this party that Pericles met in his
campaigns against Sparta: it was his coming into power that precipitated
the violence of war; his determined action against all sympathizers
with the enemy draws down upon him the intensified wrath of these
sympathizers; the generals whom he sends into the field, if, like
Alcibiades, they are characterized by any spirit in their undertakings,
are trammelled with political entanglements and rendered useless, while
some slow, half-brained Nicias, with no heart in the cause, is placed at
the head of expeditions that result only in defeat.
There is the same diffusiveness connected with our military plans which
characterized the operations of the Athenians against Sparta. We do not
make the special advantage which we have over the South through our
naval superiority available against her special vulnerability. We
intimidate her, as Pericles did the Peloponnesians, by circumnavigating
her territories with a great display of our naval power; we effect a
few landings upon her coasts; but all these invasions lead to no grand
results, they do not subdue our armed enemy.
Pages:
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301