Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1893 — OUR DEBT TO RUSSIA. [ARTICLE]

OUR DEBT TO RUSSIA.

What the United State* Owes to the House of Romanoff Tna j we are under tremendous ob* ligations to the House of Romanoff is recognized by every American who knows the history of this says the New York Sun. Whatever may have been the motive which led Catherine IL to join the so-called league of neutrals, the result of the act was to complete the discouragement of the British Ministers, to break the stubborn will of George 111., and to compel the acknowledgment of American independence. Whatever, again, may have been the purpose controlling the mind of Alexander I. when, braving the anger of Napoleon, he refused to enforce the Berlin decrees against the American vessels thronging the Baltic ports, there is, no doubt that he rescued from ruin our commerce. We accepted redemption at his hands; we profited by his protection, and It behooves us to remember it. The services of the House of Romanoff to the American Republic culminated in the stand taken in our behalf by Alexander 11. at a crisis when our national existence was at stake, the French Emperor having put forth all his Influence at Westminster to persuade the British Government to join him In intervening on the side of the Southern Confederacy. Then It was that the Czar who freed the Russian serfs caused his embassadors at Paris and London to announce that, if France and England undertook to assure the destruction of the American Union and to perpetuate the regime of slavery In the Western Hemisphere, they would find Russia arrayed against them. Nor was the friendly interposition of Alexander 11. confined to words. Simultaneously with the utterance of diplomatic warnings a Russian fleet was directed to proceed under sealed orders to the harbor of New York, and a Russian squadron was dispatched to the Bay of San Francisco. For us, for the American republic, for the consolidation of our Union, the Czar made known his willingness to fight; and there is not the shadow of a doubt that his willingness averted a catastrophe.