Will Queen Victoria Ever Visit the United States?
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WILL QUEEN VICTORIA EVER VISIT THE UNITED STATES?
At the time our readers are perusing these lines, it is probable that the Queen of the British dominions is either a visitor on the French coast, or that, having finished her “call” there, she has passed on to Prussia, and is receiving the hospitalities of the people of Berlin. Thus more and more, from her insulated position, that self-opinionated little island, that “needs no bulwarks” is gradually drawing closer by personal associations, when opportunity favors it, the ties that bind her to the other counties of Europe.
But what really are the bonds that connect England with any country of Europe, (with the single exception perhaps of France, and we are not so very sure of that exception,) compared to the innumerable ties that connect her with the United States, even at the distance of three thousand miles? These ties are not of blood alone—but the immense ones of trade, finance, and of the mutual vital dependence upon each other for commercial stability, and even existence.
Under these circumstances, the question proposed at the head of our article is beginning to be seriously discussed on this side of the water, and there are not a few grounds for supposing that it may reasonably be answered in the affirmative. The dangers of a passage across the sea have dwindled down to be little less than one of those voyages the Queen has made several of, along the coasts of her own dominions, and across to the continent. The communication by telegraph will reduce these, of course, still lower.
Only think of the Queen arriving, in the midst of a fleet of vessels, one of these fine American days, and coming up New York harbor, passing the Narrows, and anchoring in the bay, probably somewhere off the Battery! What an ovation she would receive! It would give young New York, and old New York too, a chance to show that enthusiasm and gallantry for which they are celebrated, and deserve to be celebrated. Here Victoria1 would see the people, in forms she never witnessed before—and, we think, would receive such a welcome as she never received before.
Notes:
1. Queen Alexandrina Victoria (1819–1901) was the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837–1901. She had the second longest reign of any British monarch. Whitman had a somewhat positive view of Victoria. On the occasion of her seventy-first birthday, he had a congratulatory poem published in British newspapers, which credited the Queen with intervening against British recognition of the Confederacy during the Civil war. [back]