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 ENGLAND. 
 
 THE 
 
 NORTH, AND THE SOUTH. 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. 3. BERESFORD HOPE, Esq. 
 
 TJTTRD EDITION, 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 MAIDSTONE: 
 WICKHAM, WEEK STREET; C. J. COOKE, MIDDLE ROW. 
 
 1862. 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
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 The following pages were originally delivered as a Lecture at 
 Hawkhurst, on January 14tli. I have revised them ^^^eviously to 
 publication. 
 
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ENGLAND, THE NORTH, AND THE SOUTH. 
 
 I ASSUME a g-eneral acquaintance on the part of my 
 audience with the main incidents of the actual civil war 
 in America. We all know that the citizens of what 
 were once the United States are now eag*erly and cheer- 
 fully cutting" each others throats, and that two g'overn- 
 ments exist in what was formerly one country. We 
 have all smiled at the bloodless sieg-e of Fort Sumter, 
 laughed outright at the scamper of Bull's Run, been 
 scandalized at the furious language, in which, after that 
 peaceful seizure and tremendous race, Northern patriots 
 and Northern journals echoed the cry of " The Union or 
 Death;" a cry which heretofore we had only heard in the 
 days of the French Republic, or from the despotism of old 
 absolute monarchies. We have all been amazed at the way 
 in which the North has violated private liberties and added 
 millions upon millions to its national debt, with a reckless- 
 ness to which Pitt's war taxes were but the bites of a flea 
 to those of a rattlesnake ; we have all been scandalized at 
 the shameless extent and openness of official peculation 
 which has come to light, and even been adduced as a reason 
 for the war ; and we have, many of us, been saucy 
 enough to point to these facts as illustrations of the 
 working of that cheap government for which America has 
 so often been held up to our veneration. We have all 
 stigmatized that barbarous method of offensive warfare, 
 unparalleled in history and revolting^ to humanity, which 
 destroys for ever a great mart of trade and harbour of 
 
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 refuge open to the ships of the world, by smking" a stone 
 fleet at its mouth. We have all suiFered under the 
 vexation of a paper blockade, although, in the cause 
 of peace and national dignity, we felt it was our duty 
 not to inquire too closely into such things, but even to 
 admit the existence of that blockade against the evidence 
 of our own senses and to the hindrance of our own 
 material interests. To crown all, we have been held in a 
 state of suspense, partly of deep and breathless appre- 
 hension, partly of indignation, at the lawless and piratical 
 outrage which was perpetrated by Capt. Wilkes on the 
 British flag. We have all been sensible that the honour 
 of England was committed to a stern and immediate 
 demand for an absolute unqualified apology, and the 
 prompt restitution of the abstracted passengers. In this 
 we have succeeded, and all of us — except two or three 
 individuals conspicuous for the manner in which they 
 run counter to the instincts of a great people— have 
 been convinced that the reason why we carried our 
 point was that we had the courage and good sense 
 not to potter and falter about the matter, not to bandy 
 words and arguments, but to go straight in for what we 
 wanted and let our intentions be plainly known. To that 
 vigorous policy, and not to Mr. Seward's generosity or 
 to Mr. Lincoln's statesmanship, do we owe a satisfactory 
 settlement. Fo^w will question either that the appearance 
 of our gallant troops upon the shores of Canada had 
 some share in carrying conviction to the minds of the 
 Cabinet of Washington, while the voice of that great power 
 of Europe, on which they had reckoned to endorse their 
 misdeeds, completed their conversion. But, alongside of 
 generous indignation at the savage conduct, and justi- 
 fiable contempt for the tall talking and small performances, 
 
1 
 
 i^ a stone 
 inder the 
 the cause 
 our duty 
 t even to 
 3 evidence 
 our own 
 I held in a 
 (ss appre- 
 d piratical 
 [es on the 
 he honour 
 immediate 
 , and the 
 ;. In this 
 o or three 
 rhich they 
 •pie— have 
 irried our 
 ;ood sense 
 t to bandy 
 r what we 
 i. To that 
 aerosity or 
 atisfactory 
 ippearance 
 mada had 
 nds of the 
 reat power 
 dorse their 
 ongfside of 
 and justi- 
 formances, 
 
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 of the North— alongside of all this, there has been another 
 strain of feeling- as sincere, as earnest, as real and as 
 honourable to us as Englishmen as the other. There 
 has been a feeling" of doubt and anxiety whether English- 
 men can sympathize with what has come before us as a 
 rebellion, or can hold communion with slave-holders — 
 whether England has any interest in what seems to be 
 only a scandalous family quarrel. Those questions can 
 be properly answered only by going a little deeper into 
 the history of the war, and into the causes from which 
 it sprang, than newsj)aper correspondents care to do ; 
 those brilliant word-painters being more taken up T\'ith 
 the picturesque and romantic aspects of the transaction. 
 At the risk then of being deemed dry and tedious, I must 
 ask your attention to a few important features, chiefly 
 constitutional and commercial, of a ver}'^ complicated his- 
 tory. But, though I may enter into questions of Ame- 
 rican politics, I shall do so only as far as I believe they 
 are of importance to this dear old England of ours. 
 
 The interests of England are what I care ^' r in enter- 
 ing upon the argument. I leave to certain Jou -nals that 
 vituperative philanthropy which consists in meddling 
 with the concerns of every countr}^ which does not want 
 to be meddled with, and in invariably finding out that 
 the honour and the interests of England have to be 
 postponed to their own crotchets. I am satisfied siiii})ly 
 to be an Englishman, to look upon the interests of Eng- 
 land as upon my own, while I am proud to belong to 
 a country which enables me to make its interests the 
 central point of my survey of the troubles which agitate 
 the world. As an Englishman then I ask the question, 
 Has England any interest at all in the matter ? We 
 know how we have been wronged— shamefully, unreason- 
 abb', insultingly wronged - by the abuse of the North 
 
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 6 
 
 -i-liave we any hope of being* rig-hted by the South ? 
 Has or has not the South any claims upon us beside 
 those which the North once mig"ht have had, but has 
 now thrown away ? Have rebels and slave-owners any 
 demands at all on that sympathy which Eng-land will 
 never manifest save in a cause which has some right on 
 its side ? Have we, or have we not, any obligation or 
 interest, sooner or later, to form an alliance with the 
 South ? These are questions which can only be solved by 
 looking at the matter, in the first instance, with somewhat 
 of an American eye. 
 
 You will be prepared, I dare say, for the first point 
 upon which I intend to insist. I hope to offer to you 
 considerations which tend to prove that it is a mistake 
 in terms to call the South " rebels." The fact is they are 
 no more rebels than we were rebels in 1688, and less 
 than the Americans were who fought under A\''ashington 
 in the early days of George III. The latter could only 
 take the field on the terms of abjuring that personal 
 allegiance which is incidental to the subjects of even a 
 limited monarchy, but which 1688 proved might be 
 abjured. In a republic such as the late American, there 
 is no such personal allegiance, but every citizen is co- 
 sovereign. 
 
 You may be surprised, however, when I tell you what is 
 the second point for which I am going to contend. It 
 is that, hating as I do in common with all my country- 
 men, from the bottom of my heart, that detestable 
 system of slavery, wishing to see slavery extinct on the 
 American continent as it is already on every inch of 
 ground over which the British flag waves, I honestly 
 and entirely believe that the cause which will tend to 
 the confirmation of all the evils of slavery^ is that of the 
 North, and that the cause which is most likely to prove 
 
a benefit to the slave, and in the end to relieve him fi'om 
 his shackles, is that of the South. First, then, as to the 
 character of the two parties. The Northerners are 
 certainly not rebels. They adhere to the old Federal 
 union, which has existed more than seventy years, and 
 follow the old constitution of the States, under a Pre- 
 sident elected in the accustomed manner. 
 
 Are the Southerners who have cut the cable and put to 
 sea in a barque of their own, rebels ? TheNorth, of course, 
 answers yes. The North has 20,000,000 inhabitants, the 
 South 10,000,000 ; therefore, so far as numbers go, the 
 Northerners have two to one on their side. Numbers, 
 however, afford no decisive criterion in such a case. If 
 the South are rebels, they cannot be rebels from the 
 United States, for they form a large section — cut off in 
 the shape of States — of that once union. They are rebels, 
 if at all, from the old constitution which knit together those 
 States. " Federal" loyalty, so far as such a thing has 
 a tangible distinctive existence, must mean loj^alty to a 
 document, to the constitution which created and ce- 
 mented the act of Unioii. What then is that consti- 
 tution ? I take it for granted you are all acquainted 
 with the broad features of it. The head of the Executive 
 is the President, who is elected for four years, not by 
 the general body of the people, but by certain electoral 
 colleges which are specially appointed for the purpose, 
 the number of these colleges being proportioned to the 
 number of representatives each particular State sends to 
 Congress. This system, by the way, both in theory and 
 practice, has utterly broken down. These electoral 
 colleges do not now exist in order to make a free and 
 independent choice of their own, as the founders of the 
 Union intended, but are elected on " tickets.'* Every 
 candidate for the Presidency has his "ticket" upon 
 
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 wbicli these dummies are sent up to vote for him. Ac- 
 cordingly the President, against the wish of Washington 
 and his fellows, is the mere creation of universal suffrage 
 and of ballot, with this notable singularity that through 
 the machinery of the Electoral Colleges a minority of all 
 the citizens may sometimes elect a President. 
 
 In some States the " ticket" may be unanimously in 
 favour of one candidate, while in others his opponent's 
 " ticket" may barely creep in by the smallest majority, 
 leaving the whole minority entirely unrepresented. In 
 1860, for instance, President Lincoln came in trium- 
 phantly at the head of a clear majority of electors — 
 without which his election would have been void— but 
 at the head also of a number of the primary voters 
 who had made those electors, constituting a minority of 
 1,000,000 of the whole immber of voters. 
 
 The Vice-President is a dummy who presides over 
 the Senate, and succeeds to the Presidential chair (should 
 its occupant die during his term of office) till the next 
 election arrives. The Senate is elected by the legislatures 
 of the separate States, two senators being allotted to 
 every State, be it large or small. A senator is appointed 
 for six years. Under the Senate is the House of Re- 
 presentatives, which, till the late secession, had consisted 
 (from the first establishment of the Union, notwithstand- 
 ing the increase of population and addition of new States) 
 of 233 members, elected for as many districts for two j'ears 
 by the whole people. Originally there was one representa- 
 tive to every 33,000 inhabitants, but at the last election it 
 was only one to every 127,000. The Supreme Court of 
 nine Judges, which has even the power of bi*eaking acts 
 of Congress if the Court deem them to be contrary to 
 the constitution, was further devised as a Conservative 
 makeweight, but in this as in many other things the 
 
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 tortoise has nothing' to stand on. The patronag-e of the 
 Judges is vested in the President foi the time heing", and 
 he of course nominates in the sense of his own party. 
 
 Such is the outside constitution of the United States. 
 What lies beneath is what Englishmen do not g-enerally 
 concern themselves about, but it is very important. 
 There is a popular belief in this country that the Pre- 
 sident, Senate and House of Representatives are the co- 
 relatives of our Queen, Lords and Commons. In mere 
 form they may be partially so —in theory and in prac- 
 tice the analogy breaks down. England is one United 
 Kingdom. The Parliaments of Scotland and Ireland 
 have happily been swallowed up, and there is only one 
 Parliament for the empire. But the United States form 
 a Federal Republic, composed of 34 sovereign States 
 before the present revolution. Each State has its own 
 legislature, its own elected governor, and its own admi- 
 nistration. 
 
 The Federal Government, with President, Senate, and 
 House of Representatives, exists not as the sole govern- 
 ment of the country, but simply as a machinery created 
 to exercise definite specified functions, such as the regu- 
 lation of the army, coinage, copyright, lighthouses, post- 
 ofiice, navigation, foreign relations, and so on, which have 
 been delegated to it by the separate States while enter- 
 ing the Federal Union. Behind the Federal Govern- 
 ment are the 34 States, each with its own rights and its 
 own officers. And thus this American war, with all 
 its bloodshed, its destruction of great cities and popu- 
 lous towns, its waste of treasure, and insults to Europe, 
 has arisen simply because the South put what the North 
 held to be too liberal a construction on the sovereign 
 rights of the separate States. I do not say the South 
 

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 is free from blame. I do not call on vou to assert that 
 it did wisely in seceding*. What I say is that the North 
 declared war ag^ainst it simply on account of the Southern 
 interpretation of the ambiguous Federal constitution — 
 of a constitution meant to be ambiguous, and intended to 
 hold both opinions. 
 
 Out of the 34 States, 13 are old British colonies which 
 rebelled in 1776. The basis of the constitution in every 
 one of these 13 States is either the old one which it pos- 
 sessed while still a dependency of the British Crown, or 
 else that constitution altered by reform bills of its own 
 passing', for in such questions the Federal Congress has 
 no jurisdiction. In the other 21 the constitutions are 
 self-framed on the models afforded by the original set. 
 But whence came the Federal organization which over- 
 tops the different States'? After the "difficulty " which 
 the Americans had with George III. in 1776, they 
 established a Continental Congress, in whose hands they 
 vested the regulation of matters of national and foreign 
 interest, which were of course mainly the conduct of the 
 war with England and the provision of funds for that 
 object. That Congress, in which executive and legisla- 
 tive powers were ill combined, proved to be a very weak 
 and incomplete instrument for its object of investing* 
 thirteen sovereign commonwealths, spreading over many 
 thousand square miles, with the external character of being* 
 one power. Accordingly, a more artificial constitution, 
 meant to be permanent, was framed in 1781, under the 
 title of "Articles of Federation and Perpetual Union." 
 The first article set forth that " the style of the Con- 
 federacy shall be ^ The United States of America ' " — 
 the origin of that name. The second stipulated that 
 " each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and inde- 
 
11 
 
 rt that 
 North 
 (uthem 
 ition — 
 aded to 
 
 J which 
 n. every 
 it pos- 
 own, or 
 its own 
 ress has 
 ons are 
 inal set. 
 ih over- 
 " which 
 6, they 
 ids they 
 foreign 
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 or that 
 legisla- 
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 ivesting" 
 er many 
 of being 
 titution, 
 nder the 
 Union." 
 he Con- 
 ica'"" 
 ;ed that 
 id inde- 
 
 pendence and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is 
 not by this confederation expressly delegated to the 
 United States in Congress assembled." By a later article 
 the " Union " was declared " perpetual." As in the pro- 
 visional Continental Congress, so in these articles no 
 provision was made for an executive, but the Congress 
 sitting in one House and voting by States, was its own 
 Chief of the State and its own ministry, the range of 
 subjects delegated to it being accurately and jealously 
 defined. This new constitution was, I need hardly say, 
 found in a very short time to be clumsy and imperfect ; 
 the absence of a distinct executive was a fatal deficiency, 
 for the Congress was too bulky and its proceedings too 
 public to make it a cabinet in itself. The break down 
 took place in 1787, when a "convention" of delegates of 
 twelve States (Rhode Island holding aloof) met under the 
 presidency of Washington to devise a new constitution. 
 The North, which is now carrying war and desolation 
 over the South, maintains that by this new constitution, 
 which is still in force at Washington, the several con- 
 tracting States resigned their separate sovereig'nty and 
 independence to the Federal Government ; and that in 
 point of fact they respectively sunk into the condition of 
 httle more than counties possessed of a species of magnified 
 quarter sessions. Its vindication, if it has one, for so say- 
 ing, must be found within the four corners of the Constitu- 
 tion of 1787. Let us then examine this document, which 
 was only agreed to after long delays and bitter disputes, 
 llhode Island and North Carolina withholding assent till 
 a date much later than the other States. The Conven- 
 tion, in the course of its debates, renounced the word 
 '^ national," as descriptive of the new government. It 
 also dropped all mention of its " perpetuity," which had 
 
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 received a paper guarantee in the previous " Articles/' 
 The preamble of the constitution ran thus (there being 
 no preamble to the " Articles") : — " We, the people of the 
 " United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
 ^' establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
 " the common defence, promote the ^^eneral welfare, and 
 " secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and om* pos- 
 " terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
 "United States of America." The first article com- 
 mences, " All legislative power herein granted shall be 
 " vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall 
 " consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives," and 
 continues at great length and under various " sections" 
 to define the attributes and functions of these Houses, 
 abstaining, however, from any further details as to the 
 mode of electing them than as follows. As to the House of 
 Representatives, it is ordered, that it should be "composed 
 " of members chosen every second year by the people of 
 " the several States," (noty be it noted, of the Federal 
 Union), and that " the electors in each State shall have 
 the qualification requisite for the election of the most nu- 
 merous branch of the State legislature," (a qualification 
 within the sole competence of the State itself)— thus 
 leaving the suffrage, which in the republican theory is 
 the basis of sovereignty, to the arbitrement of the several 
 States independent of each ether. As to the Senate, all that 
 is provided is that the senators should be chosen by the 
 legislature of each State for six years. One of the sec- 
 tions contains the list of the attributes of Congress, which 
 are similar to those apportioned to it in the " Articles," 
 which another section defines, in correspondence with 
 these concessions, what negatively each contracting State 
 cannot do— neither the power of internal constitutional 
 
 i .'li 
 
13 
 
 reform, involving' the manipulation of the suffrag-e, nor the 
 power of life and death being among' the iiinctions re- 
 served to the Federal Government. The second article 
 begins, ^^ The executive power shall be vested in the Pre- 
 sident of the United States of America." This article 
 minutely defines the power both of the President and of 
 the Vice-President. A later article prohibits the subdivi- 
 sion of the States without the consent of their legislatures. 
 Among some additional articles more recently added we 
 find this pregnant one : " The powers not delegated to the 
 " United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it 
 " by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or 
 " to the people." So that actually, whereas the older 
 " Articles of Confederation " specially and emphatically 
 reserved the sovereignty, freedom and independence of the 
 States, this same sovereignty is further and more strongly 
 reserved under this " the tenth additional article " of the 
 existing Constitution ; seeing that the delegation of the 
 existing sovereignty was nowhere specified among those 
 things conferred on the federal Congress and on the Pre- 
 sident of 1787, which had not been conferred on the Con- 
 gress of the "Articles '*of 1781. I am no lawyer, I know 
 well enough how ing'eniously gentlemen of the long robe 
 can evolve the most marvellous conclusions fi'om the sim- 
 plest form of words ; but surely there is no disputing the 
 meaning of this Constitution. The terms which are in dis- 
 pute are not contained in a long series of half illegible 
 and discordant records ranging over successive genera- 
 tions, and the newest of them some hundreds of years 
 old, couched in the obsolete phraseology of some foreign 
 dialect. They are set forth in the language which we 
 all of us speak, and in two documents, each of which was 
 drawn up in the life time of Lord Lyndhurst, who first 
 
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 14 
 
 saw the li^ht in Boston^ Massachusetts, four years hefore 
 the now United States had declared their independence. 
 
 The whole controversy then is shut up in these two 
 documents — the Articles of Confederacy of 1781 and the 
 Constitution of 1787. By the deed of 1781, sovereig-n 
 rig-hts were expressly reserved— by the deed of 1787, all 
 rig-hts were expressly reserved, except a few, which were 
 minutely specified ; and the sovereig'n rig-hts of separate 
 States are certainly not among* the list of powers secured 
 to Cong-ress. The common sense of the whole trans- 
 action is, that the " Articles" Constitution failed because 
 of its peculiar faultiness in not appointing" an executive 
 independent of the Legislature, and in its not providing* a 
 strong* enoug'h machinery to enforce the specified powers. 
 The essential principle on which the Constitution of 1787 
 differed from that of 1781 was, that the former did pro- 
 vide an executive. All else in which the two Constitu- 
 tions differ is comparatively matter of detail. Certainly 
 the question of more or less sovereig-nty as reserved to 
 the particular States, is not one of these differences. 
 The impudence of those who pretend such to be the case, 
 is absolutely inconceivable : 1781 reserves sovereig-nty, 
 1787 takes care not to revoke this reservation, but merely 
 talks of " forming* a more perfect Union," — i. e. creating* 
 an executive independent of Cong'ress to act in the 
 cases set apart for Federal action, and g'iving* powers 
 to the Federal authorities to make their jurisdiction felt 
 so far as it was lawful under the constitution itself. 
 " More perfect Union" does not involve any abrog'ation 
 of the dig-nity or powers of the States within themselves. 
 
 Can proof be strong*er as to the licence which the 
 framers of the Constitution meant to allow to the States' 
 rights* principle ? What they placed in the other hamper 
 
15 
 
 before 
 
 mce. 
 
 le two 
 
 ad the 
 
 ereign 
 
 87, all 
 
 b were 
 
 iparate 
 
 lecured 
 trans- 
 
 Decause 
 
 :ecutive 
 
 iding- a 
 
 powers. 
 
 of 1787 
 
 lid pro- 
 
 onstitu- 
 
 ertainly 
 
 rved to 
 
 'erences. 
 le case, 
 eignty, 
 merely 
 creating 
 in the 
 powers 
 tion felt 
 itself, 
 •ogation 
 selves. 
 ich the 
 States' 
 hamper 
 
 1 
 
 for those who desired that the Union might he perpetual^ 
 we shall proceed to examine. But, in passing", I may 
 remark that the argument which is sometimes raised on 
 the word " United/' as if it implied in connection with 
 the '^ States," the same concorporation which is involved 
 in the use of the same adjective in connection with 
 " Kingdom," and in reference to Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, falls to the ground, when it is recollected that the 
 term United States of America is a creation of the Articles 
 of 1781, which reserve State rights. No one who is at 
 all acquainted with the Constitution of the " United Pro- 
 vinces" of the Netherlands will require to be told how 
 much of self-action and of discordant sovereignty may be 
 covered by that adjective, which is of so much older date 
 in that conjunction than in conjunction with the once 
 kingdoms of England and Scotland. 
 
 This discovery of the true value of the " Federal" doc- 
 trine, I confess fairly staggered me. It happened that 
 I had made, before the disrupture, many American friends, 
 for whom I had the most sincere esteem j and all of them 
 belong to the North. I approached the subject therefore 
 with Northern prepossessions. I disliked the way the 
 North was going on, but I fancied it could construct a 
 strong legal case for itself. 
 
 Very few Southern magazines or newspapers, very few 
 Southern men and women, come to England, compared 
 with those from the North, so that it is no wonder that, 
 at the first blush, we are apt to accept the Northern 
 view of the matter, which is most constantly before us, 
 and particularly so when the Slavery question intervenes. 
 But when I come to read papers and books on both sides, I 
 am startled to find, as I have just explained, that the legal 
 arguments on which the North rests almost its entire case, 
 
t 
 
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 10 
 
 and on which it brands the Secession as a rehelhon, are 
 but as smoking" flax and broken reeds. Still the North 
 has one very strong* pointy which we are bound most 
 fully to acknowledg-e. It is always a g-reat misfortune to 
 any partnership, company, or society, when a winding-- 
 up clause is omitted from the deed of co-partnery or con- 
 stitution, althoug-h Courts may exist which have winding- 
 up jurisdiction. That misfortune pertains to the United 
 States, which in their agreements of 1781 and 1787, made 
 no provision for a possible difference of opinion between 
 the partners or for the dissolution of the firm. In 1781, 
 indeed, " perpetuity" was predicated, though not in 
 1787. 
 
 Thus the Constitution of the United States is a very 
 ambiguous document. It was made so purposely. A 
 straightforward document drawn up in the sense in which 
 the North seeks to construe it, would never have received 
 the assent of those thirteen jealous, ambitious States, who 
 then hated and distrusted each other only a little less 
 than they did England. It was, I say, on this negative 
 enforcement of a perpetual Union, and on the ambitious 
 greed for unlimited extension of empire through the 
 adherence of fresh States to the Federation that the 
 Unionists rested for the preponderance of their doctrine. 
 They had much to hope for, no doubt, in these two 
 considerations, and so their rage at the failure of their 
 calculations is proportionately unbounded. 
 
 Assume for a moment that the Southern States had 
 good cause for secession. I will come to that presently, 
 but just assume it in the meantime. They may have been 
 wrong in that impression, but if they entertained it, what 
 were they to do ? There was no winding-up jurisdiction 
 open to them. It would have been as absurd to appeal 
 
17 
 
 an, are 
 North 
 d most 
 •tune to 
 inding-- 
 or con- 
 inding- 
 
 United 
 ,7j made 
 between 
 n 1781, 
 
 not in 
 
 is a very 
 3ely. A 
 in which 
 received 
 ates, who 
 little less 
 negative 
 ambitious 
 ough the 
 that the 
 doctrine, 
 hese two 
 e of their 
 
 states had 
 [presently, 
 1 have been 
 ^d it, what 
 irisdiction 
 to appeal 
 
 to Congress, to let them out of the Union, as for a mouse 
 to beseech the cat not to eat it up. The majority in 
 Congress would notoriously have l)een against them. 
 The only alternative then was between submission to 
 what they held to be national suicide or secession from 
 the Union. We must own that secession was irregular, 
 but we cannot pronounce it urjastifiable, without deny- 
 ing that right of justifiable revolution which underliey 
 every Constitution, and asserting that not even the sub- 
 jects of a Bomba or a Hien Fung would have a right to 
 secede from the jurisdiction of their tyi*ant. No man, with 
 the history of the last 174 yeavs before him, would advo- 
 cate such a doctrine in England who was not prepared 
 to take his stfind in a sort of moral jiillory and to be 
 pelted and abused by the Press and public of his countiy. 
 The right of secession has indeed been several times 
 preached in the United States, and once it was attempted. 
 The seceder on those occasions was Massachusetts. 
 
 I must now take a great leap across the years. From 
 1781 and 1787, I must bring you down to the present 
 time. In the interval, the United States had developed 
 from an Atlantic power to one which stretched across 
 the American continent and took in the Pacific sea-board, 
 and the number of the States had risen from 13 to 34, 
 while the whole Union had grown prodigiously in popu- 
 lation, and had added immensely to those territories, 
 which had not yet received the organization of States. 
 Serious differences had also been developed between the 
 sections of the Federation during these years. Apart 
 altogether from the great question of slavery and free 
 labour, other distinctions in climate, occupations and pro- 
 duce exist between North and South. 
 
 The North in its eastern portion is a ship-building, 
 ship-owning, manufacturing community ; in its Avestern 
 
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 ti wheat producing and timbered region, with a com- 
 paratively cold climate in both. The South with a hot 
 climate and a fertile soil, is devoted almost exclusively 
 to agriculture, to the cultivation of sugar, tobacco, 
 rice, maize, and above all, cotton. The South has nearly 
 9,250,000 of inhabitants, of which almost 6,000,000 are 
 whites, nearly all of English blood, with the exception of 
 the French stock in Louisiana j while the addition of the 
 Border States would add 2,500,000 of whites to less than 
 500,000 slaves. The North has rather over 19,000,000 
 of a very mixed race. The Northerners are traders of all 
 degrees; the Southerners are rather countrymen— some 
 gentlemen with large estates, others smaller freeholders, 
 and the rest the sort of population which would naturally 
 exist between those proprietors and the black field-hands. 
 Hence sprang up widely divergent interests which 
 have for so many years been seeking either a battle 
 field or a basis of agreement in the Congress at Washing- 
 ton. As is usual everywhere there were two leading 
 parties in the United States. In the original States the 
 two were the " Federalists," led by Washington, who 
 contended for large Federal rights, and desired a strong 
 centralized government, such, as we have seen 1787 
 did not give them, and the Democrats who represented 
 State rights and Federal government reduced to the 
 narrowest limits. The Democrats were then under the 
 lead of that mischievous statesman and bad man, Thomas 
 Jefferson, who to his ad\^ocacy of States rights added 
 an ultra democratic bias, with which that doctrine had 
 no natural affinity. Both sides were thus led by Vir- 
 ginian slave-holders. In process of time party distinc- 
 tions became weaker in the South, while political antago- 
 nism gained strength in the North. , ^ ^ 
 The Federal party converted itself into the " Wliigs," 
 
19 
 
 hot 
 ve\y 
 
 LCCO, 
 
 larly 
 ) are 
 3n of 
 ►fthe 
 than 
 OjOOO 
 of all 
 -some 
 Dlders, 
 ;urally 
 hands, 
 which 
 battle 
 shing- 
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 n, who 
 strong 
 1787 
 lesented 
 to the 
 der the 
 homas 
 added 
 ine had 
 y Vir- 
 distinc- 
 ntago- 
 
 'Kg< 
 
 and subsequently, within very recent years, under- 
 went another transformation, from which, under the 
 auspices of Mr. Seward, it emerged as " Republican." 
 It favoured the manufacturing* and shipping* interests 
 of the North, and advocated restrictive navigation laws 
 and prohibitory tariffs. The Democrats leaned to the other 
 side, and the Southerners, who in our sense of the phrase 
 were of aristocratic tendencies, joined the Democrats. 
 The alliance of the South with the northern Democrats, 
 but half-hearted and temporary from the first — a coali- 
 tion rather than a fusion — gradually grew more unreal. 
 The charge so often brought against the South that it 
 once ruled the Union, and that when the spell was broken 
 it seceded in a huff", is but half true. It is true that the 
 Democrats did once rule the Union, for they were the 
 better statesmen, and in this statesmanship the Southern 
 element was conspicuous; but these ruling Democrats had 
 their Northern side, and it was only by an unsatisfactory- 
 system of give and take, that the South, with its distinct 
 interests but parliamentary minorities, was able, through 
 the coalition, to maintain its equilibrium. The split be- 
 tween the Douglas and the Breckenridge sections, in 
 1860, apparently so wanton, was in truth but the last 
 severance of a long weakened cord. The other side, in 
 changing from Whig to Republican, assumed a much 
 more decidedly antagonistic attitude to the South, and in 
 this character consoHdated its strength in the North. 
 The North, as I have said, was all for nursecl manufac- 
 tures and protection,— the South was all for free trade, 
 in as much as it wanted a fair market for its produce. To 
 give you some idea of the navigation laws which Northern 
 influence had carried, I may mention that one regulation 
 is that any American who buys a ship in a foreign market 
 cannot employ it in American waters, unless he spends 
 
i !• 
 
 »;( 
 
 20 
 
 besides two-thirds of the purchase money in refitting' it in 
 some American dockyard. While we have thrown open our 
 own coasting" trade to our great loss, the Americans have 
 jealously closed theirs to all vessels save their own. The 
 consequence is that New Eng'land monopolised the trade 
 of America, not merely to the exclusion of old Eng-land and 
 other nations, but also at the expense of the Southern 
 States. The enormous prohibitory duties, coupled with 
 the determination of commerce, through those navigation 
 laws, to Northern ports, particularly to New York, have 
 prevented the South from findinof the market for its agri- 
 cultural produce, to its own greatest advantage, in the free 
 harbours of the world, where it would be able to purchase 
 foreign goods at a fair rate in return. In plain words, 
 New York, with its reckless trading and bubble banks, 
 has been for years ^setting itself up as the commercial capi- 
 tal of the New World, and thereby, if it might be, of the 
 Old World also, and has found no law of protection too 
 decayed or too disreputable to serve its purpose. It has 
 engaged in a gigantic and dangerous conspiracy to bully 
 and cajole the rest of the world out of their legitimate 
 trading rights, all for its own benefit. New York is to 
 America what Paris is to France — the bad influence at 
 head-quarters which pervades and demoralises the whole 
 body. 
 
 Slavery, of course, mixes itself up with the mat- 
 ter. Let me repeat the utter aversion with which I 
 regard that abominable traffic ; but let me remind you 
 that— to our shame be it spoken — it was a bequest which 
 England left to the United States. Twelve out of the 
 thirteen States found themselves saddled with slaves at 
 the time of the revolution. Years went on. The North 
 found that its climate did not agree with slave labour. 
 So the Northern folk abolished slavery within their own 
 
21 
 
 borders, and sold their slaves to the South. That was 
 how the North g-ot rid of slavery and of the slave at once. 
 But it still derived its share of profit from the institution. 
 New York, with its navig-ation laws and protective tarift^ 
 of course commanded the export trade. The men of 
 New York Avere not slow to advance their dollars on 
 mortg-age to slave estates. The slave trade to America 
 ■was abolished by CongTess, but New York did not 
 scruple to send its ships to conduct that trade in ne^oes 
 which was still carried on between Africa and Cuba, to 
 the disg'race of Spain. I have unveiled the hypocrisy, 
 let me exhibit the uncharitableness of the North. In 
 the South, no doubt, the slave is held as a chattel, 
 but he is well treated ; in social matters he is 
 reg-arded as a fellow creature ; he kneels at the same 
 altar as the white man, and travels in the same train. 
 But in the North, the church, the tavern, the railway 
 car, which the white man frequents, are prohibited to 
 the free black, who is treated with as much aversion 
 and loathing" as if he were a loathsome reptile. In the 
 distribution of the 203 districts which send representatives 
 to Cong-ress, five blacks (who have no vote) count as three 
 whites. That gives the North, of course, an advantag'e 
 over the South in a country where representation is based 
 on numbers, and where the electoral districts are carved 
 out according' to the whole population (including* women) 
 and not according" to the number of voters.* Moreover, the 
 
 * Some mystification exists on thia head, and it is often assumed 
 that this ratable enumeration of non-voting blacks was an advantage 
 to the Southern States. No doubt it was a less disadvantage than 
 their total omission would have been ; but on any theory which admits 
 that representation should take account of property as well as of 
 mere numbers it was a disadvantage. The argument — only possible 
 in a land of universal (i.e. manhood) suffrage — that the blacks as 
 non-voters should not count, ought to be pushed further, and women, 
 cliildren, and aliens be omitted in the decennial allotment. 
 
 
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 5 
 
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 iiili 
 
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 29 
 
 congressional districts are re-distributed every ten years, 
 according" to the census ; and thus, although the South 
 is gaining in population, yet, because the North grows 
 more rapidly, it has been irresistibly and gradually 
 absorbing the balance of members from the former. In 
 1859, the number of members was 237, because two 
 new States which had been added since the last dis- 
 tribution, received the temporary allotment of two mem- 
 bers each. Out of these, 147 belonged to the North, 90 
 to the South. Last year, but for the secession, the original 
 number 233 would have been resumed ; and while the 
 North would have had 149, the South (including the border 
 States) would have had only 84.. Tenessee went down from 
 10 to 8, and yet its population had increased by 133,974 ; 
 while South Carolina, which had increased by 46,864, 
 sank from 6 to 4. The presidential electors in each State 
 equal the number of its senators (which is always 2) and 
 of its representatives combined. Therefore the same 
 course of gradual supercession which tended to upset the 
 South's legitimate influence in Congress equally tended 
 to diminish its voice in the nomination of the Federal 
 executive. The South was driven to the expedient of 
 winning votes by procuring the admission of new slave 
 States, without regard to the economic advantage of 
 slavery in them, for each State meant two senators and 
 at least one representative to Congress, the strict nume- 
 rical rule being so far relaxed as to permit there being 
 at least one representative for each State. Still, year by 
 year the South found its representation growing less and 
 less, and saw the North not only gaining the influence 
 which it was losing, but exerting it for the purposes of 
 oppression and fraud. 
 We are often told that New York has all along been 
 
23 
 
 nume- 
 being 
 
 ear by 
 
 iss and 
 luence 
 
 loses of 
 
 been 
 
 a Southern city in heart. I deny the fact in toto. New 
 York has all along* been pre-eminently selfish and gasp- 
 ing*. Up to 1860 it believed that its own interest was 
 best secured by taking* the South in pawn, maintaining* 
 slavery, crippling its commerce on one side, and on the 
 other advancing" money on mortg^age to the men it was 
 devouring — in other words, sustaining* the Union, slaves 
 and all, because the Union sustained New York. So New 
 York was " Democrat." But once the South had freed 
 itself from New York's serpentine coil, that city turned 
 round most fiercely against it in its character of an inde- 
 pendent commonwealth, and clamoured most savagely 
 for its reconquest nominally to the Union, really to New 
 York. Of course New York's position as the great sea- 
 port of America would not be damaged by the destruc- 
 tion of Charleston and other harbours ; while its floating 
 capital would find a ready investment in those railways 
 convero-ino- to itself which the destruction of Southern 
 outlets would necessitate. A fool sometimes blurts out 
 what wise men would rather keep concealed j so, I observe, 
 that model New York rowdy, " Manhattan," in a recent 
 letter, indulges — supposing the alternative of a forced 
 reunion, even with " Jeff. Davis ruling the whole land," 
 to be hopeless — in the dream of New York seceding on 
 its own account as a free city, with free trade with the 
 whole world, as the next best thing to its former character 
 as the protectionist entrep6t of a vast realm. In the 
 earlier days of the disruption, before the North had 
 declared against it, similar theories were not unfrequent, 
 and the new mayor of the city seems feeling his way in 
 the same direction. Besides these commercial restric- 
 tions, another thing irritated and alarmed the South. 
 I suppose there is no man in this country who would 
 
 
24 
 
 ! ■;Mi 
 
 >'' 
 
 iV 
 
 j iiii; 
 
 say that when slavery is abolished b}^ superior leg-is- 
 latioii, the slave-owners oug-ht not to receive com- 
 pensation. That is a mere matter of common honesty, 
 about which one would hardly think there can be 
 two opinions. A few years ag'o, however, a Mr. Helper, 
 who is the mouth-piece of the ultra-abolitionists in 
 the North, jmblished a work on Slavery, which ap- 
 peared headed by a recommendation from 08 members 
 of Congress, including' Mr. Seward, the present Secretary 
 of State, who, but for a tremendous party intrig-ue, 
 would have been returned as President, instead of his 
 tool, Mr. Lincoln, as well as Mr. Sherman, another 
 Republican leader. In that book Mr. Helper talked 
 much rampant nonsense, such as swearing* to abolish 
 slavery, even if its supporters annihilated the solar sys- 
 tem. But here and there a more practical passag'e 
 occurs in it — "Compensation to slave-owners for negroes! 
 preposterous idea— the sug-g-estion is criminal, the de- 
 mand most wicked, monstrous, damnable." And then 
 he g'oes on to call the slaveholders "curs" and "whelps," 
 and such like pretty names. 
 
 When a popular aboHtionist writer talked in this way, 
 with the approval of eminent public men in the North, 
 of the confiscation of a mass of property £500,000,000 
 in value, it was no wonder if the South g-rew alarmed. 
 If it is said that Mr. Seward's g*eneral pohcy belies his 
 recommendation of Helper, the answer is why then have 
 taken Helper up ? There is little cause for surprise, if 
 after this, when Mr. Seward came into office, the citizens 
 of the South thoug-ht it high time to examine whether the 
 State sovereig-nty, granted by the Constitution of 1781 
 and not abohshed in 1787, was or was not a reality. I 
 am not arg'uing* whether secession was wise or necessary. 
 
 I 
 
usummuaoi^tjtt. 
 
 Qo 
 
 TIS- 
 0111- 
 
 . be 
 Iper, 
 s in 
 ap- 
 ibers 
 Btary 
 •io;ue, 
 
 )f his 
 lother 
 talked 
 bolish 
 ir sys- 
 assag'e 
 gToes! 
 he de- 
 then 
 elps," 
 
 Is way, 
 iNorth, 
 )0,000 
 larined. 
 hies his 
 fcn have 
 Drise, if 
 jitizens 
 ther the 
 ft' 1781 
 ity. I 
 pessary. 
 
 I am not asking* whether Mr. Seward was sincere in his 
 recommendation of Helper, I only seek to show that it 
 will not do glibly and offhand to stigmatize the South, 
 as New York editors and stump orators wish us to do, 
 as mere rebels. 
 
 The new Constitution which the Confederate States 
 adopted at an early stag-e of the secession may be taken 
 as a good test of their character and intentions. If the 
 preamble is very like the preamble of the old one — 
 except that the former invokes the favour and assistance 
 of Almighty God, a sanction not soug-ht for in 1787 — 
 there is one article found in the new Constitution of which 
 there is no trace in the Federal one, althoug'h the matter 
 had been dealt with by an Act of Congress, and that is the 
 absolute and unconditional prohibition of the slave trade. 
 The advocates of the North may call this merely dust to 
 blind Europe. But it is fair to g'i\'e to words their 
 leg-itimate value. The South knows thai in order to 
 succeed at all, upon its platform of free trade, it must 
 keep friends with Europe, and it also knows that Europe 
 would not tolerate a return to the slave trade. More 
 particularly must it be aware that Europe would very 
 jealously scan this provision voluntarily imported into 
 its constitution by itself, and make its literal and per- 
 petual observance a sine qua non in all future relations 
 with the Confederate States. Of course the internal 
 difficulties in repealing a provision of the Constitution 
 would be much greater than in dealing" with a mere 
 Congressional act. Then the President is to be 
 elected for six years with no ri«-ht of re-electior, in- 
 stead of four years with such privilege in the United 
 States. Another new feature is, that ministers were 
 allowed a voice, although no vote, in both houses of Con- 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
so 
 
 i'5 m 
 
 gress. These provisions strike a fatal blow at much 
 intrig'uiiigf and coiTuption ; which are generated under the 
 old Constitution, by the President striving", in very 
 crooked ways, for re-election, and by ministers procuring* 
 mouthpieces in CongTess, by means of back-stairs influ- 
 ence, promoted, of course, by a private understanding* 
 with individual members, having* a pecuniary side to it. 
 In the United States a notorious and terrible source of 
 corruption has hitherto existed, to an ever-increasing" 
 extent, in the practice of re-appointing every four years, 
 not merely the President, but every Federal official, down 
 to each custom-house officer, and each postmaster in the 
 smallest village. This system of universal electioneering' 
 bribery, for such it is —combined with universal suffi*ago 
 and' the ballot, neither of which forms a portion of t^e 
 Federal Constitution, but each of which has been intro- 
 duced into the States one after another, with certain 
 exceptions in the South — has produced the most disas- 
 trous and melancholy results. Constitutional forms and 
 safeg"uard8 have been turned into mockeries, delusions, 
 and snares ; free and independent elections become an 
 impos8ibilit3% To make matters worse, Federal and State 
 elections take place together, the latter frequently in- 
 volving nominations to the Judge's bench ; while both 
 the Governors and Legislatures (in both Houses) of the 
 States are chosen for very short terras, sometimes annual. 
 With the extended suffi-age no man can vote for his own 
 candidate, as in England, but he must accept the 
 " ticket," that is, the list of candidates drawn up by a 
 knot of pestilent fellows, members of "caucuses,'' and 
 election agents, who are often the very scum and refuse 
 of society. These men concoct the tickets, and the electors 
 are often ignorant of the persons of the men whom they 
 support. The gentry are compelled to hold aloof from 
 
S7 
 
 much 
 er the 
 very 
 juring' 
 infiu- 
 mding 
 3 to it. 
 irce of 
 easing 
 years, 
 [j down 
 ' in the 
 leering 
 ufFrago 
 
 of t^ie 
 a intio- 
 I certain 
 t disas- 
 ns and 
 lusions, 
 me an 
 d State 
 tly in- 
 e hoth 
 of the 
 nnual. 
 lis own 
 |pt the 
 ip by a 
 ;' and 
 refuse 
 electors 
 Im they 
 k from 
 
 such a set, and are practically disfranchised. It is no 
 wonder that American constituencies have become 
 sinks of ignorance and folly, compared with which a 
 metropolitan borough is an orderly and enlightened 
 institution. The leverage which works all this is simply 
 the prospect of reward which is held out to the profes- 
 sional abettors of misgovemment and the partizans of 
 corruption in that disgraceful scramble for berths in the 
 Custom House and places in the Post Office, which 
 every four years crowds the dirty streets of Wash- 
 ington. Far be it, of course, from us to depreciate 
 that other source of rapine, the division of the spoils 
 incident on State and Municipal appointments. You will 
 easily fill up this side of the picture. Well, what did 
 those Southern men, met at Montgomery to form a con- 
 stitution, do about bribery? They simply and abso- 
 lutely did their best to knock it on the head, as far as 
 Confederate patronage went, by making all offices (ex- 
 cept seats in the Cabinet) tenable during good behaviour, 
 and by requiring the President, in the case of any dismissal, 
 to submit the reasons to the Senate. It is well known 
 that tbe Federal Congress has elastic powers over its 
 revenues by which it may, for example, make railways 
 through the territories of the Unioii, and that this power 
 has been jobbed to an unparalleled extent. The Southern 
 constitution prohibits the application of Confederate re- 
 venue to any object which is not purely of a political 
 character, with reference to the special attributes of the 
 Confederation, and also forbids the granting of bounties. 
 Again, it entrusts the President with the power of veto- 
 ing* any portion of an Appropriation Bill and sanc- 
 tioning the remainder. That is a more important 
 change than a stranger would at first imagine. In 
 
28 
 
 m 
 
 the Federal OongTess all sorts of measures which have 
 really no connection with each other are passed pell-mell 
 in one bill ; and so, when any job more monstrous than 
 another has to be perpetrated, this plan, popularly called 
 " log'-roUing'," is had recourse to. The abominable and 
 revolutionary Morill Tariff was smug-g-led throug-h after 
 that fashion in the same bill with certain necessary 
 enactments. The process is done by "lobbying*" and 
 "rushing"." You all know^ the sort of men who are 
 too often legislators in the States — not men of means, 
 social standing", education, and intelligence, but spe- 
 cimens culled out of the worst class of jobbing* poli- 
 ticians, fellows with the loudest voice and fewest 
 scruples, who have not a cent in their pockets, but who 
 follow legislation as a profession and livelihood, and 
 to whom the salary which is there attached to a seat in 
 Congress is not the least inducement which deter- 
 mines them to seek that honour. In Eno-land a member 
 may be weak enoug-h to do a job now and then to keep 
 well with some g-reedy and pertinacious constituent. In 
 the States the job is perpetrated for the benefit of the 
 member also. The ag'ent who haunts the lobb}', and the 
 member, both belong* to the same class, they are probably 
 confederates together, the prospective lobbying- which 
 they may be able to effect being* part of the barg*ain by 
 which one of them g-ot on the ticket and the other 
 worked to secure his election. That is " lobbying*." 
 " Rushing" is the hurrying* through of bills in the last 
 hours of an expiring* Congress, which necessarily comes to 
 an end at midnig*ht on the second 4th of Mjirch after its 
 election, when there is no time to examine them, when 
 a lot of membei's are tipsy with g*in-8ling*s and brandy 
 cocktails, and when the Presid'^ut seated in a little room, 
 
29 
 
 I iiave 
 
 il-mell 
 
 s than 
 
 called 
 
 lie and 
 
 h after 
 
 iessary 
 
 y" and 
 
 ho are 
 
 means, 
 
 it spe- 
 
 g poli- 
 fewest 
 
 mt who 
 
 Dd, and 
 seat in 
 
 I deter- 
 
 member 
 to keep 
 
 nt. In 
 of the 
 and the 
 
 )robably 
 which 
 •o-ain by 
 le other 
 )byino-/' 
 the last 
 comes to 
 after its 
 when 
 brandy 
 le room, 
 
 t 
 
 n, 
 
 almost out of his senses with worry and confusion, is 
 sig-ning' bills as fast as ever his pen can scrawl, without 
 having the opportunity of perusing* them. The power of 
 veto which the South has g-iven to its President will 
 afford a valuable corrective to that shameful system, for 
 he can of course pick out what really must be passed in 
 a money bill and refuse the residue. 
 
 I now return to the question of slavery. I have shown 
 that the North is as culpable, aye, more so, than the South 
 in regard to slavery. The North profits by the unhallowed 
 traffic in human flesh and blood, and it has actually 
 g'one into this civil war for the purpose of perpetuating* 
 slavery as an integral feature of the United States, for it 
 knows that, if once the South parts fi'om the Union, its 
 own means of sharing^ the profits of slavery are at an end. 
 There is no doubt a small, but sincere and earnest, aboli- 
 tionist party in the North, with whom the Republicans 
 have played f^ist and loose as long* as it suited their pur- 
 pose. It remains to be seen whether that party may not 
 g*et the upper hand. If they do so, the result will be im- 
 mediate emancipation, which means bloodshed, outrage, 
 destruction of property, and perpetual starvation over the 
 Southj by the letting loose of a race half-savage, half- 
 childish, and their transference into a position of freedom 
 for ^^hicll they are wholly without preparation. In the 
 meanwhile the dismissal of Mr. Cameron, the member of 
 the Cabinet who showed the strong*est abolitionist senti- 
 ments, is not very like the acceptance of that policy. 
 
 The abolitionists are straining* every nerve to succeed. 
 AVendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison who for the last 
 25 years have been cursing the Union as a league with 
 the devil, a " covenant with hell," are no\y braying about 
 its virtues, and making- violent and inflammatory speeches 
 
 I 
 
 k 
 
30 
 
 "I I 
 
 J I 
 
 in favour of its maintenance at the cannon's mouth. The 
 policy of these fanatical or rather anarchical republicans, 
 is of course to trade with slavery as a weak part in the 
 old established institutions of their country, with a view to 
 g'eneral communism and confiscation. Phillips has for 
 many years proclaimed himself a disunionist and desired 
 secession. Now that it has come, and now that he may 
 be a citizen of a republic which has no slavery, he is 
 invoking" fire and the sword upon the South. Look at 
 the proclamation which General Phelps lately issued in 
 Shij) Island, off the coast of Louisiana, asserting* that 
 slavery was unconstitutional in all the States which had 
 been added to the orig'inal federation, (i. e. in Louisiana 
 itself), and declaring* the emancipation of the slaves in 
 the original States ougrht to commence at once. Can 
 anything" be more monstrous or more anarchical? Is 
 there any other part of the world where a subordinate 
 would have dreamed of issuing" such a manifesto? 
 Consider too the morality of General Fremont's famous 
 proclamation, for which he was justly recalled by the 
 President, which promised liberty to the slaves of men 
 who were for the South, while those who belong-ed to 
 the partizans of the North were to remain in bonds. 
 Thus according" to Fremont, slavery is a sin in a subject 
 of President Davis, but in a follower of President Lincoln 
 it is to be encouraged and protected. Even if the North 
 should — which I do not believe — become ema^cip? Zionist 
 under the stress of this war, I shall have deep misgivings 
 as to the result. It would become so, not because it 
 believed in the Christianity of emancipation, but in hopes 
 of ruining that South which it despaired of conquering" in 
 fair fight. Could any good results come out of such a 
 motive? m 
 
31 
 
 The 
 
 ans, 
 
 I the 
 
 w to 
 
 s for 
 
 sired 
 
 may 
 
 he is 
 
 >ok at 
 
 ledin 
 
 r that 
 
 lihad 
 
 lisiana 
 
 ives in 
 Can 
 
 1? Is 
 
 pdinate 
 
 lifesto? 
 
 famous 
 
 by the 
 
 )f men 
 iged to 
 laonds. 
 subject 
 lincoln 
 North 
 .tionist 
 livings 
 jause it 
 hopes 
 ^ring in 
 such a 
 
 Will the success and independence of the South be 
 a death-blow to the hope of the slave? I trust and 
 believe not. Heretofore, the South has been obliged to 
 play with slavery as a valuable card in its political game 
 with the North, in Congress. Once free from that 
 irritating and oppressive contest, the South will be able 
 to deal with it as a matter of social convenience and 
 prosperity, and not of vital political influence. The 
 condition of the slave has already been much ameliorated, 
 in ensuino* years much more will be done with the same : 
 tendency. To be a benefit to the slave, emancipation 
 must be gradual not sudden. There are numerous stages 
 of serfdom between absolute freedom and absolute servi- 
 tude. In absolute servitude the slave is a mere chattel, 
 and the law winks at any cruelty, even the cruelty of 
 murder which the master may inflict on him. This is 
 not the case in the Slave States of America. In abso- 
 lute independence, on the contrary, the free man may 
 rule the State or sit upon the tribunal of justice. But 
 the gradations of privilege between the condition of 
 a chattel, and the potentiality of rule, are infinite. There 
 are rights more or less rch^tricted of holding' property, 
 rights of testimony, municipal and guild privileges, rights 
 of partnership, &c. &c. It is only wise men legislating 
 in times of peace who can introduce the neg'ro into those 
 various conditions of constitutional liberty, so as to raise 
 and to regenerate the commonwealth. Our generation is 
 not responsible for the existence of the negro in America, 
 and our generation must not try to meet that evil by 
 creating a contrary one. Once let the South be released 
 from the harassing contest it has hitherto had to main- 
 tain with the North, and it must perforce be brought into 
 intimate relations with Europe, upon whom it must rely 
 
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 1 1 * 1 
 
 ■■ { 
 
 
 w'. 
 
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 for its manufactures, education and literature. It will be 
 brought into direct contact with the public opinion of 
 Europe, which will ii-resistibly compel it to chang-e its 
 course in regard to slavery; the better and more en- 
 lig-htened men in the South will be led to comprehend 
 the vices of the slave system, and to imbibe higher and 
 more Christian ideas on the subject : and these will, in 
 turn, constrain the more big'oted and ignorant to follow 
 their line of policy. We are perpetually called upon to 
 admire the Brazilian Empire as an example of good con- 
 stitutional g'overnment and material progress beside the 
 woeful anarchy of Mexico and other of the Spanish 
 American republics. Yet strange to sa}^, slavery exists 
 in the Brazils, while in Mexico it has been abolished. I 
 trust the very fact of the good character w-hich the 
 Brazils have earned in Europe may lead to such reflex 
 at 'on as may tend in time to emancipation. But in the 
 mean while it would not be fair to have one pair of spec- 
 tacles through which to view the Brazils, and another for 
 the Confederate States, whose affinities of language will 
 brino* them into much closer intercourse with us than we 
 could expect with the South American Empire. M. 
 Benouf, in the able pamphlet Avhich he recently pub- 
 lished, V Europe ct V Union Americaine, insists very 
 strongly upon the hopeful view^ of the case, and points 
 out how forcibly and infallibly the public mind of 
 Europe may be exerted for good upon the Southei'n 
 slave-holder, Avho will be induced to commute servitude 
 into serfdom, and gradually to prepare the slave for 
 the day when a coming generation, under the blessing 
 of God, will be able to do what the present genera- 
 tion cannot — give him full and unrestricted freedom. 
 But just as the kindly influence of England and 
 
83 
 
 ill be 
 Lon of 
 o-e its 
 e eii- 
 ehend 
 ?r and 
 nil, in 
 follow 
 pon to 
 »d con- 
 de the 
 ipaiiisli 
 ^- exists 
 led. I 
 icli the 
 h reflex 
 t in the 
 of spec- 
 ifier for 
 
 g-e will 
 :han we 
 
 •e. M. 
 
 lly pub- 
 Its very 
 points 
 lind of 
 Southern 
 lervitude 
 have for 
 I blessing- 
 jrenera- 
 freedom, 
 lind and 
 
 France may be employed on the South for the good of 
 the slave, so may the refusal of Europe to give them 
 countenance and support, lead them in spite to review the 
 prohibition of the slave trade, and to agitate for its 
 re-establishment in all its horrors. 
 
 It was in self protection that the South carried the 
 Fugitive Slave Law through Congress, which as Eng- 
 hsh journals have been constantly reminding us of late, 
 was due to the efforts of Mr. Mason ; but when they 
 seceded, they virtually repealed that statute, because, of 
 course, it was not to be expected that the North would 
 give the same protection to proprietors in foreign coun- 
 tries which had hitherto been accorded to them while they 
 were fellow-citizens under the same Union.* In refer- 
 
 * Since the delivery of this lecture the newspapers have published 
 the bill which the Military Committee of the House of Bepresentatives 
 reported on the subject of the property and the slaves of the Con- 
 federates ; recommending a system of universal confiscation, which is 
 likely to render it an eminently pacificatory proposition. We may, 
 however, while dismissing it as a serious programme, profitably study 
 it as an indication of Northern feeling. It will be remarked, that 
 emancipation is dealt with, as in General Fremont's proclamation, 
 as a penal measure; and the period of compulsory labour, which is to 
 bridge over the interval between servitude and freedom, is to be the 
 wholly inadequate period of 5 years, or until 25 years of age of all 
 under 21. But the cream of the whole matter is to be found in the 
 suggestion, that " The President shall acquire in Mexico, South 
 " America, Central America, or islands in the Gulf of Mexico, lands, 
 " or the right of settlement on lands, to which emancipated slaves 
 " shall be transported, single persons receiving 40 acres of land, 
 " and married persons 80 acres." 
 
 The bearings of this recommendation are sufficiently obvious. The 
 Federal Union lays claim to still unpeopled territories, west of the 
 settled States, large enough to settle all the slaves of the South upon, 
 and to hold millions of whites besides. But political emancipatiouism 
 will have none of this. It was not enough to use the negro as a 
 
 
 
34 
 
 t' 
 
 I ; 'I 
 
 Ml 
 t If I 
 
 enee, however, to the same Mr. Mason those papers forgot 
 to say that it was he who made the motion in the Senate, 
 which led to the most g-raceful act of courtesy which the 
 A merican g'overnment has shewn to Eng'land for many 
 years, the refitting* and return of the Resolute. 
 
 Having" cleared the ground thus far, I now enter 
 upon the more important part of the subject. Hvb Eng'- 
 land any interest in wishing" success to either side ? I 
 do not say that, but I say that England has an interest 
 in wishing" to see peace established on the only possible 
 terms for the happiness of the world— the final and com- 
 plete separation of the two commonwealths. If you say 
 that this is wishing" success to the South, it is not my 
 fault that it should be so. It is not. my fault that all 
 along" the South has only sought to be let alone and to 
 depart fi'om the Union in peace, and that the North has 
 been fig-hting" for empire and for the suppression of what 
 
 * ■ 
 
 I i ; 
 
 weapon of revenge against the men who dared to interpret the Con- 
 stitution in the sense of State rights, without making him also 
 an instrument of aggression upon the remaining world. A negro 
 territory on the plan of the Indian territory is an unclean thing, and 
 one which must never pollute the surface of the greatest republic on 
 earth. So this Committee of Congress, almost in face of Confede- 
 rate batteries, proposes the " acquisition," i.e. conquest, if needful, 
 of additional territory, where the Union has always lusted after a 
 footing, in Mexico, the West Indies, or South America, as the locale 
 of its ricketty free-black settlement. I need hardly point out that such 
 a colony would carry with it a military governor and a Federal garrison 
 in Mexico, or the West Indies, or on the shores of South America — 
 and " What next and what thenj"' The cool effrontery of basing 
 this advice upon Mr. Lincoln's aversion to emancipation without 
 colonization is perfect, for no man of sense will believe, that even 
 supposing the possibility of the establishment of such a colony, its 
 political undertakers and military protectors would long rest without 
 using it as a leverage for further acquisitiveness. 
 
35 
 
 they term a rebellion by the lig'ht, in General Butler's 
 words, of the " smoking* and rebellious cities" of the 
 South. I will assume that peace with the South need 
 not involve war with the North. I will assume farther 
 that both parties have ambassadors at the Court of St. 
 James's. Should we derive any advantag'e from the 
 double diplomatic representation ? I need not expatiate 
 on the advantag'es we have derived and may hereafter 
 obtain fi'om an alliance with the North. I have not g'ot 
 them catalog'ued, but I take them on trust. Well, then, 
 the South is of immense extent and exuberant fertility, 
 it is g-iven up to agriculture, yields produce which we 
 
 want — rice, 
 
 sug*ar, 
 
 tobacco and cotton — and consumes 
 
 g'oods which we manufacture. I hope with all my heart 
 that Indian cotton may succeed, and that the industry 
 of the world, taug'ht by the experience of the present 
 blockade, will not allow itself in future to be wholly 
 dependent on Carolina and other Southern States for its 
 supply of raw cotton. But in any event the Southern 
 cotton will always fetch its price in the market. The 
 South is not a manufacturing* community, although under 
 the pressure of stern events, it has turned its hand to 
 manufactures, with much success, as you may read in a 
 recent number of Blackwood's Magazine. Hitherto the 
 North by brokerag'e, protective navig'ation laws, and so 
 on, has kept all the trade of the South in its own g-reedy 
 clutches : but if we make peace with the South all that 
 will be at an end. London may then occup}?" on more 
 g-enerous conditions the position which New York has 
 hitherto held in reg-ard to the South. The cotton growers 
 will export their produce direct to Liverpool, and will 
 make their purchases in Manchester, Birmingham, and 
 Sheffield. The fewer vessels the South has of its own 
 
■ »)■" 
 
 • I'l' 
 
 v. 
 
 fr li ■ 
 
 , |C 
 
 11 
 
 u 
 
 i].- 
 
 i. 
 
 {■! 
 
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 mi 
 
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 06 
 
 the more g'ladly will it welcome English bottoms into its 
 ports — the fewer coasting* craft which it owns, the more 
 willingly will it admit Eng-hsh, Canadian and Nova Sco- 
 tian vessels to its coasting* trade. The South starts with 
 unlimited free trade, and that is much in its favour. 
 This cannot fail if we only use the opportunity, to lead to 
 a direct, immediate and expansive trade, of the most 
 profitable character, with Eng-land. 
 
 Then the South is not devoid of political sympathies 
 with England. Formerly the South was as guilty as the 
 North in its swaggering, bunkum, and tall talk. The 
 spread eagle flapped its ruffled wings as insolently in the 
 one part of the Union as in the other. But the very 
 fact of recent events has moderated the violence of the 
 South and compelled it to fall back on such old world 
 phrases as " balance of power," " foreign relations," and 
 " respect for frontiers." We may be told that that has 
 not arisen from statesmanship or good sense ; but the 
 fact is indubitable. The South has become moderate, — 
 it is the business of Europe to keep it so. Let Europe 
 take it at its word, lest by some strange freak of events 
 it be driven back to an alliance with the North, and the 
 spread eagle rise ag*ain from its ashes. Otherwise neither 
 North nor South will hereafter be paramount ; but either 
 may be a great power. When Illinois and the neigh- 
 bouring States, and when California have respectively 
 consummated their secessions, each of these will also 
 become a great power. The balance will be maintained 
 to the North by Federated British America, to the South 
 we may hope by a regenerated Mexico. -i >. 
 
 I am afraid the friendship and affection of the North 
 is not very strong at this moment. It has envied us all 
 along, and will continue to envy us, unless some strange 
 
 * =! 
 
 :t ; 
 
87 
 
 ko its 
 more 
 
 Sco- 
 
 with 
 ivour. 
 jad to 
 
 most 
 
 >athies 
 as the 
 The 
 in the 
 le very 
 I of the 
 world 
 s," and 
 hat has 
 3ut the 
 rate, — 
 Europe 
 events 
 land the 
 neither 
 t either 
 neigh- 
 ctively 
 ill also 
 ntained 
 e South 
 
 North 
 
 us all 
 
 I strange 
 
 turn of the wheel of fortune chang-es its temper. The 
 more, then, oug-ht we to cultivate the goodwill of the 
 South. No false charity or absurd Quixotism should 
 prevent us from accepting opportunities which seem to 
 be dropping, hke ripe fruit, into our mouths. 
 
 I have shown you that an alliance would enable 
 Europe to exercise its influence on the South in favour 
 of the slave, — the influence, not of narrow semi-religious 
 chques who have hitherto handled the question, but of 
 real politicians and eminent statesmen, the leading minds 
 of Europe, to the force of which slavery must in time 
 succumb. I own that the North may in some of its 
 districts be more advanced in education, literature, and 
 science, than the South, but these accomplishments are 
 associated with some of the worst features of its vain and 
 turbulent character. If much of the South is not so well 
 educated, it has the opportunity of becoming so. The 
 North is as clay that has been set, moulded, and baked, 
 and has come out, after all, a showy, but coarse and in- 
 ferior article. The South is still as clay in the hands of 
 the potter. Let Europe give its growing civilization a 
 better direction and a higher form. It is in this way 
 that we may look for some abiding good influence from 
 an alliance between the South and Europe. It will seek 
 our schools and our money markets ; we shall send our 
 sons there, primarily on their own business, but still as 
 persons influential in the spread of English ways of 
 thought. 
 
 One very practical proof of the best and proper course 
 for us to follow may be derived from the behaviour of 
 our American colonies. Canada and Nova Scotia possess 
 stronger republican tendencies than can exist in the old 
 country ; they are knit up with the North in intimate 
 
S..ti: 
 
 38 
 
 commercial relations; they are fervent and sincere 
 abolitionists j and have every opi)ortunit3^ of appreciating* 
 Northern character and Northern policy. At first they 
 beg-an by sympathising* with the Federals, but before 
 long* they chang'ed their key, and they now denounce 
 the North, and clamour for a cessation of the cruel and 
 hopeless internecine strife. 
 
 The truth is that Canada and Nova Scotia are nearer 
 the scene of action, and perceive more clearly and accu- 
 rately the real beariiig-s of the affair. 
 
 I have been charg-ed with too much bias on one side. 
 I have endeavoured to do full justice to both parties. I 
 have not shown as fully as I mig'ht have done how 
 superior in statesmanship the South is to the North. 
 I have restrained my tongue in speaking* of that " deed 
 without a name " which destroyed the harbour at 
 Charleston, and of the many insults which have been 
 showered upon our country. I must be permitted 
 but one word on the merely American aspect of the 
 question. To any one who does not live under the 
 stars and stripes, the ultimate disruption of the States 
 is a mere matter of time. A g-lance at the map 
 will show you the four or five divisions into which 
 it must ultimately split up. Is it not the very mercy of 
 God that this split should take place while the wide land ia 
 still so sparsely populated ? 
 
 What mig-ht not be the horrors of a split were it post- 
 poned to that epoch Avhich Lord Macaulay anticipated 
 for the disruption, when all that vast extent of country 
 was peopled up to its full producing* powers ! It has 
 come long" before that period, while there are yet niiUions 
 
89 
 
 post- 
 Ipated 
 juiitry 
 [t has 
 tllions 
 
 of virgin acres to be occupied, and while there is room 
 for the disputants to separate peacefully. It is not too 
 much to say, that the voice of nature and civilization 
 echoes the cry of ^ Separate in peace/ Why will the 
 North stop its ears to the cry? Are we then— to adopt 
 Lord Russell's most felicitous definition — to wish good 
 luck to the North in its strug-^le for domination, or to 
 the South in its strug-g-le for independence ? I wish to 
 see some o-ood for Eng-land in either result. If the South 
 wins, I fancy I can descry g-limmering" on the hori- 
 zon, g'radual freedom for the slave, a liberal conser- 
 vative constitution g-rowing" out of unbridled democracy, 
 free trade with a boundless expanse of the richest soil, 
 from which Eng-lish mills and Eng'lish ships will reap a 
 g-olden harvest, the hig-h civiHzation of old Europe 
 pervading' a peo})le prepared and gTateful for its in- 
 fluence, and a true all}", not only for Eng'land on the 
 Channel, but for Eng'land on the St. Lawrence. If the 
 North wins I would fain hope to see it enter into a fair 
 and wholesome competition with ourselves — the rich 
 ironmasters of Pennsylvania competing* with those of 
 AVolverhampton, the men of Massachusetts with the 
 men of Manchester. I would trust and pray that 
 the feelings of that fervent political people may be 
 tempered with more moderation and g-enerosity for 
 others, and that the Federal Government may cor- 
 dially respect the integrity of Canada as a depen- 
 dency of Great Britain. Sanguine as I am I cannot 
 be blind to the difficulties which surround that consum- 
 mation. When I turn my e3'es in that direction, I be- 
 liold a dense bank of clouds and fogs, through which 
 
I.- 
 
 40 
 
 oom visions of Federal bankruptcy, and prolong-ed and 
 ag'^ravated internecine feuds. I see the shackles of the 
 slave rivetted more firmly than ever, or else the whole 
 institution of slavery swept away in a whirlwind of car- 
 nage and arson, lust and outrage, famine and desolation, 
 the worst passions of an unchained democracy let loose to 
 work out its dream of universal insult and promiscuous 
 conquest, or else a military despotism placing its iron 
 yoke upon an enslaved people, and hounding them on to 
 outrage and aggression against the world. 
 
 THE END. 
 
[ and 
 fthe 
 s^hole 
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 3U0US 
 
 i iron 
 on to