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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, 11 est filmA A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de geuche d droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'Imagcs nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustreiit ia mAthode. 1 > 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 5 6 TI wick; A POPULAR VIEW OE" THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. BIT A. J. B. BERESFORD HOPE. THIRD EDITION. LONDON : JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. W. MAIDSTONE : WICKHAM, WEEK STREET ; C. J. COOKE, MIDDLE BOW. 1861. ^nce Sixpence. Thi ati enla liar suita quesi Grea PREFACE. The following: sketch is founded on a Lecture delivered at Kilndown Library, on November 13 and 19. While enlarging- and continuing^ it, I have preserved the fami- liar style in which it was originally delivered, as most suitable for what I intend to be a popular view of a question appealing: to the interests of every one in Great Britain. A. J. B. B. H. I ha cle till at wh pai me of am giv Ail will me£ auy hon ktio Sta< disti lanti rivei Miss the] A POPULAR VIEW 01> THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. \r I DO not conceal from my readers that I address them upon a very difficult subject for the man who desires to handle it so as to give a picture^ at once truthful and clear, of a civil war which is actually being* waged across the ocean. It is a current event of the day, one which at this very instant may be assuming fresh phases of which we have no idea ; and were I to republish this pamphlet next weeic, events might have hppp-^ned in the meantime which would oblige ue to recast a great deal of it. In handling the Civil War in America, I am anxious rightly to deal with that subject as it is — to give, as far as my reading, my acquaintance with many Americans, and the interest that I feel in the matter^ will enable me to do, a right view of the f ase. I do not mean to give Mr. Russell's, or Mr. " Manhattan's," or anybody else's view, but my own, so far as I can honestly come to a conclusion. I suppose every one knows the general features of the map of the once United States. The country may be divided into five great districts — the North Atlantic seaboard ; the South At- lantic seaboard; the north valley of the three great rivers which flow into the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio ; the south valley of the same ; and the Pacific seaboard, cut off from the rest of the conti- 6 nent by the Rocky Mountains. The Northern States grow a certain amount of grain^ but it is a manufactur- ing rather than a purely agricultural district— the Lan- cashire, in fact, of America, and contains the largest towns— New York, with its million of inhabitants, Phi- ladelphia with 600,000, Boston with 300,000. In the South the climate approaches the tropical, and the pur- suits are almost solely agricultural, the chief productions being, tobacco in Virginia, cotton, rice, and sugar in the other States. Florida is a huge swamp of not much good to anybody, and the northern valley of the Missis- sippi comprises the prairie district, vast tracts of country naturally covered with tall grass, but perhaps the finest corn^land in the world, and possessed of two great out- lets by water to the world outside— to the south, the three rivers already named, which unite before they reach the Mexican gulf j and, to the north, the St. Law*- rence, which is fed by those gigantic fresh-water lakes l3'ing between the States and the British dominions. As to the date of the foundation of the various States, I need only remark that the North-Eastern lot, New England, was settled by the Puritans, who fled from the harsh and persecuting policy of the Stuarts in the early part of the 17th century ; that New York, originally a Dutch settlement called New Amsterdam, passed into the possession of England in the reign of Charles II. ; that Pennsylvania owes its foundation to William Penn the Quaker ; that Virginia wag colonised by Sir Walter Italeigh in 1607 ; that the Carolinns were settled in the second half of the seventeenth century, and Georgia rather early in George II.'s reign j that Florida was bought from Spain, and the cluster of States in the lower basin of the Mississippi from France during the wei-e guidar milton driven indepei betwee a unite 3orgia lu the lof the first Consulship of Bonaparte^ at which time the whole district passed under the name of Louisiana. The re- maining* States were founded by the Americans them- selves under different circumstances — Texas having* revolted from Mexico and joined itself to the United States, and Cahfornia having^ been conquered from Mexico in the war of 184G, shortly after which the dis- covery of its gfold made it valuable and comparatively populous. To the North of California is the Pacific State of Oregon. Within the recently United States are included thirteen of what were British colonies in North America previous to 1776 ; Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfound- land having* preserved their alleg'iance ; added to which there are the Red River Settlement, the Hudson's Bay territories, and the recently formed British Columbia on the shores of the Pacific. Unluckily, George III. and bis Ministers tried to replenish the National Exchequer by taxing* the colonies without the consent of their own Legislatures. This was a g*reat moral and a great political mistake. The King and the Ministers were dogged. Discontent grew into disaffection, and resis- tance into revolution. Open war broke out iu 1776. Things went from bad to worse. The Ministry got feeble and angry. The great men of those days, Chat- ham and Burke, tried to patch up matters, but they were not listened to. The Americans were under the guidance of capable men — Washington, Franklin, Ha- milton, Jefferson ; and in the end, though at first almost driven to extremities, the colonists established their independence. A very feeble bond of union existed between the different colonies, and they hardly formed a united commonwealth. In 1787 a constitution was 8 framed; but in that Constitution each of the colonies retained certain substantial rights as an independent « State." I dare say a great many people in England^ when they read of this or that State taking this side or the other in the present unhappy war^ imagine it is as though 80 many counties in England were to rise up against the rest of the country. But this is far from being the right view. Though the United States are a Federal Union, yet they are United States. That is a name made up of an adjective and of a substantive in the plural; both of which imply that there are one, two, three, four '^ States," and so on, each of which States, more- over, has a Constitution of its own. It has its two Houses of what we should call Parliament, it has great powers of sovereignty within its own limits. The right of making war or peace, the privilege of coinage, and the command of the army and navy within certain limits, are reserved to the Federal Government. This Federal Government is also composed of two Houses of Legisla- ture, the House of Representatives and the Senate, both of which make up what is termed Congress. The House of Representatives is elected throughout the United States by ballot and universal suffrage, and sits for two years. The members of the Senate, elected for six 3'ears, represent whole States and not units of individuals. Every State, be it large or small, sends two representa- tives to the Senate, and New York, the most populous State, and California, though so large, send no more than Rhode Island, the smallest. At the head of the Federal Government is a chief officer called the Presi- dent, who, with a vice-president, is elected every four years. By the founders of the American commonwealth VI all lefl tien the ugh the the leral lame i the hree, nore- \ two great right ndthe limitB, deral egisla- ■3, hoth House nited or two 'or six iduals. esenta- pulous more of the Presi- y four [1 wealth it was intended that the best man in the States should be elected to this office, independent of part}'^, and certain elaborate machinery was devised to secure this end. The duty of selecting a President was placed in the hands of what are termed Presidential electors, specially appointed by the people of each State when the time for a fresh choice comes round, and it was thought, that by this means the best man would be chosen ; but time has shown the S3'stem to be one of the greatest humbugs and impostures that can be imagined. These electoral col- leges, instead of having a deliberative voice of their own, are merely the mouthpieces of those by whom they them- selves are appointed, and the election of President is just as much by direct universal suffrage as if this thin cobweb screen had never existed — each Presidential elector is simply sent up to vote for a particular man, the election taking place some months before the vacancy. Then again, there is a Supreme Court of Judicature appointed for life, which was intended to stand between the Presi- dent and Congress and the people, having in its hands the right of habeas corpus, and the power to quash any legislative enactments when opposed to the Constitution. Yet the president of that Court, Chief Justice Taney, has lately been subjected to insult by the Government and the military for exercising the unquestionable right of issuing a habeas corpus. These things are on this page, perhaps, rather out of place; but I mention them to show the practical working of the American Constitution, which resembles, in outside form, that of England — having its two Houses of Legislature, its old Saxon pri- vileges, its common and statute law, and its trial by jury — ^but in which all these glorious bulwarks of freedom, all these well poised safeguards of order, are alike over- 10 I I' <■ t 1 f. ruled and trampled down by that miserable, levelling^ democracy and universal suffragfe which is so rapidly landing" the Northern States in a perfectly Assyrian despotism. In the Southern States the unhappy, the abominable institution of slavery exists. This institution, I am sorry to say, was directly and clearly introduced into America by Eng-land. At the time of the declaration of inde- pendence every State but one of the thirteen tolerated and encouraged slavery. In process of time it was abolished in a certain number of States. Those with a temperate climate abandoned it because they found black to be less profitable than white labour — those retained it in which it was conceived the temperature was too hot and sweltering for Europeans ; but there is this pecu- liarity, that while in the free States the negro is treated with unchristian cruelty, excluded from the same church, from the same table, from the same railway carriage, from the same altar of God, as a loathsome beast of the field, in the slave States this terrible aversion has no ex- istence, or is found in a much milder degree. New York and Pennsylvania thought it cheaper to go on without blacks, and while in any political contest they attack the South for preserving slavery, and profess a g'reat deal of sympathy for the blacks, they treat them in the manner I have described. The ultra-abolitionist party in Ame- rica is very weak, except, perhaps, in New England. Abolition, if carried out at once, would be a source of the greatest misery to the blacka themselves, thrown as they would be upon their own resources, without having been educated for freedom, without the means to obtain their livelihood, without any of the requirements which would make liberty possible. The ultra- abolitionists are 11 e me- md. of as tuiu lich are in reality for the most part a party opposed to every" thing* like firm g-overnment or g-ood order, and, like clever politicians, they seize upon slavery as the weakest point for attack. By their threatenin^s, the quiet men in the North and the quiet men in the South^ who, without emancipating" at once all the slaves, would 3 et educate them up to liberty, are silenced and driven back. It is only fair to make this explanation. I am sure that no assembly of Eng'lishmeu ever hear slavery mentioned without feeling" the deepest aversion to it, but we oug-ht to put the saddle upon the rig-ht horse. It is rig-ht we should remember that the Southern States inherited Slavery from the old British colonial days — that many men in the South wish to see it abolished — that however wasteful of labour, however demoralising^ in many of its tendencies it may be, it is not so generally cruel as many believe. People's idea of slavery is for the most part derived from Mrs. Stowe's novels. She is no duubt a clever writer, but she is the mouthpiece of that ultra-abolitionist party to whom I have referred, and of which her brother, the Rev. Mr. Ward Beecher, who sells the seats in his church more unblushingly than anybody else in New York, and puts godliness up to auction in a manner which the famous Mr. Robins could hardly rival, is one of the g-reat lights. Slavery, I repeat, is a curse and a misfortune to the country in which it exists, but the best of the slaveowners make its chains aslig'ht as i)0ssible — they educate their blacks, they make them Christians, while in Africa they would have remained untaught and uncivilised. The slave trade, happily, is prohibited in America. In truth, most of the people in the Northern States do not wish to abolish slavery at once any more than the South. The case is just this. 12 virtuous merchant of New York or Boston would I the owner fi, i: . !; The not, of course, be the owner of a single slave, but then he lends his dollars on mortgage to the Southern slave- holders, and gets his interest upon the profits of slavery. In short, you quite understand that the North is free, and the South is slaveholding. As a proof of the feeling of the ultra-abolitionist party, one of them is said to have given this answer to the remark that a species of slavery existed among the Jews — " Well, if your God recosmises slavery, he is not the God for me." The North, as I have said, contains a large population, though of course a thin one as compared with Europe ; and you will probably ask me what is their condition of life. I am afraid I must answer that it is that most hopeless one in which, with vast national prosperity, with a prodigious apparent run of luck, in short, no real political virtue can be nourished. Enormous wealth, money rapidly made, cities growing up like mushrooms, great literary activity, great scientific inquiry, great dis- play of education, great facilities of locomotion, great manufactories, everything*, in a word, tending to civili- sation in an outside and selfish sense, have all ended in producing a feeble national character, no political faith, no corporate virtues. There are many excellent men in the country, men whom I honour and esteem, men whose thorough English hearts bespeak their an- cestry, but where are they politically? The educated and the rich are at a perfect disadvantage. Universal suffrage tramples everything down to a dead level. In- fidelity is rampant, there is the grossest superstition, spirit-rapping, and so forth. Habitual divorce saps the foundations of domestic life. The newspapers are violent, untruthful, scurrilous to a degree which we cannot ima- 13 lersal In- ition, the blent, ima- gine in this orderly old land. As for an election, con- ceive all Eng-land being" one borough — conceive a per- petual mass of elections, State and Federal, always beginning, never in suspense, managed as a matter of trade by desperate schemers, in which every man is a voter — conceive the candidates being men of no principles, jobbers who make a trade of politics— concefve of every office in the commonwealth, from the Prime Minister down to the postmaster in the humblest village, becoming vacant every four years, and most of those in the States each year, for disposal amongst the victorious party, and you will understand the democratic Constitution of America. Worse than all, in many States, notably in New York, the fountain of justice is polluted from the judges being elected for short terms by the mob, and underpaid while on the tribunal. In a few words, the North displays great wealth, great science, but no heart, no steady feeling, no abiding union, no political virtue — the educated men holding themselves aloof from the' contests of mobs, the rich men living luxurious selfish lives, because any chance of their taking part in the administration of the State is an utterly impossible dream without descending to the lowest depths of meanness. Germany, too, and Ireland, and other countries continue to pour in their streams of discontented, destitute emi- grants. In the South there is the same universal suffrage among the whites, but there, owing to the large landed proprietors and the conditions of the country, the mob has not the same power. A certain n-imber of the gentry have leisure to study politics as they ought to be studied — not merely for the advancement of their own self- interest, but for the interest of the country at large, according to their estimate. The consequence was that 14 for a number of years the Southern statesmen had great tveig^ht in the Union, as they were likely to have, being the men of political education and the men of adminis- trative head, for the special faults of the hot-tempered Southerners, such as their proneness to blood feuds, are not inconsistent with political earnestness. The North was like Nebuchadnezzar's image, with iron and brass at top, but with feet of clay, which have crumbled into dust. In the early da3'S of the Union there were two great political parties in the States. The Federalists afterwards called Whigs, the party of Washington, the English- minded statesman, were the representatives of strong government— the Democrats, under the lead of Jefferson, the disciple of the French revolution, were the advocates of weak government. The parties kept their names, but in time the principles they maintained completely changed. The Whigs became more and more identified with the North, and really represented the Democratic principle — the Demo- crats became more and more identified with the South, and represented the Conservative and landed interests. After the great men who founded the American Constitution — Washington, John Adams, Hamilton— had passed away, their party lost influence, and allowed power to pass into the hands of its rivals. I should note that in order to remove the seat of Government from mob influence, the capital had not been fixed at any of the great towns, but a new city was built upon the banks of the River Potomac, not far from the sea, upon a bit of land ceded by the State of Maryland, just within the boundary line of the Southern States, close to Virginia, but still in a tolerably midland situation in the north and south direction. That is the City of Washington, named after the great founder of the United States. . ,. . 15 We now come to the "feventa which heralded the pre- sent struggle. For some time the North had been try- ing* to undermine the legislative powers of the different States^ and in 18513 matters came to a crisis. The election of a President fell in that year, and the old Whig" party started as their candidate General Scott. He was an old man even then, a feecond-rate soldier, who had gained credit in the Mexican War, a very respectable sort of a gentleman, and though no great politician, a good candidate as things went. The Demo- crats started in opposition a nobody, one Franklin Pierce, a lawyer of New Hampshire. The contest re- sulted in the election of Pierce, and from that day the Whig party never held up its head. Pierce's Vice- President and his Secretary of State were nobodies too ; but he had one Southerner of great ability in his Cabinet, who had gained much credit in the Mexican War, though it is only fair to say that subsequently he was mixed up with certain discreditable proceedings of his State, Mississippi, which had contracted debts with some bubble banks without a stiver to pay them, and then repudiated her liabilities. But there was no question as to his ability, and his first wife was daughter of a former President, General Taylor — this man was Jefferson Davis, now President of the Confe- derate States, but at the time of which I speak War Minister in the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce. It is due to history that I should mention President Davis's con- nection at that time with Mississippi repudiation ; it is equally fair to add that, with all the numberless rabid attacks which the Northern press has made on him, I have never seen any other point made against his public, and none against his private character. The Presidency ■ t I t 10 of Pierce expired in 18.57. The slavery question, )-ou should understand, has always furnished its opponents with political capital. Some time before a compromise had been made that slavery should not be introduced into new territories above a certain line, but that had broken down. Slavery, you perceive, is not a matter of sentiment, of philanthropy, of religion, but a card which either side plays to suit its own purposes. Indeed, its ill-mated connection with the North compelled the South to press its extension into districts wholly unsuitf d for it as a political necessity. When the South stands alone, it will not, of course, attempt to establish slavery where slavery is manifestly unprofitable. The same desire for political preponderance made the South so hot to annex Cuba in the form of one or two more Slave States. Much as it may still desire this magnificent island, the same motive of making votes in the Senate would no longer exist. After the discomfiture of the Whig party in 1852, some cunning New York politicians laid their heads together to reorganise a new party out of the remains of the Whigs and the tail of discontented Democrats. The leader of this movement was a Mr. Seward, who amongst the unprincipled politicians of the day holds an exalted place. This new party styled themselves the Bepublicans, and their policy was to play with the slave question, to irritate and insult the South to the verge of desperation, but to pull up short of abolition, at the same time tickling their followers with the idea of annexing Canada to the United States. By the time of the Presidential contest in 1850 the Bepub- licans had attained considerable influence. They chose for their candidate an enterprising man, half a French- man, and once an officer in the Federal army, who in, woi mus Soul evei elect! confj AC(f Stat( 1 1 17 ints lise Lced had 51' of hich I, its louth for it ilone, vhere re for annex States, id, the >uld no party 4 their of the itented a Mr. of the styled to play South Ihort of jrs with IS. By Eepuh- ly chose 'rench- who in, his young-ei? days had made some daring* expeditions across the Rocky Mountains, had made several valuable g-eographical discoveries in what is now the State of California, and had, besides, after fighting I don't know how many lawsuits, acquired a large estate there as a reward of his pluck — -just the sort of man to become a prominent member of the Alpine Club, but with no qualifications for a statesman. However, with the ver- satility of a Frenchman, he made himself popular, and this man, J. C. Fremont by name, was started by the Republicans as a candidate for the Presidentship. The Democrats put forward Mr. Buchanan, a man of great plausibility and personally popular, but wanting in deep or stable views, who had just been the United States Minister in London. The contest ran very close be- tween the two. The State of Pennsylvania, which lies between North and South, is in the habit of holding the scales between the two parties, and on this occasion Pennsylvania, Buchanan's own State, went against Fremont, and Buchanan became President. The con- ditions on which future States should be annexed, whether as free or as slave States, waxed hotter and hotter during Mr. Buchanan's Presidency. There was a long struggle about Kansas, but to explain that fully would occupy too much time. The idea that secession must some day come grew stronger and stronger in the South. Buchanan's was a weak Government, weaker even than that of Pierce, which is saying a great deal. At length 1800 brought with it another Presidential election. The Democrat party now fell into hopeless confusion between its Northern and Southern sections. A Convention was held at Charleston, in the Southern State of South Carolina, when a complete split took B 18 'i place — the Southerns nominated Breckenridg'e of Ken- tucky, the Northerns Douglas, of Illinois, a man of great ability, but uncertain principles. A third section, calling' itself the Union party, made matters worse by proposing Mr. Bell, of Tennessee. About the same time the Re- publicans met at Chicago, in the g'rowing and important State of Illinois, on Lake Michigan, a town which has sprung up to vast proportions in an incredibly short time, to nominate their candidate. Seward would have been their natural and proper representative, but the object was to defeat Douglas. It was thought that Illinois would turn the scale, and throwing overboard all considerations of fitness, it was determined to put up an Illinois man. As I said before, the system of election makes it impossible that a really great man can become President. In the early days of the Union, when party spirit did not run so high, a few great men were placed at the head of affairs, but at present a man of ability makes so many enemies as well as so many friends that he has no chance against a plausible nobody, ready to promise anything the mob may demand. At this Chicago Bepublican Convention there was a tall attorney, named Lincoln, a man brought up in a rough way, a clever woodcutter, one who could navigate a barge down the Mississippi better than most men, and more especially famous as a rail-splitter, it being recorded that on one occasion he took a contract to split 30,000 rails in a marvellously short space of time. He could talk glibly enough, and managed to get elected a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, an assembly not quite so polished as the English House of Commons. We then find him figurmg as an attorney at the country town of Springfield, and in 1847 he was elected a mem- ber of the House of Representatives at Washington. I 19 happened last year to meet the pfentleman who was Speaker at that time, and I asked him if he remembered Mr. Lincoln. " Yes," he replied, " I have a va^ue recol- lection of a tall man expanding^ himself on the floor of the House." In 1849 Mr. Lincoln's Parliamentary career at Washington ended, but he was a great man down in Illinois ; and he followed Douglas in his canvass, speaking" wherever Douglas spoke, making a longer and a louder speech each time till he completely talked poor Douglas down. The consequence was that the great, the noble, the high, the virtuous Republicans at Chicago in the year 1800, when they met to select a candidate to be the future ruler for four years of 30 millions of the Anglo-Saxon race at a irost trying period of history, nominated the famous bargee, rail-splitter, and attorney, Abraham Lincoln, who, last autumn, was elected Presi- dent of the United States. I dare say nobody in this country, clever as he might be at rail-splitting, at navi- gating a barge, or at an attorne^^'s desk, would, with no other qualifications, ever become Prime Minister of .Eng- land, let alone County Court Judge. But let us examine the majority by which the aforesaid Abraham Lincoln, rail-splitter, bargee, and attorney, was elected President of the United States. According to the Constitution, the successful candidate must have a majority in the elec- toral colleges —being simply at the head of the poll will not suffice —otherwise, the choice rests with Congress. Lincoln obtained this clear majority in the electoral col- leges, but if we take the number of voters by whom these collesres were themselves elected, we find that Lincoln received the suffrages of only 1,857,000 voters, while the unsuccessful candidates polled 2,804,000, leaving Lin- coln in a minority of nearly one mil -ion, while the 20 Southern States were almost to a man ag^ainst him. If the votes of South Carolina could have been counted, the numbers would have appeared still higher ag'ainst him, but in that State the Legislature chooses the Presidential electors. The large South, I say^ was almost to a man against him, and in the North he had only a majority of obout three to two. He was, in short, as it was said, the President of a sectional vote. Yet this man, though only supported by about two-fifths of the entire people, is Presi- dent of the United States— we shall presently see what is his capacity for the oflBce. The extent of territory oc- cupied by the United States must not be lost sight of in considering this question — it is larger than two Europes, and interests have grown up diametrically opposed to each other. In a Bepublic where everything is changed every four years, the supporters of different parties are not opponents, but enemies — they do not fight as in England with the feeling that you will be in power to-day, I shall be in to-morrow, but with a bitter nnimositj' of which we happily have no parallel. The Republicans, in the triumph of their success, were very sweet-mouthed, and pretended only to be desirous to help the South, as though they knew what were Southern interests better than the South itself; but it was well known that now they had got the curb rein in their hand they would grind down the Southern States beneath a crushing despotism. The South was placed in a position such as no great district had been placed before under the form of constitutional freedom — it was to be ruled over its entire wide area by the man whom it had with one voice rejected. The first move was made by the fiery State of South Carolina, which acted whilst others were thinking, and voted itself straight out of the Union. Whether it was SI If the tiino, ntial tnan ty of I, the I only Presi- hatis ry oc- iof in iropes, to each i every ire not ngland 1 shall [hich we in the led, and though than the ley had id down The district [itutional area hy )f Sonth ling, and Ir it was morally justified in so doing is a grave question. The strict letter of the Constitution does not mention secession; hut remembering that the Federal union of the United States grew out of the rebellion in 177 6, remembering that we, in 1688, acting according to the spirit though not ac- cording to the letter of the Constitution, changed the ruling dynasty, he must be a cunning logician to proye that the English Revolution in 1688 was justifiable, that the American War of Independence in 1776 was also justi- fiable, but that it was an act of unjustifiable rebellion for one of the United States to resume the full sovereignty of its own Legislature in the year 1860. In shdrt, South Carolina judged for itself in seceding from the United States last year as it and twelve other States judged for themselves when they united 80 years ago. Six other States, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi^ Louisiana, and, later, Texas, soon followed the example of South Carolina ; and at the beginning of this year a Congress was held at the city of Montgomery, the capi- tal of Alabama, at which the seceded States assumed the formal style of " the Confederate States of America," and voted themselves a Constitution similar, with a few exceptions, to that of the United States. The principal points of difference, besides the more explicit recognition of slavery as a home institution, accompanied by a formal prohibition of the slave trade, which is not found in the Constitution of the United States, where that traffic is only prohibited by Act of Congress, con- sisted in — first, invoking the favour and assistance of Almighty God ; secondly, ordering that the President should be elected for six years instead of four, but with- out the premium for intriguing involved in his being permitted a re-election ; thirdly, providing that the Ministers should have seats in the House in order that 22 they mig'ht explain and defend their polic}', instead of havingf to trust to backstairs arrang-ements with informal mouthpieces working* for a consideration ; and lastly, dealing" a heavy blow to corruption, in declaring the permanency of all but the higfhest offices— alterations which I think none will consider as deteriorations from the original Constitution of the United States. The use of the word '' Confederate" as contrasted with "United" was intended as a more explicit recog'nition of Stnte rights. They then proceeded to the election of a pro- visional President, and their choice fell upon a man who had stood out as the lender of opinion in the South, one who would never have been elected President of the United States, simply because he was a man of com- manding' intellect, but whom the Montg^omery Congress, from some inscrutable reason, put at the head of affairs in the South. This man was Jefferson Davis, of whom I have already spoken. Without relying too much on physiognom}^, I appeal to the carte de visites of both Lincoln and Davis, and I think all who see them will agree that Jefferson Davis bears out one's ideas of what an able administrator and a calm statesman should look like better than Abraham Lincoln, gTeat as he may be as rail-splitter, barg*ee, and country attorney. There is no doubt that Mr. Davis is an able man, a good orator, and thoroughly versed in military matters. When Secretary of War in President Pierce's Cabinet he greatly improved the Federal military academy at West- point, in New York, where the officers of the American regular army are trained, and where he himself was educated. Well, President Davis was inaugurated on February 18, his vice-president being Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, also a man of great mark, and formerly a very prominent though young member of Congress. The 23 [of ual tly, the ions rom \ use ted" ^tote pro- who I, one f the com- gress, affairs whom Lchon [ both m will f what d look Day be lere is |orator, When Inet he West- lerican ilf was ited on kens, of a verv The North has g'oue on complaining' since the war broke out that the South swindled the public money, robbed the military stores, seized the forts, and so on ; but they quite forg-et that if Northern taxes went to build and equip forts in the South, Southern taxes also went to build and equip those forts and those ships and find those stores in the North which are being used towards the subjug'ation of the Confederates. The Unionists also say that some of the seceded States have been formed subse- quent to the Declaration of Independence, and therefore have no orig'inal sovereign rights ; but they forget that those States were specially admitted into the Union upon precisely the same footing* as the orig'inal thirteen. I repeat that, according to the letter of the Constitution, the Southerners have not secession rights, but 1 also say, in the name of 1688 and 1770, that the spirit of that Constitution and the explanation given of it at the time it was framed by one of its most eminent framers justify them in making good their own, not in the way of indi- vidual rebellion, but in the way of an uprising of States, each with its own Constitution and its own Government. Separated from the South, now was the time for the North to show its civilisation,, its patriotism, its Spartan virtues before the whole world. Let us see how it begins. I should tell you, first of all, that the Kepublicans se- cured the vote of Pennsylvania for Lincoln by promising the manufacturers of that State a tariff which should protect them from, or rather prohibit, foreign competition, a promise equally agreeable to manufacturing Massachus- setts. So, in the last da3'^s of Buchanan's Presidency, when most of the Southern senators and representatives had left Washington, the rump of a Congress that re- mained passed a new tariff bill of a highly Protectionist, »4 [ i I if not of a prohibitory character, and pretended to impose it over the whole of the old Union. This was the first use the North made of its victory. The ag^ricultural South stuck out for Free Trade. At first the North talked of letting* the South go out of the Union. Indeed, Mr. Buchanan, who continued in office till March the 4th, though his successor was known for some months before, virtually endorsed the secession. Lincoln, when inaug^urated, made a speech of so ambig-uous a character that his old antagonist, Doug-las, a man of peace, thought it looked to a pacific solution, and offered him his unoffi- cial services. Used-up politicians, too, spent or wasted their leisure in scheming* impossible plans of reconcilia- tion. In a word, from December till April the North swayed about, intrigued, and maundered without any fixed policy or any motive apparent than that of looking after its own advantage. In April, when Lincoln had been President for a month, with Seward as his Secretary of State, it became known that a small fort in the harbour of Charleston, the principal town of South Carolina, still held by a Major Anderson for the North, was being* quietly rein- forced from Washington, contrary, as Davis unequivo- cally asserted, to the honourable assurance of the North- ern Government, when the South Carolinian armament, under the command of an able officer named Beauregard, attacked Fort Sumter, and after a sharp conflict, in which, however, no man fell on either side, succeeded in cap- turing it. General Peter Beauregard is a native of Louisiana, and was educated at Westpoint Academy, where he distinguished himself^ and he is now in the prime of life. In the Mexican war, when a young lieu- tenant, he over-persuoded General Scott and evei'ybody 25 for ft came leston, by a rein- uivo- orth- meiit, ard, hich, jii cap- ive of demy, ill the g lieu- ybody else, inducing them to attack the eity from one side when it was proposed to attack it from another, and the consequence was that the place fell at once with scarcely any loss of hfe, instead of a long" sieg-e being" rendered necessary. This exploit of his gained him much praise, and he is now the general second in command to Joseph Johnston of the Southern forces upon the Pptomac, a river that runs by Washing-ton, of which you have so often heard. I need not trouble you with the histories of the other Southern generals, Gustavus Smith, Price, Lee, Albert Johnstone, Macculloch, and Bishop Polk of Louisiana, who has for the present exchanged the lawn sleeves for the soldier's uniform. It is, by the way, a singular thing that most of the principal officers both in the army and navy of the United States should have sided with the South. In the navy there is Tatnall, who at the Peiho said that blood was thicker than water, and helped Admiral Hope in the hour of his need. There is Pegrim, too, who was of such service to us in China in 1855. There is also the eminent philosopher Maury, whose scientific discoveries have made famous. In fact, nearly all the chief men ia both services joined the cause of Dixie Land, as the South is pleased to call itself, after a favourite negro melody in honour of a model planter of old time, imaginary or real, called Dixie; while the !Nevv Englanders, and in a measure all the North, are Yankees. To continue the history of events. The fall of Fort Sumter caused one of those sudden and shameless changes of feeling in the North to which democracies are most prone. Up to that time the secession had been more than excused. The loss of that stronghold irritated the national vanity, and hanging was too good for the 26 I I ; " rebels/' All classes caug^ht the fever, or shammed it for fear of their dear lives. The Democrat party was the most violent of any, out of spite that they had lost that Southern support by which they had so long- ruled the once United States. The Eepublicans said less, and looked out for the picking's of oflfice and campaig-ning*. Lincoln and his Prime Minister, Mr. Seward, veered with the wind and shouted war. Douglas, the only Northern statesman who might have had a good influence, broke up and died of sheer exhaustion. Bell and Breck- enridge are now with the Confederates, while the Presi- dent of their Congress, Howell Cobb, of Georgia, is that member of Buchanan's Cabinet who was specially ap- pointed to do honour to the Prince of Wales — so much for their being* mere rebels. Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas soon joined the Confederates, who removed their capital to Richmond, in the former State. The South Hew to arms. Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, the four border Slave States, trembled, and still tremble in the balance. Ever - State in the North turned out its mobs with new-made colonels and captains, self-elected, fresh from the shopboard or worse, and called them regiments of volunteers. These trooped in shoals to Washington, and among their generals Mr. Sickles bore a distinguished place. Eng- land, of course, followed by France, issued a proclama- tion of neutrality as between the ''belligerents." Seward, speaking through the ribald press of New York, took advantage of this political and necessary step to be- spatter England with an unceasing torrent of calumny and vituperation, which has not yet ceased, while France, which has taken the same course, was prudently let alone. At the same time they sent their ships to blockade a 27 Eng- slama- jward, took ro be- [lumny Vance, alone. Ikade a country which they refused to acknowledg-e as belligfe- rent, and called on foreign countries to acknowledge that blockade. The hope of coercing Maryland, which is in its heart Confederate, is the only excuse for the other- wise strange obstinacy in retaining the seat of Federal Government at Washington during the conflict. Thus did the North engage upon a war for domination in which spite, vanity, and the lust of uncontrolled supre- macy were the main agencies, a war which can be only justified on principles to which the very existence of the United States gives the standing lie. General Scott, who was in command at Washington of the Northern armies, determined to crush the South, which stood en- camped in sight of that very capital, by force of arms. He had among his military colleagues Banks, a lawyer, once Speaker of the House of Representatives; and Butler, a sort of Edwin James, from Boston, who has recently delivered himself in a speech of the remarkably humane, conciliatory, and Christian hope that the North- erners would fight the Southerners by the light of their smoking and rebellious cities. Out of all the South the North only retain Fortress Monroe on the shore of Virginia, that of Pensacola, with a navy yard, on the shore of Florida, some small islands to the south of Florida, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, more recently seized by the benevolent Butler, and already half washed away by the Atlantic, and now Beaufort, in South Carolina. Over the remaining wide South the Confederate flag bus floated unquestioned for months. The most business-like step which the North took was to establish their blockade of the Southern ports — a blockade, however, which has allowed the Nashville and many other vessels to enter and depart. 2S The South, on its side, is holding* its cotton crop inland^ as a measure of precaution for fear of seizure, and as the basis of their war currenc}^, ready to be let loose on the world as soon as peace comes and the Confederate States are admitted among" the family of nations. No doubv both North and South went into war with a great mistake on its mind. The North hoped that the slaves would rise to massacre and ravish the whites, and devas- tate the seceding" States. The slaves have stood by their owners, and are zealous for Dixie. The South hoped that the Northern Democrats, for old friendship's sake, would aid them in making" good their independ- ence. The Northern Democrats stoked the war. So the North prepared at starting* to achieve great exploits. One of the earliest of these was to burn several of their own vessels lying" in the Norfolk navy yard, only we hear that the Confederates have since raised the hulks, and are now covering" them with iron plates. Then there was a great battle at Big- Bethel, in which the Northerners fired on each other; but it was at last determined to attempt some exploit which should eclipse all these, and General McDowell, in command of the United States army on the Potomac, was ordered to ad- vance across Virginia to Richmond, the temporary capital of the Confederate States. So McDowell advanced in great glor}', great confidence, and great determination, to a stream called Bull's Run,* a few miles from Wash- ington, on the 21st of July. The only unlucky feature about the affair was that several of the regiments had only engaged to serve for three months, and it so hap- * The name is properly Bull llun, i.e. " stream," but the " s " has in England been as completely added to it as the " Hou" to " Goiunont," on the field of Waterloo. md, i as e on rate No :reat iaves jvas- l by Jouth ship's pend- . So ploit8. ' their »ly we hulks, I Then ch the last eclipse of the o ad- capital iced in nation, Wash- 'eature [its had hap- "b" has lou" to 29 pened that in some cases the time expired as soon as the first cannon was fired, and beings men of business, know- ing" that it was quite as irregular and unpunctual to serve one minute after the stipulated time as to serve one minute less, they walked off towards home. The others did not walk off, but after a hot engao'eraent, there was a cry of '' Cavalry !" as if horses were wild beasts, and then a cry of " Masked batteries!" and the brave Yankees, like " Johnny Cope," '^ took heels for their life and away they ran." Mr. Russell, of the Times, relates, that he asked one of these flyinji^ warriors what he was afraid of, to which the gentleman, who evidently did not like advice, even though g'iven in the shape of a question, replied, " I'm not afraid of you," and snapped his pistol at him. In fact, as one of the Americans ex- pressively said, " They were whipped into a cocked hat." The Confederates were commanded by Johnston, Beau- reg-ard, and Davis, who in a modest despatch described the great victory they had g-ained by saying" that at the end of a hard-fought day they remained in possession of the field. While this was gfoing" on, the newly-elected Northern Congress was sitting" at Washing"ton in extraordinary session, passing furious bills for men and money, without stint, but not breathing one word of the repeal of the infamous Morill tariff. With that fickle disposition characteristic of the American democracy, who use a man for four or five years, oi months, or days, and then throw him aside as they would a sucked orange, as they have been doing", and will do in time to every one of the commanders who serve them in this war; Scott was called an old fogey, and nick-named " Fuss and Feathers," and a young" man, aged 35, was hunted up out of a rail- f 80 way office, at Chicag-o, whither he had retired to an honourable professional career, after havings resigned a Captain's commission in the regular army. This gentle- man, now become General George M'Clellan, had re- ceived his education at Westpoint, where he had been a favourite with Jefferson Davis, who had sent him in early youth on a tour of enquiry, to the seat of the Crimean War. General M'Clellan was immediately appointed to the chief command of the army of the Potomac, and at once dubbed " the young Napoleon," by anticipation. Very recently, on General Scott'a retirement, he has become Commander-in-chief of the entire Federal army. It is said that he is a great disciplinarian, and yet his officers 'liquor" at the city taverns; he is said to be a great man of drill, but yet the troops under his command never show themselves without marauding and destroying; he is very fond of making demonstrations, and the result of one of these at Leesburgh. or Ball's Bluff, a little while ago, was, that the Northerners were driven by the Confederates into the river, even quicker than three months before they had run away from Bull's Run. For some time the Confederates occupied the heights in front of Washington, and made an imposing show of batteries well mounted with artiller}"^, and when they at length withdrew from the position, it was discovered that the " guns" with which they had threatened and frightened the capital consisted of logs of wood and stove pipes ! So much for the position of affiiirs upon the Potomac. But in Missouri, at a distance of more than 900 miles, the strife is also hotly raging. Fremont was sent to command the Federal army there, and issued so reckless an abolitionist proclamation that Lincoln had to make reqi Fre Wei I blin^ Pri( 31 eights low of ley at ivered Id and Id and upon miles, lent to leckless make him recant it. Under Fremont was a Colonel Blair, brother of one of Lincoln's Ministers, and belonging to a family possessing* the same kind of influence with the Government which certain of the aristocracy are often supposed to have in England, and which consists in the members of the favoured family always obtaining good places. I'here is a very pretty story in connection with these two upholders of Union. It seems they quarrelled, and Blair, who was put under arrest by Fremont, wrote a letter to the President full of the most bitter accusa- tions against his superior^ and amongst other things charging* him, besides graver offences of jobber}^, &c., with having sentinels at his door, so that he might not be pestered with every tom fool's errand, and with driv- ing four-in-hand. Thereupon, Mrs. Fremont wrote to the President, and the President answered to Mrs. Fremont, and the letters got into the papers. The upshot of the matter was that Blair was released, and still retains his position, while Fremont's recall was long suspended, and was at last so timed as to coincide with a prospective battle of which he held the strings. By way of completing the bungle, the Washington Govern- ment, not content with sj recalling Fremont, published their justification in the shape of a confidential report from Adjutant-General Thomas, the result of which was that all their secrets will be published to the Confede- rates, including the fact that Thomas believes it will require 200,000 men to keep Kentucky in the Union. Fremont's friends talked of making him Dictator of the West. Fremont himself subsided in peace. In the meantime, while the Federal chiefs were squab- bling amongst themselves, the Confederate General, Price, in Missouri, won a victory at a place called t Springfield (not to be confounded with the town of the same name in Illinois), at which General Lyon, the Federal Commander, one of the best men on the North- ern side, was killed, and then took the city of Lexington, with an immense quantity of stores. One more instance of Yankee prowess. The blockad- ing* force on the Southern coast attacked New Orleans j the Confederates sent down a sort of battering* hulk, and the Northern squadron narrowly escaped destruction. The latest effort of the North is the enormous naval expedition of 85 ships with 80,000 men on board, which, with some losses, has made g-ood the capture of Port Royal Fort in South Carolina, and entrenched its men on the ruins of the once flourishing town of Beaufort sacrificed in self-defence by the Confederates. From these warlike operations, let us now turn to the social position of the country. Alone in the States which have joined the Confederacy, there is a Northern party in those counties of Virginia to the North- West, "hich lie be3''ond the Alleghanies and on the Ohio. These have, in fact, been settled by Northerners. Some little time since these counties had a convention, sepa- rated themselves from the State of Virginia, and consti- tuted themselves into the new State of Kanawha. This proceeding, after a little coyness, Lincoln and his go- vernment have accepted, although it is palpably far more unconstitutional, and a far more flagrant act of secession than that of the Confederate States, which retain their legislatures, while '* Kanawha" had no ante- cedent unity, and no constitution of its own, I have alretjdy mentioned that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been subjected to insult for doing his duty. An even more flagrant instance of Lincoln's contempt 33 f thfl , the orth- gton, ickad- leans ; £, and iction. naval which, f Port ;s men eaufort » to the States orthern West, e Ohio. Some 1, sepa- consti- This his go- ,bly far t act of which ante- I have uprenie is duty, onteijipt for constitutional law has since occurred. A minor had enlisted in the army ag'ainst the will of his parents, who applied for a writ of habeas corpus to the District Court of Washington. It was, of course, granted, and for doing what was simply his duty, President Lincoln, without so much as proclaiming martial law, ordered the Provost-Marshal at Washington to station a sentry at Judge Merrick's door, and not to allow him to ad- minister the common law of the land! The Court was justly indignant ; but it was powerless, and could only proclaim the downfall of constitutional freedom in a protest as full of dignity as void of hope. Lincoln, har- dened in insolence, has stopped Judge Merrick's pay and keeps him under surveillance, while he has declared that no person whom he has arrested on suspicion shall have the benefit of counsel, nor even be allowed to see a lawyer. Thus has this rail-splitter, bargee and attorney, suspended upon his own sole authority the ancient con- stitutional privileges won after so many struggles by the English race. The excuse for these abominable acts of tyranny is that lawyers and judges are apt to have " Southern tendencies." Perhaps this may be true, for Lincoln's behaviour begins to make people think that Southern tendencies mean tendencies towards habeas corpus, tendencies towards open trial, tendencies towards a jury's verdict, as they are tendencies towards Free Trade rather than Protection, and Constitutional Go- vernment rather than to Government by the light of smoking cities. In the State of Maryland things are still worse. A little while since a new State Legislature was elected. It was supposed that this would vote for secession, and so upon mere suspicion all the obnoxious members were arrested, and carried off by Lincoln's emissaries to a gaol c 34 i in New York; while in the streets of Baltimore, the chief town of Mary hind, ladies are stopped, arrested, and insulted, for wearing^ colours which the ruffians whom Lincoln's Government has turned into policemen call secessionist. Elsewhere in the North a perfect reign of terror exists. The mobs destroy newspaper offices, and silence all free thought, while the dregs of society are induced to enlist in the Federal army by the extravagant prices set on their services. A letter recentl}'' appeared in the Guardian, in which the writer says: — •> : ■. . r.; .. i\: " You see that my hopes of a peaceful solution of out troubles were not realized. In common with many other people I was misled by the pacific declarations of Mr. Lincoln ; but alas ! our eyes have been opened to the melancholy fact that the party in power prefers its own narrow-minded, sectional, selfish, and fanatical interests to the welfare of the country at large; and we are i.ow plunged into a civil war which might have been avoided by a little common sense and Chris- tian charity. The course of the Administration has been marked by a disregard to truth, honour, love of country, and everything which an Englishman would understand by patriotism. All has been sacri- ficed to the interests of a vulgar fauaticisra. We have drifted since April last into a cold-blooded, cruel, unprincipled despotism. We have lost freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from ille- gal searches, the right of habeas corpus, the right of trial by jury, and the right to be confronted by accusers. Our first and purest men are now lying imprisoned in a Bastille (Fort Lafayette) ; our women are seized on suspicion, imprisoned, and subjected to indigni- ties ; letters are opened in the post-ofl&ce, and an odious system of espionage fastened on the country — indeed, we only need the gallows and the guillotine to have re-enacted here the worst scenes of the French Bevolution. * * * In Fort Lafayette (in New Tork Harbour) there are numbers of our best citizens, the first gentlemen in the Sta1;e, huddled together, thirty of them in a single room, with accommoda- tion (to use the language of one) like those of a dog in a kennel." I will also give two extracts from a courageous sermon preached by a He v. Wm. Stearns, from Maryland, in of] 36 , the ssted, fiians jemen lerfect jpaper egs of my by letter writer lies were nsled by ave been 8 its own le welfare civil war ad Chris- larked by ing which een sacri- 'ted since sm. "We from iUe- Ed by jury, nd purest ette); oyxp to indigni- system of he gallowB ihe French lOur) there the, Statie, ccomnaoda- lennel."*' s serwon yland, in the Northern City of Newark, New Jersey, for which he was like to have had a state prosecution, in which, speak- ing" of North and South, he says : " t"f l..tli,^(t \u,/- " To me, who know both parts of the country thoroughly, who know that, while each has its virtues, each its faults, nine-tenths of all the infidelity, nine-tenths of all the divorces, niue-tenthg of all the bribery of electors and legislators, is at the door of the North, all this would be provocative of a smile, were it not for the terrible calamity it has helped to bring on, and is helping to continue. * * * Twenty years ago we moved heaven and earth because the right of petition was violated in the persons of certain citizens of Massachus- setts, though the petition was for the dissolution of the Union. Now a man is arrested by the police, in the neighbouring city, for trying to get people to sign a petition to Congress for a restoration of peace." I could tell a great deal more, but I must bringf my remarks to a close. We see that the North with all its civilization, with ail its pretence of liberty, with all its scien- tific progress, with all its enormous wealth, is yet destitute of national virtue, of unity, of justice, of honest}', at first professing to allow the South to secede, and then proclaim- ing a cruel war, at the rate of eighty millions sterling a year, sending out its thousands to be mown down by the bullet and the sword — sacrificing life, mone}^, national cha- racter, all in the loathsome attempt to crush a country as large as Europe, all in the vain hope of bringing the Con- federate States again into the Federal Union as brothers at the point of the bayonet ! We see, on the other hand, the South destitute of much of the wealth possessed by the North, destitute of many of its advantages, and hampered by slavery, bnt yet fighting* desperately and determinedly to avoid the yoke attempted to be placed upon it. it has put its best man at the head of affairs, and it appears to obey him with one voice. The North seems deluded with u i , 30 the idea that if the South were once subdued it would be easy to reconstruct the Union. We who live at a dis- tance, and can look at these thing's impartially, know how utterly impossible it is that the United States can ever exist agfain. No doubt the South is greatly in want of money. The cotton crop is locked up in the interior — the planters will not bring' it down to the ports because of the risk that it may fall into the hands of their oppo- nents, and there is probably no metallic currency, but simply paper money, based upon the estimated value of the cotton crop. Nevertheless they raise armies and equip them we hardly know how. Three hundred years ag-o, Holland achieved its indejiendence of Spain ag-ainst much g;reater odds than the South has to contend with ; and though there are eighteen millions in the North (counting" distant California and Oreg-on) ag'ainst nine millions in the South, with more than three millions in the border States and the district of Columbia round Washing-ton abiding* the fortunes of the war, yet the singleness of purpose with which the Confederates act gives them great advantag^e over opponents whose coun- sels are divided. In the North the farm and merchandise, pleasure and profit, ambition and selfishness, still count up their millions of votaries and their millions of dollars. In the South all secondary considerations are merg-ed in the one supreme g-reat national life-throe. It was at one time fancied that slavery would be an element of weakness to the South, but so far from the slaves rising* in a servile insurrection, they are actually a right arm of strength to their owners, and much as we may wonder at it, they seem to be working hard for the very men against whom it Mas supposed they would be the first to turn their hands. For tlie snubbing which the President g'ave F ing- th( coin, fo aand-fo But appears South, lions of permane real stru border S the Sout we must dence ap into at le the Midli two, at Mountaii would be been con; and the because t only neig republic number o the other Europeai frontier, Foreig'n great bar the like, that they should 37 g;ave Fremont in the matter of bis proclamation declar- ing the immediate emancipation of slaves I praise Lin- coln, for the horrors of war would be increased a thou- sand-fold were a servile rebellion fostered, r n( ;'<*tl,- But what will be the end of the struggle ? One thing appears perfectly certain — the North cannot conquer the South. They may devastate it, they may sacrifice mil- lions of treasure and a host of men, but they will never permanently subjugate the South against its will. The real struggle, in fact, at present is, to decide whether the border States shall hereafter belong to the North or to the South. If we look at the map with impartial eyes, we must rise convinced the inevitable design of Provi- dence appears to be that the country should be divided into at least four great commonwealths, the North- West, the Midland (if the latter is not rather marked out for two, at least, between the Alleghany and the Hocky Mountains), the South, and the Faciiic. This division would be well for North America itself. Hitherto it has been conscious not so much of strength as of numbers, and the LTnited States hectored and bullied other powers because they had nobody to keep them in order. Their only neighbours were Canada on the north, and the weak republic of Mexico on the south. Once divided into a number of commonwealths, each would be a check upon the other, and each would fall into the position of an European nation. Each would have to maintahi its frontier, to keep up a standing army, to have a watchful Foreign Office. Well and good. VV'ould that be any great hardship ? Every other country in the world does the like, and it is time that our bumptious cousins, now that they have become men anil acquired bone and sinew, should assume the responsibilities of life, and no longer 38 display that childish petulance which may have been excusable in the young" days of the Republic. Such a division would be good, too, for the blacks themselves, because the slave-owners, unfettered by the intrigues of a larg-e party playing fast and loose with this question, and of another smaller party preachhig" immediate eman- cipation, another name for immediate starvation, would, for their own self-interest, make such arrangements as would lead to the gradual abolition of slavery. There would no longer be any political necessity for extending slavery over territories where it had not even a climatic excuse. That in progress of time British North America will be a free and independent country no one can doubt. I hope that England will not then be mad enough to re- peat the blunder of George the Third, and of Abraham Lincoln, and try to hold those colonies when they are pipe for self-action, nor at the same time seek to drive them into independence so long as they like to nestle under our wing ; but we should so act that when they become independent they may remain our near and dear allies. Canada in the North, the Confederate States in the South, rely chiefly upon agriculture, and is it not common sense that the great intermediate manufacturing district, turbulent, blustering, and aggressive, could best be kept in check by neighbours as powerful as itself. There is no need for us to interfere at the present. I saw in the city article of the 2'imes rather more than a fort- night ago that for some time past the market for cotton goods had been overstocked, and that the present stop- page in the supply of cotton, by checking* production for a time, would be likely to prevent more bankruptcies than it occasioned. 39 But though we have no need to interfere, we may surely speak out our own opmions without being* threat- ened, either by Mr. Lincohi or Mr. Seward, with the loss of Canada, or with a war more unprincipled even than that which they are already wag-ing*. We cannot help seeing" that the North, with all its civilization, is the hotbed of anarchy, and that the South, in spite of the dark blot which stains its escutcheon, is fig-hting* with one heart and mind for its independence from a hateful thraldom. We cannot help seeing" that, while Abraham Lincoln is an incapable pretender, Jefferson Davis is a bold, a daring", yet politic statesman. We may well wish to see the American States peacefully separate into the great divisions marked out by nature — we may well wish to see bloodshed cease and peace restored ; but I con- tend, and I know the majority of thinking" men in this country ag-ree with me, thoug;h they are too mealy- mouthed as 3'et to say so, that the best and readiest method towards that end will be the establishment, as soon as possible, of the complete independence of the Confederate States. P.S. This was written before Captain Wilks, in the Federal interest, had insulted the British flag" by drag"- ginof the Confederate envoys away from under its protection. I leave this fact to speak for itself as a comment on what I have said. « ' rn vn ^i •yvui'V , l^nd P.S. The Commissioners have since been released. This action, and the way in which it was done, do not incline me to modify the views which I enunciated in the above lecture. _,., ^,, i,l„^^,, .,j,^,^ ^^ II ••'"1 ::.«.; >.hi J! ajJli* ,.!.!