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THKEE MONTHS IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 . I 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 OB 
 
 THE PRESENT ATTITUDE .,- 
 
 AS DETERMINED BY PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. STLTI^TEVANT, T). D. 
 
 PBKSIDKNT OF II.LmOIS GOLl-KGK. 
 
 CH1CA.GJ-0: 
 
 JOHN A. NORTON, 
 
 126i DEARBORN STREET 
 1864. 
 
Chicago, July 5, 1884. 
 Rev. J. M. STURTEVANT, D. D., 
 
 Jacksonville, 111. 
 
 Dear Sir — The undersigaed desire to express to you their belief that 
 the publication of the Lecture delivered by you in this city on the 28th day 
 of April last, on the sentiments and opinions of the people of Great Britain, 
 relative to the civil strife now going on in this country would meet a demand 
 which has long been felt, and which nothing else known to us so well supplies^ 
 
 We Lhinlv it a duty which we owe to ourselves and to our nation not to 
 sufifer such an opportunity to pass, without preserving, if possible, in some 
 tangible and permanent form, the views thus offered by you upon a question 
 of so much interest to the American public. We are also persuaded that 
 the publiciUion of your lecture will contribute greatly to the instruction of 
 our people in the duties which they owe to their own government, and lead 
 them to value more highly those political privileges and institutions which 
 th;\t government guarantees to her citizens. 
 
 Entertaining these views with regard to your lecture, we would most re- 
 spectfully solicit a copy for publication. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 CHARLES WALKER, L. P. HILLTARD, 
 
 U. F. .MATHER, J. N. JEWETT, 
 
 LEVI B. TATT, B. W. RAYMOND, 
 
 C. a. HAMMOND, JOSEPH HAVKN, 
 
 GRANT GOODRICH, B. W. BI.ATCHKORD, 
 
 H. K. SEELYE, J. C. IJUItKOUGHS. 
 
 F. W. FISK, B. S. cm- SIMM UGH, 
 
 SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, Z. M. HUM I'll KEY, 
 
 H F. STEELE, R. W. PATTLllSON, 
 
 LCI HER HAVEN, WM. W. PATXON, 
 
 THO'S, B. BRYAN, E. B. WARD, Detroit, Mich. 
 THOMAS J. TURNER, Freeport, Ills. 
 
 Illinois College, July 20, 1864. 
 Messrp. CHARLES WALKER, H. F. MATHER, AND OTHERS: 
 
 Ge.ntlkmkn— I thank you for your kind estimate of my lecture delivered in 
 your city on the 28th of April last Inasmuch as my own mind underwent 
 cons-iderable changes during my sojourn in Britain, respecting the value of 
 British opinion on American affairs, and the present and prospective relations 
 of England as at present governed to our own country and to universal liberty, 
 I am more than willing to give the reasons of those changes to the American 
 public. I therefore without hesitation place my manuscript at your disposal. 
 
 Yours, very respectfully, 
 
 J. M. STURTEVANT. 
 
 F. A. Pierce & Co., Printen, ISO l4kke Strest. 
 
 u 
 
GREAT BiQTAlN AKD THE UiNlTED STATES. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlkimen: — 
 
 Yon will not expect to be entertained to-night with the 
 novel and thrilling incidents of foreign travel. I tippear 
 before yon for no snch purpose, l)nt to report as well as I 
 am able, the results of my observations, during a sojourn 
 of three months in Great Britair,, of the existing state of 
 British opinion and feeling t<i\vai'd this country, and to 
 assign what seem to me to be its causes. 
 
 I enter on the performance of this task, with a stroug 
 conviction ol the importance of what I have undertaken to 
 do; for he who shall at this time successfully discuss , the 
 subject I have just indicated, will throw a great deal of 
 light on the present and prospective condition of Britain, 
 and on her relations to the cause of freedom all over the 
 world. He will also present to the American people a 
 higher and a juster view of the value and importance of 
 our own free institutions, and strengthen the purpose to 
 perpetuate tliem at whatever cost of precious treasure, and 
 more precious blood. 
 
 I deeply feel my own inadequacy to so great an underta- 
 king, and throw myself u]3on the indulgence of my hearers; 
 especially begging them to bear in mind the impossibility 
 of dealing thoroughly and satisfactorily with so gi'eat a 
 subject, in the space of a single lecture. 
 
I claim to be quite free from one disqualification for cor- 
 rect obsei'vation in Britain. I am not and never can be a 
 hater of England and the English. If you know an 
 American who has visited England, in the spirit in which 
 Russell, formerly of thy London Times, visited the United 
 Stati'f^, with a disposition to see nothing worthy of admira- 
 tion, and to disparage whatever he saw, give no heed to his 
 testimony; he is an untrustworthy witness; do not read 
 his hodkif he has published one, though you have already 
 purchased it; it will only mislead you. No man can testify 
 truly or a foreign country, unless he has seen it in a spirit 
 of kindness and candor, disposed to enjoy the beautiful and 
 admire the admirable, without one feeling of envy or 
 jealousy. 
 
 Such certainly was my feeling towards England. I set 
 my foot on her soil for the first time with exultation. It 
 was the realization of many a fond day-dream, which I had 
 supposed would lia only aday-dream, and I felt great delight 
 in a realization so unexpected. I reverenced England as 
 the mother of free nations, and the mother of my own 
 country. I regarded her with a sentiment truly filial, and 
 many of the results of my own observations, which I am 
 alx'ut to report, were contradictory to the prejudices of my 
 whole previous life, and were accepted with such sorrow as 
 one feels, when forced by stern necessity to acknowledge a 
 wi'ong in one he loves. I experienced while in Eii2!:iiid 
 and [.Scotland from many individuals and families much 
 personal kindness, and generous lioppitality, and foi-med 
 nuiiiy acijuaintances, and some friendships, whicli I hope 
 will last as long as life; and it will always be painful tome 
 to Tobuke that Britain whicli they love as their country. 
 But the ta-^k I have imposed on m^'self compels me foi- the 
 moment to lay aside both love and hatred, and endeavor to 
 ejieak the truth with freedom and fairness. 
 
 From the moment of my landing on British soil, my 
 mind was very earjiestly directed to the present state of 
 
British opinion and feeling relative to the conflict now in 
 progress in our country. I think any American visiting 
 England at that time would have reasoned thus: that there 
 is in that country a large and zealous body of religous peo- 
 ple and earnest philanthropists, who have for half a cen- 
 tury manifested great hostility to the system of African 
 slavery, not only within the dominion of Queen Victoria, 
 but in our own country also. And surely these people 
 wherever found will occupy no uncertain position in rela- 
 tion to the great American conflict. They will regard an 
 attempt to destroy the American Union because it is too 
 favorable to the freedom of the Negro, and to found a new 
 "confederacy" on slavery as its corner stone, with unquali- 
 fied abhorrence, and accord to our government and people 
 their hearty sympathy and good will in our fearful struggle 
 with a foe, that has taken up arms avowedly to perpetuate 
 and extend Negro servitude. He would have reasoned 
 farther, that as in the year 1834 this anti-slavery party was 
 strong: enouo-h to control the action of the British Parlia- 
 ment, and secure the passage of an Act emancipating the 
 last slave in the British Empire, at an expense to the nation 
 of one hundred millions of dollars, it would be reasonable 
 to expect to find a very large portion of the enlightened 
 and religious classes of the English people, in open and 
 earnest sympathy with the North. 
 
 Such had been my reasonings, and such were my expec- 
 tations. And I further assumed, that if any of this class 
 of men should be found to have been misled by such lying 
 journals as the London Times, they would only need to 
 knoM^ the facts as they are, to insure right thinking and 
 rio-ht feeling on the whole subject. With such expecta- 
 tions I began my intercourse with the people of England. 
 My hearers, may therefore judge of my surprise at being 
 told by a highly intelligent merchant of Liverpool, and 
 a truly excellent man, on the evening of my second day 
 on British soil, that English people did at the beginning 
 
of the American war generally sympatliize with the Korth, 
 but that most of them had at that time changed their 
 minds, and were in sympathy with the South. Every step 
 however, that I took in that country convinced me more 
 and more, that in respect to the present sympathy of the 
 people with the South, he was certainlj'- not tar from the 
 truth ; though his statement that at lirst they were gener- 
 ally for the ]S[orth, is contradicted by a very huge hodj 
 of testimony equally respectable, and I am unable to accept 
 it as accurate. 
 
 I find it difficult so to classify the forme of opinion which 
 I met, as to do no injustice to any. There is one class, 
 tliongh I must in justice say it is, so far as my observations 
 extended, a small one, whose views and feelings do corre- 
 spond to the expectations which I had formed : they do 
 thoroughly understand what has been taking place in our 
 country during the last eight or ten years : they fully appre- 
 ciate the political agitations which preceded the elections 
 of 18G0 : they know accurately the cause of the war, and 
 the spirit and design of tlie insurgents : they are in earnest 
 sympathy with the North, and watch the progress of events 
 with little less intensity of interest, than any loyal citizen 
 of the United States. Hon. and Rev. Baptist W. Noel is 
 such a man, and his name ouglit to be familiar and dear to 
 every American ; he is of a noble family, the brother of a 
 Lord ; had in early life taken orders m the church of Eng- 
 land, and with his high connections, his accomplished man- 
 ners and elegant scholarship, being also a favorite witli the 
 Queen, he had every prospect of the highest proni" :on in 
 the established church. But his opinions were stubbornly 
 against the establishment, and to those opinions he deter- 
 mined to be faithful in practice, at whatever cost. lie 
 therefore left the established church and all his splendid 
 prospects in it, and became and now is the pastor of an 
 unpretending Baptist church in London. I had the pleas- 
 ure of a favorable introduction to him, and enjoyed several 
 
very agreeable interviews. No American understands our 
 case better than he, or has a heart that beats with warmer 
 afiection for American freedom. I have never had the 
 pU^asnre of meeting a nobler specimen of the christian 
 gentleman, and shall always love England while she pro- 
 duces even a few such men as he. 
 
 I met other persons who took similar views of the Amer- 
 ican war, men who have judged of it in perfect consistency 
 with their life-long hostility to Kegro slavery. It is my 
 upi!iion that such men are more numerous in proportion in 
 Scotland than in England. 
 
 TliL-re is a second chiss of persons, more numerous than 
 the one just described, who are sincere and earnest in their 
 love of liberty, but who liave been misled by the false rep- 
 resentations of American alFairs, which have of late tilled 
 and disgraced a large portion of the popular literature of 
 England. These men are candid, will hear the truth, and 
 can be easily set right, and will heartily thank the man 
 thar sets them right. But within the circle of my observ- 
 ations they are by no means a numerous and influential 
 class, but among them an intelligent American can do a 
 great deal of good. To this class for the most part I pre- 
 sume belong the audiences who so nobly responded to the 
 eloquent words of Henry Ward Beecher in the five princi- 
 pal cities of Britain. 
 
 I met a third class, also small, composed of persons who 
 profess great abhorrence of the system of Negro slavery, 
 and repudiate the cliarge of having any sympathy with the 
 slaveholders' rebellion, or the slaveholders' "confederacy." 
 But they are peace men; they have adopted the extreme 
 peace principles of Elihu Burritt and his co-laborers, and 
 esteem all war whether offensive or defensive a crime. 
 They hold that if the South wished to secede on any ac- 
 count whatever, the Federal government was bound to let 
 her go in peace. They quote the example of our own sep- 
 aration from England as in point, and hold that when any 
 
people wish to rupture the ties of nationah'ty in which they 
 are bound, and to establish a new independent state, they 
 have a right to do so, and that to hinder their doing so by 
 force is oppression. 
 
 They are in the profoundest ignorance of the practical 
 difficulties which exist to forbid such a peaceful dissolution 
 of the American Union, and in their simplicity imagine, 
 that at the outset of the great rebellion, it would have been 
 as easy to make two nations out of the United States of 
 America, without shedding one drop of human blood, as to 
 cut our map into two pieces with a pair of scissors. Our 
 own countryman, Elihu Burritt, was in London while I was 
 there, and I presume still is, but is restrained from any utter- 
 ance in behalf of his suffering and much abused country, by 
 liaving in former years committed himself to these extreme 
 peace principles. lie luis perhaps more influence over 
 English minds and in English homes than any other living 
 American, and it is sad to find that by his own folly he is 
 at this time lost to his country and to liberty. 
 
 So far as the men of this class are sincere, they are of 
 course amiable enthusiasts, and I found it rather refreshing 
 to witness their eagerness to instruct me and my countrymen, 
 on a subject upon which they are themselves so profoundly 
 ignorant. There are many, however, who advocate this 
 view, to whom I was unable to give any credit for sincerity. 
 Under the garb of love of peace and abhorrence of war they 
 are evidently seeking to hide the bitterest hatred of our free 
 country, and an intense sympathy with the slave holder's 
 reliellion. 
 
 So far as my observations extended all these three classes 
 taken together form but a minority of the English people. 
 Of the rest, composing I fear a vast majority of the nation, 
 1 am confident two things may be asserted without doing 
 any injustice. 
 
 1. That they have no sympathy at all with the Federal 
 Government in its efforts to suppress the great rebellion. 
 
but that on the contrary they strongly desire the dissolu- 
 tion of the American Union, and the success of the "South- 
 ern Confederacy " as a means to that end. 
 
 2. That they wish to have this result secured without 
 involving England in the dangers and certain calamities of 
 a war with the United States. 
 
 I do not think many Englishmen sympathize with the 
 slaveholder's "confederacy" for Us oton mke ; they feel it 
 to be an ugly and hideous thing, and would not wish to 
 seem its advocates or friends; but they value it as a wood- 
 splitter does his wedge, as a means of producing division. 
 They contemplate the dissolution of the American Union 
 with great satisfaction, and they ardently desire and w<.i;Id 
 favor in every way in their power the success of the rebel 
 cause, as a means of so eflectually dividing this nation, that 
 the dissevered parts can never again be reunited; and in 
 the eagerness of their desire for its success, they forget its 
 moral deformity and hideousness. Many flatter themselves 
 that in desiring to see our country divided they are influ- 
 enced by no feelings of hostility. They persuade them- 
 selves that it would be l)etter for us; that our country has 
 become too large and unwieldy; that the Northerners and 
 S(uitlierners are so op[)oscd to each other in tastes and 
 character, that it is impossibU- ihoy should ever hve togeth- 
 - er in peace under the same government. This always 
 seemed to me to come with a very bad grace IVom a people 
 who, notwithstanding the irreconcilable opposition of the 
 Irish to the English characterand government numifested for 
 ages, are always ready to shed rivers of blood if necessary to 
 hold Ireland t-o the Uni(»n however unwilling. But our 
 English cousins do not always feel it necessary to be con. 
 sistent in such matters, and are to be understood to mean 
 that it is inexpedient and wrong to bind together under the 
 same government people of opposite styles of character and 
 civilization, unless it is necessary to the integrity of the 
 Bi-itish empire. In that case it would seem to them quite 
 iustitiable and necessary. 
 
8 
 
 I fear I shall hardly be belived by my American hearers 
 when I state this matter as strongly as the truth requires. 
 There are very few people in England, or certainly there 
 were wlien I was there, who believe it possible to restore 
 and perpetuate the Union. This is true of most of those 
 who are quite friendly to the Northern cause. Tliey do 
 not think the restoration of the Union either desirable or 
 possible. Newman Hall, whose name is familiar to us all 
 as an outspoken advocate of tlie Northern cause, said to 
 me, "I am for the North; but the restoration of the Union 
 is impossible, and you are only fighting for a boundary." I 
 found even loyal Americans residing in Englaiul greatly 
 aliccted by the same view, and full of misgivings of the 
 ultimate result. English people consider us as a nation 
 under the influence of a hallucination, a madness on this 
 point, and to declr.re your faith in the success of the Fed- 
 eral govcnnnent would in very many, nay in must circles, 
 not a little damage your reparation for good sense and 
 Bound judgment. 
 
 This unfavorable pre-pKlgment of the case extend?, fj-om 
 the cabinet n)ini.-,ter down through all grades of society, 
 and results from ignorance of the i-eal state of the case, and 
 a desire pervading the great body of the people, that tlie 
 rapture may prove perpetual. A public opinion is thus 
 formed uhich misleads our iVieuds and even resident 
 Americans. 
 
 Many pn.foss to believe that the best hope of abolishing 
 Blaver-r lies in establi.-liing the independence of the S.nith. 
 They aiiect to think that if once the "Southern confederacy" 
 gains a place among the nations of the earth, it mnst nec- 
 essarily yield to the inflnence <»r tlie civilization of the age, 
 and tiio indignant protest of Christendom, and abolish 
 Blavery; jnr,r as it tlu- very existence of the "confederacy" 
 were not a pr(»test against the <:vilization of the nineteenth 
 century, and an open deliance of Christendom. But if the 
 Federal government succeeds in re-establishing its author- 
 
ity over our whole territory, they maintain that slavery 
 will be restored in all its rigor, and there will be no hope 
 of abolishing the iniquity for ages to come. Thus they 
 hold that it is the Federal government and the pec.ple of 
 the North that are the incorrigible enemies of freedom, over 
 wliose minds neither the opinions of the civilized workl, 
 nor the principles of justice can be expected to exert any 
 influence. I do not say that a majority of the Engli.4i 
 people hold such opinions, I do not think they do; but that 
 vast multitudes do is certain. 
 
 Yet earnestly as the dissolution of the American Union, 
 and the success of the rebellion as a means to that end are 
 desired, there is no party in England, that is respectable in 
 numbers, that desires tiie British government to recognize 
 the independence of the South at present, or in any way 
 so to violate a formal neutrality, as to give cause of war 
 with the United States. Roebuck and Lindsay who agi- 
 tate for immediate recognition are unpopular, and generally 
 despised. 
 
 The real position of the British ministry is, that they 
 desire the success of the rebel cause, and anticipate it as 
 the only possible i-esult of the conflict. But any present 
 violation of neutrality in its tavor would embroil the 
 nation with the United States, and prolong rather than 
 shorten the contest. They differ from Roebuk and the iul- 
 vocates of immediate recognition, not in the end to be 
 aimed at, l)ut in the choice of means for securing it. Most 
 of her Majesty's ministers, with Lord Palmerston at their 
 head, wish to give countenance and encouragement to the 
 rebellion, both personally and officially, just so fjir as they 
 can without violating that fonnal neutrality behind which 
 they liave chosen to take shelter. 
 
 And this creed of the government is also the creed of a 
 vast plurality of all the men and women I met in Britain. 
 I believe it to be the creed of an overwhelming majority 
 of the nation. I do verily believe that while I was sojourn- 
 
10 
 
 ing in tliat coimtrj, the great niajority of the people in lib- 
 erty-loving, slavery-hating England, (thoui;h of relative 
 numbers I am liable to misjudge), were so in sympathy 
 with that "confederacy," whose corner-stone is slavery, as 
 ardently to desire and confidently to expect its success, in 
 di-iving back the Federal armies, and securing for itself a 
 place and a name in the family of nations. To this con- 
 chisiou I seemed to be conducted by facts constantly around 
 me, from the day I landed in that country, till the day of 
 my departure. 
 
 To some tlie reception our distinguished countr} man 
 Henry Ward Beecher met in England may seem inconsist- 
 ent with this view of the case. But those who think so are 
 certainly not well informed of the different classes, of wliich 
 the population of Great Britain is composed. In all the 
 large towns, there is a class which, relative to tlie whole 
 population, is small and without influence, composed of 
 persons- whose sincere love of liberty and hatred of all 
 oppression would naturally lead them to favor the cause of 
 the North, and whose sympathies have been withdrawn 
 from us, only by the belief that the people of the North as 
 well as those of the South are utterly hostile to rhe rights 
 of the negro. This belief has been for many years zeal- 
 ously propagated there, not only by men who have been 
 laboring to prepare the English mind to sympathize with 
 secession when it sliould be ripe for open development, but 
 by Dr. Geo. B. Cheever and a few other men of like 
 minds — men who have taviglit the friends of the slave in 
 Britain, that there was no true hostility to slavery in the 
 political agitations of the period that preceeded the election 
 of Mr. Lincoln, and in short that the negro has no friends 
 in this country but themselves ai.d their handful of follow- 
 ers. 
 
 These representations have been accepted by the class of 
 people to whom 1 refer, as unquestionable truth, and thei-e- 
 fore while they will not give their sympathy to the South, 
 
11 
 
 tliey withhold it from the North also. I will give you an 
 example. Having taken a walk in tlie long tranquil twi- 
 lio-'ut of a Scotch siiiuuier evening, along the base of Salis- 
 bury Crag, < n my return I found niyselt* bewildered and 
 unable to lind my way to my llutel. Observing a man ot 
 very respectable appearance near me, I inquired the way. 
 He said ''I am going tl;at way and will accompany you. 
 You are a stranger." ''An American," said I. A conver- 
 sation sprang up as we walked together, on the all ai»r^u!-b- 
 ino- topic. He soon said "they are a set>of scoundrels on 
 both sides." I stopped, and turning so as to look him full 
 in the face, said, "f<.r you to speak thus of my country is a 
 sin against God." He moderated his tone, we resumed our 
 walk and 1 explaim d and told the truth as fast as I could. 
 He soon began to receive it with candor, and exjiressed a 
 strono- desire that I should address an audience in Edin- 
 buro-h. Pie said there were hundreds of men in that city 
 who were zealous in their hostility to slavery, but they al 
 most all viewed the subject just as he did, thinking that the 
 North is utterly untrue to the liberty of the negro, and 
 therefore unworthy of sympathy. In connection with sev- 
 eral other friends he made earnest efforts to procure for mo 
 an opportunity to address a meeting in that city. But the 
 bitter opposition of the many, and the timidity of the few 
 prevented the realization of their wishes. 
 
 The brilliant and well-deserved reputation of Mr. Beecher, 
 and his well-known lidelity to the rights of the negro, 
 overcame these obstacles, and procured him a favorable 
 reception from persons of this, class in Edinburgh. The 
 same happened also in Glasgow, Liverpool and London. 
 But I am greatly mistaken or lii^ audiences were chiefly 
 composed of the limited class of persons to whom I refer, 
 and neitlier their numbers nor their enthusiasm impliesany 
 general movement of the national mind, any more than 
 , the burning of a few brush-heaps on the ice of the Ai'ctic 
 6(^as would imply the opening of navigation to the ci''cina- 
 polar octuu. 
 
12 
 
 I do not mean that Mr. Beecher did not do a great d^al 
 of good. I think far otherwise. He set thonisands rii;ht 
 who had been set wrong by false representations. And 
 thongh his audiences were hirgely composed of chisset* 
 whom the London Times calls "Nobodies," yet these ■nohod- 
 ies that are notwithstanding men and have the riglits oi 
 men, must one day be lieard in England, and Mr. Eeocher 
 helped them powerfully. But lam confident he left the 
 great body of the English people much as he found them, 
 and his experience is not at all inconsistent with what I 
 have said. 
 
 But strongly r.s this view of the case seemed to be sup- 
 ported by facts, I was most reluctant to receive it. I re- 
 garded it as shocking and incredible, till on further in qui ry 
 I thought I saw the causes which pn.'duce and neceb^ifatt; 
 just such a state of opinion and feeling- as I daily encoun- 
 tered. 
 
 It must be my next business to exhibit those causes, and 
 the mode of their operation. It is to this part of my sub- 
 ject that I attach principal imjiortance. lam thoroughly 
 convinced that the British government and people are 
 acting in this matter under no accidental and temporary 
 influence; that they are contn-'led by causes wliicli are 
 deep and permanent; that the ]'osition which they occupy 
 in relation to the American coiiliict is a symptom of organic 
 disease in tlic English body pol/.ic, which should be under- 
 stood, and distinctly contempl;ii.d by the friends of lihorty. 
 M'hether in England hersclt or in other parts of the world. 
 and especially bv the friends of liberty in this country. 1 
 h.ve read with great interest and profit the protonndly 
 learned and philosophical oration of Hon. Charles Sumnef. 
 on our Foreign Eelations. In nuiin I believe its argument 
 to be sound and its conclusions just. But I wish, so far as 
 England is concerned, to push the inquiry further than he 
 has done, and to discover those causes, which have produced 
 a development of English opinion and feeling, which at 
 
13 
 
 first view seems so s range and nnnatural. Properlv 
 viewed, I am convinced tliat it is perfectly natnral, and a 
 thing to have been expected. 
 
 In order to make the tiling quite plain, I have to illus- 
 trate the toHowing proposition: — The government of En g- 
 land is the govenruicnt of the many hy the privileged fm\ 
 I am not about to deny that Enghuid is a free country, <>r 
 that to a large extent our own liberty is of English huth 
 and English growth, or that England hasinher past liistory 
 done much for the Hherty of the human race. No man is 
 more ready to acknowledge her claim in these respects titan 
 I am. I liave always been proud of England as tiie cradle 
 of freedom. 
 
 Still it is true that when we assert that England is a tVc^e 
 country, we utter a proposition which to the American 
 public needs much qualitication and explanation. There is 
 very much wliich to our nnnds is implied in the words 
 "free country." which does not by any means exist in Eng- 
 land. For example nothing is more directly in opposition 
 to our ideas of freedom, than class legislation, laws de- 
 signed and intended to confer certain privileges on a few 
 and on the descendants of those few forever, to the exclu- 
 sion of the many. Tiie same may be said of conferring 
 privileges and emoluineiits on one religious denomination 
 to the exclusion of all others. Yet nothino: is so funda- 
 mental to British law and the British constitution as such 
 class legislation. England is governed by such privileged 
 classes, thus exalted by the laws above the rest of their 
 fellow-men ; and these privileges guaranteed to them and 
 their children forever. In this respect the fundamental 
 principles of society in that country are as diametrically 
 opposite to ours as it is possible they should be. 
 
 In this opposition is found the true cause of the present 
 state of British opinion in respect to this country. It is 
 not always easy for an American to understand this. We 
 can believe in the freedom, tranqnility and happiness of 
 
14 
 
 the English people, under a polit'cal constitution differing 
 very widoly from ours, without tlie least apprehension that 
 hc'i" example will exert a revolutionary influence here. We 
 cannot be made to i)elicve, tliat in any supposable case, our 
 people are in danger of abandoning our democratic ecpiality, 
 for s!ic!i a monarchy or such an aristocracy as that of Eng- 
 lai:d. 
 
 But an enlightened and thoughtful Englishman cannot 
 so conUinplate the success of American democracy. Ask 
 a well-informed EngHslunan belonging to the must liberal 
 scliool of English politics, what is the reason why there is 
 in (ii-eat Britain so little sympathy with the Federal gov- 
 ermneiit in its present struggle. If yonr experience should 
 agree willi mine, you will get for an answer something like 
 the following: "England is governed by a privileged aris- 
 tocracy and a State church; and the classes interested in 
 pei'petuating these exclusive privileges reason, that if you^ 
 country goes on prospering as in times past, wnthout a priv- 
 ileged aristocracy, and without a State church, there is 
 ground for apprehension, that influenced by your example, 
 the English people will after a while conclude that they too 
 can dispense with these expensive luxuries. And these 
 ])riviieged classes, phiced at the head of the nation, are able 
 to send their influence far down into the low^er strata of 
 society. And hence wherever the influence of the aris- 
 toc'iicy and the State church can penetrate, there is a natu- 
 ral desire, that the expennieut of free government going on 
 in the United States may prove a failure." 
 
 At lirst I received sui-h opinions, from however eminent 
 a source, with great caution and distrust; but further observ- 
 ation c<uivinccd me that they contain the true and oidy 
 exphination of what I saw and heard. "The bubble has 
 burst," exclaimed an English Aristocrat, counnenting on 
 secession in the house of Lords; and in those words he 
 uttered ih.e very heart of tlie goveWiing aristocracy of 
 England. They wish the worUl t(/ -^gard the liberty, pro&- 
 
15 
 
 perity and happiness of the United States, founded on dem- 
 ocratic equality of rights, as a mere soap-bubble, brilliant 
 indeed for a little time, but having at last shown itself 
 devoid of every thing substantial, and no longer threaten- 
 ing by its example to undermine the foundations on which 
 rests all aristocratic privilege in England. And millions 
 who themselves enjoy none of the privileges of the aris- 
 tocracy, eclio back the sentiment. "The bubble has burst," 
 expresses the prevalent theory of Englishmen on Ameri- 
 can aflairs while I was among them. Men seemed to say 
 to me by their looks and tones, "It is all over with yoMr 
 boasted republic, and you are strangely deluded or you 
 would know it." 
 
 The bearing of all t^:is will be still more obvious, if I 
 can make it apparent wliat aristocracy is, as an element of 
 Endisli society. First and foremost stands the fact that 
 one of the two co-ordinate branches of the great imperial 
 legislature of England is composed of persons, who hold 
 their seats by hereditary right. The meaning of which is, 
 that there are in England some hundreds of families, the 
 head of each of which is, by right of his birth, a member 
 of that branch of the English legislature which corres- 
 ponds to our United States Senate. You will appreciate 
 the importance of this if you suppose, that in this country 
 we were first to adopt the principle, that once a member of 
 the United States Senate, a man remained a member till 
 his death; again that at the death of a Senator his oldest 
 son should by right of his birth succeed to his seat, and so 
 on to his children and his children's children forever. We 
 can form a conception how great a departure it would be 
 from democratic equality of legislation, to confer such priv- 
 ileges on our Senators and their descendants forever. This 
 is English aristocracy. 
 
 But this is not all of English aristocracy. From the 
 time of the Norman conquest to the present, a period of 
 eight hundred years, a few new noble families have held a 
 
16 
 
 large portion of all the lands of the kingdom. This is true 
 now to a greater extent than at any former period of English 
 history. The same noble families whose heads compose the 
 house of Lords, hold a large poition of the lands of the 
 United Kingdom. And the land held by them is not, like 
 all land with us, liable to be bt)ught and sold like any 
 other property, bnt descends to the oldest son of the pres- 
 ent holder, tlius perpetuating this land-monopoly forever. 
 The oldest sun of a Lord succeeds not only to his father's 
 seat in the senate, but to all his father's lands, and accord- 
 ing to the theoi'Y and tendency of tlie system will transmit 
 both to his children and his children's children forever: 
 thus securing to tliese few families one-half of the legisla- 
 tive power of the kingdom, and a monopoly of its lands 
 forever. This gives you some idea of the value and im- 
 portance of those class privileges, which the Aristocracy of 
 England are interested in preserving and perpetuating. 
 
 But this is not all. The laws which regulate the descent 
 of all the landed property of the kingdom are constructed on 
 the same principle. Whenever any land owner, noble or 
 not, dies without a will, his real estate goes to his oldest 
 son. And the custom of calling one's lands by his own 
 name, and transmitting them to his oldest son as the rep- 
 resentative of his family has come down from immemorial 
 antiquity, and as the possession of such an entailed estate, 
 confers high dignity and social position on a family, every 
 wealthy man is under strong inducements to becom-^ an 
 extensive land-owner if possible, and transmit it by entail 
 to his oldest son as the representative of his family. Un- 
 der the influence of these causes, that portion of the lands 
 of the kingdom which is not held by the nobility propei'ly 
 so called, that is, the Lords, is mostly monopolized by a 
 small number of gentry, and is transmitted from father to 
 oldest son, by the same tenure as the lands of the nobility. 
 This process has gone on with great rapidity within the 
 last few vears. It is almost within the memorv of man 
 
17 
 
 that the number of holdings of land has been reduced from 
 more thanij50,000 to 32,000, and this process of monopo- 
 lizing the land in a few hands is now going on with unaba- 
 ted rapidity. 
 
 The consequences are deplorable. Few English laborers 
 whether agricultni al or mechanical own the land on which 
 they lie down at night, or the roof that covers them, or 
 have anv hope of ever owning them. There is no land 
 which can be bought in small parcels to suit purchasers of 
 small means. It is chiefly aggregated into these great 
 entailed estates, and not for sale on any terms. 
 
 Some of the consequences of this order of things will 
 strike an observant man, who merely rides across England, 
 say from Liverpool to London by Railway, He will often 
 see stretching away around him in every direction, the 
 richest, most beautiliii and highly cultivated larms on earth, 
 but perhaps not a human habitation in view. The men 
 and women that till these fields dwell in small, inconven- 
 ient, comfortless cottages, which belong to the proprietor of 
 the land, and make no figure in the landscape, in which 
 lai'ge families are crow.lod together in one, two, or at the 
 most three rooms, with no hope of benefitting their condi- 
 tion while they live. If there were free trade in land, as 
 with us, a young man of industry and enterprise might lay 
 aside his wages, live unmarried, and practice self denial, till 
 he could purchase a littie homestead, and have the hope of 
 a comfortable home. But that is impossible, the Land is 
 monopolized by the nobility and gentry, and the young 
 man has no hope but of just such a comfortless peasant's 
 life as his father led before him. " Once a peasant, always 
 a peasant " is a proverb. 
 
 It is not to my purpose on the present occasion, to dwell 
 on the influence of this laud-monopoly on the condition of 
 the laboring classes. I will refer all who wish to inform 
 themselves on the subject, to the work of Joseph Kay, Esq., 
 M. A., "on the social condition of the English people." The 
 
18 
 
 writer is an Englishman, a graduate of Caml^dge and a 
 churchman, and not to be suspected of misrepresenting to 
 the disparagement of his own country. He exhibits the 
 miserable condition of the laboring classes, not as an argu- 
 ment against the land monopoly on which the whole struc- 
 ture of English society rests, but to secure a more vio-orous 
 prosecution of the system of national schools. His book 
 is a series of ill concealed fallacies from the beginning to 
 the end. Multiply schools for the education of the poor as 
 you will, they will still remain poor and hopelessly degraded, 
 as long as a few thousand families monopolize all the real 
 property of the kingdom. But the facts of this book 
 remain undisputed and indisputable, and an American can 
 see that they have their only explanation in this land mon- 
 opoly and their only remedy in its destruction. Such a 
 monopoly of the land of Great Britain is, by the existing 
 laws of the realm, secured to the nobility and gentry, to the 
 utter exclusion of the laboring masses, and it is such a 
 monopoly, that the classes which now govern that country 
 are interested in perpetuating. 
 
 But we have not yet the whole strength of the case. All 
 this is a provision for perpetuating out the influence and 
 position of the families of the nobility and gentry ; but it 
 is made not only at the expense of the great body of the 
 English people, but of all the children of these very families j 
 except the oldest sons, and such daughters as may have the 
 good fortune to be married to oldest sons. Some provision 
 must be made for these younger sons, or they will soon 
 form a class, having all the pride and expensive habits of 
 the nobility, with none of its affluence. Three great per- 
 manent institutions of Britain stand ready to supply this 
 want, — the army, the navy, and the church. By having a 
 preponderating influence in the government in their own 
 hands, they are always able for the most part to secure the 
 oflices of high honor and emolument in the army and navy 
 for the younger sons of the governing classes ; thus providing 
 
for them honorable and lucrative positions, and contenting 
 their aspirations, without dividing to them any portion of 
 their patrimonial estates. I do not affirm that such an allot- 
 ment of these offices takes place to the entire exclusion <.)f 
 persons born in humble circumstances. I only affirm the 
 general course and tendency of things. I am aware that 
 the army and navy would exist if these class privileges 
 were abolished. But they would cease to be used for the 
 benefit of certain privileged families, and by being thr'^'wn 
 within the reach of all classes, would stimulate effort and 
 encourage hope in those who now regard them as entirely 
 beyond their reach. They would be administered demo- 
 cratically and not aristocratically. 
 
 With the church however the case is still stronger, and 
 the abuse still more flagrant and atrocious. I wish to be 
 understood. I am making no attack on the Episcopal 
 church as such. I speak only of the English church as 
 established by law, and supported by the state. And of 
 that I affirm, that it is a principal, I believe an essential 
 prop of British class privilege. Its high honors and princely 
 incomes are in the gift of the crown and the aristocracy 
 and most generously eke out any short comings of the army 
 and navy, in p?'oviding for the younger sons and poor 
 relations of the privileged classes I say nothing now of 
 the enormity of using the sacred offices and functions of the 
 Christian ministry for so sordid, and earthly a purpose, or 
 of the fact that devout sentiments and a religious life are 
 hardly considered essential qualifications for high position 
 in the establishment. I speak only of the church as a 
 political institution, as furnishing an opportunity to those 
 who would otherwise be the poor relations of the aristocracy, 
 made poor by this very law of primogeniture, to climb to 
 the highest positions, and even to occupy the bench of 
 Bishops in the house of Lords, the peers of Earls, Viscounts 
 and Marquises. In that same magnificent house of Lords 
 as I saw it in all the brilliancy of an evening session, (and 
 
20 
 
 its sessions are held only in the evening,) there is nothing 
 grander or more imposing than that bench of Bishops, 
 occupying a position immediately on the right of the wool- 
 sack, with their long robes of white lawn brightly contrast- 
 ing with the red cushions of their seats; while the Prince ot 
 Wales was in his seat among the great Lords of the realm 
 in front of the Lord Chancellor, and the beautiful young 
 Princess Alexauclra was looking down upon the scene from 
 tiie gallery above, amusing herself, as I thought, with a 
 young attendant, to see her young husband putting on the 
 newly assumed dignities of a peer of the realm. It was 
 quite refreshing amid all the solemn stateliness of that 
 scene, to see that a royal Princess could amuse herself, as 
 any light hearted American girl might have done, in like 
 circumstances. 
 
 I never was more intensely an American Republican 
 than while I surveyed that scene; and my Republicanism 
 was a good deal sharpened by the fact, that a sergeant-at- 
 arms of very lordly and dictatorial bearing was constantly 
 watching over some ten or twelve common men like my- 
 self, who had obtained grace to occupy seats in the stranger's 
 gallery, and if any one of us rose from his seat for a 
 moment, for the purpose of seeing something which inter- 
 ested him, he was told to take his seat, in a tone befitting 
 the plantation; and that though no one was behind to be 
 put to any inconvenience by his standing. It was only 
 that common men might be made to behave with becoming 
 decorum, and awful reverence, in presence of ths Lords 
 spiritual and Lords temporal of England. As I surveyed 
 that scene I thought I understood why that house of the 
 British Parliament is conservative, and wishes to perpetuate 
 class privilege by legislation. I could understand what the 
 word conservative means in that house. I could see clearly 
 why the Aristocracy supports the church, and the church 
 seeks to lay its highest religious sanctions at the feet of the 
 Aristocracy. "Tickle me and I will tickle you." 
 
21 
 
 I know indeed that there are many clergymen of the 
 church of England, who are not the younger sons, and 
 po<jr relations of the privileged classes. But it is also true 
 that there are real labors to be performed, which it is not 
 to be expected, that a scion of aristocracy would be willing 
 to perform. It is therefore necessary to have a little army 
 of men in the church who will perform a great deal of 
 drudgery for very small pay, and common men's sons will 
 answer for that. It is also true that sometimes a man suc- 
 ceeds in climbing to the highest honors and emoluments of 
 the church, from a very humble birth. That is true of the 
 present newly appointed Archbishop of York, whom I had 
 the pleasure of hearing in an able and excellent address 
 before the British and Foreign Bible Society, in Exeter 
 Hall. I thought him an able and good man, and he spoke 
 more like a well-educated and cultivated American, than 
 any other speaker I heard in Britain. But such cases are 
 spoken of as remarkable ; they are the exceptions and not 
 the rule. And some such exceptions are necessary to the 
 successful working of the system. If no hope were held 
 out to commoners of promotion in the church, they would 
 not be willing to perforin service as poor curates. No mat- 
 ter how good your trap may be, you must bait it v/itli corn; 
 but in skillful hands, a little corn will suffice to catch a 
 great deal of game. 
 
 This picture is not complete without showing how also 
 the same privileged classes that have a perpetual monopoly 
 of the lands of the kingdom and subsidize the army, the 
 na\y and the church to-the support of their family interests, 
 are able to exert an almost preponderating influence in the 
 election of the other house of Parliament, and by means of 
 government patronage to make themselves felt through all 
 the gradations of the administration. But time would fail 
 me for this detail on the present occasion. 
 
 This then I affirm is an outline view of aristocracy — of 
 class privilege in England. It is but an outline, and the 
 
22 
 
 more one sees of that country, the more this outline is filled 
 up with perfectly homogeneous details; the more one sees 
 and feels the meaning of Mich words as class, rank, aris- 
 tocracy. I thank God that in our country no man can 
 learn what these words mean. 
 
 Let any one now reflect that the government of the 
 United States is an attempt to found a great English sj>eak- 
 ing nation, upon principles exactly contradictory to all this, 
 without a throne, without an aristocracy, witliout any class 
 privilege,^ without any established church. Let it be remem- 
 bered, too, that our language is common, and that thouglit 
 circulates in both countries freely as the air. Is it then 
 wonderful, if the privileged classes in England regard our 
 success, our rapid growth, our prosperity and happiness 
 under our democratic equality, as dangerous to the perpe- 
 tuity of their exclusive privileges ? And that tliey ardently 
 and passionately desire our failure, our overthrow ? That 
 to see us convulsed with the throes of a great revolution is 
 to them an occasion of exultation and joy? And that tlxey 
 are unable to conceal their desire that the convulsion may 
 result in the utter overthrow of the Great Kepublic? And 
 that this desire finds utterance from the cabinet minister 
 downward? Considering that the British government is 
 composed of such materials, was it to be expected that it 
 would sympathize with ours in its efl'orts to suppress a great 
 rebellion, and restore the American Union upon the basis 
 of democratic freedom and equality? jS'o! it would be 
 unnatural and incredible. Precisely what is happening is 
 what ought to have been foreseen and expected from the 
 relation of the two nations to each other 
 
 But I am told that while this explains the unfriendly 
 position of the privileged classes, and the church towards 
 our country at this time, it shows no reason why the un- 
 privileged classes, and the dissenters should not sympathize 
 with us all the more. But this will be plain enough, when 
 we coniiiiler the way in which these classes, though seem- 
 
23 
 
 k\g to have interests so opposite t>) those of the privileged 
 classes, are yet made to sympathize in feeling; and co-oper 
 ate in action with the aristoci-acj. We are apt to think of 
 an Eno-lish commoner, as one who feels towards the aristoc- 
 racy that is placed above him, as we should feel towards a 
 similar number of tamilies, who might be arbitrarily selec- 
 ted among ourselves, and permanently invested with such 
 exclusive privileges as the nubility in that country enjoy. 
 It may well be imagineil thtit we should feel nothing but 
 animosity, and we are apt to suppose, that English unpriv- 
 ileged men must feel the same. So we are apt to think of 
 an English dissenter, as one who feels towards the privil- 
 eged national church, as all other denominations in this 
 country would feel towards one whicli might be singled out 
 from all the rest, and richly endowed and supported at the 
 expense of the State, and at our own expense. But this 
 mode of viewing the suljject is very erroneous and fahacious. 
 According to our conception of things, there are few mid- 
 dle class men, and few dissenters in Enghind. 
 
 Let us try to make this plain. Let us suppose the case of 
 a prosperous tradesman, merchant or manufacturer, in the 
 middle class, and belonging to a dissenting church; he cer- 
 tainly does not much relish the superiority over him claimed 
 and enjoyed by the higher classes. . He would like to see 
 the way open to him to enjoy their privileges, or to be 
 placed on an equal footing with those above him. And 
 then as a dissenter he does not like the established church; 
 especially he does not like to be obliged to support a church 
 the principles of which he neither believes nor approves. 
 Ihit he is loyal to the throne; he yields to no man in zeal 
 to support the monarchy, and in attachment to the royal 
 family. This is the boast of middle class men and dissent- 
 ers generally. Almo»t no Englishman and certainly no 
 Englishwomen that I met, has any leanings towards repub- 
 canism. Within the circle of my observation, republicans 
 are as scarce in England as monarchists in the United 
 
24 
 
 States. And the Bentiment of loyalty has perhaps son^ 
 peculiar intensity under a female sovereign. The feel- 
 ing of loyalty mingles with the feeHng of gallantry, 
 and each exalts the other. I am not about to intimate that 
 our sovereign Queen Victoria does not really possess all 
 the admirable virtues which her subjects ascribe to her; 
 for really I have no right to speak on the subject. I did 
 not even see the skirt of her royal garments, and to inti- 
 mate such a thing even here, would be a sort of social trea- 
 son. But I do say it seems to me her admiring subjects 
 have very little knowledge whether she possesses them or 
 not; that she is contemplated only at a great distance by most 
 of them as a sort of mythical personage, an unknown object 
 of homage, whom their imaginations invest with all possi- 
 ble beauties, graces and virtues, and that for this sort of 
 worship a woman is really a fitter object than a man. I 
 may therefore I think jjresume that I have seen English 
 loyalty at flood-tide, especially as my visit was just subse- 
 quent to the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the beaii- 
 tifal Princes Alexandra, thus bringing within the sphere 
 oi' British homage another object of worship, combining 
 royalty with youth and female beauty. The national en- 
 th isiasm quite exceeded an American's comprehension. 
 
 I have supposed the case of a middle class English dis- 
 senter, in the midst of all this. It is a delicate point of 
 honor with him not to be outdone by the proudest aristo. 
 crat in the whole kingdom, in attachment to the throne. 
 But he is a thoughtful man, and he inquires, can that throne 
 be sustained, without the support of the aristocracy 'i And 
 be readily answers no: so any other sensible man would 
 answer. If, says he, we must have a throne, we must have 
 an aristocracy, and I know not that we could have a better 
 one than we have. The aristocracy of England is the most 
 respectable which the world has ever seen. And he asks 
 fu!-ther can the aristocracy be sustained without the support 
 of the church? And I think a sensiWe man would again 
 
25 
 
 answer, no. Deprive the younger sons of the nobility of 
 those opportunities of place and power which the church fur- 
 nishes, and many of them would be impelled to attack that 
 law of primogeniture, which is the very foundation of all aris- 
 tocratic privileges, the very corner-stone of the British con- 
 stitution. You cannot make the younger sons of British 
 nobility support that system, unless you give them some 
 equivalent for that interest m the family estate which aris- 
 tocratic law secui'es exclusively to the head of the family. 
 Give them the church, and the chance of wearing the lawn, 
 and occupying a seat in the house of Lords, and they will 
 be content ; take it from them and they will lead the attack 
 upon the whole system. 
 
 Our middle class man is thus made to feel the necessity 
 of sustaining the aristocracy and the established church. 
 And accurdingl_y there are at this day very few middle class 
 men who would overturn the aristucracy or the church if 
 they could. Thus practically middle class men are aristo- 
 crats, and dissenters are churchmen. This is not mere 
 theory; I have seen it illustrated in very many living ex- 
 amples. If a zealous dissenter makes an attack on the 
 establishment, he will begin by assuring his hearers, that 
 he has no manner of hostility to the church. If you utter 
 a word that implies that you have something of a republi- 
 can's aversion to the aristocracy, you will be rebuked and 
 the thread of conversation, whatever it may happen to be, 
 will be broken oiF, till the aristocracy can be vindicated 
 with all the zeal of an Englishman's partiality for whatever 
 is English. You will be assured, as I have been on the 
 authority of highly intelligent and respectable independent 
 ministers, that the English aristocracy are the most self- 
 denying set of people in the world. In any such case, if 
 you were interested in continuing the thread of conversa- 
 tion, you will many times regret your allusion to the 
 aristocracy before you will get back to it again, and you 
 will take a lesson to avoid anything of the sort in the future. 
 
26 
 
 There is another cause of great efficacy, which binds the 
 lower to the higher classes, and makes them zealous in 
 supporting the whole superstructure of Englisli society as 
 it is. All classes in England above the toiling operative, 
 ui- the peasant agricultural laborer, have hope of rising to 
 woaltii. This is true of the mercantile, manufacturing and 
 trading classes. And wealth always opens more or less 
 chances of sharing the privileges of the aristocracy. By 
 means of wealth a man of talents may find his way to high 
 piilitical station, and even to a peerage. The son of a 
 wealthy merchant may perhaps aspire to the hand of the 
 daugb.ter of a noble of decayed fortune ; o-.- the heiress of 
 a wealthy commoner may be a match for a needy marquis 
 or earl ; and thus in many ways a commoner who is rich 
 or hopes to become rich, may cherish the anticipation, that 
 his blood may yet circulate in noble veins. These chances 
 are sufficient to encourage the hope in a commoner of shar- 
 ing, through himself or his children, the privileges to which 
 his birth does not entitle him, and make him wish to pre- 
 serve unimpaired, what he secretly hopes one day to onj< )y. 
 The poor white man in our slave states hopes at sometime 
 to become a wealthy slaveowner, and to enjoy the privi" 
 leges of the class, and therefore always gives his vote to 
 perpetuate those privileges. This is not the only analogy 
 which 1 could point out, between society in England and 
 in our Southern States. 
 
 It is not difiicult then, to understand that as long as an Eng- 
 lishman of the middle class is loyal to the throne and the 
 royal family, he will be in sympathy with the aristocracy. 
 He will dread the influence of the great Kepublic as tend- 
 ing to revolutionize England, and overturn all those insti- 
 tutions of privilege and caste, to which he is made to think 
 lie is indebted for the liberty and tranquility which he en- 
 joys; and the tranquility of English society must be seen to 
 be understood. He is prepared to join with the aristocrat in 
 tlie exultant exclamation, "The bubble has burst." 
 
27 
 
 I have no difficulty in finding precisely here the cause 
 of the want of English sympatliy with us in our present 
 conflict. If the aristocracy and church of England sympa- 
 thized with us they would have forgotten the instincts of 
 their class. It would be as unnaturai as for an animal to 
 loose the power of distinguishiiig its own kind. If the 
 middle classes of Englishmen did sympathize with us, it 
 would be the precursor of speedy revolution in England 
 herself. It would show that the middle classes were so 
 entirely out of sympathy with the aristocracy and the 
 church, as no longer to tolerate their exclusive privileges. 
 And if such a day ever comes, the days of the English 
 aristocracy are numbered. 
 
 In ordinary intercourse with the English people one con- 
 stantly meets the evidence of the truth of what I have 
 just been saying. The number of persons that I met in 
 that country, who really like, or who do not dislike the 
 democratic equality of our country is certainly quite small. 
 As a general rule you cannot converse long with an intelli- 
 gent Englishman, even though he belong to the middle 
 classes, in relation to what is now happening in the United 
 States, before he will give you to understand that he regards 
 our present convulsion as a proof of the utter failure of our 
 democratic institutions. It is hardly probable he will hear 
 you patiently till you can make your own veiw of the case 
 understood. He will not be long in making it apparent, 
 that he thinks he understands the aftairs of our country 
 much better than you do, and that if you will hear him he 
 can point out to you the whole cause of our trouble in a 
 moment. If you give him a chance — and he will take a 
 chance whether you give it to him or not — he will aim his 
 blows at the foundations of our institutions. 
 
 The English have a right to be proud of their own in- 
 stitutions, and of their own history, as compared .with other 
 European nations. ' A sense of this superiority has pro- 
 duced marked effects on the national character. Many of 
 
28 
 
 them are not far from the belief, that it is in Britian alone 
 that true ideas of government can be acquired. And the pres- 
 ent troubles of our country have greatly confirmed them in 
 this belief. They fully believe that an American, in order 
 to understand English institutions, must learn in a docile 
 8|>irit from an English teacher — and in this they are certain- 
 ly not far from right — but that an Englishman has no need 
 at all to be instructed in reference to our affairs, by anything 
 which we can tell him. They regard themselves as en- 
 dowed by their own superior position, with a political 
 insight quite in advance of the rest of mankind. 
 
 There is one proof of the correctness of these views which 
 8eei:s tome at once the most mournful and the most decisive. 
 It is the opinion almost universally entertained in England, 
 in regard to popular education. On this important subject 
 1 found an almost absolute uninimity, and that in opposi- 
 tion to a system of popular education, which like ours shall 
 be intended, to bring the treasures of knowledge within 
 the reach of every child, irrespective of the condition of hie 
 parents. The national mind is thoroughly imbued with the 
 notion of class education. I often used the results attained 
 to in the public schools of Boston, as an illustration of our 
 system in its aims and spirit* 1 stated that the Mayor of 
 Boston or the Governor of Massachusetts must either send 
 his son to a school where he would be liable to have for a 
 classmate and a seatmate the son of a day laborer, or else 
 send him to an inferior school; and that that school is ab- 
 solutely free alike to the son of the laborer, and the son of 
 the Mayor. "That can never be in England," was the inva- 
 riable reply. And with the present constitution of English 
 society it is true, "that can never be in England ;" as well 
 hope to supply the present cotton famine from the ice fields 
 of the Arctic circle. It is a logical inference from the whole 
 English system, that the child of the rich is to be educated for 
 wealth and leisure, and the child of the p'oor for poverty and 
 toil. And benevolent, humane, religious minds are not 
 
29 
 
 shocked at this inference; they accept it, and reject the 
 thoni2;ht of providing for universal education on democratic 
 principles. '■'■Would you send your so/i to suoh a school f 
 I was asked many times with pungent emphasis. I was 
 proud to answer I do send my son and my daughter too to 
 such school. "How then can I avoid the conclusion, that the 
 Eno-lish middle classes are as trulv committed to theprinci- 
 pie of class legislation as the aristocracy itself, and as unpre- 
 pared to sympathize with the government of democratic 
 equality in the United States? They discard our system in 
 its fundamental principle. 
 
 All this has been greatly aggravated by the periodical 
 press, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly. Many I know 
 maintain that the alienated feeling 'which exists towards us 
 is the result of merely accidental causes, and has been occa- 
 sioned chiefly by the efforts of the press, and especially ol 
 the London Times. And I am not at all insensible to the 
 malignant power of such anti-American Journals as the 
 London Times and Saturday Review in times like these. 
 They have done all which the press, wielded by the highest 
 order of talent, could do, to cast odium and contempt upon 
 the Federal Government, and to encourage and aid tlie re- 
 bellion. Nothing can make me hate England; but if it had 
 been possible, the daily perusal of her newspapei-s foi- three 
 months would have made me hate her most cordially. 
 They flagrantly misrepresent facts; they studiously conceal 
 from their readers things the most important to be known. 
 They display before the English public every loathsome 
 ulcer or unsightly pimple on the American body politic. 
 The well-known vices of slavery and the south are charged 
 over to the account of the people of the free states, while 
 the slaveholders of the south are finely pictured out as high- 
 toned gentleman. No meai^s which genius can invent is 
 spared to make our government and people appear odious, 
 coarse, vulgar and contemptible. You admit said a gentle- 
 man, that the Saturday Review is clever. I admit, said I. 
 
30 
 
 that should Milton's Satan turn editor, he would make just 
 such a paper. And when I see tlic i)erverse and satanic in- 
 genuity, which these and other English Journals hav(; 
 employed against the cause of democratic liberty, all the vices 
 and all the short comings of our government, our officials 
 and our people, I feel that every American is under some 
 such obligation to be consistently faithful to the cause of 
 liberty, as every Christian minister and member of a Chris- 
 tian church is, to lead a consistently virtuous life. The 
 vices of Americans damage the cause of liberty, just as the 
 vices of Christians damage the cause of religion. 
 
 Still I deny that the primary cause of the mischief can 
 be found in the journals. They have only uttered what the 
 tuition was prepared and desirous to hear. They have only 
 boon the mouth pieces of the English aristocracy and their 
 cupporters and sympathisers. If the enlightened governing 
 classes of England had been as earnest in their sympathy 
 with the North, as thay have been in desiring the dissolu- 
 tion of the Americn Union and the destruction of the great 
 Republic, the Times would have been as violently Northern 
 as it is anti-Northern. The Times understands the market 
 for which it manufactuers. It adapts its seed to the soil on 
 which it sows it. It would not have been possible, that the 
 Times should have procured a reception or even a tolerance 
 of its views of the American question, except on the condi- 
 tion that the public mind was already prepared for it, by a 
 settled aversion to the American Kepublic, and a wish to 
 see it enfeebled and overturned. When millions wish to 
 believe a lie, it is safe and profitable for the conductors of 
 a public journal to utter it. This is precisely what has 
 happened as between the Times and the British public. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to conceive of the omnipresence of 
 the Times in Britain, I do not remember ever to have en- 
 terd a hotel or restaurant in which I did not find it, and 
 in very many cases you will find no other paper. It is in 
 every shop and every counting-room. "Every Englishman," 
 
31 
 
 said an American residing in London, "finds fault with the 
 Times, but no Englishman can eat his breakfast without 
 it/' It is not confined to the British Isles. The great Con- 
 tinental hotels of Germany and Switzerland have no reli- 
 ance for daily news but on the London Times. During 
 tliose years of our war this lying organ of the slaveholder's 
 rebellion has not only had the job of drawing the portrait 
 of us x\mericans for English, but for European use, and 
 over a large portion of the continent, its version of our 
 uffiiirs goes uncontradicted for absolute verity. It would 
 not be diflicult to give a whole lecture on the London Times 
 and Saturday Review; but I forbear. Perhaps I have said 
 enough of a very disagreeable subject. 
 
 In speaking thus of the newspapers of England, it would 
 be unpardonable not to say, that there are several daily and 
 weekly journals in Great Britain, that are true to our coun- 
 try in this hour of her trial and true to freedom. Such 
 are the London Daily News, the Mo'uing Star, the Cal-.-iht. 
 nian Mercury at Edinburgh, and several others whicli nn'o-lit 
 be named. But they are laboring under very great disad- 
 vantages, and have very little control over public opinion. 
 They are true prophets of freedom, but prophesy in sack- 
 cloth. Indeed the position of these Joui-nals before the 
 British public is one of the striking proofs of the correct- 
 ness of my interpretation of British opinion. If you want 
 the Times you can find it almost without taking a step. 
 If you want the Daily News you must take some pains to 
 get it. The journals that are in sympathy with American 
 liberty have not the ear of the-people. 
 
 Many persons would deny that they are at all influenced 
 by the causes to which I have ascribed the present state of 
 English feeling; though they would admit that they do 
 desire the dissolution of the Union, and the success of tiie 
 rebellion. On being asked why? they would say, the 
 United States are to large for one nation. On explaining 
 themselves further they would say , you carry yourselves 
 
32 
 
 with too high a hand; when any difficulty arises between 
 the two governments, we have to permit yon to have it your 
 own way, to avoid a war. They want us to be smaller and 
 weaker, in order that we may be more manageable. This 
 view of the case was presented to me many times, and I 
 have no doubt influences a great mumber of minds. These 
 people want us to be in a position in which it will only be 
 necessary for the British lion to show his teeth, tobrino- us 
 to terms. They wish to be able to settle any difficulty 
 summarily, by sending troops to Canada, as in the affair of 
 the Trent. 
 
 But this view really comes to the same thing as the one 
 1 am insisting on. It is more superficial, but springs from 
 the same root. If these men were in sympathy with our 
 institutions of democratic equality, they would not wish to 
 see us so weak, as to be under the necessity of doing the 
 bidding of the "Mistress of the seas." They would wish 
 us to be strong enough to stand fearlessly on our rights, in 
 presence of the aristocracy of England. This jealousy of 
 our increasing power springs only from a desire, that that 
 aristocracy may easily maintain its supremacy on every 
 continent and every ocean. In principle therefore this view 
 of the case does not differ from that I have presented 
 throughout this discourse. It is however the shape in which 
 the subject presents itself to many minds: and it is amu- 
 sing to see with what ingenuity they justify themselves in 
 a view so intrinsically mean and selfish. It is better for 
 you they say to be divided ; your country is too large and 
 ir.iwieldy. They forget the boast that on the domains of 
 their Queen the sun never sets. They say the North and 
 the South are not homogeneous, — different races; the South- 
 einei's hiirh-souled Enirlish cavaliers; the Northerners a 
 mixed race. Irish, Scotch, Germans and English tradesmen, 
 mechanics and small farmers. I am very friendly to your 
 country said an Englishman, whom I met at a hotel in Scot- 
 land, but I really think it would be for youi good to be 
 divided. I appreciate said I such friendship at its full valuo 
 
33 
 
 I am perfectly awave that there is one class of English- 
 men, who do sincerely simpathize with us in onr present 
 conflict, who will earnestly deny the truth and justice of 
 tliis representation of English opinion and feeling. 1 am 
 sorry to differ from them; for among them are persons 
 whom I shall always delight to regard as ray personal friend s- 
 But I am suiKj they are mistaken. The reason tliey wUl 
 assign for their dissent is, that whenever any movement is 
 made in Parliament in favor of recognition, it is always an 
 ignominious failure. That is true; but why is it a failure? 
 Not because Lord Palmerston and his government do not 
 wish and expect the success of the rebellion, in common 
 with the great body of the British Parliament. Notoriously 
 they do; for they openly say so: but because they do not 
 ■think present recognition a wise measure for promoting that 
 result. They choose to stand on the ground of neutrality. 
 But that nentrality is only formal. Moral neutrality there 
 is none, for they openly declare themselves from then- pla- 
 ces in Parliament on the side of the shiveholder's rebelhon, 
 and wish it success. How then does the fact that Koebuck's 
 motion for recognition proved a failure, or the fact that Eoe- 
 buck is generally esteemed a fool, which is true, show that 
 British opinion is not what I have represented it? Plainly 
 it does not show any such thing 
 
 Thus far I have said nothing of cotton in assigning the 
 causes of the present state of British opinion. I do not 
 think the cotton famine which lias been caused by the great 
 American conflict has exerted much direct influence on the 
 policy of the British government. It has certainly been 
 felt by the manufacturing interest as a great in('--nvenience, 
 and a great many English people speak most (v>!uplacent1y 
 of the forbearance of their government, in abstaining from 
 active intervention to put a speedy end to a war, which is 
 so disastrous to English interests. And if the government 
 had been disposed to interfere in the matter, the necessity 
 of having cotton would have furnished a very convenient 
 
34 
 
 pretext for so doing. But intelligent men have always been 
 able so see, that intervention meant a war with the United 
 States, and that such a war would bring greater disaster 
 upon the manufacturing and commercial interests of Brit- 
 ain, than could ever come of the cotton famine patiently 
 endured. British statesmen have never been blind to the 
 consideration, that intervention in the interest of the cotton 
 spinners weiild close the markets of the United States 
 against all their products for an indefinite period, and let 
 loose a swarm of American privateers on their commei-ce 
 in every sea. 
 
 But though cotton has exerted very little direct influence 
 on the relations of the two governments, it has acted pow- 
 erfully on British opinion, or rather on British feeling. 
 Every one who has studied the lessons of history is well 
 aware, that for more than a hundred years, the interests or 
 the supposed interests of British trade have exercised a 
 very powerful influence over the opinions, and passions of 
 the people, and the policy of the government. It was 
 British trade that shaped the whole colonial policy of Eng- 
 land, almost from the founding of her American colonies. 
 Her colonies were regarded with interest not in view of the 
 extension of civilizalioii, freedom and chrisrianity over the 
 hitherto unpt.-opled wilds of North America, but as most 
 profitable ( lutposts and factories of Biitish commerce. And 
 in legislating for them, there was little thought of making 
 them strong, enlightened and free communities, but only of 
 rendering them as profitable as possible to British merchants, 
 and perpetual dependencies of the British crown. In proof 
 of this I need only to refer to the oppressive restrictions whicli 
 were laid on the commerce and manufactures of the colo- 
 nies, and tlie persisting obstinacy with which the govern- 
 ment maintained the slave-trade, in oppoc.ition to the wishes 
 and oft repeated protests of the colonists. It was tlio sel- 
 fish grasping spirit of British trade, that chiefly planted 
 and sustained in the then thirteen colonies of Britain, that 
 
36 
 
 bitter and poisonouB root, from the growth of which we are 
 now reaping an uuequaled harvest of death. When I 
 remember how unscrupulous and persisting Britain was, in 
 fasteninc; the curse of slavery to American soil, and what 
 millions of wealth were accumulated in British hands 
 through that iniquitous traffic less than a century ago, I 
 tliink England should bear the cotton famine growing out 
 of the great American struggle, not onlj with patience, 
 but with repentance and earnest etfort to make some repar- 
 ation for the mighty mischief she inflicted on us througli 
 her cupidity, in the days of our colonial dependence on her 
 policy. And I mourn that I see so few signs either of 
 repentance or reparation. 
 
 I cannot forget that it was this grasping and selfish pol- 
 icy of British trade, that made the war of the American 
 Revolution a necessity not only of American freedom, but 
 of the freedom of the British empire. One would have 
 hoped that, taught by so sad a lesson, England would have 
 learned to construct her commercial policy on more liberal 
 and righteous principles. But if we examine attentively 
 the relations of England to India and China, in periods 
 lono- subsequent to American independence, we shall find 
 sorrowful evidence, that the same selfish spirit still influ- 
 ences British trade, and through it exerts a powerful and 
 ofien disastrous influence on the government. The forcing 
 of English opium, grown by compulsion in India, upon the 
 markets of China, in direct violation of the salutary laws 
 of the empire, and in utter disregard of all the vices and 
 sorrows which it causes to that people, all, that English 
 commerce might prosper and English merchants be made 
 richer, is one of the most disgraceful and sorrowful trans- 
 actions — or to speak more truly one of the most hideous 
 crimes of the nineteenth century. And any one wlio has 
 had intercourse with the English people during the progress 
 of the great American conflict, has seen mournful evidence, 
 that the same spirit is still active and influential. The feel- 
 
36 
 
 ing is widely prevalent, that one of the foremost duties of 
 the government is to protect trade at whatever cost, that if 
 Britons want cotton they must have it, at po matter what 
 cost to justice, humanity and freedom; and that tlie gov- 
 ernment should tolerate no state of things in any other 
 country, which interferes with the supply of cotton to the 
 English mills. They almost feel that the island of Great 
 Britain was alone made to get rich, and the rest of the 
 world to furnish it materials and a market. 
 
 It is almost ludicrous to observe with what animosity and 
 passion many Englishmen speak of the Morrill Tariff. 
 They seem almost to feel that for us to impose a duty on 
 a product of British industry is a direct and glaring in- 
 fringement on their rights, and w^ouid be a just cause of war, 
 if tliey were not too Ibrbearing and peacefully disposed to 
 make war lor such a reason. Tliey seem to have forii'otten 
 that it is not yet twenty years since, the great leading sta- 
 ples of all the free American States encountered a duty in 
 British ports, which in all ordinary circumstances amounted 
 to prohibition. In some such cases Englishmen seem to 
 me to have poor memories. I believe that when England 
 adopted the policy of free trade, she took a step in the 
 right direction, that she learned one really useful lesson; 
 but she must allow her American cousins a little time to 
 learn, what she herself could only bo taught by tlie expe- 
 rience ot" centuries. The sensitiveness of the English about 
 whatever affects the American market for English products 
 is certainly remarkable. 
 
 It must be admitted that this selfishness of British trade 
 is one fertile source of Sorthern sym})atliy at the present 
 time. Tliey desire tlie dissolution of the x\nierican Union 
 into an indefinite number of parts, that there may be no 
 power on this continent, as there is none on the other, able 
 to cope with the "Mistress of the seas." On that supposi- 
 tion they hope that England will be able to control the 
 commei'cial policy of the American continent for the long 
 
37 
 
 future. If we are to have a strong, united, ocean-bound Re. 
 public, then there is no hope for British poKcy here. But if 
 we can be divided and kept feeble by internal wars and 
 jealousies, then may England still rule the waves; and 
 though America has become politically independent, yet 
 commercially she will be but a vast dependency of Britain. 
 Hence the passionate desire of thousands, that the Ameri- 
 can Union may be dissolved, and that anything, even the 
 accursed system of negro slavery, should be used as the 
 wedge of division. "Furor arma ministrat," That under 
 the influence of such passions men forget the relations of 
 this conflict to the cause of universal freedom is not won- 
 derful. 
 
 I should do injustice to my subject not to remark that 
 English trade and English aristocracy are most intimately 
 united in their interest and spirit. Though the aristocracy 
 are not directly engaged in trade, they are in many ways 
 most deeply interested in the extension of British com- 
 merce and in the increase of the nation's wealth. The 
 increase of the population and especially the growth of the 
 great manufacturing and commercial cities add immensely 
 to their own incomes, and the value of tlieir estates. Had 
 England continued to be an agricultural people, having no 
 manufactures or commerce except for the supply of her 
 home wants, her aristocracy, her church and her universi- 
 ties would have been comparatively poor till this day. 
 And from manufactures and commerce must come that 
 indefinite increase of those revenues, which is hoped for in 
 the future. It is by the golden harvests of commerce also, 
 combined with manufactures, that the tradesman expects 
 to obtain wealth, which shall open a pathway to himself or 
 to his children to the honors and privileges of the peerage. 
 Thus the aristocracy of rank and the aristocracy of wealth 
 both actual and prospective are alike interested in the suc- 
 cess of the rebellion, and the dissolution of the Great lie- 
 public. 
 
It was a sorrowful expeiience to an American pavinw 
 his first and probably his only visit ^o England, after havino- 
 loved her from his cradle, to be obliged daily to stand face 
 to face with such facts, and to admit such a view of Eng- 
 land to be true. Is this then even so? Is this Englaiui, 
 that has fought so many battles .for freedom, and carried 
 her hostility to the slave-trade and negro slavery to the 
 ends of the earth, to fail us in this hour, and give her sym- 
 pathy, her countenance, and her efficient material aid to 
 this iniquitous conspiracy, pledged to tear down our repub- 
 lic because too favorable to freedom, and found a new- 
 power hitherto unknown to the nations, on negro slavery 
 as its corner-stone? lo the English government and peo- 
 ple restrained, not only from recognizing this conspiracy 
 against the civilization of Christendom, but from activ*- 
 intervention in its favor, only by considerations of policy 
 and expediency? Born in treason, robbery and perjury, 
 do Britons desire its success and victory as a means of 
 dismembering our republic? And I was forced daily to 
 see and know that they do. And a solemn sense of the 
 enormous criminality of such a position of the English 
 people in such a crisis, suggested to my mind dark forebo- 
 dings of the convulsions which may yet await that people, 
 and cast many a shadow over what would otherwise have 
 been one of the most cheerful and joyous portions of my 
 life. I afiirm moreover, that this criminality attaches not 
 to aristocrats and churchmen alone, but to commoners and 
 dissenting ministers and people. 
 
 I bore credentials a^ a delegate from the American Con- 
 gregational Union, to the Congregational Union of Eni^land 
 and" Wales. I was received by that body, with every cour- 
 tesy which was due to the body which I represented, and 
 invited to address the Union under favorable circumstance; 
 but was requested to say nothing of the merits of tJie 
 great conHict now going on in our country. The reason 
 assioned for this limitation was, that they were divided in 
 
39 
 
 sentiment on this subject, and its introduction would lead 
 to ail unpleasant debate. It was therefore that I was not 
 permitted to speak one word before that assembly of Brit- 
 ish christians for the cause of freedom in my country, though 
 they had passed in my presence a resolution declaring then- 
 undiminished hostility to negro slavery. I remembered 
 the past. I called to mind the oft repeated and just remon- 
 strances which come to us from our brethren in Great 
 Britain against this iniquitous system, — remonstrances wi)ich 
 I doubt not have exerted no small influence in bringing on 
 the very conflict in which we are now engaged with the 
 rebel propagandists of slavery. And yet the Congrega- 
 tional Union of England and Wales is now divided in sen- 
 timent, and does not know which side to take, and sup- 
 presses all utterance on one of the gravest moral issues of 
 the nineteenth century, that she may shield herself from 
 unpleasant agitation. This seemed to me marvellous and al- 
 most incredible, I knew not what to think of British christ- 
 ianiiy. I wondered whither the spirits of Wilberforce and 
 Clarkson had fled. T felt that the present conduct of these 
 men cast a painful suspicion over the sincerity of their past 
 pr fessions, and was fitted to raise a serious doubt as to the 
 position they may be expected to occupy in the future. 
 
 If the views of this discouse are correct one can not contem- 
 plate the future of England without grave apprehension. 
 If these things are so, she cannot in the future render any 
 important service to the cause of liberty in the world, till 
 her own constitution shall have undergone very great re- 
 forms — reforms indeed much more radical than she is now 
 willing to tolerate even in conception. That aristocratic 
 liberty which exists in England is not now possible in any 
 other country on earth. The reason why it is possible in 
 England is, that thr(3ugh all the struggles of the past, the 
 English aristocracy has maintained itself, and more than 
 maintained itself, as the governing force in society. It 
 has united with the people in limiting and almost annihila- 
 
40 
 
 ting royal prerogative, and those powers which have been 
 taken from the crown it has so divided with the pedple, as 
 always to reserve the lion's share to itself. To the people 
 it has granted and guai'anteed personal liberty, while to 
 itselt it has taken enormous privileges, and the power of 
 directing and controlling the most powerful empire on earth 
 for ages. But a liberty so guarded by contract between the 
 different orders of a state, while each retained its own sep- 
 arate existence, was never attained in any other country, 
 and has been enjoyed in England so long, only by what 
 one is tempted to regard as a happy accident, and cannot 
 now be established in any jther nation on earth. It 
 cannot be in America, because all attemj)ts to transplant 
 the aristocracies of Europe to this continent have proved 
 miserable failures, and no man in his senses believes it 
 possible, to create a respectable aristocracy out of American 
 materials. It cannot be in continental Europe, because in 
 all those countries aristocracy was hrst laid utterly prostrate 
 for two centuries, beneath the thrones of absolute monarchs, 
 and then trampled in the very mire of the streets, in the 
 great convulsions of the French Revolution, and those that 
 succeeded it. No well informed man would regard it 
 as any more possible to restore aristocracy in France, Ger- 
 many and Italy, to that control over society which it has in 
 England, than it is to create an aristocracy in the United 
 States. When the aristocracies of those countries, in the 
 fifteenth century, bowed the neck to an absolute monarch, 
 they forever lost the power of directing society, or perform- 
 ing for it any such function as that performed by the aristoc- 
 racy of England. 
 
 He therefore who proposes to establish either in America 
 or continental Europe the aristocratic liberty of England 
 does but delude himself, and all who follow in his steps. 
 To Christendom, to the world, outside the single little island 
 of Britain, the issue is, the ahsolute despotisTu of one mam, 
 or the demoGratic liberty of the United States. "With the 
 
41 
 
 latter England will never sympathize, to it, she will never 
 give enconragement or aid, while she retains her present 
 aristocratic constitution. If an aristocracy asks her counte- 
 nance she will give it even to the slave-holding, womar.- 
 whipping aristocracy of the Uniied States. She allies ht-r- 
 self with the upstart despotism which rules in Fj-ance, 
 though in the person of a despised and hated scion of the 
 Bonapartes, because, though sincere in nothing else, it is 
 sinceie in its hostility to popular rights and to democratic 
 equality whether in France or Italy. She will favor an ar- 
 istocratic liberty, which is and ever must be quite impracti- 
 cable in any other spot on earth, and which may not be pos- 
 sible even in her owri island for another quarter of a century, 
 but she will frown on that democratic liberty, which alone 
 is possible to the human race. This is the England of the 
 present and must be the England of the future, till she over- 
 turns her aristocracy and her church, and accepts for her- 
 self the doctrine of the equal rights of man. 
 
 I will also add, that I regard the present conflict in our 
 country as involving, not only the cause of liberty here, but 
 in England also. The freedom which England now enjoys 
 was in a great degree wrought out for her in our own revo- 
 lutionary struggle. We conquered not only liberty for our- 
 selves, but for her also. I am persuaded that the same 
 thing is to happen again, that English liberty is again to be 
 achieved on American soil. There is to day a band of noble 
 men — noble in soul though not r oble born — in that country, 
 who know this well; who feel that every triumph of the 
 Federal cause is a triumph of liberty in England ; that if 
 we succeed, the friends of freedom in Britain, now prophe- 
 sying in sack-cloth, will again have the ear of the nation, and 
 the days of aristocratic privilege and ecclesiastical domin- 
 ation will be ended. 
 
 Now, the London Times, the Saturday Review, and other 
 organs of the governing classes have it all their own way. 
 Democracy covered with shame by its past unnatural and 
 
42 
 
 unwilling connection with the unspeakable atrocities and bar- 
 barisms of negro-slavery, and even made to appear frightful 
 and appalling through its association with the present san- 
 guinary conflict, tiuds few in England and in Europe " so 
 poor to do it reverence." But if we succeed, as we trust 
 in God we shall, in desti-oying, root, and branch, and seed, 
 that poisonous tree which our former English rulers planted 
 here against our will, and in establishing peace and freedom 
 from ocean to ocean, over all the Great Republic, and the 
 years of our peace and prosperity shall again roll on their 
 unbroken course, the enemies that have denounced and de- 
 rided us, and mocked at our calamity will be covered with 
 shame and confusion, and forever branded as prophets of 
 lies by the public opinion of Christendom ; and that system 
 of class privilege and ecclesiastical domination, in the inter- 
 est of which all these falsehoods have been perpetrated, will 
 fall and utterly perish under the indignant rebuke of a 
 liberated world. 
 
 I am not an enemy of England, nothing can ever make 
 me so. I abhor her position in reference to our present con- 
 flict, and regard it with mingled contempt for its meanness, 
 and indignation for its criminality. But I love her still as 
 the mother of freedom, and believe she will yet share that 
 ghu-ious inheritance, which God is working out for us and 
 our children, through the terrible agonies of tiie present. 
 We are too closely bound by the ties of a common language 
 and a common literature, to permit democratic freedom to 
 r^ii;n on this continent from ocean to '^cean, without over- 
 turning the tyranny of class privilege in Britain. I am not 
 in favor of provoking any war with that nation. God for- 
 bid. If it be possible, as much as lieth in us, let us live 
 peaceably with her and with all mankind. But the millions 
 of her own oppressed poor silently protest against our per- 
 mitting the proud aristocracy that now domineers over them 
 to over-ride our rights, or trample on the smallest portion 
 of our independence. Let it be understood that this is not 
 
43 
 
 possible. We havo conquered our independence once, let 
 us maintain it forever. 
 
 Above all let us maintain our moral independence. Let 
 us dismiss all this restless solicitude about what English- 
 men may think and say of us. If the views of this dis- 
 course are sound, we may know that as a nation they can- 
 not judge us candidly and fairly if they would. Let us not 
 expect what we ought to know "a priori" cannot happen. It 
 is as natural for a man who is in sympathy with the aristoc- 
 racy of England to look on America in a spirit of dispar- 
 agemeiit and sneer, as for a bull-dog to growl. Let us not 
 be angry at the animal for acting out his own nature and 
 instincts. Let us build on the everlasting foundation of 
 freedom and the equal rights of man, and knowing that 
 other nations, that are building on a very different fonnda- 
 tion, cannot sympathize with us, or wish our work to pr(»s- 
 per, let us dismiss all solicitude about the opinions of cotem- 
 poraries, and appeal our cause to the judgment of posterity, 
 and of a righteous God. 
 
->