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VIEWS OF THE NORTH:

of admiration in the Northern cause. I say worthy of admira tion; for the spectacle which the North presented at the opening of the war was such as I think might well have called forth this feeling. It was the spectacle of a people, which, having long bent its neck before a band of selfish politicians, and been dragged by them through the mire of shameless transactions, had suddenly recovered the consciousness of its power and responsibilities, and, shaking itself free from their spell, stood erect before the men who had enthralled its conscience and its will. A community, the most eager in the world in the chase after gain, forgot its absorbing pursuit; parties, a moment before arrayed against each other in a great political contest, laid aside their party differences; a whole nation, merging all private aims in the single passion of patriotism, rose to arms as a single man; and this for no selfish object, but to maintain the integrity of their common country and to chastise a band of conspirators, who, in the wantonness of their audacity, had dared to attack it. The Northern people, conscious that it had risen above the level of ordinary motives, looked abroad for sympathy, and especially looked to England. It was answered with cold criticism and derision. The response was perhaps natural under the circumstances, but undoubtedly not more so than the bitter mortification and resentment which that response evoked.

The prevailing idea that inspired the Northern rising was, I have said, the determination to uphold the Union. Still it would be a great mistake to suppose that this idea represented the whole significance of the movement, even so far as this was to be gathered from the views of the North. While loyalty to the Union pervaded and held together all classes, another sentiment-the sentiment of hostility to slavery-though less widely diffused, was strongly entertained by a considerable party, and came more directly into collision than the unionist feeling with the real aims of the seceders. "The abolitionists," conventionally so known, formed indeed a small band. They had hitherto advocated separation as a means of escape from connexion with slavery, but they now threw themselves with ardour into the war; not that they swerved from their original aim, but that they believed they saw in the war the most effectual means of advancing that aim by breaking with slavery for ever; because with true instinct they felt that, secession having been undertaken for the purpose of extending slavery, the most effectual means to defeat that purpose was to defeat secession. The anti-slavery feeling, however, prevails far beyond the bounds of the party known as "abolitionists."

THE ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT.

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Outside this sect are a large number of able men, including such names as Horace Greeley, Sumner, Giddings, Hale, Olmsted, Weston, Longfellow, Bryant, Fremont, men who, while refusing to pronounce the shibboleth of the abolitionists, share in a large degree their views. The effect of the war has been, as might have been supposed, to bring this class of politicians into closer union than before with the extreme sect. The two have now begun to act habitually together, and for practical purposes may be regarded as constituting a single party. Now it is these men, and not the mere unionists, whose opinions form the natural antithesis to the aims of the seceders. Between these and the South there can be no compromise; and, conformably to the law which invariably governs revolutions, they are the party who are rapidly becoming predominant in the North. The anti-slavery feeling is already rapidly gaining on the mere unionist feeling, and bids fair ultimately to supersede it. In the anti-slavery ranks are now to be found men who but a year ago were staunch supporters of slavery. Antislavery orators are now cheered to the echo by multitudes who but a year ago hooted and pelted them: they have forced their way into the stronghold of their enemies, and William Lloyd Garrison lectures in New York itself with enthusiastic applause. The anti-slavery principle thus tends constantly, under the influences which are in operation, to become more powerful in the North ;* and it is this fact which justifies the view of those who have predicted that it is only necessary the war should continue long enough in order that it be converted into a purely abolition struggle.

These considerations will enable the reader to perceive how, while the North has arisen to uphold the Union in its integrity, slavery is yet the true cause of the war, and that the real significance of the war is its relation to slavery. I think, too, they must be held to afford a complete justification of the North in its original determination to maintain the Union; but this is scarcely now the practical question. There was, at the first, reason to believe that a very considerable element of population favourable to the Union existed in the South. While this was the case, it was no less than the duty of the Federal government to rescue these citizens from the tyranny

*While these sheets are passing through the press, the intelligence has arrived of Mr. Lincoln's proposal for an accommodation with the Secessionists on the terms of co-operating with any state, disposed to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation by means of pecuniary assistance to be provided from the Federal revenues. The writer could scarcely have anticipated so early and so remarkable a confirmation of the views expressed in the text.

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PRESENT ASPECT OF THE QUESTION.

of a rebel oligarchy. But do grounds for that supposition still exist? Before the war broke out, it is well known that seinething like a reign of terror prevailed in the South for all wa fell short of the most extreme standard of pro-slavery opinion. The rigour of that reign will hardly have been relaxed since the war commenced, and must no doubt have produced a very considerable emigration of loyal citizens. The infectious enthusiasm of the war will probably have operated to make many converts; and, under the influences of both these causes, the South, or at least that portion of the South which has led the way in this movement, has probably by this time been brought to a substantial unanimity of opinion, a conclusion which is strongly confirmed by the absence of any sign of disaffection to the Confederation among its population.* Under these circumstances what is the policy to which Europe, in the interests of civilization, should give its moral support? This country has long made up its mind as to the impossibility of forcibly reconstructing the Union; perhaps it has also satisfied itself of the undesirableness of this result. Of neither of these opinions is the writer prepared to contest the soundness. But this being conceded, an all-important question remains for decision. On what conditions is the independence of the South to be established? For the solution of this question in the interests of civilization, a knowledge of the character and designs of the power which represents the South is requisite, and it is this which it is the aim of the present work to furnish. Meanwhile, however, it may be said that the definitive severance of the Union is perfectly compatible with either the accomplishment of the original design of the seceders-the extension of slavery, or the utter defeat of that design, according to the terms on which the separation takes place; and that therefore the severance of the Union by no means implies the defeat of the North or the triumph of the South. The Southern leaders may be assumed to know their own objects, and to be the best judges of the means which are necessary to their accomplishment; and we may be certain that no arrangement which involves the frustration of these objects will be acquiesced in until after a complete prostration of their strength. If this be so, it is important to ascertain what the objects of the South For if these objects be inconsistent with the interests of civilization and the happiness of the human race (and I shall

*Since the above passage was written come unionist demonstrations in the Border states following on the success of the Northern armies, have shewn that the unanimity is not as complete as the writer imagined: still he does not conceive that what has occurred is at all calculated to affect the general scope of his reasoning.

THE ACTUAL POSITION OF SLAVERY.

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endeavour to show that this is the case), then no settlement of the American dispute which is not preceded by a thorough humbling of the slave party should be satisfactory to those who have human interests at heart. This is the cardinal point of the whole question. The designs of the seceders are either legitimate and consistent with human interests, or the contrary. If they are legitimate, let this be shown, and let us in this case wish them God speed: if they are not, and if the Southern leaders may be taken to know what is essential to their own ends, then we may be sure that nothing short of the effectual defeat of the South in the present war will secure a settlement which shall be consistent with what the best interests of mankind require.

CHAPTER II.

THE ECONOMIC BASIS OF SLAVERY.

BEFORE proceeding to an examination of the social and political system which has been reared upon the basis of slavery in North America, it will be desirable to devote some consideration to the institution itself in its industrial aspects. The political tendencies of the Slave Power, as will hereafter be seen, are determined in a principal degree by the economic necessities under which it is placed by its fundamental institution; and in order, therefore, to appreciate the nature of those tendencies, a determination of the conditions requisite for the success of slavery, as an industrial system, becomes indispensable.

The form in which it will be most convenient to discuss this question will be in connexion with the actual position of slavery in the American continent. As is well known, the system formed originally a common feature in all the Anglo-Saxon settlements in that part of the world, existing in the northern no less than the southern colonies, in New England no less than in Virginia. But before much time had elapsed from their original foundation, it became evident that it was destined to occupy very different positions among these rising communities. In the colonies north of Delaware Bay slavery rapidly fell into a subordinate place, and gradually died out; while in those south of that inlet its place in the industrial system became constantly more prominent, until ultimately it has risen to a position of paramount importance in that region, overpowering every rival influence, and moulding all the phenomena of the social

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THEORY OF DIVERSE ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDERS.

state into conformity with its requirements. The problem, then, which I propose to consider is the cause of this difference in the fortunes of slavery in these different portions of American soil.

Several theories have been advanced in explanation of the phenomenon. One of these attributes it to diversity of character in the original founders of the communities in question ;* for, though proceeding from the same country and belonging to the same race, the Anglo-Saxon emigrations to North America, according as they were directed to the north or south of that continent, were in the main drawn from different classes of the mother nation. Massachusetts and the other New England States were colonized principally from the élite of the middle and lower classes-by people who, being accustomed to labour with their own hands, would feel less the need of slaves; and who, moreover, owing to their political views, having little to hope for in the way of assistance from the country they had quitted, would have little choice but to trust to their personal exertions. On the other hand, the early emigration to Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas was for the most part composed of the sons of the gentry, whose ideas and habits but ill fitted them for a struggle with nature in the wilderness. Such emigrants had little disposition to engage personally in the work of clearance and production: nor were they under the same necessity for this as their brethren in the North; for, being composed in great part of cavaliers and loyalists, they were, for many years after the first establishment of the settlements, sustained and petted by the home government; being furnished not merely with capital in the shape of constant supplies of provisions and clothing, but with labourers in the shape of convicts, indented servants, and slaves. In this way the colonists of the Virginian group were relieved from the necessity of personal toil, and in this way, it is said, slavery, which found little footing in the North, and never took firm root there, became established in the Southern States.

This explanation, however, carries us but a short way towards the point we have in view. It explains the more rapid extension of slavery in early times in the colonies which were in their origin most patronized by the home government, but it does not explain why slavery, which had, though not extensively, been introduced into the Northern colonies, should not have subsequently increased; much less does it afford any explana

*See Stirling's Letters from the Slave States, p. 64, where greater importance is attributed to this circumstance than it appears to me to deserve; and compare Olmsted's Seaboard States, pp. 181-183, 220, 221.