28

WAR THE ONLY ARBITRAMENT

as founded, at least in its first phase, in reason and justice. When the South forced on a contest by attacking the Federal forts, what was Mr. Lincoln to do? Before acquiescing in its

have been acting upon public opinion in England during the last year, that it will be well to quote a few extracts. After stating the general expectation which prevailed in the South when he left it in June last, "that the manufacturing necessities of England and France would force them to a speedy recognition and interference with the Federal blockade; and "the equally confident impression that the commercial enterprise of England would spring at once to the enjoyment of the high prices the blockade established, by sending forward cargoes of arms, ammunition, medicines, and other stores most needed in the Confederacy ;" and after describing the causes in the public opinion of England which prevented these hopes being realized, the writer proceeds as follows:-" I have thus endeavoured, in this most hurried and imperfect manner, to sketch some of the difficulties which met our commissioners on the very threshold of their mission. That they have addressed themselves to these difficulties with zeal and efficiency will not be doubted by the millions in the South to whom their abilities and character are as familiar as household words. During my stay in London I was frequently at the rooms of Colonel M——, and can thus bear personal testimony to his zeal and efficiency. He seemed to appreciate the necessity of educating the English mind to the proper view of the various difficulties in the way of his progress; and, with but limited means of effecting his objects, he worked with untiring industry for their accomplishment; and, as I have also written, a distinguished member of Congress is, I believe, doing all that talent, energy, and peculiar fitness for his position can accomplish. Without any other aid than his intimate knowledge of English character, and that careful style of procedure which his thorough training as a diplomatist has given him, he has managed to make the acquaintance of most of the distinguished representatives of the London Press, whose powerful batteries thus influenced are brought to bear upon the American question. This of course involves an immense labour, which he stands up to unflinchingly. So much for his zeal. His efficiency, with that of his colleague, is manifested in the recognition of our rights as a belligerent, and in the wonderful revolution in the tone of the English Press.

The influence of this lever upon public opinion was manifest during my stay in Paris When I first went there, there was not a single paper to speak out in our behalf. In a few days, however, three brochures were issued which seemed to take the Parisian Press by storm. One of them was the able and important letter of the Hon. T. Butler King to the Minister; another, The American Revolution Unveiled,' by Judge Pequet, formerly of New Orleans—whose charming and accomplished lady, by the way, is a native of Richmond; and a third, The American Question,' by Ernest Bellot des Minières, the agent of the French purchasers of the Virginia canals. These works each in turn created a great deal of attention, and their united effect upon the French mind shows the effective character of this appliance. Messrs. Bellot and Pequet deserve well of the Confederacy for their powerful and voluntary advocacy. I can, and with great pleasure do, bear testimony to the valuable and persevering efforts of Mr. King both in Paris and London. Among the first acquaintances I had the pleasure of making while in London was Mr. Gregory, M. P., to whom I carried letters of introduction from a Virginian gentleman loug resident in Paris, who very kindly either introduced or pointed out to me the distinguished members of Parliament. He had been, I found, a traveller in Virginia, and inquired after several persons, among whom was Mr. John B. Rutherford, of Goochland. During an hour's walk upon the promenade between the new parliament houses and the Thames, he plied me with questions as to the situation' in the Confederacy, and seemed greatly encouraged by my replies; more so, he said, than at any time since the revolution commenced."

THE UNIONIST SENTIMENT.

29

demand for separation, was he not at least bound to ascertain that that demand represented the real wish of the Southern people? But, after war had been proclaimed, or rather commenced, by the South, how was this to be done otherwise than by accepting the challenge? Was the Government at once to lower the standard of law before that of revolution, without even inquiring by whom the revolution was supported? But in truth the President's case was much stronger than this. The Government was in possession of evidence which at least rendered it very probable that at this time the separatists were in a minority in the South, even in those places where they were believed to be strongest. At the presidential election which had just been held, the votes for the unionist candidates in the extreme south exceeded those for the candidate who represented the secession; in the intermediate states, the unionist votes formed two-thirds of the constituency; in Missouri, threefourths. Will it be said that, with such facts before him, which were surely a safer criterion of Southern feeling than the votes of conventions obtained under mob-terrorism, Mr. Lincoln should at once have acquiesced in the demand for secession, and quietly permitted the consummation of a conspiracy, which for deliberate treachery, betrayal of sacred trusts, and shameless and gigantic fraud, has seldom been matched? To have done so, would have been to have written himself down before the world as incompetent-nay, as a traitor to the cause which he had just sworn to defend.

The right of secession became thus by force of circumstances the ostensible ground of the war; and with the bulk of the Northern people it must be admitted it was not only the ostensible but the real ground; for it is idle to claim for the North a higher or more generous principle of conduct than that which itself put forward. The one prevailing and overpowering sentiment in the North, so soon as the designs of the South were definitively disclosed, was undoubtedly the determination to uphold the Union, and to crush the traitors who had conspired to dissolve it. In this country we had looked for something higher; we had expected, whether reasonably or not, an anti-slavery crusade. We were disappointed; and the result was, as has been stated, a re-action of sentiment which has prevented us from doing justice to that which was really worthy

* See Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1860, p. 608; also the extract from the Commonwealth of Frankfort (Kentucky), p. 606, and that from the Charleston Mercury, p. 609, from which it appears that on the eve of the presidential election, some of the leading journals of the South regarded the secession movement as the work of a body of noisy demagogues, whose views found no response amoug the majority of the people.

30

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.

31

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.

32

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 something like a reign of terror prevailed in the South for all who 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 are. 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.