United States the people are the sovereign. Here is an act committed by many millions of this sovereign people; against whom do they rebel? Can a sovereign, or a large portion of a sovereignty, be a rebel? In the usual meaning of our language rebellion is an act of the subject. Are, then, many millions of the sovereign people of the United States subjects, and to whom? Who is the monarch so supreme that in comparison even the sovereignty of the people may be termed a rebel? Is it the law? But where is the law? Assertions are not laws, nor yet ambitious theories, nor yet conceptions of advantage. Laws are enactments solemn, comprehensible, on known and legible record. Where, then, is the law which the States of the South have broken? And if in America the Government be merely an agent, then, as there exists no law that forbids the secession of a State, against whom or what do they rebel?

It is true we are a loyal people, but ours is not the loyalty of those who hug the trappings of divine right; ours is a loyalty based on reason, on experience, on full knowledge that in union with the advantages of order we enjoy the blessings of liberty. And our love of liberty is so strong, that we cannot spurn the desire for it in others. Be our ignorance of the merits of this question ever so great, we behold a country of vast extent and large numbers earnestly desiring self-government. It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be "let

alone." Another portion of the same country, stronger and richer, asserts that it shall not rule itself, and proceeds to invade it with fire and sword in the name of free institutions.

Institutions may be wise or beneficent, but when imposed on a great people by force of arms will they be free institutions? We feed a slave well, we clothe him, we attend to his health, we surround him with protection-he eats and sleeps, grows strong, and is full of empty laughter-yet he is a slave. There are no chains that clank upon his limbs-we have imposed fetters on his will. Slavery, then, is not material but mentalnot bondage of the man, but imprisonment of the man's mind. When the mind, the will, of a great people is restrained and directed by force of others, in what does it differ from this? What is liberty? Is it permission to grow cotton, or the privilege to live and trade? These things may be done in Abyssinia. There must be a something above, beyond these things-the freedom of a people's will. If this be denied, where will liberty be-in what will it consist? That noblest of man's possessions was never yet allotted to him, as the gift of great armies coming upon his soil. Never yet have the strong invaded the weaker— to impose liberty upon them. They who invite us to sympathize with overwhelming force, or to approve the armed invasion of a free people, may invoke law, or compact, or grandeur, or tradethey cannot beguile us with the name of liberty.

Is any other principle really involved in this contest? The people of the North might have resorted to force to emancipate the negro. Had they done so, all thoughtful men would have shuddered at the probable consequences of attempting such a change by such means,-yet would have looked with respect on so magnanimous a sacrifice. We have seen on ample evidence that no such object existed that on, the contrary, the sole purpose of the war was to retain the South in the Union, and with it, to retain and to perpetuate Slavery in the Union. The Abolitionists would have us to believe the reverse of this; they tell us the reason, "that this war has not been proclaimed a war for the emancipation of the negro, specifically, was because the extent and magnitude of the issue transcended the wants of any particular race, and had to do with the very existence of free society." This transcendental freedom is too ethereal for the present world. The words of Mr. Lincoln are less elaborate, they appear the truthful words of an earnest man. He, as President of the United States, not only abjured this as the object of the war, but, as we have seen, expressed his willingness that by an amendment to the Constitution, Slavery should be made irrevocable in the States, so far as the Federal power could extend.

By this time, indeed, the true purpose of the war must be plain to any comprehension. It is simply the old ambition in a new guise. Formerly it filled the breast of one man; when it impels a

sovereign people it cannot be less selfish and may be more reprehensible. Sovereigns, too, who have gone forth to invade and subdue have attacked other races and acted without disguise. It remained for the present time to witness one part of the same people attempting to subjugate the other. Whatever be the apology or the motive-the fact is there.

And beyond the question of any principle at issue, we have been told that we are under some peculiar obligation which we cannot rightfully discard-that there exists some fine, imperceptible tie that should be binding upon us, upon our thoughts, opinions, sympathies that we are, indeed, the "natural allies" of the Northern power. In what consists the evidence of this natural alliance; what fruit has it yielded by which it may be known; what treatment have we received at the hands of the Union that should leave us under this sense of obligation, or awaken an eagerness on our part to see that Union restored?

A French writer, Raymond, comments upon the singular fact that whilst between England and France but one serious quarrel has occurred since 1815, there have arisen during the same period twelve or thirteen most serious difficulties between the United States and ourselves. He makes the observation that when people play so often with fire it will end some day in a conflagration. Now if these incessant difficulties have arisen from faults of temper or an over-reaching spirit on our part, it

appears remarkable that such a disposition should not have affected our intercourse with France. When such qualities exist they are usually well known to the nearest neighbour.

Since the period of American independence we have had two great wars. On each occasion we resisted great military empires in support of weaker powers who were struggling to maintain their independence. When thus employed we had some right to expect the sympathy, if nothing more, of those who have made the name of independence an object of idolatry. But throughout the whole of our struggle with Napoleon the sympathy of the great majority in the United States was with the military despot, not with the free people; and at length, when our strength was supposed to be fully occupied, our "natural allies" took the opportunity to make war upon us for reasons equally applicable to France, and for the real purpose of taking from us some of our provinces. The other great war was with Russia-a war entered upon against every narrow calculation of interest, to prevent a weak power from being trampled down. All know with whom was then the sympathy of the United States; and Golovin, who, as a Russian, should be a good authority, remarks that "the true secret of American sympathy with Russia on that occasion was hatred of England." We have had minor wars with China, conducted on the principle of throwing open to the world every advantage obtained by ourselves. On one occasion