Excuses offered for it.-Taxation without representation RIGHT OF SECESSION. Difficulties of the inquiry from external appearances STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN THE UNION. Leaders of the movement not expecting civil war GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. Question of privateering and measure of blockade Imputation of sordid motives.-Disproval by facts Capacity of Southern trade.-Its value to ourselves THE AMERICAN UNION. CHAPTER I. THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNION. LEST the neutral title of these pages should beguile any reader to assume that neutrality of opinion will pervade them, we warn him, upon the threshold, that he will soon encounter a current of reasoning adverse to the present doctrines and action of the Northern party. We have endeavoured to collect and weigh dispassionately the evidence and argument of both sections of the Union. It is not intended to offer the whole of this evidence, and to place before the reader a collection of conflicting materials, to be laboured by him into a judgment. Our object is, rather, to express the convictions at which we have arrived, accompanied by the facts and authorities which appear to substantiate them. And so far from preferring a claim to perfect neutrality, we hold that to be a condition of mind wholly unattainable during the excitement of such a contest. Whoever requires it must be contented to wait for thirty years. To write with the pen of rigidly B impartial history, we need for a theme the events of a generation not our own. No subject attracts so large a share of public attention, at the present day, as the American Union. In France and Germany, as well as in this country, its disruption affects interests of such magnitude, that in each of them it seems rather the shock of a great national calamity than the subdued reaction of some remote event. In this country the interest is twofold, for beyond its effect on commerce, the final result will shape, through all future time, the fortunes of a people who are destined to be the most numerous family of our race. The subject is thus of commanding interest to all thoughtful minds, whether intent on political inquiry, or engaged in mercantile pursuits, whether depressed by the former history of similar events, or but recently elated with the buoyant hopes which the exulting prosperity of the New World encouraged. And there are those who are impressed with the belief, that it may prove impossible for this country to maintain a policy of inaction for so long a period as civil wars have usually endured. We are, indeed, already parties to the contest, as sharing the suffering it creates. So far the So far the progress of events has still permitted us to look on as spectators; but the time approaches when large masses of our population will be reduced to want, and when, however anxious to maintain neutrality, it will become extremely difficult to continue in an attitude of indifference. Up to the present time, the greater part of our information as to the merits of the contest has been supplied by one only of the contending parties. The Federal or legitimate party-for, strange as it seems, this term may now be used in American affairs-have an overwhelming command of the press. They have the ear of Europe, and the advantage of exclusive and constant intercourse with us. And greatly beyond these in its influence to their advantage, is the fact that they speak to those whose principles and sympathy incline greatly in their favour. But all know that, in political affairs, sentiment and sympathy have the effect of colouring media, through which objects are presented in a light more or less at variance with truth. The more they attract in the direction of one party the more requisite it becomes to hold them at arm's lengthto follow the example of one of our judges, who recently replied to an impatient counsel: "It is for the very reason that my opinion inclines to your side, that I must weigh the more carefully what arguments there may be upon the other." A feeling has been expressed that the present period is not the time for any inquiry into American institutions, and that criticism should be hushed in the presence of such grave events. Unquestionably, that small criticism which employs itself on matters of taste and habits would be sadly out of place at such time; and this may be said, too, of any inquiry conducted in a carping |