OBSCURED BY ITS PROXIMATE OCCASION.

27

ties. The war had thus its origin in slavery: nevertheless the proximate issue with which the North had to deal was not slavery, but the right of secession. For the constitution having recognized slavery within the particular states, so long as the South confined its proceedings within its own limits, the Government which represented the constitution could take no cognizance of its acts. The first departure from constitutional usage by the South was the act of secession,* and it was on the question, therefore, of the right to adopt this course that the North was compelled to join issue.

The contest thus springing from slavery, and involving, as will be shewn, consequences of the most momentous kind in connexion with the future well-being of the human race in North America, wore the appearance, to persons regarding it from the outside, of a struggle upon a point of technical construction-a question of law which it was sought to decide by an appeal to arins. It was not unnatural, then, that the people of this country, who had but slight acquaintance with the antecedents of the contest or with the facts of the case, should wholly misconceive the true nature of the issues at stake, and, disconnected as the quarrel seemed to have become from the question of slavery, should allow their sympathies, which had originally gone with the North, to be carried, under the skilful management of Southern agency acting through the Press of this country,† round to the Southern side. Nevertheless, had the case of the North, regarded even from this point of view, been fairly put before the English people, it is difficult to believe that it would not have been recognized

* I am aware that this has been denied by some English advocates of the South, in their zeal for the cause more Southern than the Southerners; no less an authority than Mr. Buchanan-though not a Southerner, the elect of the South-having declared that secession was unconstitutional. It would be foreign to my purpose here to enter into an argument on the constitutional question. I will therefore only say that after having carefully studied, so far as I know, all that has been written on both sides by competent persons, I have been quite unable to discover any other ground on which the claim of secession can be placed than that ultimate one-the right which in the last resort appertains to all people to determine for themselves their own form of government. How far the case of the South will stand the test when tried by this principle, I have intimated my opinion in the text.

+ See a very remarkable communication extracted from the Richmond Inquirer of December 20th, 1861 and published in the Daily News of the 17th February, 1862, in which the writer, who had just returned to the South from a mission to London, iu which he was associated with Messrs. Yancey and Mann, describes the state in which he found English opinion on American subjects on his arrival here in July, 1861, and the influences brought to bear by himself and his associates upon the members of the London Press, with a view to advancing the Southern cause with he English public. The document affords such an insight into the causes which

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 long 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.