firm the slavers in their violent courses, as | violence. They were gentlemen, highthe countenance, more or less cordial, but minded men, large numbers of them religalways effective, of those respectable men, ious men, above cruelty, above sordid mowho, professing to be opposed to slavery tives; with them the slave question was not "in the abstract," were always against the one between living luxuriantly by dishonest abolitionist, and for the slaver in the con- means, or laboriously by honest ones; on crete. Had the moderate men of the North, the contrary, it was a high, even a lofty had its religious men, with anything like matter of political pride, chivalrous feeling, unanimity, said to the abolitionist, "No, and manly indignation against the low fanatwe will not tear up the Constitution, nor set icism of Northern abolitionists, and the dicourselves above the law; we will not take tation of English meddlers. This sober up arms, nor break national covenants; " nonsense was, as a matter of course, paand then said to the slaver, "We will not raded before any foreigner, by those very stand by and see steps taken to make that people who claim to be worldly-wise. We a perpetual plague which the Constitution have often listened to it with silent amazeobliquely admits as a temporary anomaly: ment. Now the slaver has come out, and we will not permit that to be a power which proved himself to be what all common sense was only a tolerated evil: and we will take must have declared he would be,-a man every legal, every constitutional, means put ruled by one idea, his property; in whom within our reach to rid America of the last that idea was constantly irritated by his viotrace of slavery; "—had they said this, the lent grasp and uncertain hold of the propslavers would never have passed from their erty; who for the sake of property could original position, as representing question- pervert every light of reason, every instinct able claims, to assume a sacred place of su- of humanity, every lesson of the Gospel, periority, in which they and their "prop- could sacrifice his country, could use the erty" were to be forever protected against highest trust to plot the basest treason, the advances of Christian principle. could purloin public goods, and seduce public servants, could first use, then betray, then turn round and shoot the men on whose support he had all along leaned in securing his guilty gains. It is now in vain to talk of the honor of the great slaveholders; they have proved themselves false to oaths, trusts, friendships, to every alliance but that of mutual interest, to every tie but that which held the slave to them. The pro-slavery party in the North now see what their old allies were, and profess to be surprised.

It was the cover given to them by Northern apologists and abettors, political, commercial, and religious, that encouraged them to those bold strides which have at last brought them to rebellion. The calculating men of New York and New England, those men who prided themselves on wisdom, forecast, and consideration, are the men at whose door lies the blood now being shed. They discouraged the real anti-slavery feeling, they voted for pro-slavery presidents; they gave the South confidence that it should be protected in courses which were sure to bring woe on any country; they made it impossible to place an effectual check on the slave power, or to carry into office men who would honestly administer the Constitution with a view to the ultimate extinction of the evil; they magnified any excess of abolitionist zeal, palliated every violence of the slavers; and, professing to discountenance sectional policy to favor national views, they fed to fatal repletion the proud ambition of the worst section of the civilized world.

It was impossible to convince these men that an American slaver was the same sort of creature as any other man who lives by

Between the reckless abolitionist, and the Northern abettor of slavery, lay a great and rising power of sincere anti-slavery men, who, with endless diversity of views as to the best mode of dealing with the evil, steadily sought to bring it down. It would astonish people in England, who justly boast of our own anti-slavery heroes, could they go through the annals of the last forty years in America. The cases in which property has been sacrificed by manumissions are so numerous, and the sums of such magnitude, that, put together, they would form one of the glorious chapters which adorn the history of the gospel. The cases in which violence has been dared, life and limb ex

which any nation contending against slavery might have naturally counted for sympathy. Hence his unreasonable heat, and his absurd menaces.

It was hard for Americans to understand the posture of England, and hard for Englishmen to appreciate that of America. They, knowing our hatred of slavery, naturally counted on an outburst of enthusiasm in favor of the North, and did not find it. Here, on the other hand, the propositions of Northern statesmen read as if intended to prove that on slavery there was little difference between them and the South; and that the quarrel rather regarded questions of balance of power, jurisdiction, or some

such questions Englishmen felt no interest; and could we believe that the press was as ignorant as the public, we should give credit for a mistake. But we must above all be honest. We can believe a great deal as to the ignorance of the press; but we are not able to persuade ourselves that the men who write for such journals as the Times, are so helplessly ill-informed on American affairs, as they must be if they wrote according to their best lights.

posed or sacrificed, have surpassed any ideas we have, or any example we could show. That same Mr. Cassius Clay, who made a foolish speech at Paris, threatening England with the joint wrath of France and America, which England had felt twice already, when immeasurably less powerful than now, and outlived it, that very man has led a life which, were it well told to the English people, would make him one of the greatest public favorites, in spite of his hasty wrath against our supposed apostasy from our anti-slavery principles. Born in a Slave State, and himself a slaveholder, he not only released his own chattels, but devoted the influence of a great family name, a noble character, some talent, and immense other constitutional idea, than slavery. In energy, to preach against slavery on slave soil. With pistols by his side, he has written his tirades, not against abuses away across the sea, but against the doings of the men who were at his threshold, and panting for his blood. Mobbed, outraged, in the utmost peril again and again, he has never flinched from his post, sought a covert in a Free State, or relaxed the vigor of his onslaughts on slavery. Compared with such a life, that of our Wilberforce, Clarkson, Buxton, was feather-bed soldiering. In his The first feeling in England on the outwarfare against the plague he abhorred, burst of revolution was one of real regret; England was his pride, his ideal, his boast; and the graceful allusion to the question in and when he saw his country plunged into the speech from the throne truly reflected the war by slavery, he naturally looked to Eng-public feeling, which deprecated bloodshed. land as the stanch ally of the North, the This was not, as the Americans seemed to stern opponent of the South. Whether he suppose, merely a desire to see the United expected more than moral support and States split up. We are far from denying moral disfavor, we cannot say; but those that many thought that a separation would he never dreamed would fail. Coming to be good for America, and for all the world: England, he found our leading journal daily some on the ground that the Slave States and diligently misinforming the public as to left to themselves must soon collapse, and the causes of the quarrel, and teaching us thus end their course of crime; some on the to believe that slavery had scarcely anything ground that two communities such as the to do with it; he found many in high places North and South, after having been once disposed to speak of the South, not as he incensed against one another, could never thought Englishmen would speak of a pro-live together again in peace; and some on slavery rebellion. He imagined that the the vulgar, worldly-wise ground that America proclamation of a wise and honest neutrality was an ambitious, boastful country, and it meant friendship and favor to the South; would lower its pride, and make the world and thus fancied that his country, in the more secure, to have it divided. But though first juncture of his lifetime when he felt those who so thought might be many, they unqualified pride in her attitude, rising, as were a small part of the community; the she was, to defend herself against the blows general feeling was an honest aversion to of traitors who conspired because their prey see such a nation either committed to the was to be disturbed, had been not only for- horrors of civil war, or rent in twain: and saken, but betrayed, by the one power on that from the right and manly feeling of dis

like to war, and reluctance to see the ruin of a great nation. Just the same good feeling which has always made the British people averse to a war between England and America, made them deprecate one between North and South; a feeling of horror at seeing men of the same race and blood rush into battle against each other.

on England, when she had upon her hands the full weight of Bonaparte's war; but in it England suffered nothing, though what she attempted several times failed. It was the American soil on which blood ran, and the American shores which saw, now a city successfully defending itself, now another ingloriously fall, now a ship make a capture, now another become a captive. And, had England been free-handed, able to bend all her strength on America, instead of spending only what she could spare from Bonaparte, how different would have been the tale!

There is, perhaps, nothing in which the politicians of America less understand the English, than on the point of their oftenmanifested repugnance to fight America. It is ascribed, by some, to fear of the American arms; whereas, if there be one thing plain, it is that our people have had, at least, a sufficiently low view of the miserable military condition and preparations of America. Their feeling has been, that Jonathan richly deserved a good beating, and that it could be administered with ease; but he spoke our own tongue, and was of our own blood; therefore, said the heart of the English, never fight the Americans but under dire necessity; and, if forced to do it, fight them with a vigor never displayed before. Americans temper than by any other civilized governconfound conquest with defeat.

No! the reluctance of England to war with America has been from any cause but military fears. We cannot plead, on the other hand, that it has been from any persuasion of America's deserts. To speak the truth, we believe that the general feeling is quite the contrary. All believe that our reluctance to fight has been ungenerously abused, our territory encroached upon, and our statesmen put to more severe tests of

English- ment. One odious fact has long stared us in the face, that, when an American President wanted to make political capital, it was a good expedient to get up a quarrel with England. Every man here knew that an English statesman, suspected of wantonly raising a misunderstanding with the United States, would, instead of gaining, fatally lose public regard; and the fact, that the opposite was the case in America, made the clear and painful impression that ill-will to us was so general, that to pander to it was popular. Therefore, the general feeling has been, beyond question, that the Americans richly deserved to feel our arms, and would be the better for it. But, again, they were our own flesh and blood.

men never dream that they could make a conquest of the United States; and would no more attempt to subdue those vast territories, than to annex Russia. But they do often laugh, inwardly, to hear Americans talk of the comparative military strength of the two countries, when every sentence shows the Englishman that all their ideas go on the old revolutionary war; and that, because they feel that England could not overrun their endless country, therefore she is the weaker power. The very idea, that she could invade and trouble the country, tells where the truth lies. No, we could at any time inflict on America fearful injuries, and receive but slight ones. Before she could organize a navy, we could desolate all her When, at the conclusion of the Crimean ports; before she could organize an army, war, England stood with such an army as we could place a force in Canada which she never had, and such a navy as the world would laugh at her attempts; and, if her never saw, in a condition of preparedness privateers seized some of our ships, they for war, without parallel in her annals, and must find foreign ports; for those of their solely disappointed that Russia submitted, own seaboard would be locked up. Amer- and France urged peace; when, in these icans so far dupe themselves as to speak of circumstances, she found herself face to face the war of 1812 as a triumph. Let them with an American dispute, about the recruitask, if England had been invaded, its rivers ing question, first, and the Bay Islands, next, scoured, its ports harrassed, and its capitala dispute mischievously urged by the govtaken, would she have been counted the vic-ernment of Mr. Pierce; and following on tor? That struggle was ungenerously forced the long provocation from press and people,

during the war, by their strongly manifested not by outdoor conspirators, but by the Cabpreference for Russia; when, with a force inet, came upon most with the surprise of a which the people believed, and the states- fabulous event. Contempt for the vileness men knew, to be capable of sweeping the of the men was almost lost in surprise at American seas, and possessing the American the weakness of the system; and, when the ports, in a few weeks, she found herself in- President himself meekly reasoned with, and sulted and provoked by a feeble administra- tacitly commended, the revolutionists, and tion, did she take advantage? Did she not aimed his reproaches not at them, but at readily accept the return to reason which their opponents, then wonder ceased to grow ; followed the submission of Russia? Still and we could only meditate over one more she felt that the old, ungenerous game of spectacle of a government destroyed, but 1812 had been played over again; and that, this time by its own hand, and wait to see had not the close of the opportunity pre- how the recuperative force of a great people vented, we might have had another Ameri- might reconstruct the Union, which the feecan war forced on us when our hands were bleness of a system and the falseness of men full. had brought to a pitiable dissolution.

We forbore, the South said, only because of self-interest; England must have cotton, and therefore endured being bearded. There is much weight in this; but it is by no means all. Strong as was the desire to keep open our cotton supplies, the repugnance to fight with our own kin was yet a stronger element in our peaceful policy to America; and it was this same feeling which, at the outset of the present crisis, caused the universal desire to see it pass without actual

war.

"Will it come to war?" was the question long debated. The South had been preparing, and the long tenure of power by the slave party had placed all public posts in the hands of their adherents. They had officers, organization, perfect mutual understanding; and they took care to steal the guns, munitions, and money of the Government, whenever they found it possible. Still, hope persisted against hope.

Our pro-South politicians then began to show their tendencies; and the English press was disgraced by urgent recommendations to compromise. Had the North done so, not only would the chains of the slave have been riveted as they never were before, but the subjection of the North to the South, from which it had just arisen, would have thenceforth been absolute servitude. The North did not compromise. Its new President manfully avowed his adherence to that Constitution which he was elected to administer, and sworn to support. Some Englishmen reproached him that he did not declare for the abolition of slavery. He had no power to do so; the Constitution gave him none. No law, no vote, no trust placed it

This feeling, and the general tone of our press and our politicians, during the first stages of the dispute, were highly creditable to the nation. We may, hereafter, defy the Americans to point to any act of ours tending to exasperate the quarrel, or turn into physical conflict what as yet was only political rupture. Had England sought to embitter the dispute, she might have expected some of the unworthy suspicions which were early announced as to her intentions, and the reproaches which have since been sent to us from certain parties in America. It is true that men of all classes looked on with astonishment at the facility with which the political fabric of the Union dissolved. Even in his hands. It was elsewhere; and his those of us-and that was the great majority-who regard the Federal Government as an ingenious but ill-contrived machine, capable of standing and moving in fair circumstances, but not capable of bearing a strain, were not prepared to see it made the very instrument for destroying the Union. Rebellions are familiar in history, both of republics and monarchies. Plots are familiar too. But a rebellion, not of individual partisans, but of sovereign States; a plot,

were other powers, which he would faithfully use, as he had sworn to use them. Had he at once declared for abolition, it would have divided the North within itself, as effectually as North and South were already divided; for multitudes who would sustain the Government in constitutional acts, and zealously fight for it, if assailed, would resent, as usurpation, any exercise of power not legally vested in it, and scorn, as madness, any overt violence against the slave power.

But many of those who held up the pro- wind. The South saw his vacillation, a

stancher slaver was sought; both were defeated, and honest Abraham Lincoln, of whose fitness or unfitness for the post of a nation's head we cannot pretend to judge, but, who was well worthy to represent the anti-slavery party, became the President of the United States.

fessions of Mr. Lincoln to the English people, as proof that there was little or no difference between him and Jefferson Davis on the question of slavery, could not possibly be so ignorant as they pretended to be. It would argue as much information to say that a lord lieutenant of Ireland was a Papist, What said the South ? "There is little because he would administer the laws which recognize and endow Maynooth. He has no to choose between him and us on the subject other title to the post than a willingness to of slavery"? No; precisely the opposite of administer the law as it is; and, if he pro- that. They said, in effect, "If we remain pose to depart from it while it is law, he is under this Government, the days of slavery false to all trust. This was Mr. Lincoln's are numbered. We must set our house in position. His whole life had been given to order. Before Lincoln gets the reins into the anti-slavery cause; for it he had suffered his hand, let us carry our States out of the long political ostracism, had made more sacUnion, and frighten the North into concedrifices than any English politician ever did; ing all we wish, or fight till they acknowledge and, just because his mode of proceeding to our independence." If the North and its his end has to be now, as it had ever been, by new Government were as much pro-slavery the slow steps of legal reform, instead of by as the South; if they were not bent on bringswift and riskful strokes of power, he was to ing the slave power down, then the South be represented to Englishmen as another knew nothing of the matter, alarmed itself kind of slavemonger, and his party as con- by chimeras, and put all its possessions to tending, not against slavery, but for land! the risk of war, without even a shadow of We deliberately repeat, that, however inno- danger to justify its fears. A more arrant cent may have been the ignorance of some on absurdity than this has never been heard in this point, it could not have been so with all. even political explanations. No, no; the The South thoroughly understood the sig- South rebelled, with good reason. nificance of the change of government. By anti-slavery feeling at the North had steadhelp of Northerners, who played false toily grown, and, at last, had created a majorfreedom and to their country, they had long ity, and slavery was in danger. elected their own instruments. Their final triumph was the election of James Buchanan, the old man who had offended the decencies of even political life, by his plans for robbing other countries of their possessions, in order to please the president-making South; and who presided over a traitorous Cabinet in a spirit as well calculated to foster their schemes, as the maternal heat of the hen is to hatch the eggs she covers. That election was the greatest calamity which has yet befallen America; that man, the worst enemy she has ever seen; and the pro-South city of New York is not unjustly suffering. For, if Buchanan betrayed the country, she knew what he was, and gave him a sweeping majority.

The South wanted another such instrument, and a Northerner, Judge Douglas, had long been proffering himself as such; but, seeing the steady growth of anti-slavery feeling in the North, he had tried to trim his sails so as to catch a little of the changing

The

Up to the time when the secessionists became rebels and assailed the Government, by the destruction of Fort Sumter, the hope that all might somehow conclude without bloodshed was not quite chimerical, and the wish was certainly right. But how any sane man could, after that, talk of peaceful separation, we cannot understand:-of course, we mean any sane man who does not hold the principles of the Peace Society. If ever it is lawful to fight, it is when a government has to contend for its own existence. If ever a government is bound not to lie down and abdicate at the bidding of a rebel, it is when that rebel raises his hand not because he has been oppressed, but because he fears that he will be interrupted in a course of oppression; not because the law has been wrested to undermine his liberties, but because he fears that it may be used to bring release to his victims. If ever a government felt clear in its consciousness of right, it must have been that of Mr. Lincoln; and if