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SOUTHERN CLAIM OF INDEPENDENCE:

But the difficulties of this theory do not end here. If the secession movement be a revolt against protective tariffs, why is it confined to the Southern States? The interest of the Cotton States in free exchange with foreign countries is not more obvious than that of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. No class in these States has anything to gain by protective measures: nothing is produced in them which is endangered by the freest competition with the rest of the world: an artificial enhancement of European manufactures is to them as pure an injury as it is to South Carolina or Alabama : yet all these States are ranged on the side of the North in this contest, and resolute for the suppression of the revolt.

It is, however, by the watch word of 'independence,' still more than by that of free trade, that the partisans of the South in this country have sought to enlist our sympathies in favour of that cause. We are told of the naturalness, the universality, the strength of the desire for self-government.

deliberately contrived with a view to make political capital out of the sentiments which they calculated on its exciting in England— an explanation which is countenanced by the fact that Mr. Toombs, representative of Georgia, who now holds a command in the army of Jefferson Davis, was in the Senate when the Morrill tariff was submitted to that assembly, and voted for the new law. If this was their object, never was plot more skilfully contrived or more successful.

HOW TO BE ESTIMATED.

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We are reminded of the peculiar power of this passion among the Anglo-Saxon race. The act of the original thirteen States in severing their connexion with the mother country is dwelt upon; and we are asked why the South should not also be permitted to determine for itself the mode of its political existence ? "It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be 'let alone :" why should this favour be denied it? Now let it at once be conceded that the right to an independent political existence is the most sacred right of nations: still even this right must justify itself by reference to the ends for which it is employed. The demand of a robber or murderer for "independence" is not a claim which we are accustomed to respect; and it does not appear how our obligations are altered if the demand proceed from a robber or murderer nation-if national independence be sought solely and exclusively as a means of carrying out designs which are nothing less than robbery and murder on a gigantic scale. I am assuming that these crimes are involved in the extension of slavery, and that the extension of slavery is the end for which the Southern Confederacy has engaged in the present war. These assumptions I hope to make good hereafter; but meanwhile, it may be asked, if the extension of the domain

16

REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION.

of slavery be not the object for which the South seeks independence, what is that object? Let those who have undertaken the defence of that body explain to us in what way the legitimate development of the Southern States, within their proper limits, was hindered by Federal restraints? If they had grievances to complain of why did they not let the world know them? Why did they resist all the efforts of the Northern States to extract from them a categorical statement of what they sought? "That,” says an able writer, " was precisely what it was impossible to obtain from the representatives and sena. tors of the extreme South. They steadily refused to make known, even under the form of an ultimatum, the conditions on which they would consent to remain in the Union. Their invariable response was 'it was too late; their constituents would acquiesce in no arrangement." Before then we allow ourselves to be carried away by the cry of the South for independence, it is material to ascertain the purpose for which independence is desired. It is important to distinguish between (to quote the words. of the eminent man whose name has been prefixed to this volume)" the right to rebel in defence of the power to tyrannize," and "the right to resist by arms a tyranny practised over ourselves."

The causes and character of the American contest

*Annuaire des Deux Mondes (1860), p. 618.

REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION.

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are not for Englishmen questions of merely speculative interest. On the view which we take of this great political crisis will depend, not alone our present attitude towards the contending parties, but in no small degree our future relations with a people of our own race, religion and tongue, to whom has been committed the task, under whatever permanent form of polity, to carry forward in the other hemisphere the torch of knowledge and of civilization. We may, according as we act from sound knowledge of the real issues which are at stake or in ignorance of them, do much to promote or to defeat important human interests bound up with the present contest, and to increase or to diminish the future influence for good of this country. It would indeed be a grievous misfortune if, in one of the great turning points of human history, Great Britain were found to act a part unworthy of the position which she occupies and of the glorious traditions which she inherits.

The present essay is intended as a contribution towards the diffusion of sound ideas upon this subject. The real and sufficient cause of the present position of affairs in North America appears to the writer to lie in the character of the Slave Power— that system of interests, industrial social and political, which has for the greater part of half a century directed the career of the American Union, and which now, embodied in the Southern Confederation,

18

TRUE ORIGIN OF THE WAR

seeks admission as an equal member into the community of civilized nations. In the following pages an attempt will be made to resolve this system into its component elements, to trace the connexion of the several parts with each other, and of the whole with the foundation on which it rests, and to estimate generally the prospects which it holds out to the people who compose it, as well as the influence it is likely to exercise on the interests of other nations ; and, if I do not greatly mistake the purport of the considerations which shall be adduced, their effect will be to show that this Slave Power constitutes the most formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared for many centuries, representing a system of society at once retrograde and aggressive, a system which, containing within it no germs from which improvement can spring, gravitates inevitably towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies, inherent in its position and circumstances, to a constant extension of its territorial domain. The vastness of the interests at stake in the American contest, regarded under this aspect, appears to me to be very inadequately conceived in this country; and the purpose of the present work is to bring forward this view of the case more prominently than has yet been done.

But it is necessary here to guard against a misapprehension. The view that the true cause of the