trast calculated to give pain. There has been in that country the utmost liberty to the white mau, and bondage and degradation to the black man. Now rely upon it, that wherever Christianity lives and flourishes there must grow up from it, necessarily, a conscience hostile to any oppression and to any wrong; and therefore, from the hour when the United States' constitution was formed, so long has it left there this great evil-then comparatively small, but now so great-it left there seeds of that which an American statesman has so happily described, of that 'irrepressible conflict' of which now the whole world is the witness. It has been a common thing for men disposed to carp at the United States to point to this blot on their fair fame, and to compare it with the boasted declaration of freedom in their deed and Declaration of Independence. But we must recollect who sowed this seed of trouble, and how and by whom it has been cherished. I should like to read to you a paragraph from the instructions understood to have been given to the Virginian delegates to Congress, in the month of August, 1774, by Mr. Jefferson, who was perhaps the ablest man the United States had produced up to that time, and who was then actively engaged in its affairs, and who afterwards for two periods filled the office of president. represented one of these very slave states, the State of Virginia, and he says:— He 'For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no conceivable reason at all, his majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to avoid all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibition, and by imposing. duties which might amount to prohibition, have hitherto been defeated by his majesty's negative, thus preferring the immediate advantage of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.' I read this merely to show that two years before the declaration of independence was signed, Mr. Jefferson, acting on behalf of those he represented in Virginia, wrote that protest against the course of the English government, which prevented the colonists from abolishing the slave trade preparatory to the abolition of slavery itself. Well, the United States' constitution left the slave question for every state to manage for itself. It was a question too difficult to settle then, and apparently every man had the hope and belief that in a few years slavery itself would become extinct. Then there happened a great event in the annals of manufactures and commerce. It was discovered that in those states the article which we in this country now so much depend on, could be produced of the best quality necessary for manufacture, and at a moderate price. From that day to this the growth of cotton has increased there, and its consumption has increased here, and a value which no man dreamed of when Jefferson wrote that paper has been given to the slave and to slave industry. Thus it has grown up to that gigantic institution which now threatens either its own overthrow or the overthrow of that which is a million times more valuable, the United States of America. The crisis which has now arrived was inevitable. I say that the conscience of the North, never satisfied with the institution of slavery, was constantly urging some men forward to take a more extreme view of the question; and there grew up naturally a section, it may not have been a very numerous one, in favour of the abolition of slavery. A great and powerful party resolved at least upon a restraint and a control of slavery, so that it should not extend beyond the states and the area which it now occupies. But if we look at the government of the United States almost ever since the formation of the union, we shall find the southern power has been mostly dominant there. If we take thirty-six years after the formation of the present constitution, I think about 1787, we shall find that for thirty-two of these years every president was a southern man; and if we take the period from 1828 until 1860 we THE SLAVE QUESTION SECONDARY-ANDERSON. shall find that in every election for president the South voted in the majority. We know what an election is in the United States for President of the Republic. There is a most extensive suffrage, and there is the ballot-box. The members of the House of Representatives are elected by the same suffrage, and generally they are elected at the same time. It is thus, therefore, almost inevitable that the House of Representatives is in accord in public policy with the president for the time being. Every four years there springs from the vote created by the whole people a president over that great nation. I think the world offers no finer spectacle than this, it offers no higher dignity, and there is no greater object of ambition on the political stage on which men are permitted to move. You may point if you will to hereditary rulers, to crowns coming down through successive generations of the same family, to thrones based on prescription or on conquest, to sceptres wielded over veteran legions and subject realms; but to my mind there is nothing so worthy of reverence and obedience, and nothing more sacred, than the authority of the freely chosen by the majority of a great and free people; and if there be on earth and amongst men any right divine to govern, surely it rests with a ruler so chosen and appointed. Last year the ceremony of this great election was gone through, and the South, which had been so long successful, found itself defeated. That defeat was followed instantly by secession, and insurrection, and war. In the multitude of articles which have been before us in the newspapers within the last few months I have no doubt you have seen it stated, as I have seen it, that this question was very much like that upon which the colonies originally revolted against the crown of England. It is amazing how little some newspaper writers know, or how little they think you know. When the war of Independence was begun in America, ninety years ago, there were no representatives there at all. The question then was, whether a ministry in Downing Street, and a corrupt and borough-mongering parliament, should continue to impose taxes 105 upon three millions of English subjects, who had left their native shores and established themselves in North America. But now the question is not the want of representation, because, as is perfectly notorious, the South is not only represented, but is represented in excess, for, in distributing the number of representatives, which is done every ten years, three out of every five slaves are counted as freemen, and the number of representatives from the slave states is consequently so much greater than if the freemen, the white men only, were counted. From this cause the southern states have twenty members more in the House of Representatives than they would have if the members were apportioned on the same principle as in the northern free states. Therefore you will see at once that there is no comparison between the state of things when the colonies revolted and the state of things now, when this wicked insurrection has broken out." Probably few thoughtful people would now refuse their assent to these serious representations, or would deny their importance; but at the time they were uttered, or just before it, Mr. Bright, Mr. Cobden, and others who thought with them, appeared to be in a minority, and were not believed to represent the popular feeling in England. The attitude of the Federal government towards this country was that of suspicion, and soon became exasperating. The supposed hostility of the English people had been met by offensive demonstrations in the Northern States, and though the governments on both sides carefully abstained from endorsing any such breach of international courtesy as would produce a decided quarrel, the correspondence which went on between them showed great irritation under the reserve of diplomatic phraseology. A very large proportion of the people of England held firmly to the conviction that the Northern States had right and justice on their side in refusing those demands of the South which had for their object the perpetuation of negro slavery. It was perhaps a misfortune that the Federal government should have adopted the determination to preserve the constitution, by destroying the source from which the constant danger of disruption had | phasized by the fact that escaped negroes emanated, only when it was discovered that a war was inevitable in which each side must put out its strength. The assurance that the first effort to suppress rebellion was independent of the question which had all along been the cause of antagonistic legislation between individual states, and of the violent hostility of the two political parties, missed the true issue of the conflict, and gave the subsequent proclamations of freedom to the negroes the appearance of a desire to raise a servile insurrection in the South for the purpose of retaliation, or as a desperate expedient for retrieving the failures which at first seemed to attend almost every attempt of the Federal forces. By that time, however, the hopes which some Northern statesmen had entertained, that the Confederate revolt could be suppressed before it had grown beyond a domestic insurrection, had been frustrated. The struggle had technically assumed proportions even beyond those of a civil war. By blockading Charleston with sunken stone-ships, and afterwards announcing a blockade of Southern ports, the Federals had acknowledged the Confederates as belligerents. They may not have kept this consequence in view under the stress of circumstances which demanded prompt and extreme measures, but they could scarcely expect that the observances of international law would be dispensed with in their case; and though the proclamation of the British government that thenceforth the Southern States of America must be regarded as a belligerent power, and strict neutrality must be exercised, increased the angry feeling to a pitch that led to extravagant menace, deliberate politicians on both sides, and a considerable majority in this country, felt that no other course could reasonably be adopted. We may look for a moment at some of the conditions which had exercised an influence on public feeling in England, and they will in some degree serve to explain the differences of opinion which prevailed during the first year of the struggle between the disunited states. The fugitive slave question had been em were assisted by the abolitionists to find a refuge in Canada, where they were safe from demands for their restoration on the authority of "state laws." In 1861 the case of John Anderson became very prominent as an example of the liberty to be attained by seeking an asylum in Canada, and at the same time illustrated with remarkable effect the evil of slavery. Anderson, a negro slave, but not without some admixture of white blood, had been brought up in the state of Missouri, where he eventually married a slave girl, from whom and from his child he was separated by being sold into a distant part of the country as though he had been a mere beast of burden, but with even less care for his wellbeing. In the year 1853, however, he escaped from the plantation to which he was sent and reappeared in the neighbourhood where his wife still lived, only to be discovered by Seneca P. Digges, a planter, who had not the slightest claim on the fugitive, but who, in order to uphold the great institution of slavery, at once volunteered a man hunt for the good of the cause, and went on Anderson's track with four slaves to help him. After having hunted their game till he became desperate, they at last came up with him, and in an evil moment Digges closed with the runaway, who, in the defence of life and liberty, stabbed his antagonist and mortally wounded him, afterwards escaping to Canada, where he lived the life of a quiet and industrious man, although his wife and child were not redeemed from the bondage which he had long been anxious to terminate, by saving a sufficient sum to purchase their freedom. Anderson was claimed by the United States government on a charge of murdering Digges, and on his trial in December, 1859, it was urged on behalf of the prisoner that he was entitled to the writ on which he was brought before the court, and, upon the return of the writ, to have the matter charged against him inquired into; that the evidence was not sufficient to put him upon trial for the crime of murder, assuming that he was entitled to the protection of British law; that a charge under the treaty should be first laid in the States, while there CANADA-THE EXTRADITION QUESTION. was no evidence that any charge had been laid against the prisoner; that if even the court were bound to administer the law of Missouri, the evidence did not show that Missouri had power to pass such a law, inasmuch as she was but a municipality in relation to other governments, and the law was against natural justice; and that the word "murder" mentioned in the treaty meant murder according to the laws of both countries; and if not, that, both by treaty and statute, the crime and its criminality were to be determined by the laws of Canada. Anderson was brought before the Court of Common Pleas at Toronto on a writ of habeas corpus, issued by Chief-justice Draper on the 9th of April, 1861, though his extradition to the Missouri authorities had been ordered. The English court, however, granted a writ of habeas corpus on an affidavit that Anderson was illegally detained at Toronto, and the only question which it considered was whether it had jurisdiction to issue such a writ into the province of Canada. The further question of this authority was prevented, however, and the whole case was happily concluded without a prolonged discussion of the interpretation of the extradition treaty, by the issue of the writ by the Canadian Court of Common Pleas on the very day that the writ of the English court arrived at Toronto, and by the discharge of the prisoner by Chief-justice Draper for technical informality in the warrant of commitment. Chief-justice Draper, after hearing the evidence, said that it was doubtful whether the case could be decided in that term if judgment were to be given upon all the points; but that he would give the prisoner the benefit of a speedy discharge if they came to an opinion in his favour on the technical point as to the insufficiency of the commitment. An order was given for the prisoner to be brought up on the following Saturday, and when the day arrived Anderson was discharged, on the grounds that the warrant of commitment was not issued in conformity with the statute1st, Because it did not contain a charge of murder but only of felonious homicide, whereas treaty and statute do not authorize surren 107 der or committal for any homicide not expressed to be murder. 2d, That it was not expressed to be for the purpose of surrender, but only until the prisoner should be discharged by due course of law, whereas the statute requires both. No judgment was given upon the merits of the case itself. Chiefjustice Draper declared that he did not see any way to the conclusion that the court could hold the case not to be within the treaty, and the act so clearly not to be murder, that there would be nothing for a jury to try, but that the court could dispose of it as a true question of law; for if there was a question of fact to be tried, he apprehended the accused must be surrendered, as such question could only be tried in the country where the fact arose. These and other similar questions were of too serious a character to be decided upon impulse or in haste, and he did not scruple to say that so long as the prisoner sustained prejudice by the delay, he desired to defer pronouncing an opinion on them. He was reluctant, on the one hand, where the accuser did not make it indispensable, to declare that each individual of the assumed number of four millions of slaves in the Southern States might commit assassination in aid of his escape on any part of his route to that province, and find impunity and shelter on his arrival there. He was reluctant, on the other hand, to admit that Great Britain had entered into treaty obligations to surrender a fugitive slave, who, as his sole means of obtaining his liberty, had shed the blood of the merciless taskmaster who held him in bondage. This was, in fact, a back way out of a difficult position. When the case had first come before the Canadian courts, the chief-justice had construed the extradition treaty in a manner more vigorous than English lawyers believed was justifiable, by representing that as by the law homicide committed in resistance to lawful authority was murder, and that as the authority by which Digges attempted to capture Anderson was unquestionably lawful by the laws of Missouri, where the struggle took place, Anderson, though morally justified in the eye of the English law, was nevertheless guilty of the crime of murder. Happily this legally fine-drawn distinction was not brought forward for final argument, or the extradition treaty might or should have suffered. By an adroit use of a technical objection the case was put to an end by the release of the prisoner, and everybody, except perhaps the extreme pro-slavery party, breathed more freely. Comparatively few people in England understood that the demand for the relinquishment of Anderson as an escaped slave was made by a government controlled by Southern influence. Scarcely anybody here knew much about the working of the separate state laws in America, or the changes that would probably follow the accession to power of a strong Northern party. For some years our governments had been irritated by the overbearing tone frequently assumed by the ministers at Washington in their representations regarding England, their denunciation of English claims in Central America, and other subjects of correspondence. These things were remembered as against the government of the United States, without much distinction being made between the parties of which that government might be formed; and consequently when the representatives of the North, the antagonists of slavery, came into power, and not unreasonably looked for the sympathy and moral support of Great Britain, they had some excuse for being disappointed at finding that, on the whole, Great Britain seemed inclined to turn to them a very cold shoulder. The truth was that half the people in England did not regard the war as one directed against slavery, but as an effort to prevent the Southern States from breaking the union. The South was the aggressor, no doubt, but there were strong surmises that it had been driven into hostilities by the same overbearing temper which had so often been displayed towards this country. Nobody seemed to reflect that these arrogant messages were sent to this country by a government favourable to Southern and not to Northern views; and as to the suppression of slavery, had not President Lincoln, in entering upon the duties of his office, said: "I have no purpose, direct or indirect, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Where was there any sign of the abolition of slavery in this declaration. Even better informed people seemed to think that the best thing the North could do was to let the Southern States go, and to take their peculiar institution with them. It was a not uncommon opinion that the Union would be broken up into various territories, under distinct and independent governments, like the countries of Europe. Another impression was that the Mississippi pretty accurately divided the free from the slaveholding states. In addition to these errors, which a reasonable amount of reflection or inquiry would have corrected, there existed a notion that the people of the Northern States were rather a crafty huckstering set, with a turn for doubledealing or talent for taking advantage. The movements of the government were therefore viewed with caution, if not with suspicion, when it came to be understood that the Northern cause was represented. Certainly there was little attempt on the part of the American cabinet to propitiate opinion in England. When it was seen that very little sympathy could be counted on from this country, the United States government showed much asperity, although their accusations and the temper which they displayed fell far short of the animosity towards England openly avowed by the people in New York and elsewhere. Very little pains were taken on either side to restrain or to suppress expressions of feeling which were as bitter as they were ill founded, and unfortunately the policy adopted by the American government tended still more to excite the expressions of dissatisfaction with which the prosecution of the war was regarded here. Of course it was a serious misfortune that the supply of cotton should have been entirely suspended, and that the mills of Lancashire and Cheshire should be idle, the manufacturing population reduced to want, and the whole of a great staple trade paralysed; but in addition to this the American legislature had adopted a system of rigid protection which by the so-called "Morrill" Tarif |