| | | | For the Americans themselves the question of the | origin of Secession can have very little interest now. | When once fighting has begun, and the blood on both | sides is up, one cause of quarrel is just as good as | another. The South American republics, whose | aptitude for civil war is as great as that of their | Northern sister promises to become, are perfectly | satisfied if they have a leader and an enemy, and do | not trouble themselves with perplexing controversies | about the origin of each quarrel. But the case is very | different with England; for our part in the proceedings | is still to come. The origin of the strife is of | considerable interest to us, as it may be one of the | elements in a decision that will probably be forced | upon us before very long. Mr. Ellison, as a warm | advocate of the North, knows that he is not wasting | time in trying to persuade Englishmen that . | He surmises that, if no such disturbing element affects | the national judgment, we shall act towards America | according to the ordinary rules of international law, | just as we should act towards any other country in the | world. If we are to be tempted into all the risks and | future difficulties which would be involved in making | a special exception in favour of the North, it can only | be in deference to feelings that lie very near to the | English heart. It is a natural device, therefore, on the | part of those who wish to propitiate England towards | the North, that they should try to represent the civil | war that is raging in Virginia as a struggle between | slavery and freedom. Mr. Ellison devotes to the | question a volume full of history and statistics which | may be said to exhaust it. But he does not prove the | point which it is important to him to prove. That | slavery is at the root of the long-standing hostility | between the North and the South scarcely requires to | be proved. It is established by the simple fact that the | Slave States are, with one or two exceptions, all on | one side, and the Free States all on the other. But | what it imports to Mr. Ellison to make good is, not | that slavery has made the North and South | antagonistic and antipathetic communities, but that it | is the cause of the present outbreak ~~ that the South | has taken the field in defence of slavery and the North | in defence of freedom. It is only with the immediate | cause of the war that foreign countries are concerned. | England helped Turkey against Russia, because | England sympathized with Turkey in reference to the | immediate subject of the contest. But it is, no doubt, | the difference of religion which is at the bottom of the | antipathy between Russia and Turkey, and England | no more sympathizes with Mahometanism than she | does with slavery. In calling on us to assume an | attitude hostile to the South at the present crisis upon | general anti-slavery grounds, M. Ellison is really | asking England to imitate the example of the famous | Welsh juryman who was for returning the prisoners | guilty of murder, because, whether they had | committed it or not, he was quite certain they had | stolen his horse. | In trying to prove his case, Mr. Ellison relies chiefly | on evidence which only a man of genuine | guilelessness could employ. He quotes the warlike | appeals made by the Sothern statesmen to their own | people. On similar evidence he might prove that the | object of Napoleon III. in crossing the Ticino was to | free Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, and that the | object of the Emperor of Russia in crossing the Pruth | was to secure the spiritual privileges of his Greek | co-religionists. Potentates who are going to war are apt | to use the most popular topics they can hit upon to stir | up the martial ardour of their people, without | disquieting themselves by the inquiry whether those | are exactly the most prominent topics in their own | minds. Slaves are the most precious possession of | every Southern rich man, and the darling object of | every struggling poor man. The belief that the | Northerners were coming down to take away their | slaves, or to make their slaves rebel, has about the | same value, as historical evidence of a fact, as the old | belief in England that the Pretender was coming over | to introduce Popery and wooden shoes. But even this | evidence, worthless as it is, breaks down in Mr. | Ellison's hands. He himself gives an extract from the | address of Governor Hicks, of Maryland, which | absolutely negatives the statement that the leaders of | the revolt put forward slavery as their chief cause of | discontent: ~~ | | Mr. Ellison's volume closes with a very complete | view of the relative conditions in which slavery and | freedom have left the two communities. He shows | very conclusively by elaborate figures how the | peculiar institution has retarded the States which | maintain it in every kind of progress, moral, | intellectual, and material. It is a terrible balance-sheet; | and if the victory of the North could cancel its results, | we might even wish to strain the obligations of | international law to arrive at so blessed a | consummation. But he seems to conceal from himself | and his readers the real and direct connexion of these | figures with the present war. The South are as well | aware of their inferiority as we are. We attribute it | with confidence to the thriftless and brutalizing | influence of slavery. But the South assign to it a very | different pedigree, and unfortunately the North have | given them only too specious an excuse for doing so. | We have seen that the Carolinians refer the origin of | their grievances to 1833; and 1833 was only the crisis | of a previous discontent which had been growing up | for a long period of years. The South asserted then, | and assert still, that if they are behind their rivals in | wealth, and in all the culture that burdened their | agriculture, impeded their public works, and robbed | them of their legitimate commerce. The tariff of the | United States forced them to buy Northern iron and | other goods at a high price, instead of European | goods at a low price; and these purchases had to be | paid for by their cotton, which thus took a circuitous | route through New York instead of a direct route to | England. The consequence was that New York grew | fat while Charleston starved; and capital gravitated | towards the protected North, and drained away from | the burdened South. This at least is a much more | probable cause of secession than any slavery | grievances. That secession would leave the South in | a worse position as regards slavery has been obvious | at first sight to every thinking man in Europe, and | assuredly cannot have escaped the notice of the able | men who have headed the Southern movement. It | will deprive them of a large force of auxiliaries on | which, while the Union lasted, they could have | counted in the case of a negro insurrection; and it will | bring a free country, the focus of an Abolitionist | propaganda, to their very doors. It will dispense with | the necessity of an underground railway, by giving | them for their nearest neighbour an asylum for their | slaves more hostile to themselves than the hated | Canada itself. If the maintenance of slavery were the | object of the Secession, it would be a grotesque | absurdity, such as vast communities do not commit | when their nearest and most obvious interests are at | stake. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that | Secession will give them Free-trade, and restore the | cotton trade to some Southern port. | | Apart, however, from the conduct of the South, it | would be impossible for Englishmen to persuade | themselves that the invasion of Virginia is a crusade | on behalf of freedom. Neither the Federal | Government nor its popular masters have ever | dropped a hint that such is the object of the war. To | the last, Congress has been considering, and in part | agreeing to, compromises intended to make the | position of the slaveowner more comfortable, and the | institution of slavery more enduring. On the last day | of February in the present year, a resolution was | passed for the purpose of making the maintenance of | slavery where it now exists, so long as the Slave | States shall support it, an integral and unalterable | portion of the Constitution. The readiness with which | this security to the slaveowner was given contrasts | strangely with the tenacity with which the Morrill | Tariff has been upheld. The truth is, that the real | Abolitionists are not strong Unionists. They believe | that a termination of the support and countenance | given to slavery by the North would be its certain | downfall. It is a saying of Mr. Garrison's, the great | Abolitionist orator, . The North fights for | supremacy, not for freedom. The wretched position | of degradation held by the free blacks in the North is | of itself a sufficient proof that the Northerners cherish | no enthusiasm for the establishment of an equality | between the races. | Slavery is a mere stalking-horse on both sides. The | passions of a certain class of natives are stimulated by | its alleged danger in the South; and it is hoped by | some advocates of the North that the sympathies of | foreign Powers will be enlisted by the promise of hits | overthrow. In reality, it counts absolutely for nothing | in the motives of the Government of Washington, and | takes a very long subordinate rank among the motives | of the Government of Montgomery. Mr. Ellison, and | many other authors of pamphlets and lectures, are | honest in believing that the war is a holy way; but | they are biassed by their predilections, and must be | listened to as men who hold a brief. Their theory can | only be substantiated by ignoring the history of every | part of American politics except that which directly | bears on slavery. If their views are allowed to be | reiterated without contradiction, it is possible they | may lay hold of that floating stock of unemployed | sentiment which is always ready in the autumn | months to be invested in any cry, however worthless, | which may offer itself at the right moment. It would | not be a harmless delusion if it were once to become | prevalent. According to the present aspect of affairs, | the question of recognition may arise at any moment; | and we should suffer as meddlers always do suffer, if | any passing fit of generous blundering were to divert | us from a rigorous observance of the traditions of | international law.