and the United States was still in a somewhat undeveloped condition. We now propose, as the most useful contribution which it is in our power to make to the discussion, to re-state a few facts which have been buried under ever-increasing piles of fiction, and the knowledge of which is necessary to enable us to do justice to the mother country, and in some measure also to Canada, whose Southern sympathies real or supposed, were included among the causes of offence. In the dispute which has arisen about the Treaty between the two parties at Ottawa, we have no inclination to take part. An occasion for reviewing their respective policy may present itself hereafter.

Slavery had divided the Union politically and socially into two distinct and antagonistic communities. All the world expected that between these two communities a rupture would some day come. It came at last, when, by the triumph of the Republican party in the Presidential Election of 1860, the Southerners lost their political control over the Union, and with it security for the maintenance of their own institutions. The Union then split into two groups of States, and the Southern group formed itself into a new confederation, having African slavery as its distinctive basis.

For this event no one was responsible but the people of the United States themselves, who had recognized slavery in their constitution, and who continued to recognize it till a military necessity enforced its abolition.

Least of all could any blame be said to rest on Great Britain, who had abolished by a great national sacrifice slavery in her

ritory, demanded nothing but treaties for the suppression of the slave trade; and who for nearly half a century had maintained a constant crusade against the trade, in which she had met with discouragement and even with obstruction from the Government of the United States.

Secession was facilitated, and the conduct of its authors was more or less justified in the eyes of many Americans and in those of the world at large by the idea prevalent at the South, and extensively entertained even at the North, as to the individual sovereignty of the States, an idea somewhat loosely expressed by the phrase State Right. Many even of those who did not admit the doctrine of State Right, regarded the Union as a voluntary association, in which the States could never be held by force. Dr. Channing, in enforcing the necessity of political virtue as a bond of cohesion, had said “ Union is not like that of other nations, confirmed by the habits of ages and riveted by force. It is a recent and still more a voluntary union. It is idle to talk of force as binding us together. Nothing can retain a member of this confederacy when resolved on separation. The only bonds that can permanently unite us are moral ones."* The Declaration of Independence laid it down as a universal principle that governments derive their authority from the consent of

Our

*"Discourse on Spiritual Freedom," Channing's works, People's edition, vol. II, pages 96, 97. We are informed by the correspondent to whom we owe the extract, that in an edition of Channing's works published at Boston, during the civil war, this passage is suppressed, If so, its significance is increased.

ple. This feeling rose almost to the point of anguish, though already, as those who were in the United States at the time testify, the Americans were ascribing the war to the machinations of Great Britain. The feeling against slavery and its partisans was also strong, and general. England was pledged to the Anti-slavery cause by her avowed principles, by her most cherished memories, by a great expenditure not only of treasure but of blood. If the aristocratic party at heart viewed the disruption of the great democratic power with not unnatural complacency, it did not venture openly to defy the traditional sentiment of the nation; and even the Times wrote against the slave-owners. But the avowal of the Northern Government that the war was not directed against slavery, the language of the American press, the publication by the American Government of the offensive despatch of Mr. Cassius Clay, the heroic energy and valour displayed by the South, the apparent want during the early part of the struggle of similar qualities on the side of the North, the Trent affair, the wearisome protraction of the conflict, and a growing impatience of the ruinous suspension of British industrythese circumstances, combined with the skilful propagandism of the South, wrought in course of time a partial change. The aristocratic party no longer feared to avow their political sympathy with the Southern aristocracy, and they were joined by a large commercial party which had its centre in the great cotton port.

On the other hand the popular party continued to manifest its unwavering and ardent sympathy with the North. It held public meetings in all the great cities; it waged an incessant war of opinion through the press; and in spite of a limited franchise, and an unreformed representation, it was strong enough, not only to prevent Great Britain from lending aid to the Confederates, but to prevent any motion for the recognition of the Confederacy from being even put to the vote

in the House of Commons. Nor were there any adherents of the Northern cause more staunch than the mechanics, whose bread was taken from their mouths and whose prospects were involved in the deepest gloom by the prolongation of the war. That these things are not forgotten by the people of the United States, appears from the use which they now make of the speeches of their old English friends and allies in framing their indictments against England.

Between the two parties whose sympathies were pronounced, there was a great mass which could scarcely be said to sympathize with either; but which, so far as it was swayed at all, was swayed partly by a vague feeling in favour of the weaker side, partly by the desire that the war might come to an end, and that the cotton trade might be restored. The feeling of aversion to a bloody, ruinous and apparently hopeless conflict largely prevailed, apart from any other sentiment, and was perfectly distinguishable from sympathy with slavery or with the South, though visited by the Americans with the same reprobation.

What the personal feelings of the several members of the British Government were, is not really known. It is confidently asserted that Lord Palmerston was friendly to the slave-owners; yet he had more than once embroiled England with foreign powers by his almost fanatical hostility to the slave trade. The Duke of Argyll and Mr. Milner Gibson were, it may safely be said, friendly to the North; and the Duke of Newcastle, a man singularly steady in love and hatred, retained a very warm recollection of the hospitable reception which he had met with in the States when he visited them in company with the Prince of Wales. Collectively, however, the Government took up and maintained to the end a position of neutrality. It refused to recognize the South. It refused to receive the Southern envoys. Even social courtesy was withheld from them by the Prime Minister, lest it should seem

our commercial connection with the South, rendered it incumbent on the Crown, at an early date, to issue a proclamation of neutral

To say that the British Government was neutral, is in fact saying too little. The Southern Confederacy, as has already been remarked, however objectionable its origin, however evil its institutions, presented the ordinary features of nationality. And in steadily refusing to recognize it as a nation, the British Government, it may safely be averred, was in some measure swayed by moral hostility to a slave-power. Had Great Britain recognized after Chancellorsville, there can be little doubt that the other powers would have followed her example. It is evident from the language of the American ambassador to his Government, that he felt great misgivings, as well he might, with regard to his position and the prospect of his being received by Great Britain as the de jure representative of all the States, when in fact he no more represented the Southern half of them than he represented France; and he clearly was much relieved when his misgivings were set at rest. It ought not to be forgotten that in all this the British Government was braving the resentment of the then victorious South, and that to a British Government, British interests may not unreasonably be to some extent a care.

That the Americans made great sacrifices in this war for the restoration of their Union is undoubted but if the question is which made the greater sacrifices for the abolition of slavery, America or Great Britain, the answer must be, Great Britain.

The presence of a British squadron on the scene of maritime war, and the intimacy of

from taking part in the war. With a view to the latter object, the prompt adoption of the measure was strongly advocated by the leading friends of the North. France issued a similar proclamation almost at the same moment, and the other powers speedily followed, Spain receiving a letter of thanks from the American Ambassador on the occasion. The proclamation of neutrality recognized the existence of a state of war, which was tantamount to recognizing the

Isun at noon.

It has been since asserted that the existence of a war ought to have been recognized on land only; and that while the Federals were treating General Lee and his soldiers as regular belligerents on land, we ought to have treated them as pirates on the seas. The Creator, we are told, in the beginning divided the dry land from the waters. This argument is at least as rational as any other that can be advanced in defence of the position.

It happened that the proclamation was issued when Mr. Adams, the new American Ambassador, had just landed, and before he had been communicated with. He could have brought no instructions which would have relieved the Government from the necessity of taking the step upon which it had determined; but the circumstance was unfortunate and might well have formed the subject of a courteous explanation. Unluckily Lord Russell, then Foreign Minister, was not much in the habit of making courteous explanations, and his example may serve as a signal warning to other Ministers of the mischief sometimes done by the omission of a gracious word. Mr. Adams, however, objected to the action of the British Government in declaring its neutrality only as "a little more rapid than the

occasion actually required." So far from taking it as a demonstration of hostility, he told his Government that it was not to be regarded in that light. Such was the original molehill which, under the influence of vindictive rhetoric, now towers up into a mountain of massive wrong.

Mr. Adams at the same period informed his Government that he had found British sentiment, even at Liverpool, still fluctuating. He might yet have fixed it in his own favour, had he been instructed to declare that the abolition of slavery was the object of the war. But he was instructed to declare that it was not.

The Proclamation was followed by orders interdicting the belligerents from bringing prizes into British ports, of which the Confederates complained bitterly, and which Mr. Seward regarded as "a death blow to Southern privateering."

The conduct of the British Government in thus recognizing the existence of a state of war, and applying to it the rules dictated by humanity and by the policy of nations, was endorsed by all the other maritime powers, and is approved by all sane men. But it did not satisfy Mr. Sumner. Mr. Sumner, in a speech on foreign relations, made during the war, insisted that Her Britannic Majesty should not only refuse to recognize the Southern government, but "spew it forth," and "blast" it by proclamation, and thus put the South on the footing of a Cain among the nations. Every moment of hesitation to issue such a proclamation, was according to him a moment of apostasy. "Not to blast was to bless." The Confederacy was a 'Magnum Latrocinium, whose fellowship could have nothing but the filthiness of evil," a mighty house of ill-fame," "an Ishmael," "a brood of harpies defiling all which it could not steal;" "a one-eyed Cyclops of nations ;" " a soulless monster of Frankenstein;" "a wretched creation of mental science without God." "Who," proceeded can welcome such a creation?

the orator,

who can consort with it? There is something loathsome in the idea. There is contamination even in the thought. If you live with the lame, says the ancient proverb, you will learn to limp; if you keep in the kitchen you will smell of smoke; if you touch pitch you will be defiled. But what lameness so pitiful as that of this pretended power? What smoke so foul as its breath! What pitch so defiling as its touch! It is an Oriental saying, that a cistern of rose water will become impure if a dog is dropped into it; but a continent of rose water with rebel slave-mongers could be changed into a vulgar puddle. Imagine if you please whatever is most disgusting, and this pretended power is more disgusting still. Naturalists report that the pike will swallow anything except the toad, but this it cannot do. The experiment has been tried, and though this fish in its voracity always gulps whatever is thrown to it, yet invariably it spews the nuisance from its throat. But our slavemonger pretension is worse than the toad, and yet there are foreign nations which instead of spewing it forth are already turning it like a precious morsel on the tongue." "Edipus," so went on Mr. Sumner, "in the saddest tale of antiquity, weds his own mother without knowing it, but England will wed the slave power with full knowledge that the relation, if not incestuous, is vile." And then "the foul attorneys of the slave-monger power, reeking with slavery, will have their letters of license as the ambassadors of slavery, to rove from court to court, over foreign carpets, talking, drinking, spitting slavery and poisoning that air which has been nobly pronounced too pure for a slave to breathe." All reasonable men must see that to follow the suggestions of this orator, would have been to follow the suggestions of fanaticism aggravated by the bitter memory of personal injury. Yet, Mr. Sumner has been practically allowed to guide the people of the United States in this matter, and it is on the faith of his rep.