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and more certainly than our volunteers; and in fact will soon become sick of the contest. Moreover, we trust mainly to our blockade. By shutting up all the ports, we shall ruin the planters-prevent them effectually from buying what they need and from selling what they must sell in order to raise the purchase money and in six months compel them to surrender at discretion."

sitions of the North. Is it probable, is it | be extensively recruited; that they will dispossible, now, when the passions of both perse, especially after disaster, more speedily sides have been raised to the highest pitch by mutual invective and by actual bloodshed, that the Southerners will listen to the terms they scouted a few months ago,-or that the Northerners will offer any terms half as liberal? People will do many things to avert a breach which they would never dream of doing to repair one-especially when the repair could only be so imperfect and so transient as it would be in the present case. But the Federalists themselves admit that the time for compromise is gone by. They are now as little inclined for it as their antagonists. They say they are going to subdue the South-so completely to defeat them as to force them back into the Union-and to keep them in it by compulsion and restraint. This achievement, which in March their own chiefs all disclaimed as wild and unattemptable, they have now worked themselves up to the delusion of believing practicable and within easy reach. To such a point has fury blinded their naturally shrewd intelligence. This, then, is the project the feasibility of which we have to consider. We appeal to the map; we remind our readers of the race.

The seceding states extend from the North of Virginia to the South of Florida and Texas, over fifteen degrees of latitude, and from Missouri to North Carolina, over twenty degrees of longitude. This enormous space is inhabited by a rough, scanty, and widely scattered population, and contains few large towns. A traveller marches for days, and meets only occasional shanties and loghouses. Flying columns might march for days and meet no foe, and no shelter. The largest army would be a mere speck in such a desert. The best-appointed army, with the most skilfully organized commissariat, might be in despair at such roads, such rivers, such forests, and such distances. Cleverly managed guerilla bands might harass an army of any size and any quality into speedy ruin. What, then, would become of such a militia as the United States army consists and must consist of-nearly all ill-disciplined volunteers, and scantily provided with the materiel of war? It is obvious that any thing like a conquest by land of such a country it is mere idleness to speak of. The Confederate troops might, possibly enough, be defeated on the plains of Virginia; but when they retired South, what general would venture to pursue them?

Probably the more rational among the Federalists will admit all this. But they will say: "That is not our plan, nor our expectation. We believe that the secessionist forces are inferior to ours; that they cannot

Well we will suppose them to be as successful in dispersing Southern forces and in blockading Southern ports as they expect to be. We will for the moment put aside the two possibilities of the blockade being evaded by a fair proportion of enterprising merchantmen, or raised by Confederate privateers and cruisers, even if no other contingencies should interfere. Is it so certain that mere defeat in the field added to all the inconveniences and privations consequent on an interrupted commerce will induce the Southerners to confess themselves vanquished, and submit to accept terms at the dictation of the conqueror? Does any one acquainted with the temper of the Southerner-who unites all the fiery pride of a Frenchman with all the stubborn pride of an Englishman-believe that defeat and privation will do more than envenom and exasperate the strife? Has it not been apparent from the very beginning of the dispute that fanatical passion and not calculating sense has guided the whole people; and that now their cause has become elevated in their eyes into something that is quite patriotism and almost religion? And can we really believe that such men (who are to be counted by millions), because they can only sell their cotton and buy wine and tea and clothing by driblets, will be persuaded to re-enter that Union as suppliant and defeated rebels, in which they refused to remain unless they could wield its whole power and monopolize its whole emoluments? The superior might of the North we do not for one moment question: they have a vast preponderance in wealth, in numbers, in ships, in education; they are as brave, more intelligent, and may possess or create as able leaders;-and all these resources will tell enormously in the long run. Certainly at last-possibly even from the first-victory and success will incline to their side. But victory is not conquest; success will not necessarily entail the enemy's submission. And they are fighting, not with savage Indians, nor with feeble Mexicans, but with Anglo-Saxons as fierce, as obstinate, and as untamable as themselves. Therefore, granting the utmost that can be alleged as to the difficulties and the poverty of the South, and the numbers

and resources of the North, we conceive that most uniformly advocated the claims of the though the Federalists may be victorious in the strife, they cannot be successful in their aim. For this last object, they must compel eight millions of free men-trained to selfgovernment and accustomed to regard themselves as not only politically independent but politically supreme-to sue for peace, and to sue to men whom they have habituated themselves to look down upon as snobs and vulgar tradesmen, whom of late they have begun to hate with a familiar bitterness, and whom they will detest with tenfold animosity when the humiliation of defeat rankles in their bosoms. Is this a rational anticipation?

There is another and very serious set of considerations connected with this subject, which we must defer till next week.

From The Saturday Review, 29 June.
ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

North; the Government has pronounced an immutable neutrality, of which the United States reap all the practical benefit; and both Houses of Parliament have firmly refused to engage in discussions which might afford an opportunity for the use of irritating language. In return for conduct which was incomparably more respectful than eager partisanship, the United States minister to St. Petersburg threatened at Paris that France should sweep England from the face of the earth; and all the public writers in the Northern States season incessant vitu-. perations of England with preposterous expressions of adulation to France, which are dictated rather by a desire to be indirectly offensive than by wanton servility.

Two months ago, the Southern Confederacy seemed to be practically recognized by the Government of Washington, and the ostensible opinion of the North was loudly opposed to coercion. When a vessel loaded THE Americans are properly solicitous for with arms for the secessionists of Charleston the good opinion of foreigners, especially of was detained by the Federal authorities, the Englishmen, and their frequent failure to present mayor of New York, representing obtain it is in some degree attributable to the great majority of the city population, their nervous anxiety for success. Respect, loudly expressed his regret that he had not among individuals or among nations, is not the power to liberate the sequestered propto be extorted by defiant boasting. The erty by force. Mr. Douglas publicly appoliticians of the United States generally plauded Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address, on open their communications with the mother- the ground that it appeared to announce a country by an announcement that any hesi-policy of peace. The present United States tation in complying with their demands will minister at Lisbon sent private information immediately be followed by war. If Eng- to Charleston that the Government was land is passive and neutral, they exaggerate about to reinforce the garrison of Fort Sumthe irritating absence of sympathy into a ter. English politicians could not but see wanton and jealous animosity; and as they that while the Southern States were unanientertain a latent suspicion that their own mous, the secession was almost openly acmenaces may be lightly esteemed, they po- knowledged by the North as an irrevocable litely allude to that future French invasion event. Nevertheless, the Government and which they suppose to be always looming in the nation waited in absolute inaction for English imaginations. The chronic annoy- the independent solution of an exclusively ance and disappointment which attend their domestic problem. The same attitude has eccentric methods of controversy would be been steadily maintained up to the present wholly avoided if American speakers and time, although the outbreak of the civil war writers would try the experiment of demean- rendered it necessary to define the position ing themselves like gentlemen. Courtesy, of English subjects to both the belligerents. self-respect, and decent reserve may be oc- The French Government, having pursued casionally compatible with injustice, but they precisely the same course, has been overensure corresponding deference to the ex-whelmed by professions of exaggerated gratponents even of an unsound cause. What-itude. England, after submitting patiently ever may be the national faults of Eng- to torrents of unprovoked abuse, is now inlishmen in their dealings with continental formed that the neutrality which can no foreigners, they have no reason to be ashamed longer be denied is an after-thought sugof the pertinacious tolerance which they gested by the remonstrances of the Amerihabitually feel and exhibit towards Ameri- can press, and by the rude impertinence cans. From the commencement of the pres- which the New York papers put into the ent crisis, the Government and the country mouth of Mr. Adams. It is fortunate that have steadily observed the rules, not only England is not as thin-skinned as America; of international right, but of scrupulous del-nor can it be denied that a consciousness of icacy and good-breeding. The press, as far superior calmness and good sense has a tenas it has taken a side in the dispute, has al-dency to soothe the temper. There are many

more pungent provocations than volleys of and all their senators, all their representaangry scolding, for human vanity finds a tives, the majority of the officers in the United complacent satisfaction in the weakness of States army, and the ablest officers of the wanton assailants. The vulgarity of the United States navy are now included in the New York Times or Herald cannot affect the compendious list of rebels who are to be real importance of the issue which is now hung, or otherwise annihilated, in a twelveabout to be tried by a great though unso-month. Mr. Jefferson Davis and his assophisticated nation. There is something lu- ciates may have made a mistake, but the dicrous in the American appetite for the ad-grossness of the blunder which is attributed miration of the world, but the exertions which to them by their enemies is inconceivable. the people are making for the maintenance of the Union are extraordinary, and deserving of genuine respect.

There seems for the present to be no limit to the available number of Northern troops, and in a few months a powerful force may Enormous bragging is by no means incon- have sufficiently acquired the rudiments of sistent with practical vigor and efficiency. discipline. It is not equally easy to learn The enlistments, the preparations for the the trade of generalship, although Mr. Butcampaign, and the preliminary skirmishes, ler, who was a civilian until Easter, was, beare recorded with an emphasis which might fore his check at Great Bethel, described by become the commencement of the fifteenth eloquent newswriters in his character of a glorious revolution in a South American Re-veteran commander, with an enthusiasm public. The difference consists in the reality which might have been called forth by Marlof the armaments in the United States, and borough or Turenne. Two or three hunin the rational adaptation of the military ar- dred thousand men may possibly be collected rangements to the objects to which they are and fed, but if they are handled by amateur intended to accomplish. Even General Scott, leaders they will be little better than a helpwho is probably a sensible old soldier, is less mob. General Scott is probably well compelled to satisfy the popular love of gos- aware of the inadequacy of his instruments, sip, by promising that the South shall be and it may be conjectured that he has no inoverrun by his armies within a definite tention of venturing either on a battle or on period. Mr. Lincoln professes still more a distant campaign. If the enemy can be sanguine anticipations, not without a judi- slowly pressed southward by a concentration cious regard to the expediency of getting sup- of imposing masses in their front, the popplies of men and money while the country ular voice may be trusted to magnify the ocis in a humor to provide them without stint.cupation of Richmond into a glorious and By Christmas, or at the farthest by the 4th unparalleled triumph. More ambitious deof July, 1862, every rebel is to be hanged or banished, the Union party in the South is to become visible and supreme, and the reunited states, oblivious both of their quarrel and of its causes, are thenceforward, as in a fairy tale, "to live happy ever after." There is no harm in patriotic anticipations which, in the probable contingency of their failure, will be forgotten before they are falsified. The Government of Washington, compelled by the national custom to think in public, probably practises a prudent mental reservation. The promise of subjugating the Southern States will be fulfilled in a partially non-natural sense, if the highlands of Virginia and Tennessee are conquered, and if Missouri and Kentucky are retained within the Union. The probability or possibility of more complete success requires an assumption which would, a short time ago, have given mortal offence to all true Americans. Foreigners cannot admit at a moment's notice that the public affairs of the Union have, during all living memory, been principally conducted by a cluster of fools and cowards. The Confederate States contributed far more than their share to the administration of all the great departments;

signs would involve dangers which Mr. Lincoln and his advisers must comprehend, though they cannot publicly acknowledge their imminence. Little or nothing is known of the Confederate policy, except that Mr. Jefferson Davis has for some time past assumed a tone of scrupulous moderation. With General Beauregard he has arrived at the seat of war in Virginia, and he is said to have assembled a considerable force at the railway junction at Manassas. It will be in his power to offer battle to the Federal army, or, at his discretion, to retire. There are no materials for judging whether he is likely to be forced into action by the fear of internal disaffection. If the war is at any time carried further South, the Confederates will always be able to outnumber the invaders; and their social institutions, notwithstanding the dangers which they involve, give them great additional facilities for military operations. The United States must recruit either from the Irish of the Atlantic seaboard, or from farmers and mechanics on whose industry the welfare of the community depends. In the North there is no supplementary population of working bees to maintain their rulers during their absence in the

field. The Southern chivalry, as they call themselves, like their feudal prototypes in the Middle Ages, are at leisure to fight, because they can afford to be idle. The wealthier community is better able to maintain a standing army; but if the war is fought out by military forces on either side, the advantage of possessing slaves may possibly preponderate over the superior numbers of the Northern States. For the present, bystanders will do well to reserve their prophecies, notwithstanding the noisy impatience which resents the delay of a propitious response.

From The London Review, 29 June. THE UNREASONABLE NORTH.

THE people and press of the Northern States of America are in much too bad a temper to listen to reason, else we in this country might well ask them why they rage so vehemently against us? Every fresh batch of letters and newspapers that reaches our shores brings fiercer invectives against our Government for its wise neutrality, and new incentives to war against our sympathizing nation, which has no other wish, object, or interest in the matter than to see immediate peace between the belligerents, either as portions of one Republic, as before, or as two separate Confederacies. And although we cannot believe that the people of the North really wish for a war with Great Britain, with the view of re-establishing the Union, yet, knowing as much as we do of the whole course of the domestic politics of the Union, from the days of Washington and Jefferson to those of Lincoln and Seward, we find much reason for the belief that the wicked expedient is only too much to the taste of desperate statesmanship that has hitherto governed the Republic in its external relations, and especially towards this country. What does the North want of us? It is not two months ago since Mr. Seward declared that he would make it a casus belli if any European Government-especially Great Britain-interfered in the dispute, or offered even to mediate. Great Britain, from the first, resolved to hold aloof, and France followed the prudent example. But the North, instead of being grimly satisfied, is furiously dissatisfied, at this determination of the European powers; and, keeping entirely silent as regards France, has begun to pour out such vials of wrath against this country for its non-interference, as very seriously to endanger the continuance of peace. In short, the North is so blinded by sudden rage, as to be utterly unable to distinguish friend from foe; and its rulers are mischievously endeavoring to turn the feeling

into "political capital," with the view of hiding from the people their own incapacity to cope with the dangers that have beset the Union, and that have, de facto, made an end of the Republic. Perhaps the madness will be of short duration. It is earnestly to be hoped that it may speedily burn out for the sake of the North itself, that has too noble and mighty a task before it, to justify its digression into a quarrel with this or any other country-a task no less honorable and difficult than that of building up a newer and freer Republic out of the ruins of the old-a Republic that shall not have the poison of negro slavery in its blood, and that shall govern itself upon those principles of common sense in the matter of trade and intercourse with other nations, which have regenerated England, and are beginning to regenerate the old and all but effete monarchies of Europe, and to give them new leases of power and prosperity.

The North has been in the dark altogether. It has never really understood the South, or its own position. From the day of the Declaration of Independence by the thirteen original Colonies, assembled by their representatives in Philadelphia, until the memorable day when South Carolina proved that she was in earnest in her secession, by the attack on and capture of Fort Sumter, there has been fatal antagonism, on three essential points and principles, between all the states and people of the Union. Political antagonism, social antagonism, and commercial antagonism-every one of them increasing with the growth of the Republichave driven the states and their citizens further and further from each other, and put such a moral gulf between North and South as to render the duration of the Union a mere question of time, and its final disruption a political, as well as a social and commercial necessity.

The political antagonism expressed itself in the old formula of state rights against Federal assumption. The one principle strove to make the state supreme within its own borders, and to reduce the Federal Government to a shadow except in its intercourse with foreigners. The other strove to convert each individual state into a mere county, and to minimize local authority, while it maximized the central power at home as well as abroad. These two rival forces have never been reconciled or made to cohere, from the first day of the Republic to its last; and they are now marshalled in hostile array against each other on the war-fields of Virginia.

The social antagonism was no less marked and virulent than the political, and expressed itself by the rival war-cries of slavery and

and leaving the halls of the Legislature to the all but undisputed possession of the Northern members, they took the opportunity of incensing the South still further, by passing a tariff more stringent than had ever before been proposed;-a tariff that virtually prohibited the importation from Europe of many articles of first necessity, and that would have forced the South, had it submitted to the infliction, to pay for wearing apparel and the tools of agriculture, about four times as much as those articles were fairly worth in the open markets of the world.

anti-slavery. This antagonism insinuated moment that the Southern representatives, its deadly virus into all the relations of so- at the beginning of the present year, were cial life, corrupted even the pulpit of the withdrawing themselves from Washington, South caused a ruffianly member of Congress to assault and nearly kill an illustrious senator in the Senate House, made it imperative upon the members of the general as well as of the local legislatures to vote laws with bowie-knives and revolvers in their pockets in order to protect their lives and persons from the murderous assaults of brother legislators who differed from them in opinion on this all-important question, and shut up the whole of the slaveholding states, as effectually against men like Mr. Seward, Mr. Charles Sumner, Mr. Salmon P. Chase, Mr. Wendell Phillips, Mr. Anson Burlingame, and the late Theodore Parker, as Europeans were shut out of Japan. No prominent advocate of the freedom of the slave dared at any time, within the last twenty years, to show himself publicly in such cities as Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans, or even at such inferior places as Vicksburgh or Memphis, if he would not incur the almost certain risk of being tarred or feathered, if not assassinated. The consequence was that the North knew little or nothing of the South, and that little knowledge was rendered less by a jealous censorship of the press, which prohibited from circulation in the South all books, newspapers, pamphlets, lectures, and sermons, that were supposed by the Southern postmasters or legislatures to inculcate the principles of human liberty that Washington and Jefferson taught, and the equality before God and Nature of the black man and the white, which is thoroughly understood and recognized in Europe.

The commercial antagonism was quite as clearly marked between the ill-mated partners, as the political and the social. The South, being entirely agricultural, and depending for its prosperity on the rich countries of Europe that needed its cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco, was naturally in favor of a tariff that should encourage its trade with England, its best customer, and with other states of the Old World, that could exchange commodity for commodity;-while the North, with a deplorable ignorance of true commercial principles, and with a stupid jealousy of British manufacturers, set itself systematically to work, to tax the unwilling South for the benefit of the mill-owners of Massachusetts and the ironmasters of Pennsylvania-enhancing the price of every article of clothing worn by gentleman or lady, by free man or by slave; and of every agricultural implement used in the farm or the plantation. And, worse than all, at the very

Any one of these sources of dispute and ill-will would have been enough to try the stability and flexibility of the Union; but when all three came into operation at once, every one of them embittered and aggravated, and brought to bursting-point, by a long course of envenomed discussion, it was not at all wonderful that the cry of secession was raised. Though all the world thought the South was mad to break up such a confederacy as Washington had founded, it acted with such cool deliberation and determination, and proved itself so thoroughly in earnest in all that it did, said, and planned, as to render it obvious that its madness was not without method, and that having gone so far, nothing short of a war of extermination would bring it back. But the North was never able to see an inch before its nose in the whole business. It disbelieved in the reality of Southern discontent, and thought it could be coaxed to return by some new concessions on the subject of slavery-concessions that would have been highly damaging to the North, if the South had been politic enough to accept them. It floundered from the blunder of contempt into the still greater blunder of unreasoning violence, unable to see or understand that the conquest of the South, were it possible, would destroy the Republic quite as effectually as the secession, or to open its eyes to the great career among the nations that would lie before the remnant of the Union, if once it were freed of slavery, and all the fatal infection with which such an institution must of necessity afflict the body politic of any community.

We prefer believing that the North, in showing itself so truculent against England, for the offence of viewing the case dispassionately, is blinded by its rage against the South, and not that it has assumed the anger, and is ready to go to war with with the object of preserving a Union that other

us,

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