THE PROJECTED SUBJUGATION OF THE SOUTH.

From The Economist, 6 July.quered them, humbled then, overrun their AMERICA: plantations, bombarded their cities, ruined their commerce, and inflicted the deadliest WE last week discussed the prospects of wound upon their pride? The very idea is the Unionists reducing the Secessionists to absurd. To subjugate the Slave States, difsubmission by mere fighting and blockading, ficult as it is, will be infinitely easier than to by defeating them in the field, and shutting keep them in subjection. It is obvious on a up their ports. We assumed for the sake of moment's consideration that they can only argument that Northern victory over South-be kept in the Union (after being forced back ern troops and Northern destruction of South- into it) with their own free consent, and ern commerce was as probable as the Feder- what prospect of that free consent can even alists believe it to be certain. We granted the most sanguine fancy hold out to us? It all that the Free States boast as to the su- was peremptorily-even insultingly-refused periority of their resources. And, notwith- before a blow was struck and when all was standing, we arrived at a most confident comparatively calm will it be given by conclusion that the forcible re-incorporation men infuriated by the mortification of defeat of the seceding states was about as hopeless and disappointment to men whom they disa scheme as it is unwise an aim. liked and despised as equal fellow-citizens, and whom they will absolutely abhor as conquerors and masters? In fine: COULD the forcible reconstitution of the Union be maintained for a year? or would it bring with it any one advantage even if maintainable ?

But suppose it done. Suppose the South so effectually beaten and broken down by the ruin of its commerce, the privation of its people, and the defeat of its army, that it is reduced to sue for peace and to accept the terms dictated by the conquering North. But one single consideration would seem Let us suppose further that those terms are to be sufficient to render all this argument not needlessly humiliating, but consist merely superfluous. Does not the mere existence of in the rescinding of all the secession ordi- Democratic Institutions (and no one, so far nances and the restoration of the authority as we have heard, has ever dreamed of abolof the Washington Government over the ishing these)-render any policy or any govwhole of the rebellious states. What has ernment impossible that is denounced and been gained thereby? And how much of detested by the people? Unless, therefore, what is gained can be preserved? How the Southerners or a decided majority of is the conquest to be upheld? How is the them are, or can be made, friendly to the suppressed will of the people to be kept Union-unless, that is, the Secessionists are, down? How are the captive millions to be or become, hostile to secession-the reconretained in their forced allegiance ? How struction of the Union is a pure impossibilcan they be made to work a joint system of ity. Some Americans, we hear, are wild Government, of which they are thwarting enough to assert that the influential, if not members and unwilling constituents? How the numerical, majority in the Slave States is the administration of ten distinct states, all recalcitrant and covering hundreds of thousands of square miles, to be carried on? Are Federal governors and Federal officers to be appointed to the work ? and how, amid a hostile people, can they enforce their de- Some Americans from the North, and a crees? The Slave States, forced back into few Englishmen who sympathize warmly the Union, must be governed either as con- with their wishes, occasionally hint, though quered lands, or as free and equally endowed as yet only in a cautious whisper, that they portions of a Federal Republic. If the for- have yet another resource in the background mer, what staff of civil officers and what mil--an ally in reserve, to be called out if necitary force would be adequate to maintain au- essary-by whose aid they can ensure the thority and to enforce order and obedience? submission of the South, in case we should If the latter, how will the state machine work. prove correct in pronouncing their own unwith three-fifths of the Senate and of the aided powers inadequate to the achievement. House of Representatives bent upon thwart- They believe it impossible for the seceding every movement? Ten independent states ing states, with their four millions of slaves and eight millions of freemen CAN only bei.e., internal foes-to prolong for any governed with their own consent and through length of time a conflict which can scarcely their own officers and their own citizens. And what chance is there that their own officers and their own citizens will govern them in conformity with the wishes and plans of a Central Government, which has just con

are Unionists at heart, or will become so after a good beating. But this is a question of contingent fact, on which we can accept no man's dictum.

fail to arouse and render unmanageable the negro population. In plain terms, they anticipate the probability, in case the Slave States do not speedily succumb, of exciting a servile insurrection; and they are confi

dent that the dread of such a proceeding, as soon as the likelihood of it can be realized, will bring their antagonists upon their knees. This is so grave a matter that (since it has been spoken of) we must say in very distinct language what we think of the scheme, looking at it both from a moral and a strategic point of view.

they would massacre the whites. Where the whites decidedly preponderated they would massacre the blacks. This would not be the worst: much would go before massacre, and much would accompany it. We have already had glimpses and warnings of what would happen. The women would be outraged; the men would be tortured; both Our own strong convictions on the subject victims and criminals would be burnt alive. of negro slavery in America have been too What has happened on a small scale before often expressed and are too well known to now, would happen on a great scale then. need repeating here. It is an economic blun- It would speedily become a war of extermider; it is a social stain; it is a moral wrong; it nation; and who can doubt which race is a detestable system even more demoralizing would succumb? But before this point was to the master than to the slave. Its eradica- reached-at the first rumor of an intention tion by any means less evil and mischievous on the part of the Northerners to emancithan itself would be an unquestionable gain: pate and raise the slaves, every fetter would its eradication by any gentle and decent be doubled, every stripe would be multiplied means would be a blessing of unequalled mag- by ten. Mistrust and terror would goad nitude. Till it is eradicated, or in process of the slave-owners and their overseers to the eradication, it will be impossible to regard wildest excesses of severity, and might the future of the Southern Confederacy with- thus even expedite the menaced outbreak out the gloomiest misgivings, or to contem- and the fearful retribution. Words cannot plate its prosperity and power with unal- paint the state of affairs that would prevail loyed or unmingled satisfaction. All this throughout the entire South the moment time we have no scheme of our own to pro- slaves and slaveholders became aware that pose for the extinction of negro slavery: and the negro population were to be summoned we have never heard one propounded which to the field as combatants and arbiters of the seemed in any high degree rational, hopeful, strife. We will only ask two questions to or attractive. Yet we confess that the pros- those who either suggest or contemplate such pect of securing victory to Northern arms by a proceeding. Could any object, or any rethe aid of negro insurrection-of raising the sult, justify those who brought about such a slaves in order to subjugate the Secession- hideous Saturnalia of atrocity and crime? ists-appears to us at once a desperate ex- And could those whose friends and fellowpedient, and an enormous crime. That it citizens had suffered such outrages as we should even be dreamed of by sober poli- have hinted at, ever, for generations to come, ticians and Christian citizens shows but too forgive those who had let loose the nameless clearly how fearfully civil conflict has al- horrors upon them and theirs? On what ready disturbed the minds and perverted the terms could those who had called out four feelings of those engaged in it. millions of slaves to wreak their vengeance on their former masters, and those who had undergone that vengeance, ever again unite in one commonwealth, or become citizens even of one empire? "There are injuries which Nature cannot forgive; she would cease to be Nature if she did."

Conceive for a moment what a general slave insurrection, if it could be excited, means, and would involve. In six of the states (South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) the slaves form on an average half the population: the percentage ranges from fortythree to fifty-seven. In many portions of these states there are ten negroes to one white man. On many plantations, isolated and separated from all assistance by miles, there are fifty slaves to one overseer. In the other states the disproportion between the two races is much less, or is reversed. In many provinces the whites are three to one; in cities and whole districts they are ten to one. The instant a servile war broke out, or became imminent, the frenzy of alarm would seize one race, and the frenzy of vengeance would seize the other. The barbarism of savage life and the barbarism of civilized life would be let loose upon each other. Where the blacks decidedly preponderated

It is idle to argue that slavery is so heinous a social crime that any means, however awful by which its purgation can be effected ought to be made welcome. Man may not take upon himself the responsibility of adopting such means as we have been discussing especially when he does so merely to enable him to compass his own political aims, and cloaks sectional ambition in the guise of benevolent sympathies that have always slept till now. In such a condition of national affairs as America has reached, there is one thing which is even more clearly and more monstrously a crime than slavery-and that is the fomenting of a general insurrection of the slaves. Civil war is bad enough, but servile war is incomparably worse.

And a

servile war on a scale and with elements | the faintest reaction in favor of slavery. The never before dreamed of in history, created great experiment in which both sections of for their own purposes by one of the parties in an internal political dispute, would be about the most enormous sin ever laid upon a human conscience.

But we cannot say we have much expectation that even American madness will ever reach a pitch like this. The citizens of the Free States, as we have often pointed out, are not abolitionists nor friends of the negro, except as regards a small minority. They are not fighting for emancipation. They never contemplated such a result as the issue of their political conflict, they deprecate it, and, unless driven desperate by discomfiture, will never (we feel confident) willingly aid it or accept it. They desire the subjugation of the South, but not its ruin. They have no wish that all the rich plantations and fertile fields scattered over eight hundred thousand square miles should go out of cultivation and once more become a wilderness. They would see with dismay and self-reproach the cessation of that productive agriculture which gave £60,000,000 yearly of exportable cargo to their commerce. Little as they love the whites of Georgia or Alabama, they love the blacks still less. And they will never arm or hound on the ignorant and brutal negro whom they so despise, to the massacre of fellow-citizens with whom, in the midst of their fighting and their fury, they still are conscious of their kindred.

the Union are engaged is more interesting than the loquacity of a population inveterately devoted to bluster. The seceders have undoubtedly been surprised by the armaments of the North; and, on the other hand, the constitutional and military difficulties of the struggle are only beginning to display themselves to the Federal party. The secretary at war asserts that the Government has already raised two hundred and fifty thousand men; nor can it be doubted that the army in Virginia will be reinforced, in case of need, by inexhaustible numbers. The inexperience of the generals and officers will probably lead to considerable disasters; but if the Northern States continue to be animated by their present enthusiasm, no loss which can be incurred will seriously affect their strength and resources. It appears that the Government intends to operate with two large armies on either side of the Alleghanies; and on the eastern line of operations the Federal troops have already obtained some advantages over the seceders of Missouri. If the fortune of war is favorable to the invaders, Kentucky, Missouri, and Eastern Tennessee, may perhaps be permanently secured to the Union; but the success of an attempt to subjugate the states on the Lower Mississippi is still as inconceivable to foreign observers as the project was three months ago repugnant to American opinion. It is uncertain whether a battle has already been fought in Virginia, and as the secrets of the Confederate Government are well kept, it is impossible to know whether Richmond is to be defended. If the Federal THE American howl of unprovoked antip-generals occupy the northern portion of the athy to England seems to be subsiding, as the state, they will at once find themselves surEuropean correspondents of the New York rounded by the embarrassments which attend papers assure their countrymen that their the occupation of a hostile and conquered threats and their abuses have terrified a hos- country. Whatever may be the case in Mistile government and nation into neutrality souri, there is no Union party in Eastern Virand repentance. In deference to Mr. Sew-ginia, and the Federal authorities will be ard and Mr. Adams, the House of Commons refused to discuss Mr. Gregory's motion, and the generous Republicans have consequently postponed their design of organizing an invasion of England in concert with France. The preachers and others who held a lugubrious meeting in London on the 4th of July, urged the best apology for the disgraceful folly of American writers and speakers when they suggested that the recent irritation arose from an exaggerated desire for English sympathy. It is unfortunate that bad temper and bad taste should have done so much to disappoint a natural and laudable desire. At the beginning of the struggle, the feeling of England was almost unanimously friendly to the North; and up to this time, the vulgar insolence of the Republican faction has failed to produce

From The Saturday Review, 6 July.
THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.

unable to enforce submission, except by the rigorous application of martial law.

The practical suspension of the Constitution in Maryland, and the utter disregard of its principles in Virginia, have scarcely provoked a comment, except from the unpopular friends of the South. Baltimore is under military rule, with the sanction of the Union party in the state, and in utter defiance of the loud remonstrances of the minority, backed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The irregular jurisdiction of the Federal authorities may perhaps be excused by the exigencies of war, although it would have been judicious to furnish the fullest apologies for an avowed breach of the Constitution. The recognition of a revolutionary state government in Western

Virginia is a more audacious violation of that both to submit to taxation and to lend Federal compact which the North has armed money to the Government. The loan, whatitself to vindicate and maintain. Certain ever may be its amount, will probably be districts in Virginia, without legal unity or filled up at home, as domestic creditors will common organization, have assembled in a be far less exposed than foreign capitalists so-called convocation to counteract the policy to the risk of future repudiation. English of the regular Government. After long delib- money-dealers will have little inducement eration on the question whether the western to embark in a speculation which would counties should secede from Virginia, it was probably end in the loss of their investments determined rather to assume the title and on the pretext of the supposed hostility of functions of a state government and legisla- their country to the Union. Republican ture, and to declare the legitimate authorities newspapers have lately recommended that rebels and usurpers. The expediency or the Morrill Tariff shall be maintained morality of the measure may possibly admit against England, while it is relaxed in favor of defence, but the usurpation of the govern- of other European countries. A similar ment of a state by a sectional minority is by distinction to the detriment of English confar the most lawless and revolutionary pro- tributors to a loan would not fail to be sugceeding which has occurred during the pres-gested at the proper time. Congress will ent quarrel. The relations of individual states to the Union admit of much discussion, but the unity of each state within itself has hitherto never been disputed. The alleged treason of the actual holders of office can in no degree affect the position of Virginia, and Mr. Lincoln's recognition of the Wheeling Government places him towards the state in the relation of a wrong-doer or of a foreign enemy. A similar difficulty will probably occur in Missouri, where the government has been forced to fly from the Federal forces. In a short time, all the Border States may be infested with double and hostile governments, carrying on a domestic civil war in connection with the general contest between the North and the South. The eagerness of the Free States to re-conquer the seceding portion of the Union may possibly last for a twelvemonth, but it is far more probable that popular opinion will discover the insuperable difficulties of combining government by force with the original Constitution.

The Congress which met on the 4th of July will possess no moral authority with the unrepresented South. Its political functions have been anticipated or superseded by the Executive, but the publicity of its debates may possibly give opportunity for the utterance of wholesome truths which have hitherto been overborne by clamor. The practical business of the House will consist in the adoption of some financial provision for the enormous expenses of the war. The journalists, who brag of every thing, already boast that the Union will in a short time be able to exhibit the largest debt which has ever been contracted by a government. It is, however, generally admitted that a considerable property tax must be imposed, both for the actual wants of the Government and as security for the necessary loan. Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet will act wisely in demanding a liberal supply while the country is in the humor

scarcely think of a partial repeal of the tariff, and it is doubtful whether any attempt will be made to retract the selfish and suicidal legislation of the spring. Pennsylvania might waver in her loyalty if the price for which it was bought were withdrawn from her domestic industry. When the Southern senators and representatives withdrew from Washington, it was the first thought of their remaining colleagues to make a little money by the opportunity. The subsequent burst of patriotism has probably not induced the iron masters and cotton-spinners to forget their own pockets.

On the whole, public discussion, even when it is carried on in the effervescent American fashion, will tend to correct the extravagances of popular zeal. The declamations of Northern writers and speakers assume that the Southern States will be easily conquered, without proceeding to the inquiry how they are to be subsequently administered. New England preachers, on the pretext of blessing the colors of regiments departing to the seat of war, exhort them to rely on the bayonet, and, after the bayonet, on the hemp. Members of Congress and senators will be aware that it is impossible to stab and to hang eight million rebels; and the party distinctions which have been temporarily overwhelmed by the general excitement will not fail to revive in the course of debate. The Democratic inclination to the cause of the South begins to be once more timidly expressed in New York, and in New Enlgand itself. The feeling in favor of abolition which has spread among the Republicans provokes the hostility of their ancient antagonists, and the total disregard of the Government for constitutional restrictions will furnish abundant weapons of attack. The only justification for the extravagant boasts of the Federalists is to be found in the extraordinary rapidity and vigor of the national armaments. The Americans of the

North may justly assert that, on a sudden the war, and the chances of a successful issue emergency, they have displayed energy and resources which demand the respect of the most warlike and powerful nations. Their self-esteem ought to be so far satisfied as to induce them to pause in a dangerous and purposeless enterprise. They can hardly reconquer the South; they can assuredly not retain it in subjection or in union, and they will be stronger and safer without it. The truths which appeared to all parties demonstrable in April may become once more visible in August or September.

If the capital had not been situated in a Slave State, there would perhaps have been no war, and, now that it is safe from attack, the invasion of Virginia is a wanton exercise of force. The South has been punished for the offence which it has given by the expense, the alarm, and the sufferings which it has already undergone. Peace might now be concluded on equitable terms, and reparation or apologies for the seizure of the Federal property might probably be exacted. After months or years of bloodshed and mutual injury, such an arrangement must be concluded between negotiators who will then have reason to feel that they are treating with bitter and formidable enemies.

From The London Review, * 6 July.
THE FATE OF VIRGINIA.

In proportion as it becomes evident that the final subjugation of the South is impossible, or, if possible, that it can only be achieved by the destruction of the public liberty of both sections of the republic-the maintenance of a huge standing army, and the creation of a load of public debt--the ill-will of Northern politicians, whether native American or Irish, desires something nearer than England to fasten itself on, and fixes upon Virginia. It is quite clear, from all the signs of opinion, and from the tone of public feeling in Washington, as well as in New York, that if it be found utterly impracticable to carry the war into the extreme South, and to reduce the cotton and sugar producing states to obedience, the entire energy of the North will be concentrated against Virginia, which will be made to pay the full penalty of, and endure all the horrors and atrocities of, the war.

"If we cannot have Louisiana, Alabama, and the Carolinas, let us at all events have Virginia. Let us confiscate the estates and property of every rebel within its boundaries, and parcel them out among the soldiers of General Scott. Let us hang or shoot every man taken in arms, or against whom any complicity or sympathy with the rebellion can be proved. Let us, if need be, lay waste the whole country with fire and sword :- but THE summer wears on, but the hostile the cry that was first raised in the private have Virginia we must and shall." Such is armies of the Confederated and United States talk of the camp and the bar-room a few of America strike no decisive or even formid-weeks ago, but which has now found its way able blow. The South knows the exact number of men that have responded to the call of President Lincoln; or that are marshalled under the ancient " star-spangled" banner unfurled by General Scott; but the North is in ignorance of the real strength of the South, and does not know, within fifty thousand, how many men are enrolled under that newer banner which has been hoisted by President Davis. The press of the South is discreet; and betrays no military or social secrets, the revelation of which would disconcert plans, or give advantage to the enemy. The press of the North blurts out every thing heedless of consequences; and the New York Herald, and all the other similarly audacious and mendacious prints, which are smitten with furious Anglo-phobia not only continue to howl and curse against Great Britain, a certain sign of weakness, of that state as a necessary preliminary to but begin anxiously to calculate the cost of

This weekly paper does not hesitate to attribute to the loyal people of the United States sentiments which we have never uttered or thought it even encloses them by quotation marks as if it gave our very words. It is thoroughly on the other side, and as well deserving a commission as is Bishop Polk.-Living Age.

into the public arena, and is avowed and strengthened by the voices and pens of the leaders of opinion. Though it is a policy of ferocity, one of reason, and is furthermore vengeance, it is, with the exception of its remarkable as a manifestation of the growing conviction of the Unionists that their absolute triumph over the South is impossible.

The

The "Old Dominion," that beautiful country of Virginia, larger and more fertile than England, will have to bear the burden of a war that its statesmen for two generations have done so much to provoke. South, guarded by distance, by climate, by swamps, and by the terrible yellow fever, levies that the North can bring against it; may defy, with its strong purpose, all the but it cannot ultimately save Virginia, if the North have determined on the re-annexation

all compromise. How long the belligerents may protract the unnatural and unnecessary war, it is impossible for any one in America, or out of it, to predict; but that a compromise will, sooner or later, be effected, is becoming as obvious to Americans as it has long been to Europeans.