was maintained against the pressure of many of his allies, against the wishes of his colleagues at home, and against the secret interference of the Prince Regent himself. Almost the only angry shade that passes over the calm, imperturbable style of his correspondence during this exciting period, was drawn from him by the intelligence that the Prince Regent had secretly given to Count Lieven a pledge in favour of the Bourbons at the moment when Lord Castlereagh was still negotiating with Napoleon, When the war did at last, though the obstinacy of the Emperor, result in the return of the Bourbons, he had no desire to inflict another despotism on France. It was by his advice that Louis XVIII. abstained from all discussions on political metaphysics, and accepted the Charter simply. In the years of political confusion which followed in France, while the nation was beginning to work its new institutions, Lord Castlereagh's counsels were always on the side of strictly constitutional measures. He urged the King to avoid the high-flying Royalists,' to try and form, out of the men whom the Revolution had bred, a party strong enough to govern the country, and to give up the anomaly of an armed force maintained under any other authority than that of the King's responsible advisers. He gave, though to little purpose, advice of the same character in Spain. He entreated the King not to return to the ancient state of things:

'If His Majesty announces to the nation his determination to give effect to the main principles of a Constitutional régime, I think it is probable that he may extinguish the existing arrangement with impunity, and re-establish one more consistent with the efficiency of the executive power, and which may restore the great landed proprietors and the clergy a due share of authority; but to succeed in establishing a permanent system he must speak to the nation, and not give it the character of a military revolution, in doing which the language of Louis XVIII. may afford him some useful hints.'

It would have been difficult to give advice savouring less of any extreme political view, or more consonant with the spirit of the institutions which our own country enjoys. It is curious that the only point in respect of which Lord Castlereagh thought it necessary to go into detail, was the provision of the revolutionary Cortes, copied from America, under which the Ministers of the Crown were banished from the legislature. He expressed a hope that this inconceivable absurdity' would not be repeated, and attributed to it the failure of most of the mushroom constitutions that had grown up since the Revolution. Our generation, that has

seen the operation of the same system in America, can appreciate the sagacity which attached such vital importance to a question apparently of detail. He took a similar course with respect to Sicily. He refused to infringe his favourite principle of non-intervention by forcing the King under terror of British arms to uphold the Sicilian Constitution. But he earnestly recommended its maintenance, and was ready to carry his efforts in its behalf to any extent short of actual war. He even proposed-as England had acquired in this particular case a right to express her opinion-to mark her displeasure at the King's illiberal intentions by breaking off diplomatic relations. But his cautious and sober mind shrank from hurrying his policy to the lengths to which theoretic politicians were prepared to go. presentative institutions were very well in Sicily and Spain, which had not been demoralized by Napoleonic despotism. They might be introduced without alarm in phlegmatic Holland. Though they were a venture full of danger, they must be regarded as the least of many dangerous alternatives in France. Bnt Lord Castlereagh was not prepared to extend the same experiment, without any preparation, to the fickle and inflammable populations of the South. When the proposal was made to him to encourage . a demand for representative government in Italy, where the thing was absolutely unknown, and where the Jacobin leaven was still fermenting, he drew back. He thought, and events have fully justified his sagacity, that Italian freedom must be the work of time. His letter to Lord William Bentinck on the subject presents so good a portrait of his mind, with its utter freedom both from impulse and from theoretical statesmanship, that it is worth extracting:

'I shall take care not to compromise any of the parties referred to in your secret letter. I fully approve of your giving the project no countenance; nor can I bring myself to wish that the too-extensive experiment already in operation throughout Europe, in the science of government, should be at once augmented by similar creations in Italy.

'It is impossible not to perceive a great moral change coming on in Europe, and that the principles of freedom are in full operation. The danger is, that the transition may be too sudden to ripen into anything likely to make the world better or happier. We have new Constitutions launched in France, Spain, Holland, and Sicily. Let us see the result before we encourage farther attempts. The attempts may be made,

and we must abide the consequencee; but I am sure it is better to retard, than accelerate, the operation of this most hazardous principle which is abroad.

'In Italy it is now the more necessary to ab

to vapidity by a studied courtliness of language; and his metaphors were so exquisitely confused that they are a by-word to this day. His speeches furnished a fund of inexhaustible amusement to the wits of the time. Lord Brougham has left it on record that it was his custom to beguile the weary hours of a debate by making a collection of Lord Castlereagh's choicest gems as they dropped from his lips. They supplied Moore with material for several pungent epigrams, and they were invaluable to men who, like Byron, sought to prove their own liberality and whitewash their own characters by a rancorous abuse of the rulers who rescued Europe from military despotism. Nor was this unfortunate deficiency compensated by any fascination or brilliancy in private intercourse. Lord Castlereagh was neither a wit nor a scholar; he did not shine in conversation, and rarely attempted to take the lead. Neither in the senate nor the drawing-room did he display any of those showy qualities by which, since bribery fell into disrepute, wavering votes have been ordinaIt might have been expected that with all these drawbacks he would have been unable to hold his ground in the House of Commons, and that in Parliamentary campaigns he would have been an

rily won.

encumbrance rather than an assistance to his colleagues. The fact was exactly the reverse. He was during several years their great strength and stay-the only debater on whom the Ministry could confidently rely. The correspondence between him and Lord Liverpool while he was at the Congress of Vienna in the winter of 1814-1815 is a curious evidence of the influence he wielded in the House of Commons. Lord Castlereagh expresses an extreme anxiety to be allowed to see the negotiations to their close, and is quite sure that some of the other Ministers will be able to steer through the first part of the session without his help. But Lord Liverpool, though fully sensible of the importance of the negotiations upon the Polish and Saxon questions, which were then at their warmest, will not hear of his absence. He writes again and again in the most urgent terms to impress upon him that nobody is capable of managing the House of Commons but himself. No one who reads these letters can doubt the earnest sincerity of Lord Liverpool's entreaties. It is impossible not to see that in his judgment the presence in the House of this verbose and blundering orator, at whom his adversaries affected to laugh, was of vital importance to the very existence of the Government. And in this matter at least Lord Liverpool was no mean judge. Whatever

his other capabilities may have been, he was a veteran in Parliamentary warfare; and, as his long possession of power amply proved, he knew what style of leadership it was that could win and could keep the confidence of the House of Commons.

Lord Castlereagh's influence in the House must have been enormous, if Lord Liverpool rated it so high as to risk the evils of his absence from Vienna at such a time rather than forego it. In truth his matter was so weighty, that it did not suffer materially from the singularly inappropriate language in which it was conveyed. Those times were too critical to leave much room or taste for niceties on the subject of style. The House had been strung by danger to a higher tone than that of literary fastidiousness. It looked in its leaders for something more sterling than the glitter of eloquence; and was content to condone the metaphors over which Lord Brougham and Mr. Moore made themselves so merry. Lord Brougham has himself confessed in later times that those who held Lord Castlereagh cheap on account of his style of speaking, cast rather a reproach upon representative government, which ranks eloquence so high among a Statesman's qualifications, than upon him. But though esteem and confidence were accorded to him very freely, and were never withdrawn so long as he lived, he does not seem to have awakened warmer feelings. He had not the talents that captivate the imagination, or the warmth of sympathy that kindles love. Men felt to him as to the pilot who had weathered an appalling storm, the physician who had mastered a terrible malady. They recognised his ability, and were glad in a moment of danger to have such a counsellor at hand; but they do not appear to have been drawn to him by the bonds of that intense personal devotion which has united so many great statesmen with their political supporters. Therefore his influence died with his own death. He was the head of a powerful party in momentous times: he led a nation to the highest pinnacle of renown; he laid down landmarks of policy, which have lasted through many revolutions of opinion, and are respected still. But he did not found a school. His name contained no spell to bind together after his death those whom he had influenced in life: none of the tender reverence gathered round his memory with which disciples recall the deeds and treasure up the sayings of a departed master. Pitt, Canning, Peel, wielded an authority over their friends that endured beyond the grave. Those who had served under them clung to the memory of that service as a bond among themselves which neither divergent opinions nor clash

ing interests might relax. There were Pittites, and Canningites, and Peelites, long after the death of the statesmen whose names they bore; and their cohesion has in no small degree affected our recent history; but no such adjective, in fact or in idea, has been formed upon the name of Castlereagh.

This effect of his calm, cold, self-contained temperament has undoubtedly in the first instance been damaging to his fame. The claims of other statesmen to the plaudits of posterity have been repeated noisily and indefatigably by bands of devoted admirers. Lord Castlereagh's memory, honoured only by the silent witness of events, has for the moment been thrust aside and neglected. No school of political thinkers have charged themselves in his case with the duty of sweeping away the detraction that gathers upon great men's tombs. But the time has come when these causes should cease to ope

rate.

It matters little to us now that his metaphors were Irish, his oratory dull, his temper unsympathising and cold. We are only concerned to recognise with gratitude the great results of his life-the triumphs that he won, and the peace-loving policy of which those triumphs were made the base. As the events in which he acted recede into the past, the pettier details in his character by which some of his leading contemporaries were repelled disappear altogether from our sight. From the point where we stand now, nothing is visible but the splendid outlines of the courage, the patience, and the faultless sagacity which contributed so much to liberate Europe and to save England in the crisis of her fate.

America both before and since the outbreak of civil war has been, and how that conduct has been requited, are subjects of sufficient interest to justify us in devoting a few pages to their consideration. They require a much fuller examination than we can bestow upon them within the limits of an article, but we hope to make the salient points clear.

The

Practically it now matters little whether the Federal or the Confederate States were correct in the view they respectively took as to the right of any State or States to secede from the Union. The question has passed from the Jurist to the soldier, and will be decided not by argument but the sword. war has assumed such proportions, that, whatever may be the theory of the North, it cannot deal with the secession merely as a rebellion. Southerners taken with arms in their hands are not hanged as traitors; and a blockade is established which-worthless as we shall show it to be-would be unmeaning and ridiculous, as directed by a Government against its own subjects. In point of fact there are two belligerent powers in presence, and the rights of belligerents are tacitly conceded by the North to the South, however the unpalatable truth may be denied in official despatches and diplomatic circulars. But History will ask which side was right in the commencement of the struggle, and we naturally wish to know where the blame ought to be thrown of provoking the terrible calamity of civil war. To assist in the inquiry is our present object, and for this purpose we shall avail ourselves of the recent work of Mr. Spence, The American Union,' which we have placed at the head of this article, and which has most opportunely appeared. We can hardly speak too highly of it. It is a most able statement of the whole case, written with remarkable knowledge and power; and we strongly recommend it to our readers, if they wish to make themselves acquainted with the facts of the great American controversy, which are so often obscured by passion and distorted by interest. Mr. Spence tells us in his preface, that personal considerations and valued friendships inclined him, without exception, to the Northern side; but he warns the reader that he will soon encounter a current of reasoning adverse to the present doctrine and action of the Northern party. But, as he says, these opinions have not been adopted from choice, and are directly opposed to interest; they are convictions forced upon the mind by the facts and reasonings contained in the work, and submitted to the judgment of the public. Such a man is, at all events, entitled to be heard.

It has been industriously represented by some, that the sole cause of the present

quarrel is Slavery. It is supposed, even by persons who ought to be well informed on the subject, that the existence of slavery, having long been imperilled by the aggres sive attacks of the Northern States, the signal for its destruction was given by the election of Mr. Lincoln as President; and the South, therefore, withdrew from the Union in order to protect its property in human flesh from confiscation. The war is by many, not only in this country but America, described as a crusade in the holiest of causes-to break the chains of the negro, and sweep away the curse of slavery from the continent of North America, from New Mexico to Maine. But a moment's consideration will show that such opinions are wrong, and not only not supported by facts, but directly opposed to them. It is remarkable that at no time for the last fifty years was the domestic institution,' as slavery is mildly termed, placed under such safeguards, and recognised by Congress, and by the political party generally opposed to it, so unequivocally as at the period of Mr. Lincoln's accession to office. The proof of this is overwhelming. It is well known that of the two great parties into which, before the outbreak of civil war, the North was, and into which it still is, divided, and which are known as Republicans and Democrats, the Republicans were the party hostile to the South, and the Democrats the party to which the South allied itself to fight its battles in Congress. The Abolitionists are, we believe, to a man Republicans, although the Republicans are not by any means all Abolitionists. They have, however, steadily set their face against the claim of the South to extend slavery into new territories. The Democrats, on the contrary, were inclinet, for political purposes, to favour the pretensions of the Southern States, not from any love for slavery, but because without such confederates they could not hope to make head on any question in Congress against their Republican opponents. It is also well known, that before the election of a President of the United States it is the custom for each party that brings forward a candidate to issue a manifesto called a platform,' in which it declares its political principles. The Republican platform in the last contest was adopted at Chicago in 1860, and the fourth article was as follows:

'The maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment, exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends.'

Domestic institutions, of course, mean sla

very. Further, an Act was passed by Congress, on the 2nd of March, last year, immediately before Mr. Lincoln formally entered on the office of President, which provides, that no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorise, or give Congress power to abolish, or interfere within any State with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labour or servitude by the laws of said state.'

But were the views of Mr. Lincoln himself different? Was he at variance with his own party on this question?-and might he be expected to labour to undermine the principle embodied in the Chicago manifesto? Quite the reverse. He accepted it in the most unreserved and unqualified manner. In his inaugural address he solemnly declared

'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to States where it exists; I believe I have no lawinterfere with the institution of slavery in the ful right to do so.

Those who nominated and

And more

elected me did so with a full knowledge that I bad made this and many similar declarations, and have never recanted them. than this, they were placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and which I now read. I now reiterate those sentito me, in the clear and emphatic resolution ments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible-that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in anywise endangered by the now incoming admiI understand a proposed

nistration

amendment to the Constitution, which amendCongress, to the effect that the Federal Government, however, I have not seen, has passed

ment shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose so far as to say, that holding such a provision as now implied to be constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irre

Vocable.'

But more than this. The current of legislation and judicial decision upon subjects connected with slavery had been for some past time setting strongly in favour of the slave-owning States. The Fugitive-Slave Law passed, by which the runaway slave might be seized in any part of the Union, as much as if he were a horse or an ox that had strayed or been stolen. The owner in Louisiana might follow his property and claim it in In the New England or Pennsylvania. Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court at Washington decided that Congress was not competent to make a law prohibiting slavery to exist beyond a certain degree of latitude, at it had done in the case of the Missouri Compromise; and when a negro claimed his freedom on the ground that he resided north