it is conclusive on this subject. In December, 1860, while Congress was sitting, and when the country was in an agony of suspense, fearing the impending rupture, Congress appointed a committee of their body, comprising thirty-three members, being one representative for every State then in the Union. That committee, called the Committee of Thirtythree, sat from December 11th, 1860, to January 14th, 1861. They were instructed by Congress to inquire into the peril ous state of the Union, and try to devise some means by which the catastrophe of a secession could be averted. Here is a report of the proceedings of that committee; there are forty pages. I have read every line. The representatives of the slave States were invited by the representatives of the free States to state candidly and frankly what were the terms required in order that they might continue peaceably in the Union. In every page you see their propositions brought for ward, but from beginning to end there is not one syllable said about tariff or taxation; from beginning to end there is not a grievance alleged but that which was connected with the maintenance of slavery. There are propositions calling on the North to give increased security for the maintenance of that institution. They are invited to extend the area of slavery, to make laws by which fugitive slaves should be given up; they are pressed to make treaties with foreign powers by which foreign powers are required to give up fugitive slaves; but from beginning to end no grievance is mentioned except the one connected with slavery. It is slavery, slavery, slavery, from the first page to the last. Is it not astonishing that, in the face of facts like these, any one should have the temerity, with any regard to decency or any sense of selfrespect, to get up in the House of Commons and say secession has been upon a question of free trade and protection? This is a war to perpetuate and extend human slavery. It is a war not to defend slavery as it was left by their ances tors—I mean a thing to be retained and apologized for—it is a war to establish a slave empire, in which slavery shall be made the corner-stone of the social system, and shall be defended and justified on scriptural and ethnological grounds. Well, I say, God pardon the man who, in this year of grace, 1863, should think that such a project as that could be crowned with success.-Richard Cobden, of England, 1863.

CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY.

Ir has been, a fashion of late to talk of an extension of the franchise as something not to be tolerated, because it is assumed that the mass of the people are not fitted to take a part in government, and they point to America, and France, and other places, and draw comparisons between this country and other countries. Now, I hope I shall not be considered revolutionary, because at my age I don't want any revolutions. They won't serve me, I am sure, or anybody that belongs to me. England may compare very favorably with most other countries if you draw the line in society tolerably high, and if you compare the condition of the rich and the upper classes of this country, or a considerable portion of the middle classes with the same classes abroad. I don't think a rich man, barring the climate, which is not very good, could be very much happier any where else than in England; but when my opponents treat this question of the franchise as one that is likely to bring the masses of the people down from their present state to the level of other countries, I say that I have travelled in most civilized countries, and that the masses of the people of this country do not compare as favorably with the masses of other countries as I could wish. I find in other countries a greater number of people with property than there are in England. I don't know a Protestant country in the world where the masses of the people are so illiterate as in England. These are not bad tests of the con-、 dition of a people. It is no use talking of your army and navy, your exports and your imports; it is no use telling me you have a small portion of your people exceedingly well off. I want to bring the test to a comparison of the majority of the people with a majority of the people in other countries. Now, I say with regard to some things in foreign countries we don't compare favorably. The condition of the English peasantry has no parallel on the face of the earth. You have no other peasantry but that of England which is entirely divorced from the land. There is no other country in the world where you will not find men holding the plough and turning up the furrow upon their own freehold. I don't want any agrarian outrages by which we should change all this; but this I find, and it is quite consistent with human nature, that wherever I go, the condition of the people is generally pretty good, in comparison with the power they have to take care of themselves; and if you have a class entirely divorced from political power, while in another country

they possess it, they will be treated there with more consid eration, they will have greater advantages, they will be better educated, and have a better chance of having property, than in a country where they are deprived of the advantage of political power. It is more than thirty years since our Reform Bill was passed, and we must remember that during that time great changes have taken place in other countries; nearly all your colonies in that time have received representative institutions; they are much freer in Australia, New Zealand and Canada; much freer in their representative system than we are in England, and thirty years ago they were entirely under the tutelage of our Colonial Office. Go on the continent and you find there wide extensions of political franchise. Italy is more free, Austria, even, is stirring its dry bones; you have all Germany now more or less invested with popular sovereignty, and I say that, with all our boasted maxims of superiority as a self-governing people, we don't maintain our relative rank in the world, for we are all obliged to acknowledge that we dare not interest a considerable part of the population of this country with political power, for fear they should make a revolutionary and dangerous use of it. Besides, bear in mind that both our political parties, both our aristocratic parties have already pledged themselves to an extension of the franchise; the Queen has been made to recommend from her throne the extension of the franchise. You have placed the governing classes in this country in the wrong for all future time, if they do not fulfil those promises and adopt those recommendations, and some day or other they will be obliged to yield to violence and clamor what I think you ought, in sound statesmanship, to do tranquilly and voluntarily, and in proper season. If you exclude to the present extent the masses of the people from the franchise, you are always running the risk of that which a very sagacious old Conservative statesman once spoke of in the House of Commons, when he said, "I am afraid we shall have an ugly rush, some day." Well, now, want to avoid that "ugly rush." I would rather do the work tranquilly and do it gradually; but all this will be done by people out of doors and not by Parliament, and it would be folly for you to expect in the House of Commons to take a single step in the direction of a reform, until a great desire and disposition are manifested for it out of doors. When that day comes, you will not want your champions in the House of Commons.-Richard Cobden, of England, 1863.

I

THE WAR FOR FREE LABOR IN AMERICA.

You know that I have from the first never believed it possible that the South would succeed, and I have not founded that faith upon moral instincts, which teach us to repudiate the very idea that anything so infernal should succeed. No; it is because in this world the virtues and the forces go together, and the vices and the weaknesses are inseparable. It was therefore I felt certain that this project never could succeed, for how is it? There is a community with nearly half of its population slaves, and they are attempting to fight another community where every working man is a free man. It is as though Yorkshire and Lancashire were to enter into conflict, and it was understood that in the case of one all the laborers who did the muscular work of the country, whether in the field or in the factory, whether on the roads or in the domestic establishments, should be not only eliminated from the fighting population, but ready to take advantage of the war either to run away or fight against their own country. How could a community so circumstanced fight against a neighboring county where every laboring man was fighting for his own home? What chance of success would it have, even if left to physical force, without speaking of the moral considerations to which I have referred? That is the position of the two sections of the United States at the present moment. In the one case you have honor given to industry; labor is held to be honorable. What are we told? we not heard it used as a reproach by some people who fancy themselves in alliance with the aristocracy, some of our writers, who would lead us to suppose that they are of the aristocratic order, that Mr. Lincoln was once a rail splitter." Why was a rail splitter raised to be President of the United States? Because labor is held in honor in that country. With such a conflict going on, and with such a result as I feel no doubt will follow, I fear to speak of such a contest as that as a struggle for empire on one side, and for independence on the other. I say it is an aristrocratic rebellion against a democratic government. That is the title I would give to it, and in all history, when you have had the aristoc racy pitted against the people in a physical contest, the aristocracy have always gone down under the heavy blows of the democracy. Let it not be said that I am indifferent to the process of misery and destitution, ruin and bloodshed now going on in America. No; my indignation against the South is, that they fired the first shot, and made them

Have

selves responsible for this war. I take probably a stronger view than most people in this country, and certainly a stronger view than anybody in America, of the vast sacrifices of life and of economical comfort and resources which must follow to the North from this struggle. They are mistaken if they think they can carry on a civil war like this, drawing a million men from productive industry to be engaged merely in a process of destruction, and spending £200,000,000 or £300,000, 0007 sterling without a terrible collapse, sooner or later, and a great prostration in every part of the community; but that makes me still more indignant and intolerant of the cause, while of the result I have no more doubt than I have on any subject that lies in the future.

Richard Cobden, of England, 1863.

CONGRESSIONAL SINS OF OMISSION AND COMMISSION.

GOLD at 175, and Congress, with tax bills, tariff bills, bank bills, every financial measure, lifeless and shapeless, engaged in putting down freedom of debate in the national Capitol! In the name of loyal people we protest.

We tell these men at Washington that passion is making them mad. It is an absolute infatuation that has seized them. Their words strike upon the ears of the people like the gibberish of Bedlam. Where have the senses of Congressmen gone that they don't realize the terrible burdens that rest upon the people, and the fearful dangers that confront the Government? Do they call themselves loyal men, and yet play these fantastic tricks? By their default, the prices of everything that sustains life are rapidly mounting. The cur rency is gradually turning into worthless rags. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the Government moves on, straight before the eyes of its guardians, toward the bottomless pit of bankruptcy-yet distant, but, unless they act, inevitable. Not an arm do they yet raise to save it.

It is astonishing, it is astounding, that the House, after this long and flagrant neglect of duty, should turn upon one of its members in this fierce fashion, for encouraging the enemy by words-by words which were made of air, and which, if they had been let alone, would have straightway vanished into air. It is the wildness of the fireman who stands motionless while the flames are gathering headway, and falls foul of the man who declares that the fire will not be subdued. It is the inaction of these so-called loyal servants of the people that is