EDITOR'S PREFACE. THE Social condition of the Southern States of the American Union has been so little understood in England, that most of the predictions which were hazarded by politicians, at the time of the outbreak of the War of Secession, were signally at fault. The attention of English travellers had been chiefly directed to the Northern States; and the rest of the country was either hastily traversed, or else scrutinized in an unfriendly spirit, by men whose dislike to slavery was too strong to allow them to be fair observers. Every defect, every weakness, which could be detected in the Slave States was brought prominently forward; and while every accusation was listened to, whatever might be said on the other side was contemptuously ignored. The result was what might have been expected. The high and exaggerated hopes which were placed in the men of the North, as the enlightened and disinterested champions of freedom, were sadly disappointed, and the hitherto under |