Men hed ough' to put asunder Ef there's thousands o' my mind." It is clear, however, that the great mass of the people of New York and New England are of another opinion. They look at the secession of the southern states as a diminution of the power and dignity of the Union; and are ready, with one voice, to exclaim, that the southern states have no right to secede, and that they shall not secede. This opinion and resolution, on the part of the North, strikes us with some surprise. Those who maintain this view, set up a theory which to us sounds strangely, as advanced by members of a confederation which is itself not yet a century old. America, in 1776, erected itself into a nation, or sovereign people; by a change, by a separation. Yet it is now assumed, that she then so constituted herself, that no change, except by augmentation,—that no separation,-ever could again take place. This is, indeed, a strange idea. Mutability is one of the plainest laws of human nature. And the boundaries and component parts of states and nations exhibit the law of mutability in perpetual operation. It is not quite half a century since all Europe was settled by the Congress of Vienna; yet in the course of the forty-six years which have elapsed since that settlement, what changes have taken place! Holland and Belgium, then united, have separated from each other. Italy, then divided among five or six sovereigns, now owns but one; France and Austria have each experienced considerable changes. Nor is Europe alone in these mutations. Turkey has lost Greece; Africa has lost Algiers; in India, halfa-dozen kingdoms have vanished. Nor does America-we speak now of the northern statesreject mutation when it means enlargement. She has taken by force a good part of the territory of Mexico; and was purposing, only a year or two since, to take Cuba also, by fair means or by foul. But that she, the United States, should lose anything; that she deems altogether intolerable. She refers to the original articles of Union, and finds there, she says, no provision made for the withdrawal of any State. Therefore, she argues, no State can withdraw. It is not at all surprising that articles of Union, which were doubtless intended to be perpetual, should contain no provisions for separation or disunion. But the right and power of separating or seceding were consecrated, so to speak, by the very act which created "the United States." Those states separated or seceded from Great Britain; and after a miserable conflict of some years, the king of England, who had been despoiled of one of the brightest jewels of his crown, was obliged to say, "I grant that you had a right to secede, and I recognize your separation as an accomplished fact." As lovers of peace, we should have been glad if the northern states could have adopted Mr. Lowell's view, "You take one way, we take t'other." It appears, however, that this is not to be. At the time of our writing, the northern states boast that they have nearly completed an army of 200,000 men, and calculate on spending one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, or £30,000,000 sterling, in this present year, 1861, in putting down this "rebellion." We cannot doubt that the 18,000,000 who live in the north are stronger than the 8,000,000 who live in the south; or that the 3,947,759 of slaves possessed by the latter, are more an element of weakness than of strength. Consequently, we are prepared to hear of defeats and humiliations suffered by the southern states, if this fearful contest shall really continue. But we cannot help coinciding in opinion with the Economist newspaper, which, in one of its recent numbers, said, "The North will beat the South in the end, but when it has done so, we do not see what the government can do, except to leave the South to follow its own devices; as it might do at this moment." In considering such a question as this, of the impending struggle, it should always be borne in mind that there are two kinds of wars-a war between two independent states, arising out of some petty ground of quarrel; and a war of subjugation, which, if successful, involves the holding the conquered territory by military force. When two kingdoms quarrel about the possession of some island or province, they fight battle stili one of them is worsted; the victorious power then obtains the territory about which the dispute arose, and so the contest ends. But a war of subjugation is a very different thing. Edward I. conquered Scotland once or twice; but when he returned to England, Scotland was soon in arms again. Austria now holds the little province of Venetia, which contains 8000 or 9000 square miles, but she holds it by an army of more than 100,000 men. Virginia, which stands in the front of the present battle, has 61,000 square miles; and the whole of the seceded States have above 800,000 square miles. Now, if it were enough to give them a few defeats, and so to bring them to submission, the task might be comparatively easy. But if it be needful to keep them in subjection by a military occupation, as Austria now keeps Venetia, how are the northern states to accomplish this? The single state of Texas is larger than the whole Austrian empire; and the whole of the southern states, collectively, cover more ground than France and Spain, Eng land, Belgium, and all Germany;-in fact, than all central Europe. What remains, then, when the northern states have beaten their opponents? What follows? The Times correspondent tells us that "The North thinks that it can coerce the South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong. But I am convinced that the South can only be forced back into the Union by such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the feet of Russia." Yes; but the difference between the two cases is prodigious. Russia was a mighty empire, keeping up an army of 700,000 men, and she coveted Poland, which lay just on her frontier. The northern states of America have, indeed, the main elements of strength; but it is their custom to keep up an army of only 10,000 or 12,000 men. The force which they will need to coerce the South must be drawn, by an effort, from the productive industry of the nation, and kept in the field by a new and unusual outlay. But the chief difficulty of the case arises from the enormous extent of the United States. From New York to Charleston is 762 miles; from New York to Montgomery-the present seat of the Southern Government is 1066 miles; from New York to New Orleans is nearly 1900 miles. To carry on a war at such a distance,-to convey armies five hundred or a thousand miles at a time, with all the necessary stores and commissariat, seems to us a task which may exhaust even the undoubted wealth of New York and New England. Poland has a population of not quite 5,000,000, and it lies adjacent to the Russian frontier; yet to keep down Poland has always been found an arduous task, even for a government which moves, at will, 200,000 or 300,000 men. The northern states will surely not embody and maintain a standing army of 100,000 men ;-yet what could even 100,000 men do, to keep in subjugation a country larger than all England, France, Spain, and Germany? No doubt the North can call for and obtain 200,000 or 300,000 militia; but these are mere volunteers, enlisting for an expedition. To subjugate a country, and to hold it in subjection, a permanent army is needed; and, looking at the force kept by Russia in Poland, and by Austria in Venetia, we should say that a standing army of even 200,000 men would be insufficient to force back the southern states into the Union against their will. We know, indeed, that many heated and enthusiastic politicians in New York are now saying: "We shall beat them easily; put down the rebellion, punish the leaders, and reestablish the Union." But assuredly, if peace, cordiality, and a solid union can in this way be established, it will be the first time that fire and slaughter have been seen to produce such results. Fifteen years ago, in these "Biglow Papers," Mr. Lowell could thus sarcastically write: "I du believe wutever trash 'll keep the people in blindness ;- That bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball, Must be druv in with bag'nets." But the absurdity is far greater of supposing that an union such as that which has for eighty years existed in America, can be cemented and perpetuated by fighting. The Southerners were defeated by the Northerners in an ordinary and peaceful contest at the poll-booths, and they could not bear it; but rushed into instant secession. Is it to be imagined that they will be taught patience, humility, and quiet submission, by the slaughter of their people and the burning of their towns? pre But we must not be tempted into the least semblance of dicting the future. The events of the last two years in Italy ought to warn us not to dream that we can foresee it; we will therefore only indicate three results which may flow from the war which is now opening, but we shall not attempt to say which of these three our readers may confidently anticipate. First, that may happen which the government at Washington, and most of the people in the North, seem to expect; to wit, the speedy defeat, quiet submission, and future loyalty of the southern states. We will not say that this is impossible; to us it seems the most unlikely of all the conclusions in which the present quarrel may end. That eight millions of people can be forced to remain in an union which was originally based on the popular will, certainly sounds very much like a contradiction in terms. but Another termination of the dispute which seems to us to have more probability, would be one resembling the end of many former wars: namely, that when each party had inflicted great losses and sufferings on the other, exhaustion, loss of hope, and weariness of a seemingly-interminable strife, should gradually operate and force both to consent, unwillingly, to a close of the struggle. This seems to us the most probable euding; but we will not venture to predict it. A more terrible result is not left to the imagination, for it is loudly threatened. A leading man, in the employment of the Washington government, has openly declared that if forced to it, the North will proclaim the manumission of all the slaves! Now this, however blessed and glorious, if properly and cautiously effected, would be, if an act of war, suddenly enacted, nothing less than a tremendous earthquake in the body politic. Four millions of human beings, at once set free, in the land where they had long been slaves, would change it from a country of hard and cruel laws into a country of turmoil, confusion, and lawlessness. Greatly as we desire the eradication of slavery from the American soil, we should not dare, if power could possibly be given to us, to pronounce the words which would confer immediate and unconditional emancipation. the Yet, as we have said, this fearful convulsion is not merely spoken of as possible, it is actually threatened, and may occur before the year has terminated. A vast blessing would thus be realized, a dreadful sin would be cleared away from the national conscience of America; but at what an awful price! The imagination utterly fails when it tries to realize the fact, of four millions of human beings, hitherto slaves, now suddenly set free. The scenes which might be expected to follow, might make the event one of the most calamitous in the history of mankind. But there is Such, then, is the prospect; such are the various disastrous terminations which may close this fearful war. one part of the subject to which we feel bound especially to advert. The fault of Mr. Lowell's verses is one into which Mr. Washington Irving, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and many other American writers have shown a readiness to fall; namely, the mingling of Puritan and sometimes of Scripture phrases with Sarcastic and ironical language, in a manner which seems to betoken an irreverent feeling. The merit of the book, on the other hand, lies, as we have said, in its objurgation of slavery and of aggressive war. In this sentiment we should have hoped to find, in the author's own state of Massachusetts, and through. But we have been startled and distressed to perceive, by the out New England and New York, a very general concurrence. avidity for this intestine war, even among professing Chrisartist accounts from America, a great aptitude and even tians. Thus, we hear that in Mr. H. W. Beecher's large congregation at Brooklyn, as many as twenty-seven and that one one hundred and volunteers simultaneously offered themselves; leading member of the church presented two hundred rifles, hoping that men would be found to use them. This eagerness to rush into a deadly strife with their brethren War in the United States is much more a personal and obliged to maintain, for our own safety and the safety of our question than it is with us in England. We are Hence, many young men devote themselves to this profession, rast foreign possessions, a standing army of some 200,000 men. individual Vol. 60.-No. 283. 4 C |