Politics.

WAS SLAVERY THE REAL CAUSE OF THE
AMERICAN WAR?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

HAVING enjoyed the advantage of reading the opening articles which appeared on this subject in the January number of this Magazine, we trust to be able to steer clear of again treading on ground over which our colleague "Nam Der" has already travelled, and to reply to such arguments as our opponent R. S. has seen fit to advance. The question itself, though of vital importance in many points of view, is free from all ambiguity and uncertainty; its terms are simple and precise, and the inquiry it awakens one of fact rather than of theory. Such being the case, we shall endeavour to deal with it in a practical, common-sense way, as being best calculated to lead to a right decision in the matter.

And first, as to the arguments of our friend R. S., there can be no question whatever as to the propriety of the position he lays down, when he says that "the immediate cause of the war was the secession of the Southern States;" and we coincide with him in thinking that our inquiry is, practically, "What induced the South to secede ?" This direct question he answers by stating that "the idea of secession did not spring up in a day; it is the matured growth of years," because "the interests" of the South "are, and have been, diametrically opposed to those of the North." R. S. further informs us that this result-secession-was prophesied in 1775, when John Adams wrote that the "dissimilitude of character" which then prevailed in the States would, in all probability, prove fatal to the Union. Now this "dissimilitude of character," which presented such a gloomy prospect to the mind of John Adams, had no reference whatever to the antagonistic "interests" of the people at all, but is identified with and founded upon the difference of the constitution of society in the two divisions of the nation, a difference caused by and wholly attributable to the presence of slavery on the one side and its absence on the other. Adams foresaw that a fatal result might in time follow from this dissimilitude; and his prophecy, if valuable at all as an argument in our present inquiry, is in favour of the affirmative side. Our friend R. S. brings forward Mr. Adams as a witness on the negative side, forgetting that in the attempt to make use of such a piece of evidence he upsets the whole of his subsequent reasoning, which is devoted to a proof that the American war has been caused by tariffs and taxes which had no existence to

produce a dissimilitude of character of any kind in 1775, when Adams wrote, nor till dozens of years after. He admits that "slavery has, no doubt, played a part" in bringing about the war; but the real cause is to be traced to the "opposite commercial interests of the two parties." To substantiate this statement R. S. then briefly glances at the history of the tariff duties of the States, for the purpose of proving that no other means were left to the South for protecting herself from the unjust impositions of the North than the commencement of the present war. Our opponent overlooks the fact, however-vital in the argument on this point of the case, that, almost up to the time when this war actually commenced, the protective duties, now put forth as the immediate real cause of the secession, were imposed by a legislature in which admittedly the Southern States had for a long time a numerical, and more recently a practical, majority. When, therefore, our friend states that "the whole of the South were of course opposed to these duties," but they were powerless in the Senate and House of Representatives to protect their own interests," he pledges himself to assertions which cannot be substantiated by facts, and which, moreover, his own admissions refute. Was the South "powerless to protect her own interests," for example, in 1832, when, R. S. tells us, owing to the menace of South Carolina, the tariff then proposed was modified? Up to some four or five years ago, the Southern States, though in a minority in the House of Representatives, had a majority in the Senate; and, up to the time when Mr. Lincoln was named as President, had quite sufficient influence to secure the return of their own nominee at each succeeding presidential election. Did this show an inability to protect their own interests or advance their own cause? Does it not rather prove that as long as they had the ruling power in their own hands all mere commercial regulations imposed by the Government were accepted by them as necessary or expedient for the general welfare, and not at all oppressive to the extent of being obstructive to national progress in any part of the American continent? It is but to view one section of a great question like this to speak of the tariff duties as pressing unduly on the Southern States, because the South is not a manufacturing, but an agricultural tract. As far as capabilities of soil and situation are concerned, the Southern States are quite as available for manufacturing purposes as those of the North; they are not devoted to such purposes, simply because slave labour, which they chiefly rely on, is not suited for such occupations, and is adapted to agricultural pursuits. If any inequality exists, then, between the North and the South, on the ground of the one being a manufacturing and the other a non-manufacturing locality, it is an inequality produced by, and solely traceable to, slavery. R. S. and his colleagues may, of course, say, 66 We must accept the States as we find them, and so accepting them, we must demand that taxation shall not be imposed upon the South to its detriment, which only conduces to the benefit of the North." But is

this the result of the tariff duties complained of? We believe the very contrary is the case, for the very simple reason, that if all the sources of income of the United States Government are analyzed, it will turn out that the North, in proportion to its population, contributes a much larger quota of the entire expenses of the nation than the South; and that the South derives the greatest local benefits from that expenditure. We candidly confess we cannot altogether understand R. S. when he says (p. 56) "that Virginia had at one time twenty-three members, now reduced to eleven, although her population has increased during the period." Bearing in mind that the number of representative members is fixed according to the population of each State, we would have imagined that as the inhabitants of Virginia have largely increased, so would the number of her representatives also; and we think this will be found to be actually the case.

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Now we come to a curious statement in the article of R. S. He has up to this endeavoured to show that oppressive tariff duties, imposed as far back as upwards of fifty years ago, and since then largely increased, was the real cause of the war. He now (p. 56) opens a paragraph with the important statement, that "with the election of President Lincoln all hope of relief for the South was at an end." Relief from what? The reader of our friend's article would, of course, imagine "from tariff duties, oppressive taxes, commercial regulations, which clogged her progress and checked her growth." But R. S. leaves his readers to find out for themselves how the mere election of Mr. Lincoln to the office of President put an end to all hope of relief for the South. He does not attempt to show it. The statement we have quoted from his article we believe to be literally correct; but, on any other ground_than that disclosed in the opening paper of our colleague Nam Der,' it is perfectly unintelligible. If the grievance under which the South laboured was essentially a commercial one, as R. S. alleges, how could the election of Mr. Lincoln put an end to all their hopes of relief? He had not pledged himself to continue or to increase the "vile" imposts; he was not identified, individually or as the representative of his party, with the adoption of measures of taxation which would unduly press upon the South, to the advantage of the North. But he was pledged, both in his individual and representative capacity, to maintain in its integrity the constitution of the States, and to confine slavery to its own existing limits; he was the nominee of the slavery non-extension party in America; their influence carried him into the presidential chair, in opposition to the nominee of the South; and because his election proved that the vantage ground, heretofore occupied by the slaveholding community, had been swept away from them by a revulsion in public opinion, the event did put an end to all hope of relief. Again we ask, from what? R. S. says, from oppressive and unjust tariff duties. A deputation was, just before the outbreak of war, sent to Mr. Lincoln from South Carolina, to detail to him their grievances and demand redress.

Our opponent refers to this meeting between the semi-seceders and the president; but he avoids informing us what the grievances were of which they then complained. We shall give them, however, from the lips of one of the delegates themselves, Mr. Moorehead and there is only need to mention them to dispel the arguments of R. S. altogether to the winds.

"Not one word was said at that meeting about free trade; not one word about the Morill tariff: it was ALL ABOUT SLAVERY; and the discussion was ultimately brought to this point-Would the 'territories' be abandoned? He'' (Mr. Lincoln) "said that he was willing to give a constitutional guarantee that slavery should not be molested in any way, directly or indirectly, in the States; that he was willing to go further, and give a guarantee that it should not be molested in the district of Columbia; and that he would go still further, and say that it would not be disturbed in the docks, arsenals, forts, and other places within the slaveholding States; BUT as for slavery in the territories,' that his whole life was dedicated to opposition to its extension there; that he was elected by a party which had made that a portion of its platform, and he should consider he was betraying that party if he ever agreed, under any state of the case, to allow slavery to be extended into the territories.""

With this trustworthy account of the matter before us, we can now see the meaning of our friend's opening paragraph, and its applicability to the question at issue. The relief which the slaveholding South required was new territory for their slave labour. Mr. Lincoln and his party were pledged to the non-extension of slavery into the "territories ;" and since their influence had been sufficient to carry a hard-fought contested election, the probabilities were that it would prove quite adequate to the promulgation in practice of their political principles; and consequently all hope of relief for the South, in the only way in which relief was demanded by her, was at an end when Lincoln occupied the seat of power.

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The negative arguments of R. S. are equally as fallacious and unsound as his affirmative ones; he volunteers to show, first, that the tariffs were the real cause of the war, and then that slavery was not. The first branch we have disposed of already; now for the second. We admit, because it is a matter beyond dispute, that previous legislation had, so far as slavery was concerned, been entirely in favour of the South," and that "President Lincoln fully pledged himself to respect the domestic institutions" of the States. But it is beside the question to say that "therefore the South were in no fear that he would interfere with their State rights." That is true, but it does not touch the point at issue. If the grievance of which the South complained was that Lincoln's party was pledged to interfere with slavery in the slaveholding States, then there might be fear; but the contrary is so clearly proved by the quotations of R. S., and those we have already made, that it is needless further to argue it. But our opponent has omitted to mention that the fear of the South was called into existence by the fact that the rights of States yet unformed were, under Lincoln's presidency, not to be laid in the dust before the onward march of the slaveholding South. Without new territories, slavery cannot maintain its place

in America. Slave power is unsuited for manufacturing purposes; it is most profitably occupied in the labours of the field; it is exhaustive of the finest soil. New ground is essential to the very existence of slavery as a system, and consequently any policy which seeks to confine it within certain limits directly tends to its overthrow and eventual abolition. This is the policy of Mr. Lincoln; it is the policy which touches the very basis upon which the wealth and society of the South stands. The extracts which R. S. has given from the New York Times, &c., merely prove that the South has been treated most constitutionally all along; but this was not all that the South required. It demanded that, independent of having its own individual rights within its own limits protected and respected, it should also have conferred upon it the power to carry over the length and breadth of the hitherto unallotted and unformed districts, called "territories," its peculiar, heart-loved, "domestic' institution, "slavery." R. S., to substantiate his position, should have shown that the non-extension policy of Lincoln and his party was not such as to create any fear in the minds of the Southern leaders, ere he could establish the argument that slavery had nothing whatever to do with the real cause of the war. As long as the Southern States kept their demands within the bounds of constitutional principles, they were protected by the Government of the States, and received the benefit of Governmental support. So long there was no fear to be excited in the minds of the Southern people. But that which outraged constitutional principles, and induced the establishment of a governing policy calculated to create fear through the Southern States, was the demand that slavery should have free course throughout States yet unformed. The practical rejection of the unconstitutional demand was identified with the election of Lincoln, and therefore it is that that election put an end to all hopes of relief in the South. Slavery is the very essence and basis of this unconstitutional demand; the facts incontrovertibly establish it, the declaimers of the South boast of it, her senators proclaim it trumpet-tongued. The quotations given by "Nam Der" are not to be got rid of by mere general assertions they are too plain to afford room for uncertainty. Since the desire for the extension of slavery on the part of the South almost created the Republican party in America-that the contest all along between the North and South has been about this "domestic institution' that the moment the "non-extension" party had attained the position of authority in the country the secession took place, and the war broke out-and that the seceding States have all placed this question in the forefront of their list of grievances before the Northerns and the public-are we much astray in affirming that slavery has been the cause of this long-continued political contest-the cause of the secession and the cause of the war? With one quotation we leave the matter in the hands of our readers, confident that their verdict will be accorded to that side upon which the evidence is strongest. The sentiment has been already recorded (p. 51) in this

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