theft," becomes a public benefactor, by attending to the true and proper object of the science of political economy" the distribution of wealth.' Napoleon has burst into a regal palace and seized a throne, and he invites a congress to sanction his claims; and hence he is a benefactor to Europe! Napoleon has had the craft to see which power of Europe was strongest and most easily hoodwinked. He pitched upon England as his aider and abettor in his criminality. He called this help to him by an old honoured name-an alliance; and we, taken by words, touched the pitch, and, according to the proverb, became defiled. That is what is meant by Louis Napoleon's "preference of the alliance of France with England" (p. 37), which M. H. reports to his credit. The Dano-German war seems to have broken out as if to put a negative by facts to the idea entertained by M. H. and others, that Napoleon is the heaven-descended State physician of Europe, capable of giving those "pestilent fellows," Pio Nono, Francis Joseph, Bismarck, and Mouravieff (p. 36), a purge to put them all down. To the strong negative of the new alliance between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, we need add no other argument in refutation of M. H.'s statement that "Napoleonism was a specific for European disorder." We may only illustrate its truth by the words Leipsic, Austerlitz, Moscow and Waterloo, Sebastopol and Solferino. To "a nation of shopkeepers," of course eternal gratitude must appear to be the only fitting reward of a man who could agree to a "treaty of commerce." Will the gain made by that treaty ever compensate for the war-expense incurred by Britain, because of his usurper's restlessness upon his throne? May not a treaty, enforced on France only by the strong hand of Napoleon, be as rudely torn as those of Vienna were by the same man? We think that, until Napoleon gives some sure guarantee for his honesty, no influence he can ever use or give rise to will be ultimately beneficial to Europe. E. S. J.'s arguments on this topic are bulwarked in their strength by truth's own power. Surely our S. I. R. E. was educated in the politest and most selfish nation in Europe. Like Thomas Wilson, I may say to him, that, "Ponderyng, expendyng, and revolutyng with myself your ingent affabilitie and ingenious capacitie for mundane affaires, I cannot but celebrate and extoll your magnifical dexteritie above all other; for how could you have adapted suche illustrate prerogative and dominicall superioritie, if the fecundity of your ingenie had not beene so fertile and wonderfull pregnaunt P" (" Arte of Rhetoricke," 1553.) I am lost in amazement at the splendid euphemism by which S. I. R. E. epitomizes the biography of Louis Napoleon in these brief terms: A succession of happy chances." The coup d'état a happy chance;" the banishment and exile of all the patriots and men of principle and intellect in France was a happy chance;" the Crimean war was a happy chance; the treaty with which it closed was a happy chance; the Italian war was a happy chance," was 66 66 as was also (and is) the occupation of Rome! What "a happy chance" has the Mexican expedition been! Is this "succession of happy chances" in any way explained by a recent mot d'esprit, attributed to the august personage who acts as the sire, but not the father of France ?-" Don't, sire," said some one, "allow France to be driven into war." "Monsieur," was the reply, "France is never driven; she always drives." For the invention of that happy phrase S. I. R. E. deserves to be decorated with the ribbon of the Legionthe name is legion! Page 116 of this serial ought to become classic in France, for there the true phrase for usurpation, slaughter, hy: pocrisy, extravagance, tyranny, selfishness, criminal fear lacquered with jaundice, is given as "a succession of happy chances." It has the perfect smack of a mot de Talleyrand, and its writer seems quite able to "Duck with French nods and apish courtesy." If A reign, which was "from first to last characterized by a sacrifice of everything to expediency" (115), could scarcely have been supposed to be beneficial to Europe; but S. I. R. E. so defines Napoleonism, and yet affirms it is so; and M. H. speaks in its praise that it "promised to revive Italy, liberty, virtue, and glory." Ah! how ill kept its promises have been! Has his text been taken from Timon of Athens ?" Promise me friendship, but perform none. thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee; for thou art a man! If thou dost perform, confound thee; for thou art a man!" We do, indeed, very much fear that, with regard to Italy, liberty, virtue, and glory-all magnificent names to conjure with,- -we shall be obliged to say (how soon may it be?) as was said over a far greater and far better man, though saying that is not saying much, viz., "His promises were, as he then was, mighty; but his performance, as he now is, nothing.' R. S. has ably and fully shown that these promises have not even had the consistency of the shadow of moonshine, and that Napoleon has been the enemy alike of Italy, freedom, virtue, and glory. I must now apologize for my taking part in this debate. The illness (temporary, I hope, and brief) of the person who would so ably have replied made it requisite to gain a substitute. On being applied to, I assented. I am afraid there has been little gain in substituting for the fine pen of E. S. J. the coarse quill of OXONIENSIS. 66 Politics. WAS SLAVERY THE REAL CAUSE OF THE 66 AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-IV. 66 Ir is really very laughable to see the muddle our negative friends make of the matter, in hunting all over the known world for reasons for the American war. Not that they are short of reasons; by no means they are as plentiful as blackberries ;" but, unfortunately, one half of the reasons neutralize each other, and the other half are assumptions or falsehoods. Allow me first to say a word or two on the position of M. H.: how is he, or any one else, to find the 'cause, or causes," where he looks for them? It may be trite, but it seems necessary to say causes go before events, not after them. How he came to imagine that things said or done years after an event took place can be reckoned causes, I cannot tell. If his paper had been called "consequences of the war," there would have been a semblance of pertinence in his reasoning. What, for instance, has the 100,000 men that are to be sent to Ireland, or the 700,000 (better authorities than M. H. say 200,000) slain in the contest, to do with the origin of the war? If M. H. wanted to have found the cause, there are two things he should have studied, of both of which he appears to be profoundly ignorant : 1. The growth of the slave power. 2. American politics before the war. But there is a graver charge to be made against these effusions; he has raked up from the worst of the ribald press of New York the most atrocious falsehoods they could coin, and wishes to pass them off as the exponents of Northern opinion. The New York Herald is well known to be as much Southern as any paper published in Richmond, hating, opposing, and maligning everything free, whether in America or England. Gladly would that paper, and one or two others, have embroiled the world in war, if by so doing they could have saved slavery from Northern interference. The English Standard, in February last, said, in speaking of the rams built by Mr. Laird for the Confederates, "that if they had escaped and avenged some of the slaughters in Southern towns by destroying a few of the fanatic Massachusetts or New York towns, Englishmen would be glad. Now if I, having read what the Standard and M. H. say, should represent them as a fair sample of English feeling on the American struggle, the statement would not only be false, but slanderous; I should not only then be bearing false witness against my neighbour," but helping to set 66 66 nations at variance, instead of promoting peace on earth and good' will to men." When two friends are in danger of quarrelling, that man is no friend, whatever his professions, who carries cross words and hasty remarks between the two. The talebearer is justly held as disreputable: to represent the sayings of the worst and most unprincipled of Americans as a fair exponent of American feelings, when the conduct of their government, reflecting as it does the views of the people, has been the very opposite, cannot but be equally dishonourable. I felt thankful that "time and space" pulled friend M. H. up at last; for when a man starts on such a desultory course, and with such an animus, the man would be worn out before the subject was at all exhausted. Now turn we for a moment to R. R.; he has got hold of one or two fallacies, and although they have had considerable support, they are fallacies still. We are gravely told that, as the Southerns were the main consumers of imported goods, heavy restrictions were imposed by the Northerns to compel the South to bear more than its fair share of Federal taxation; the Northern members were strong enough to levy enormous duties on the South. This statement conveys very fairly, I believe, not only R. R.'s reasoning, but that of many others, and yet it is assumption or falsehood from beginning to end. The South do not consume the largest portion of imported goods. The South have never (Carolina, on one occasion, excepted) objected to restrictive policy or high tariffs. I defy any man to produce an instance in American history, of a high tariff carried by Northern votes, except the last or Morrill tariff, about which I shall have a word to say by-and-bye. The South, and not the North, have passed and supported high tariffs. The South have been the party in office; five-sixths of the Presidents have been Southern men; the Southern members, with the influence of government, and the Northern men, whose mercantile interests inclined them to the South, have always been strong enough to carry any subject on which the South had determined. Witness the "Fugitive Slave Law," the breaking up of the "Missouri Compromise," the annexation of Texas, to all of which the North, as North, were strongly opposed, and all of which the South carried in spite of them; there were restrictive tariffs passed in 1832, 1842, 1846, and 1847. With respect to the two-1832 and 1842-I need only say they were brought in by Southern statesmen, and supported by the influence of the South. But I wish to be a little more explicit about those of 1846 and 1847. The following is a statement of the votes by which these laws were passed: TARIFF 1846. TARIFF 1847. South. 63 for. 7 against. 5 against. 56 for. 23 against. So that if the North had been left to itself, it would have rejected the one in 1846 by twenty-five votes, and that of 1847 by five votes ; but was in both cases overpowered by the majorities-forty-two votes in 1846, and fifty-six votes in 1847-that the South brought to support the obnoxious laws. How unfit men must be to write, that do not know these things! and how mistaken are the repeated assertions that the South groaned under oppressive tariffs forced upon them by the North! But it will be said, The Confederates say they want free trade. This brings us to the Morrill tariff. That tariff was passed by the North; the Southerners were nearly all away, hatching secession (or rebellion, more properly speaking), but the Southerns who stayed voted for the bill. There was no attempt made by the South to hinder it; nay, more, Buchanan, the traitor to his high office, and the tool of the slave faction, not only did not veto it, but signed it in indecent haste, lest the North should reconsider its decisions and the tariff not become law. Why? Because the South saw that, securing the Northern tariff as law, they hoped in the hour of England's irritation to purchase recognition by professing themselves free-traders; from staunch protectionists they became ultra-free-traders, hoping by the device to obtain sympathy and support. 66 The English people generally were not mercenary enough to be taken in the snare, and the only good it did the South was, that it formed a plausible but shallow argument for men to use who look no deeper than the surface. R. R.'s ignorance about slavery is not less gross than on the subject of tariffs. He tells us that if there had been slaves in the North, the Yankees would not only not have liberated them, but would have found Scripture for its support. It is really painful to suppose that this was known to be false, and yet written. To take a more charitable supposition, can it be supposed that R. R. does not know that when the States declared their independence, there were slaves in most of the States, North as well as South; and that, since then, what are called Northern States have one by one abolished it and set their slaves free, and that twenty-five years have not passed since manumission acts took full effect? Is it possible he does not know that the same dollar worshippers" (Yankees) have bought all the slaves in the district that surrounds Washington of their masters, at three hundred dollars apiece, man, woman, and child, to set them free; and, further, that the same money lovers have declared that now, while they are plunged in the most expensive war ever recorded, they have still got money to spare to compensate those Southern men who wish to free their slaves, and that in Missouri, Alabama, and Maryland, they are taking the Yankees at their word, and are beginning to free their slaves and claim the compensation? If R. R. does not really know these things, he ought not to write about them; if he does know them, he ought not to bear false witness against his neighbour. R. R. makes some remarks about slaves being better off in the South than the North._ What a pity it is the slaves do not know when they are well off! Did anybody ever hear 1864. |