interested motives for refusing to think as they thought or professed to think-the abuse of us by their low and infamous press-the threats of violent aggression the Trent outrage, and the outburst of public sentiment which preceded the announcement of the course taken by our Government thereupon - the hostile legislation of Congress, with its proclaimed motive of injury to us -and the exultation, which shame has not been sufficient to suppress, excited by the view of the calamities entailed on our own people by a quarrel in which we have no concern ;-these are circumstances which have inevitably infused into our judgment on the merits of the case the sharpness of personal feeling, further augmented by the recollection of the many instances in which, in our diplomatic intercourse with America, we have been overreached and bullied, and which, though due to Southern as well as to Northern politicians, we are accustomed to identify with the policy of the Union. Under these circumstances, instead of representing England as entertaining sentimental feelings for America which have no basis either in fact or common sense, and instead of veiling our real opinions by an affectation of admiration and respect, we think it more friendly and more judicious to utter words of censure and of warning. As we have always protested, we have no unfriendly feelings towards the Americans as a people. On the contrary, while we know full well the merits and excellences of their upper classes, we are also aware that the objectionable qualities of the general mass of the people are on the surface, and that much that is good and admirable is to be found with very little seeking. But politically we dislike them extremely. We see in their political tendencies an example that might be very injurious to England, and a source of degradation to themselves. There fore we have freely descanted on their institutions, their politics, and their conduct as a nation. And we now tell them that other nations not only do not accept them at their own valuation, but are ceasing to give them credit for those qualities which were once generally attributed to them. We used to believe that they were capable of hearing reason for their own advantage. We used to think that though it might suit their humour to confide their affairs to the control of commonplace men, yet that, when the necessity for leaders should appear, the men qualified to lead would appear also. But we now begin to think that not the least enlightened of the despised monarchies of Europe could have shown itself so incapable of bringing out and of recognising merit as this boasted Republic. We begin to doubt the shrewdness and common sense of a people who are content to follow with senseless shouting the pigmy impostors who are conducting them into such frightful quagmires. And we see daily more reason to rejoice that a nation which has all the will to dictate to others is losing the power which it would be certain to misuse. 66 In a chapter which he calls "An Apology for the War," Mr Trollope defends the course taken by the North. "What," he asks, was the North to do; this foolish North, which has been so liberally told by us that she has taken up arms for nothing, that she is fighting for nothing, and will ruin herself for nothing?" "I cannot see at what point the North first sinned." "I think it is plain that the remnant of the Union was bound to take up arms against those States which had illegally torn themselves off from her." In all which we entirely disagree with him. We do not dispute that excuses may be found for the North in commencing the struggle; but that she can be justified by reason we do not admit. One element of the Republic was the consent of the governed. Another was the supremacy of a majority. But practically and theoretically, as has been proved times without number, the supremacy of a majority is the oppression of a minority, and that entails discontent. Consent and discontent are elements evidently incompatible. Hence the Republic was founded on false principles-the Union contained the seeds of disunion. It may be said that in all governments there will be discontent. No doubt there might have been a discontented minority in every State of the Union, and yet the Union might have gone on. It is when discontent coincides with a territorial line that the elements become explosive. Then it was for the North to consider whether it should hold to its principles, and, by separating from the South, and thus casting out the element of discontent, render the continued existence of the Union, on its original basis, possible; or should let go its hold on the principle of consent, and, clinging to that of force, go wildly drifting into space, unknowing whither. We have often heard one who is much more deeply interested in the North than Mr Trollope, and has considered the question much more to the purpose, point out the proper course. The remnant of the Union might have said, "We have always thanked God, somewhat Pharisaically perhaps, that we were not as other States are,-oppressors of the weak, worshippers of material force, guilty of and retaining portions of territory in unwilling subjection. We found our government on the consent of the governed. If any of the governed withdraw their consent, there is no means of retaining them consistent with principle. If we abandon the principle on which we rest, we become we know not what; abjure. We lament that any portion of our Union should withdraw its consent-we will by all means consistent with principle persuade it to remain-but we will not, from love of power and consideration, try other means than persuasion. We will show that we are, as we have boasted, superior to the considerations which are the motives of ordinary governments-we will show that it is not for nothing we have preached the blessings of Democracy and the right of men to choose what government they will live under. Those who are urging us to use force tell us that a recognised right of secession will dissolve the whole Union. This we deny. The Union will continue to consist of all those who choose to live under it. No principle, no law, no portion of the Constitution is vitiated by secession-the machinery is uninjured and will work as before. If it be considered advisable to render the Union more binding so as to discountenance future secession, let us debate how it shall be done. And thus, though shorn of some of that importance which numbers and extent of territory confer, we shall stand before the world an example of honourable consistency, and prove that there is at least one form of government capable of sacrificing power to principle-nay, even incapable by its own conditions of doing otherwise." And we would ask, in which case does Democracy appear in the best light-in acting thus, or as she is now doing, compelling citizens to impose a detested yoke on others? The conclusion we have indicated as the true and logical one, Mr Trollope and other apologists of the North refuse to accept. They say that a Government which cannot enforce its authority is an absurdity. "A confederation with such a licence attached to it would have been simply playing at national power," says Mr Trollope. Face to face with the absurdity of a supreme government dependent on consent, he recoils into the equal absurdity of a voluntary Union founded on force. He will not accept the true conclusion, which is, that the Government of the Union, or any government that continues to rest on the consent of the governed, is not framed on a basis that can be permanent, and must be condemned because it leads everywhere to illogical results. And he seems to forget that he is talking of sovereign States, which had only to consider what would be for their own advantage, when he inquires, "Where would New England have been, as a part of the United States, if New York, which stretches from the Atlantic to the borders of Canada, had been endowed with the power of cutting off the six northern States from the rest of the Union?" But New York actually possessed that power by refusing to join the Union. Does Mr Trollope think that New York joined the Union, or would refrain from seceding if it were her interest to do so, out of regard for New England? Or does he think that it was a principle of abstract justice which prevented her from remaining an obstacle between States that desired to unite? If so, the same principle should compel Hanover to permit itself to be annexed to Prussia. It is not often that a good novelist makes a good politician. The chief example that occurs to us is that of Bulwer, who is both a great novelist and a great statesman. But we cannot consider Mr Trollope an exception to the rule; and we think that his just and fairly-earned reputation will continue to rest upon his clever and always entertaining novels. All that he proves in the political part of his book is, that he has a strong prejudice in favour of the North-so strong, that, when his premises are correctly stated, his inferences are often false. We should be sorry to say that a man of his ability could not master a political subject; but we cannot help thinking that the principal qualification, besides his VOL. XCII.-NO. DLXIII. 389 We do not literary skill, which he has brought sire to say what will please his to the discussion, is a strong deNorthern friends. dently been quite ready to adopt He has evitheir logic, and the North is the very last place where we should go just now for logic. quence is, that he has imported as The consenovelties a great number of argupass current in the Union, have ments which, though they may still been long exploded here. Exercised on so uncongenial a subject, bited to less advantage than usual. even his power of writing is exhiNot only the style, but the thought, is often slipshod. think that, in any of his novels, tence as this, "If a reunion is to he would have written such a sensurely that reunion should be first be a precursor of emancipation, effected:" or as this, "Bribery, I know, was disgracefully current in and even of Castlereagh ;-so curthe days of Walpole, of Newcastle, rent, that no Englishman has a right to hold up his own past government as a model of purity"-meaning, of course, to say, an Englishman has no right.' He has also introducing ancient platitudes and in this book fallen into a habit of trivialities with "I think," 66 it gives to what might else be excused seems to me," "I take it," which American Constitution is now, I an air of foolish wisdom. "The think, at the crisis of its severest be kept in duress at any man's will; trial." "A man's body shall not court, with uttermost speed, in but shall be brought up into open order that the law may say whether That, I take it, is the meaning of or no it should be kept in duress. 'habeas corpus.' should write, "The sun, I take it, It is as if one rises in the east,"-"the earth, as it seems to me, revolves upon its axis." 66 subject, it was inevitable that we 2 C have not refrained from replying at length. We see matters from a point of view different from his; and if there be anything in our remarks which displeases him, we request him to accept the same apology as he has made to his friends in the North for saying what they may not altogether like. The other portions of his book we have read with much pleasure and amusement. The great corn country of the West is capitally described; the ladies of the New York cars must be shamed by his caustic fun into better and more womanly behaviour; Mr Wendell Phillips, the venomous philanthropist, and Mr Everett, the eloquent but timeserving politican, are hit off to the life; and all his prepossessions have not prevented him from looking at the broadly-presented absurd side of American character. But we like his plots better than his travels, his creations better than his sketches from life. The old cathedral town gives him footing more like his "native heath" than the whole continent of America can supply. Mrs Proudie is worth a legion of Everetts-is even a more interesting old woman than the President himself. Mr Harding surpasses the entire Federal Cabinet, and five minutes with Eleanor Bold is better than a whole sitting of Congress. We shall grudge the time he may spend in writing any more books of travel or politics, if they deprive us of one of the brilliant successors of 'Barchester Towers.' Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh. GENERAL M'CLELLAN'S FLANK MOVEMENT-PUBLIC OPINION IN THE SOUTH-NORTHERN GOVERNMENT. On the afternoon of Thursday the 26th of June 1862, the city of Richmond presented to a traveller on his first arrival a strange and novel appearance. The train had rolled into the middle of the street, and there stopped. The passengers, mostly soldiers, had, after much elbowing and clattering of canteens, alighted. Small parties of men, burdened by the evidently most unusual weight of a musket, were moving about the streets. These were a party of the second class militia acting as city guard. On the slopes of grass around the Capitol were some companies from Alabama resting on their arms, awaiting orders. Further on the pale faces, and crutches, and slings collected at different street-doors proclaimed the houses within to be hospitals. The shops were all closed. The bars even were deserted, for martial law had forbidden all liquid sustenance for the inner man. Here an orderly came trotting round the corner; there a group of stragglers were anxiously endea VOL. XCII.—NO. DLXIV. vouring to misunderstand the road which they ought to take in order to rejoin their brigade; close by were gathered a group of negroes, animated by the common purpose of doing nothing. The booming of cannon and the roll of distant musketry, which had been audible all the afternoon, towards evening grew louder, and, as night drew on, the flash of bursting shell might be plainly discerned from the house-tops. These various sounds and sights, however, though they might distract the attention of a stranger, seemed to excite neither surprise nor anxiety among the inhabitants. The soldiers on furlough or sick leave who crowded the steps of the hotels were smoking or conversing listlessly. The ladies were sitting out in front of their houses apparently unconcerned at what was passing, and only intent on supplying the want of an evening breeze by an assiduous use of the fan. Every one appeared used to the war. For a month M'Clellan had been within five miles of the city in 2 D |