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tion, free government-with these there will return all the blessings of well-ordered civilization; the path of the country will be a career of greatness and of glory such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been ours today, if it had not been for the treason for which the senator too often seeks to apologize.

Why did Breckenridge's speech arouse sneers of incredulity? Do you think that Breckenridge was sincere in his appeal to the future?

What was the political advantage that Breckenridge hoped to attain by remaining a member of the Federal Congress?

Who during recent war followed in the footsteps of Breckenridge and acted his part?

To what extent was Baker's dramatic entrance responsible for the effect of his speech?

Comment on Baker's transition from polite questioning to impassioned denunciation.

Comment on the argumentative and persuasive effect of Baker's failure to dispute his opponent's estimate of loss of men and property.

Compare the motives appealed to by Breckenridge with those to which Baker appealed.

Contrast the style of the two men. Is it the result of character and training?

What seems to be Baker's controlling purpose in delivering this speech?

THE TRENT AFFAIR

December 4, 1861

WHEN war was declared in America the sympathy of the ruling and influential classes of people in England was largely with the South. The aristocracy of Britain thought they saw in the fight the struggle of conservative and established government against the demagogic champions of democracy. In the House of Commons, Mr. Roebuck, a member for Sheffield, had brought forward a motion in favor of the recognition of the South. He said: "The men of the South are Englishmen; but the army of the North is composed of the scum of Europe." Even those who possessed democratic sentiments and who were opposed to slavery were slow to show their sympathy with the North, for it was maintained that the success of the Confederacy would promote England's economic wefare.

While public sentiment in Great Britain was in this condition an event occurred in November, 1861, that nearly led to war between England and the United States. The Confederate government sent two envoys from Havana to England and France in the British mail steamer Trent. The ship was stopped by the U. S. sloop of war San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes, and the envoys were seized and imprisoned in a fort in Boston harbor. The affair raised a storm of indignation in England. Lord Russell, the Foreign Secretary, demanded from Secretary Seward the immediate release of the prisoners.

Under these circumstances, and while meetings advocating war were being held in many places in England, Bright delivered this address at Rochdale on December 4, 1861. He succeeded in stemming the tide of exasperation and in inducing the Engish nation to consider the affair calmly and sympathetically. As he predicted in his speech, the American government acknowledged the justice of the English claim and released the prisoners. But even then war was narrowly averted, for, Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, was inclined to follow up the matter. He was finally restrained through the influence of Queen Victoria and by the public sentiment aroused by Bright. England never recognized the Southern Confederacy; the most that the South ever obtained was the acknowledgement of its rights as a belligerent.

THE TRENT AFFAIR

JOHN BRIGHT

EIGHTY-FIVE years ago, at the time when some of our oldest townsmen were very little children, there were, on the North American continent, colonies, mainly of Englishmen, containing about three millions of souls. These colonies we have seen a year ago constituting the United States of North America, America, and comprising a population of no less than thirty millions of souls. We know that in agriculture and manufactures, with the exception of this kingdom, there is no country in the world which in these arts may be placed in advance of the United States. With regard to inventions, I believe, within the last thirty years, we have received more useful inventions from the

United States than from all the other countries of the earth. In that country there are probably ten times as many miles of telegraph as there are in this country, and there are at least five or six times as many miles of railway. The tonnage of its shipping is at least equal to ours, if it does not exceed ours. The prisons of that countryfor, even in countries the most favored, prisons are needful-have been models for other nations of the earth; and many European governments have sent missions at different times to inquire into the admirable system of education so universally adopted in their free schools throughout the Northern States.

This is a very fine, but a very true picture; yet it has another side to which I must advert. There has been one great feature in that country, one great contrast, which has been pointed to by all who have commented upon the United States as a feature of danger, as a contrast calculated to give pain. There has been in that country the utmost liberty to the white man, and bondage and degradation to the black man. Now rely upon it, that wherever Christianity lives and flourishes, there must grow up from it, necessarily, a conscience hostile to any oppression and to any wrong; and, therefore, from the hour when the United States Constitution was formed, so long as it left there this great evil-then comparatively small, but now so great-it left there seeds of that which an American statesman has so happily described of that "irrepressible conflict" of which now the whole world is the witness. It has been a common thing for men disposed to carp at the United States to point to this blot upon their fair fame, and to compare it with the boasted declaration of freedom in their Deed and Declaration of Independence.

I will not discuss the guilt of the men who, ministers of a great nation only last year, conspired to overthrow it,

I will not point out or recapitulate the statements of the fraudulent manner in which they disposed of the funds in the national exchequer. I will not point out by name any of the men, in this conspiracy, whom history will designate by titles they would not like to hear; but I say that slavery has sought to break up the most free government in the world, and to found a new State, in the nineteenth century, whose corner-stone is the perpetual bondage of millions of men.

It has been said, "How much better it would be "not for the United States, but—“ for us, that these States should be divided." I recollect meeting a gentleman in Bond Street one day before the session was over. He was a rich man and one whose voice is much heard in the House of Commons; but his voice is not heard when he is on his legs, but when he is cheering other speakers; and he said to me: “After all, this is a sad business about the United States; but I think it very much better that they should be split up. In twenty years "—or in fifty, I forget which it was-" they will be so powerful that they will bully all Europe." And a distinguished member of the House of Commons-distinguished there by his eloquence, distinguished more by his many writings-I mean Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton—he did not exactly express a hope, but he ventured on something like a prediction, that the time would come when there would be, I do not know how many, but about as many independent States on the American continent as you can count upon your fingers.

There can not be a meaner motive than this I am speaking of, in forming a judgment on this question: that it is "better for us "-for whom? the people of England, or the government of England?—that the United States should be severed, and that the North American continent should be as the continent of Europe is in many States,

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