CHAPTER III.

THE MORAL FORCES OF AMERICA,

UNITY OF PRINCIPLE AND PURPOSE.

"NATION IS A MORAL ESSENCE."-Burke.

"If they cannot settle this question (Slavery) for themselves they can no longer claim a national character."-Times, Oct. 22, 1863.

“The angel of MARTYRDOM and the angel of VICTORY are brothers; but the one looks up from Earth, and the other looks down from Heaven, and it is only, when, from epoch to epoch, their eyes meet between Heaven and Earth, that creation is embellished with a new life, and a People arises, Evangelist or Prophet, from the Cradle or the Tomb."—Mazzini.

EXTRACTS FROM SECESSION ORDINANCES

OF

SOUTH CAROLINA, ALABAMA, TEXAS, & VIRGINIA.

** “ The non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic Institutions."

"The election of Abraham Lincoln, &c. by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the Domestic Institutions, &c., is a political wrong," &c.

"The power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slaveholding States,” &c.

"The Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States."

EXTRACT FROM BUCHANAN'S MESSAGE.

"This does not proceed solely from the claim ** to exclude Slavery from the Territories, nor from efforts to defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law."

All for which the Southern States have contended is to be let alone,"

Never in the palmiest days of the anti-slavery agitation in this country, even when they were upon the eve of victory, was there one-half the amount of anti-slavery sentiment in England that had existed for the last ten years in the United States of America. He would take senator for senator, writer for writer, man for man, woman for woman, labour for labour, penny for penny, shilling for shilling, pound for pound-and he could prove the truth of what he had stated. The chairman had referred to the hustling of Wilberforce at Liverpool in the early days of the anti-slavery agitation, but where, he asked, would they find the martyrs? Men and women in America had made themselves of no reputation; had taken the spoiling of their goods joyfully; had been cast out of Church and State; had had their trade ruined; their characters libelled; even had their lives taken; and never faltered." George Thompson, 1863.

CONTENTS.

Two generic lies about nations.-Morality or Principle as one of the factors of Nationality.-Making and Unmaking.— The march of opinion.-Its Origin, History, Genius, and Struggles in America.-Its moral revolution, martyrdom, and victory.-Statesmanship and morality.-Its army of execution. -Sacrifices for freedom.-The unpardonable sin of Peoples.The cause and meaning of de-nationalisation.-The worst heresy to doubt of Nations.-The great appeal to America.--Slavedom and Nationality.

“The permanent renunciation of sound principles and natural laws, must in due time bring ruin. No great career can be before the Southern States, bound together solely by the tie of having a working class of negro bondsmen. Assuredly it will be the Northern Federation, based on the principle of freedom, with a policy untainted with crime, with a free working class of white men, that will be the one to go on and prosper, and become the leader of the New World.”—Saturday Review, March, 1861.

“The doctrines of popular liberty, within the short space of two centuries, have infused themselves into the life blood of every rising State from Labrador to Chili."

"I have dwelt longer on the character of the early Puritans of New England, for they are the parents of one-third the whole white Population of the United States."-Bancroft.

THERE are but two grand generic lies that the Devil himself can tell to man or nation.

The one is, "Thou shalt die, obey as thou mayest the laws of human nature and of God."

The other is, "Thou shalt not die, have thou therefore thine own will and way."

The one has encouraged the South in its struggle against constitutional liberty and negro rights, and has said to evil, not only "Thou shalt not surely die," but, "Thou shalt surely live."

The other has said to the North, struggling for its own rights, and the heritage of all future ages, "Curse God and die,-Life is a lottery,-Destiny a riddle, and results are not consequences."

In applying the principles of morality to the question of nationality, it is essential to remember this distinction between the making and the unmaking of a nation.

Whilst morality has always sustained, and will always sustain a nation that already exists with adequate material elements of Power, it by no means follows, it were mere fanaticism to affirm, that morality can create a Nation without them, or furnish them at once to order.

If, therefore, we prove the morality of the North, its faithfulness as a whole, and as a Government, to the national ideal and destiny, there remains no room for suspecting a flaw in the nationality and vital force; whilst to prove the nationality of the South is a very different question, for admitting (which Heaven forbid) its morality-its nationality may be yet a thousand years off, or the elements of it may not exist even in futurity itself.

For the evil principle, South,-intense faith and desperate action. For the good principle, North,feeble faith and languid action. That was once the situation.

To strengthen the faith of the North in the good, or weaken that of the South in the bad, was the way

and the only way to the end. Of two parties, one having a strong faith and a bad cause, and the other a weak faith and a good cause, what better can be said, than, "Let them fight on, the

one till it be purified and triumph, the other till it surrender or be destroyed."

Faith and morality, together, are the cement of society, and the very chrism of nationality. To suppose that a lower faith can overcome a higher, or an immoral nation a moral one, is to suppose that which human nature, history, and common sense, reject as monstrous and impossible.

Slavery is consistent, logical, desperate.

Democracy also must avail itself of all the natural forces of the situation. It has discovered that it cannot fight Slavery with Slavery, nor Aristocracy with a bastard Democracy. It still had to discover that it can fight a race better led and disciplined than itself, only by a loftier faith, and a more concentrated purpose, and a reason of State absolutely one.

The key to all the bewilderment and bedevilment of America is, that she represents a great and pure principle, the principle of Government by and for the all, and that she has not been great enough and pure enough thoroughly to work out the principle in practice.

We, in England, must confess to an analogous error. Many of our organs of opinion, and public men have been dazed by the facts,-the outside facts of the day. They note the marches of armies, and ignore those of principles; and the most wonderful march in the war,-perhaps in any war, the march of ideas from "Non-extension," in 1860, to "Abolition, and Negro Regiments," in 1862, is not appreciated as a sign of the life, virtue, and power of the American Democracy.

Q 2