22 THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. Power, after a series of successful aggressions, carried on during forty years, has at length arrived. It was on this last demand that the Democrats of the North broke off from their Southern allies-a defection which gave their victory to the Republicans, and directly produced the civil war. And now we are asked to believe that slavery has no vital connexion with this quarrel, but that the catastrophe is due to quite other causes-to incompatibility of commercial interests, to uncongeniality of social tastes, to a desire for independence, to anything but slavery. But we are told that in this long career of aggression the extension of slavery has only been employed by the South as a means to an end, and that it is in this end we are to look for the key to the present movement. "Slavery," it seems, "is but a surface question in American politics."* The seeming aggressions were in reality defensive movements forced upon the South by the growing preponderance of the Free States; and its real object, as well in its former career of annexation and conquest, as in its present efforts to achieve independence, has been constantly the same-to avoid being made the victim of Yankee rapacity, to secure for itself the development of its own resources unhindered by protective laws.t Let us briefly examine this theory of the secession movement. And, first, if free trade be the object of the South, why, we may ask, has it not employed its power to accomplish this object during its long period of predominance in the Union? It has been powerful enough to pass and repeal the Missouri Compromise, to annex Texas, to spend 40,000,000 dollars of Federal money in a war for the recapture of slaves, to pass the Fugitive Slave Law, to obtain the Dred Scott dec sion: if it has been able to accomplish these results, to lead the North into foreign complications in which it had no interest, and to force upon it measures to which it was strongly averse, is it to be supposed that it could not, had it so desired it, have carried a free trade tariff? Yet not only has the South not attempted. this during its long reign, it has even co-operated effectively in the passing of protective measures-nay, these enthusiastic free traders have not hesitated, when the opportunity offered, to profit by protective measures. With the exception of the Morrill tariff, Congress never passed a more highly protective law than the tariff of 1842; and this tariff was supported by a large number of Southern statesmen; and, not only so, but gave effective protection to Southern products-to the sugar of * Saturday Review, Nov. 9, 1861. + Mr. Yancey's letter to the Daily News, January 25, 1862. THE COMMERCIAL THEORY. 23 Louisiana, the hemp of Kentucky, and the lead of Missouri, as well as to the manufactures of New England. Again, if free trade be the real object of the South, how does it happen that, having submitted to the tariffs of 1832,* 1842, and 1846, it should have resorted to the extreme measure of secession while under the tariff of 1857-a comparatively freetrade law? From 1842 down to 1860 the tendency of Federal legislation was distinctly in the direction of free trade. The most liberal tariff the Union ever enjoyed since 1816 was the tariff of 1857, and it was while this tariff was in force that the plot of secession was hatched, matured, and carried into operation. But there are some who would have us believe that it was the Morrill Tariff which produced the revolt; and this is the most incomprehensible portion of the whole case; since there is nothing more certain than that secession had been resolved upon, and the plot for its accomplishment traitorously prepared, before the Morrill tariff was brought forward, and even before the bargain with Pennsylvania was struck, in fulfilment of which it was introduced. It is indeed well known that it was the absence from Congress of the Southern senators while carrying out the programme of secession, which alone rendered possible the passing of this measure. If free trade were the grand object of the South, why did its senators withdraw from their posts precisely at the time when their presence was most required to secure their cherished principle? Nay, if this was their game, why did they not apply to Mr. Buchanan to veto the Bill-Mr. Buchanan, the creature and humble tool of the Slave Party? We are asked by this theory to believe that the South has had recourse to civil war, has incurred the risk of political annihilation, to accomplish an object for the effectual attainment of which its ordinary constitutional opportunities afforded ample means.† But the difficulties of this theory do not end here. If the * I say, "having submitted to the tariff of 1832," because, although it is true that South Carolina threatened to rise in rebellion against this measure, she stood alone in her projected revolt. Far from receiving any general sympathy in the South, it was through the instrumentality of a Southern State (Virginia), employed by a Southern President (Jackson), that the threatened movement was suppressed. The writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes from whom I have already quoted, suggests (pp. 156-157) that the conduct of the Southern senators in permitting the passing of the Morrill tariff was deliberately contrived with a view to make political capital out of the sentiments which they calculated on its exciting in England—an explanation which is countenanced by the fact that Mr. Toombs, representative of Georgia, who now holds a command in the army of Jefferson Davis, was in the Senate when the Morrill tariff was submitted to that assembly, and voted for the new law. If this was their object, never was plot more skilfully contrived or more successful. 24 REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION secession movement be a revolt against protective tariffs, why is it confined to the Southern States? The interest of the Cotton States in free exchange with foreign countries is not more obvious than that of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. No class in these States has anything to gain by protective measures: nothing is produced in them which is endangered by the freest competition with the rest of the world: an artificial enhancement of European manufactures is to them as pure an injury as it is to South Carolina and Alabama: yet all these States are ranged on the side of the North in this contest, and resolute for the suppression of the revolt. It is, however, by the watchword of "independence," still more than by that of free trade, that the partisans of the South in this country have sought to enlist our sympathies in favour of that cause. We are told of the naturalness, the universality, the strength of the desire for self-government. We are reminded of the peculiar power of this passion among the Anglo-Saxon race. The act of the original thirteen States in severing their connexion with the mother country is dwelt upon; and we are asked why the South should not also be permitted to determine for itself the mode of its political existence? "It threatens none, demands nothing, attacks no one, but wishes to rule itself, and desires to be let alone:"" why should this favour be denied it? Now let it at once be conceded that the right to an independent political existence is the most sacred right of nations: still even this right must justify itself by reference to the ends for which it is employed. The demand of a robber or murderer for "independence" is not a claim which we are accustomed to respect; and it does not appear how our obligations are altered if the demand proceed from a robber or murderer nation—if national independence be sought solely and exclusively as a means of carrying out designs which are nothing less than robbery and murder on a gigantic scale. I am assuming that these crimes are involved in the extension of slavery, and that the extension of slavery is the end for which the Southern Confederacy has engaged in the present war. These assumptions I hope to make good hereafter; but meanwhile, it may be asked, if the extension of the domain of slavery be not the object for which the South seeks independence, what is that object? Let those who have undertaken the defence of that body explain to us in what way the legitimate development of the Southern States, within their proper limits, was hindered by Federal restraints? If they had grievances to complain of why did they not let the world know them? Why did they resist all the efforts of the Northern States to extract from them a categorical statement of what they sought? "That," says an REAL CAUSE OF SECESSION. 25 able writer, "was precisely what it was impossible to obtain from the representatives and senators of the extreme South. They steadily refused to make known, even under the form of an ultimatum, the conditions on which they would consent to remain in the Union. Their invariable response was 'it was too late; their constituents would acquiesce in no arrangement.'"* Before then we allow ourselves to be carried away by the cry of the South for independence, it is material to ascertain the purpose for which independence is desired. It is important to distinguish between (to quote the words of the eminent man whose name has been prefixed to this volume) " the right to rebel in defence of the power to tyrannize," and "the right to resist by arms a tyranny practised over ourselves." The causes and character of the American contest are not for Englishmen questions of merely speculative interest. On the view which we take of this great political crisis will depend, not alone our present attitude towards the contending parties, but in no small degree our future relations with a people of our own race, religion, and tongue, to whom has been committed the task, under whatever permanent form of polity, to carry forward in the other hemisphere the torch of knowledge and of civilization. We may, according as we act from sound knowledge of the real issues which are at stake or in ignorance of them, do much to promote or to defeat important human interests bound up with the present contest, and to increase or to diminish the future influence for good of this country. It would indeed be a grievous misfortune if, in one of the great turning points of human history, Great Britain were found to act a part unworthy of the position which she occupies and of the glorious traditions which she inherits. The present essay is intended as a contribution towards the diffusion of sound ideas upon this subject. The real and sufficient cause of the present position of affairs in North America appears to the writer to lie in the character of the Slave Power -that system of interests, industrial, social, and political, which has for the greater part of half a century directed the career of the American Union, and which now, embodied in the Southern Confederation, seeks admission as an equal member into the community of civilized nations. In the following pages an attempt will be made to resolve this system into its component elements, to trace the connexion of the several parts with each other, and of the whole with the foundation on which it rests, and to estimate generally the prospects which it holds out to the people who compose it, as well as the influ * Annuaire des Deux Mondes (1860), p. 618. 26 TRUE ORIGIN OF THE WAR ence it is likely to exercise on the interests of other nations; and, if I do not greatly mistake the purport of the considerations which shall be adduced, their effect will be to show that this Slave Power constitutes the most formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared for many centuries, representing a system of society at once retrograde and aggressive, a system which, containing within it no germs from which improvement can spring, gravitates inevitably towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies, inherent in its position and circumstances, to a constant extension of its territorial domain. The vastness of the interests at stake in the American contest, regarded under this aspect, appears to me to be very inadequately conceived in this country; and the purpose of the present work is to bring forward this view of the case more prominently than has yet been done. But it is necessary here to guard against a misapprehension. The view that the true cause of the American contest is to be found in the character and aims of the Slave Power, though it connects the war ultimately with slavery as its radical cause, by no means involves the supposition that the motive of the North in taking up arms has been the abolition of slavery. Such certainly has not been its motive, and, if we keep in view its position as identified with legal government and constitutional rights in the United States, we shall see that this motive, even had it existed, could scarcely, at least in the outset, have been allowed to operate. Let us recall for a moment the mode in which the crisis developed itself. It must be remembered— what seems now almost to be forgotten-that the war was commenced by the South-commenced for no other reason on no other pretext, than because a republican president was elected in the ordinary constitutional course. If we ask why this was made the ground for revolt, I believe the true answer, as I have just intimated, is to be found in the aims of the Slave Power,-aims which were inconsistent with its remaining in the Union while the Government was carried on upon the principle of restricting the extension of its domain. So long as it was itself the dominant party, so long as it could employ the powers of the Government in propagating its peculiar institution and consolidating its strength, so long it was content to remain in the Union; but from the moment when, by the constitutional triumph of the Republicans, the government passed into the hands of a party whose distinctive principle was to impose a limit on the further extension of slavery, from that moment its continuance in the Union was incompatible with its essential objects, and from that moment the Slave Power resolved to break loose from Federal |