discordant. They would have avoided the necessity for these continuous and humiliating compromises by forming two republics, each with laws suited to its special condition.

The next severe struggle occurred on the admission of Texas. The history of that event is sufficiently deplorable. It was at first an insidious encroachment, and at last the spoliation, not of some tyrannical monarchy, but of a poor and feeble republic. Able Northern men protested

against, and now denounce, this transaction; but it does not seem very logical to denounce the most important results of a system of government, and yet to hold that such system must be maintained. The event itself was not novel in its nature. General Jackson wrote to President Monroe: "Let it be signified to me, through any channel, that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished." As the mother country, Spain, was thus denuded of a province during a period of peace, why should the daughter, Mexico, be differently used? In both cases, Southern men were the prominent actors, but the people of the North were partners in the profits. Those who denounce in vehement terms the conduct of Southern men in this and other cases, appear to forget that they are denouncing the policy and the fruits of the Union, and that by its fruits every government must be judged.

Again, the political power of the South seemed

to be relieved from jeopardy, for the vast extent of Texas afforded room to carve four more States of average magnitude out of it. It seemed as if this had settled for ever the question of political predominance in favour of its original possessors.

Two unforeseen events entirely disturbed this calculation. The admission of Texas led to the war with Mexico, and to the extension of the Union along the shores of the Pacific. The land of gold, for which Columbus had sought, and Raleigh had striven in vain, was at last discovered. An enormous addition to Northern territory became rapidly peopled with a population, allured from every quarter of the globe. And whilst the search for wealth was thus telling upon number in the farthest West, escape from want was impelling a huge wave of immigration to the Atlantic shore. The Irish famine had occurred. It was no longer a movement of individuals, but the exodus of a people to be added bodily to the Northern power. Where tens of thousands had gone of old, hundreds of thousands followed now. With events so vast and irresistible it grew hopeless to contend. Each census had for a long period disclosed, more and more plainly, the superior progress of the North; but the last census presented the fact in so striking a manner, that further struggle against the over whelming tide became manifestly vain. The attempt must be abandoned in despair, or some entirely new line of action need be adopted.

The long conflict we have described had the

Senate for its object, in which power depends upon the number of States. In the House of Representatives, the number of members from the Free States had long preponderated; but here the effect of numbers was neutralized by political skill. Had the North acted as one body, it would have been irresistible; but by its division into two parties, bitterly opposed, it was in the power of the South, by uniting with one of them, to outvote the other and command a constant majority.

The old Federalists of the first years of the Constitution became annihilated, as a party, during Jefferson's possession of power. Their principles were overwhelmed in the deluge of democracy, and appeared incapable of ever reviving. After a long period of apparent extinction, the spirit of Conservatism struggled again into being; for the Whig party, the successors of the Federalists, were the real Conservatives of the Union. Under that title they obtained a momentary triumph in the election of Harrison, but they soon fell back powerless as before, to be resuscitated under a new name-that of Republicans. This party comprises the great mass of the intellect and the wealth of the North. It is also the Protectionist party. Its leaning is in favour of a strong Government, and whatever there may be of aristocracy in the North belongs to it. To this party, the South, whose system as regards the ruling political class is essentially aristocratic, should naturally have been allied. But here arises a singular result of the complexity

of American Government. The aristocracy of the South act in conjunction, not with the conservatism, but with the democracy of the North. From the first, the Southern States anticipated danger at the hands of a strong Government, which might pass into other hands than their own. Slavery was originally on the defensive, and, under the shield of their own State Governments, they were in safety; all beyond was insecure. They were the supporters of State rights as opposed to the powers of the Central Government; Conservatives themselves, they became the opponents of Conservative principles in the politics of the Federal body.

By means of this alliance the South maintained its original political supremacy, not only long after the change in relative population had removed its solid foundation, but down to the present day. In this lies the real force of the recent election of Mr. Lincoln. It is idle to suppose that the South would have encountered the dangers and horrors of civil war simply because another candidate was preferred to its own. The result of an election may cause a riot, but to produce a revolution-a general movement of a people-there must have been causes long enough in action, and powerful enough to have penetrated the whole public mind. At the last election there were four candidates-Breckenridge, Douglas, Bell, and Lincoln. Breckenridge was the candidate of the cotton States, and he would have been rejected by the election of either Bell or Douglas. But no one will assert

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that those States would have seceded had their candidate been defeated by either of those competitors. Again, the South had previously suffered defeat at presidential elections without the sound of secession being heard. Why, then, the effect on the present occasion? Because, for the first time in the history of the United States, the election of the President was purely geographical; it was not a defeat at the hands of a party, but at those of the Northern power. Every Northern State had voted for Mr. Lincoln; every Southern State had voted against him. It was an act which severed North from South as with the clean cut of a knife. Upon such a division Jefferson remarked long ago : "A geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every irritation will make it deeper and deeper." There is a truth in these words which gave the force to this event; it could neither be obliterated nor revoked. The Northern

States had 183 votes; the Southern, if unanimous, 120. Hence it was plain that if the North chose to act in a mass, its power was irresistible. At last it did act in a mass. Upon that event political power departed from the South, and departed for ever; the substance had long been gone-now the shadow followed it.

It is the incurable nature of the fact that gives so crushing a weight to it. What amendment of a Constitution can alter the laws of growth in