rassments, but also because the principle upon which it was founded recognizes the right of every one of the members of the Confederacy to make a separate treaty for itself and return to the former Union, should it see fit to do so.

Let us therefore ascertain, in the first place, as well as the means of information accessible to us will allow, the process by which the people of the South were induced to believe originally that it was right and expedient to embark in the rebellion.

Although a philosophical observer may be able to trace the real origin of the dispute between the two sections back to differences of climate or race, or to radical defects in our system of government, it cannot be denied that the institution of slavery was the outward manifestation of the cause of the quarrel. Many of our people believe that the rebellion proceeded from a calculation, on the part of the slaveholders, of the comparative pecuniary profit and personal aggrandisement to accrue to them, as owners of slaves, from union or disunion; and that having reached the conclusion that the latter promised them more benefits than the former, they deliberately plunged the country into the miseries of civil war for the purpose of realizing them. This theory extends the number of selfish, unprincipled and calculating conspirators against the Union, so as to embrace not only the leading politicians, but also the great body of the slaveholders, or at least the

principal slaveholders. But apart from the fact that the large slaveholders as a body include as many conscientious and patriotic men, as the social class which corresponds to them at the North, it will be apparent from a consideration of their relative numbers, as compared with the rest of the people, that it would be utterly impracticable for them to carry out any scheme to sacrifice the interests of their fellow-citizens in order to promote their

own.

I have not been able to procure, notwithstanding considerable research, any reliable figures indicating the present number of slaveholders, and the amount of slaves owned by each, bût returns of those statistics are contained in the census of the year eighteen hundred and fifty, which will sufficiently answer my purpose. From these it appears that the total white population of all the slaveholding States, including the District of Columbia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, was 6,222,418, of whom 347,525, or about one in seventeen, were slaveholders. But of the latter, 255,268 owned less than ten slaves, and only 92,257, or about one in sixty-seven of the white population owned ten slaves and upwards. Of course this proportion would be greatly diminished by rejecting those who are minors and women, and therefore incapable of exercising any political control over the rest of the people. But the aggregate number

of slaveholders is in fact much less than the returns. indicate. Mr. Helper, in "The Impending Crisiş " (p. 147), states upon the authority of Professor De Bow, the superintendent of the census, "that the number includes slave-hirers," and furthermore, "that where the party owns slaves in different counties or in different States, he will be entered more than once," and he adds (p. 148) certain data, from which he concludes that the number of slaveholders bears to the number of "non-slaveholding slave-hirers" the proportion of fifty-one to fortythree. It can hardly be supposed that the ownership of a less number of slaves than ten would create such an interest in the institution of slavery, as to induce a citizen to act against his own convictions of right and duty, in incurring. the guilt of rebellion and the miseries and hazards of civil war, merely in the hope of realizing personal advantages by the increase either of his individual consequence, or of the value of his slaves, or of the security of that species of property. And the foregoing statement shows how powerless the larger slaveholders were to influence the course of public events, so as to promote their own interests at the expense of those of the rest of the community.* And if we concede

*I might add that it has been repeatedly proved that the largest slaveholders were from the beginning opposed to the whole scheme of secession, either from patriotism or because it tended to the ruin, instead of the benefit of their

that their wealth and social position would give them a greater influence over public opinion in their own section, than the corresponding class could command at the North, it is still impossible to suppose them capable of inducing such a large class of their fellow-citizens, composed, measurably at least, of intelligent and independent men, accustomed to control the event of public affairs, to consent to

interests. I append two distinct admissions of this fact from distinguished republican sources:

"Throughout all the agitations pending the outbreak of the rebellion the more extensive and wealthy among them (the slaveholders) steadily resisted disunion as involving the overthrow of slavery. Governor Aiken, the largest slaveholder in South Carolina, slipped away to Europe, if we mistake not, very early in 1861, and there remains. At all events, he has never had a word of cheer for the rebellion. Governor Hammond, another South Carolina patriarch, rich, shrewd, and a most intense devotee of 'the institution,' has been ominously silent ever since Lincoln's election. The men who had most at stake upon slavery hesitated to play the desperate game to which they were impelled, knowing well that by playing it they risked their all."-New York Tribune.

"Every man acquainted with the facts knows that it is fallacious to call this 'a slaveholders' rebellion.'

A closer scrutiny.demonstrates the contrary to be true; such a scrutiny demonstrates that the rebellion originated chiefly with the non-slaveholders resident in the strongholds of the institution, not springing, however, from any love of slavery, but from an antagonism of race and hostility to the idea of equality with the blacks involved in simple emancipation."-General Francis P. Blair

commit treason and inaugurate civil war to the direct ruin of their own interests.

The real explanation of the attachment of all classes of society at the South to the institution of slavery, is to be found, not in the tyranny over public opinion exercised by a few selfish men, but in the fact that the whole industrial system of that section, comprising its manufacturing and trading, as well as its agricultural interests, is based upon the institution of slavery, precisely as our whole industrial system is based upon free labor. Thus the institution had intertwined itself with the interests of the whole people, whether slaveholders or not, so that its violent overthrow would dry up, temporarily at least, nearly every source of individual and public prosperity. It would besides, as the southerner believed, transform a body of useful and profitable laborers into a mass of shiftless, thieving, idle paupers, a burden to the public and a curse to the whole country in which they resided. He was taught by his political leaders that the North was endeavoring to accomplish this result, and that Mr. Lincoln's election was the first step towards its accomplishment.* Pride, self-respect, his very

*The theory upon which the South founded its fears that the North would attempt the abolition of slavery, may be found in the leading speeches made in the Senate by Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina; Mr. Mason, of Virginia; Mr. Davis, of Mississippi; and Mr. Douglas, of