ever rebellion was foul, it was that by which it saw itself assailed. If all war be wrong, it was wrong in defending itself; but if any war ever was right, the call to arms which bore the signature of Abraham Lincoln, coming after much patience and serious provocation, was a justifiable call. That Government had no right to abdicate; it was installed to defend the Union, and bound to do so by its oaths; and if there are beings on earth who would scorn a president placed in such a post who saw his flag rebelliously shot down, without trying his power to punish the rebels, it is those very Englishmen who, by a strange whim of sentiment, have chidden Mr. Lincoln for not letting the rebels have their triumph uncontested.

ment, is as large as Europe; and suppose that the North consented to let the Slave States go, would they peaceably go without this territory? Why, it is in it that their hope of founding the greatest empire in the world lies; it was to make it into Slave States they all along plotted; and the certainty that under the United States no more of it could be turned to that destiny, has been the most humiliating of all their grievances. No, they would have that territory. Would the North give it up? Not while they had the spirit of men ; to surrender that heritage of their nation to be the dowry of a perpetual slavery would be to them the bitterest of disgrace, as well as the heaviest of losses. It is a great prize, and a great principle is involved. Had the North been content to let that territory become Slave States, it might have enjoyed the additional demand for its own manufactures which they would have created; and suffered no damage beyond the moral one of seeing a bad power strengthened. But it resolved that this land, that all land not yet blighted by slavery, should be held forever free from it, preferring the honorable rivalry of new Free States to the certain custom of more Slave ones. It contended long, and with great efforts, for the freedom of this virgin soil; could it therefore not only allow the secessionists to break up the Union by their own departure, but to extend slavery as they War is horrible, very horrible; and we never could have done in the Union, by givheartily sympathize with every effort to bring ing them all this field for new States? They it to an end; but we will not pretend to un- who can believe that anything would bring derstand men who can approve of our Gov- the two parties to agree on this subject, but ernment defending itself whenever attacked, a state of matters in which one was obliged and most of all if attacked by rebellion at to accept terms, or both were exhausted, home, who can approve of the Italian Gov- must have read their experience from the ernment defending itself against Neapolitan records of a different world from that with insurgents, of the Chinese Government de- which it has been our lot to be acquainted. fending itself against Tae Pings, of every Had not the Government taken the ground government in the world defending itself taken in all times by all governments, that against rebellion; and who yet do all in their it was their duty, if in their power, to punpower to deprive the Government of America ish rebellion; had they consented to treat of such moral support as the acknowledg-with the rebels without being compelled by ment of its rights would give it.

But, it is said, he cannot conquer the South: if so, the necessity of letting them have their independence will appear by the significant proofs which war brings; and necessity will make their recognition both lawful and possible to the Government, which without proved necessity would have been an act never done by a government yet. We have no doubt that the very men who reproach the people of the North for fighting, would have reviled them for cowardice, had they let the slavers form themselves into a new nation with the portentous mission of "eternizing slavery," without straining every nerve, and making every sacrifice, to prevent such a consummation.

circumstances to do so; they would have come to blows about the terms of partition, with as little hope of settlement as about the terms of union.

"Had the two sections of the country not better peacefully separate?" This is either a very simple Utopianism, or very thinly veiled ill-will. Does any practical man be- However, the idea of a peaceable separalieve that two such powers could peacefully tion may, in some cases, arise not from the separate? The territory not included in any simplicity of one who fancies it to be possiState, but belonging to the Federal Govern-ble, but from the feelings of one who wishes

to see the United States divided. To such ment, than as rivals; and experience does

we have only to say that the wish is wrong.
Few forms of malice are more wicked than
that which wishes ill to a nation. The man
who wished to see my country rent into two,
that it might be weaker, and less capable of
interfering with his, would entertain a feel-
ing that is not only bad, but full of many
sources of badness. Patriotism used to be
cherished in a form which taught men to re-
gard the sorrows, the poverty, and the de-
pression of other countries as the gain of
their own.
The lone voice of the Christian,
denouncing all malice, and teaching to be-
wail all calamities, to hail all happiness, was
long the only protest heard by men against
this dark form of selfishness; but in our day
the voices of philosophy and social science
have strongly echoed that of Christianity.
They teach by self-interest; showing that
the prosperity of our neighbors re-acts for
our benefit, and that their calamities are in-
direct losses to ourselves. We object, then,
to share a wish for the breaking up of the
American nation, on the simple ground that
it is wrong.

not prove that the resentments consequent on civil discord are near so enduring when rebellion is put down, as when it sets two hostile nations side by side.

Some, however, indeed many, politicians suppose that the division of the United States would be for the general good, and especially for that of our own empire, by preventing the growth of a dangerous power, and lowering the overweening boastfulness and bullying tone for which Americans have rendered themselves notorious. Anything that would abate these last would be a public good, and to the Americans themselves a marvellous improvement; but, nevertheless, we always doubt the wisdom of those politics which desire our neighbor's injury for our own good, and the benevolence of those which desire it for his good; we have more faith in the policy of wishing people well, without one reason to show for it, but that it is right, than in that of wishing them ill, with all the deep reasons of the deep men of the world for it. In fact, our experience teaches us to attach exceedingly little value to the opinions of those who calculate how their own good will come out of their neighbor's trouble. Their selfish forecast is a great obstruction to that foresight of which it is the mean parody. We have far too

place of the British Empire to feel anything
like complacency, when its greater glory is
Christian
sought by the humiliation of any
country.

"But," it is asked, "suppose the North could conquer the South, how could they ever live together in peace again?" And suppose that the South should gain its independence, how can they ever live in peace side by side? When we consider the im-high a view of the mission and providential mensely extended frontier, the questions that must arise about navigating rivers, about the escape of slaves, the extradition of criminals, the attempts to spread anti-slavery documents, what could we look for but a perpe- But we have not a worse opinion of the tuity of war, compared with which the old principle of wishing for a disruption of the reign of foray and raid on the borders of States, than of the policy of it; and though England and Scotland would be but boy's in this we may look for much less concurplay? It might have been asked little more rence, we are not less convinced in our own than a century ago (1745), how ever Scot- minds. To think that it would be for the land and England could live together in safety of British interests on the other side peace, if England conquered her by the of the Atlantic, that the United States sword. Culloden was a bloody field; but should be split into two rival nations, is, we what tens of thousands of lives which would humbly think, the reverse of far-seeing. have been lost in wars were saved by the As heretofore constituted, the States, though issue of that day! And if England had able to repel any invasion in the long run, cause to be thankful for the victory, has not were perfectly harmless as to foreign war. Scotland now much stronger cause to be They might trouble a ruin like Mexico; thankful for the defeat? Precisely the same they had no army, no navy, for which a They may be said of Ireland nearly half a century military power need care in the least. later. Two contiguous countries, really could not invade anything, except where, as parts of one country, have infinitely more in Mexico, there was nobody worth naming hope of living happily under one govern- to defend. But if two rival nations be

but

formed, both must be military powers, both the contrary, with the constancy and the must be naval powers. The one would calmness given by conscious resources, it border on our North American, the other on continues to fall back upon its reserves of our West Indian possessions. The one will men and means, gathering up its strength, desire Canada, the other must have the while it knows that the enemy is wasting West Indies. In Europe, France and Rus- his. At the same time, it steadily moves sia force us to keep up ruinously costly toward the emancipation of the slave; witharmaments; and were two great military out, however, as yet doing an act which states placed on our transatlantic frontiers, we must prepare for a new scale of armament, and for new and frequent uses for our

arms.

could be called a violation of the Constitution. First came the measure by which all slaves taking refuge in the lines of the troops were detained, and, if they belonged We have, then, no hesitation in wishing to rebel masters, were released as contraon grounds of policy what is right on band of war. Any constitution admits of grounds of principle, that our American confiscating the goods of a rebel. But the friends may see their present troubles as last measure is a far wider one, and will exhappily ended, as those have been which in ercise a great influence on the question of past times arrayed the different parts of this slavery. It provides not only for the emannow really united kingdom in deadly con- cipation of the slaves of rebel masters, but flict. If asked whether we expect it, our of all who come within the lines of the Fedreply is that we hardly know. The war is eral army. Further they have declared all only begun; and we do not pretend to see property of every rebel confiscated,-a measits end. Many seem to think that a week ure within the legal powers of every govor two is a long time in such a struggle. We ernment, but which, in this case, has only fear that a year or two may pass before any one signification. It is the form in which one is entitled to form decided opinions as faulty law permits the Government to proto how it may turn. But uncertainty as to claim liberty. It takes all legal right in his the issue is only an additional reason for negroes from every rebel slave-owner; and honest men to say what they desire; and our if the slaves generally could be made aware fervent desire is to see the South utterly of the measure, it might soon produce convanquished. Yet we do not profess to wish siderable effects. About the import of the for the North an easy victory. All the well-last document from the Secretary of War, informed Northerners we know anticipated there appears to be considerable doubt. defeat in the first few battles; and some of Some hold that it proclaims liberty to the them confidently expected that Washington slaves of loyal as well as disloyal masters, would have been taken before now; but on taking refuge in the Federal lines; but their calculation was, that each defeat would with this difference, that after proof of the but bring out the resources of the North, fact that the slave did belong to a loyal maseach victory but exhaust those of the South. ter, the latter shall, in due time, be compenOur own feeling has always been, that an sated. If so, it is a proclamation of emaneasy victory over the South would have left cipation by ransom, wherever the forces the question of slavery where it stood before advance. Others contend that the slave will the war; for, in that case, the North, both be kept, and, if his master demand it, will from policy and generosity, would have be returned; and we do not decide which given the South the easiest possible terms. interpretation is more in accordance with the Since the slaveholder had himself invoked letter of the document. But all seem to the sword, as the arbiter of his rights in agree that, be the letter what it may, the human property, it is well that those rights spirit is to release all who claim release, and should perish by the sword. that this will be the practical effect of it. At all events it is felt to be the first great step of the American Government toward emancipation by ransom.

The Federal Government, suffering under the disgraceful rout of Bull's Run, and the serious reverse at Springfield, has shown no disposition to call upon the slaves to rise; but, on the other hand, none to conciliate their momentarily victorious masters. On

There seems considerable hope that the State of Missouri will itself take measures to terminate slavery; and some Northerns

who closely watch the war are confident that | North to carry it on. The former had long even if it came to a speedy close, it must been preparing for it, the latter slumbered leave Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and till Fort Sumter was taken. But the eight Missouri Free States. We do not profess millions of the South are diluted with four to be able to give an opinion on the sound- millions of slaves, every one of whom is a ness of this view; but many circumstances burden, if not a danger; while the eighteen go to favor it. Maryland, before the war, millions of the North are all white, without contained more free negroes than slaves, any mine under their feet. While one asks, with a strong anti-slavery party. Imme-"How many such defeats can the North rediately on the outbreak of hostilities many cover ?" another may ask, "How many such slaves were reported as escaping into free victories can the South survive?" Humanly territory; and as the whole State has been speaking, the whole matter turns on one occupied by Federal troops, it is to be sup- question: Have the people of the North, or posed that not a few will have availed them- have they not, that quality of the British. selves of the easy emancipation to be found race which makes a few defeats at the beby fleeing to the lines. Thus the number of ginning of a war needful to bring out the slaves will be greatly reduced, and the anti-patient power of England? If they have slavery party proportionably strengthened. lost that, they may be thwarted by their own In Virginia, again, the whole of the west-impatience, but never by a fair trial of ern part of the State is free territory, and strength. In men, in money, in arts, in faithful to the Union; in the Eastern the ships, in everything that constitutes national hostile armies are massed. Many slaves strength, they as far excel their rivals as have already found refuge in the Federal France does Spain. If they fail, they deserve lines; doubtless many more have been sent to be trodden upon. It is not likely that by their owners further South, to be safe; the North would ever think of overrunning but how far these two processes have gone the South; that course would have no obtoward clearing the way to make this proud-ject. Their manifest policy is to shut them est traitor of the traitor States free soil, we up, beat them off the frontier, retake great cannot judge. As to Kentucky, it has al- posts, and leave the rest to time and necesways been one of the most hopeful of the sity. We deplore the struggle; but cerSlave States, and at one time came very tainly do not blame the Government for not near making itself free. If the present con- running away from half its territory, and flict should lead it to that happy decision, leaving it to pro-slavery rebels. We deplore its future citizens will bless the day when every battle; but battles there will be, and Fort Sumter fell. our prayer is, that success may be with those who did not prepare the war, who did not shed the first blood.

We lately saw a gentleman from a Slave State further South than any of those named; and his opinion was that, whether the war As to the effect of this struggle on Engmight turn in favor of North or South, the land, we deplore it in a moral point of view; result would be the end of slavery. He but in a material one are disposed to think confirmed the impression generally expressed that it will bring us nothing but temporary at the North, that there is a powerful Union inconvenience, and ultimate advantages of party in the South; saying, that there were the most substantial kind. In both these few men of influence among his acquaint-respects, perhaps, our opinion is not a very ance, who were not waiting their time, till common one. Morally, a condition of our the turn of affairs would enable them to execute justice on the ringleaders of rebellion.

War is always uncertain; and happy that so it is; for by that fact Providence holds the strong in check, and makes even the boldest feel that battles may go against them. But every human calculation would lead to the impression that the South would be better prepared to begin the war, and the

press has been brought out, which is not only sad, but disgraceful. Who would have said, awhile ago, that England could have found newspapers to advocate slavery, and welcome and abet a slaving confederacy? But we have them in London, in Liverpool, and elsewhere; base specimens of Mammon's prophets, who preach up the cause of the South, and try to make it palatable to us, by saying that we must have their cot

paper quoted by preference in our journals, as a specimen of Northern opinion, has actually been presented by the grand jury for treason.

ton. The world abroad knows it; and is | who have spent months in America can testify well pleased to see English love of liberty so that they never were in one family,-though belied. The deliberate and elaborate mis- they lived not in hotels, but in families,representation of some of our foremost jour-where this print could be found. It loudly nals, seemingly with no particular object but preached secession, till the New York mob just to stir up bad feeling, is another pain- forced it by public violence to change its ful fact. It is a melancholy feature of news- tone. From that time it has become fierce paper information, that it gives all the bad against the South-in words; but has steadthings, and all the irritating ones, but omits ily worked to excite England to war with the the greater part of the good. Fifty articles States, by abusing us in every possible way, in America are published without abusing and proposing war against us; and inveighs England, and, of course, not quoted here; against the ministry; all this manifestly in one does abuse us, and is; and so in Amer- the interest of the South. No language ica with what is written here. could be too strong to characterize the line Our own observation in foreign countries of conduct by which the sayings of this passing through great crises, and of our paper are set before England, as samples newspaper accounts at the time, give us a of "opinions at the North." Let it be reppainful persuasion that the people of Eng-resented as the Northern organ of Southern land, are, in really critical times, sadly mis- interests, and the case is plain. Another informed. From such remarks we would carefully except such writing as Mr. Russell's letters in the columns of the Times, which from beginning to end bear the stamp of candor and fairness, as much as of genius. We are far from thinking that the best The country owes that journal a debt for specimens of American opinion are just to those letters, which goes some way to coun-England; for we have not ourselves met with terbalance the roods of bad information and many that are so, either in private or public. bad teaching in its leading columns. They do not understand us, do not like us, One of the worst things in our English and lose no occasion of showing their preferpress is the habit of citing from those jour-ence for things and proceedings that are nals in the North, which are in the interest French. They foretold that we would join of the South, and giving their ravings as the South, open our ports to their privateers, Northern opinion. Many provincial jour-break the blockade, and so on; and they go nals, and some inferior London ones, hon- on inventing new crimes, that we are to comestly requote these extracts in ignorance. mit, as soon as the old ones become imposBut who will say that the Times is so igno-sible. They have seen us bear the only conrant as not to know what it is doing when it quotes the New York Herald as the organ of the North? That paper has always been the violent partisan of slavery, and the rabid hater of England. It is edited by no American, but by a Scotch Papist infidel, whose name is not infamous, because it is below infamy, and shall not stain our pages; the man alluded to by Mr. Russell when he speaks of "bewhipped pariahs" of New York; the man who, on being horsewhipped in the streets, will publish a second edition, and announce it all over the city by placards headed, "Cowhided again." His vile print is never to be seen in respectable families. We believe that much, if not all, of their In such houses as in England have the Times ill-feeling as to the present crisis is owing to on their table every morning, it would be the abuse and misrepresentation of the Times held an insult to ask the gentleman if he newspaper. Had the honest representations, took in the New York Herald. Englishmen and English views of, say the Daily News,

sequences which we could have feared in actual war with them, the stoppage of commerce, and cotton especially; and retain, not the neutrality they held in the Crimean war, of helping both sides to the full amount of pay given, but a real neutrality, of keeping our hands off altogether, giving them the prodigious advantage of shutting our ports against privateers: yet we seem no nearer their confidence. But as certainly English opinion does not do them justice, nor acknowledge the vast amount of hearty love for the old country existing, after all, in America.