AN OPPOSITE VIEW.

Among other distinguished witnesses to the position, that to secure greater immunities to slavery was not the cause of the rebellion, is found the Hon. George Robertson, a former Chief-Justice of Kentucky, and a friend of the Union. In a series of elaborate papers on national affairs, published a few months since in the Louisville Journal, he declared that it was not slavery,-"not security for an institution that needed none better than the Constitution,”for which "the leading conspirators" rebelled; but it was because the " South sought independence." He presents seven reasons, formally laid down, for this opinion, concluding thus: "7th and lastly. Some of the leaders, without contradiction or dissent, said in Convention (we presume the Judge refers to that of South Carolina), that they had been hatching independence for more than thirty years, and ridiculed the idea that antislaveryism, in any of its phases, was the cause of their secession." He elsewhere says: "Thus the treacherous and proscriptive concoctors of rebellion initiated this unholy war; and hence some of them truly said in Convention, that the warfare waged by abolitionists against the institution of slavery and the security of slave property, was a God-send' to the advocates of Southern independence."*

*We deem it but just to Judge Robertson to give his seven propositions together and in full: "That the leading conspirators South sought independence, and not security for an institution that needed none better than the Constitution they so long conspired to destroy,-should not be doubted for these among other reasons: 1st. They knew that, from time to time, they had obtained every supplemental security which they had asked or desired excepting only the humbug of 'protection' in Northern Territories, where slavery could never long or usefully exist, and where majorities of the inhabitants would not want it. 2d. They knew that no person claimed for Congress power to abolish or disturb slavery in the States, and that Congressional non-intervention in Territories,-which they had secured as far as useful to the South by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and everywhere by the finality' of 1850,―was all they wanted or had any right to expect. 3d. They wantonly threw away these

AN OPPOSITE VIEW.

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Our space will not allow us to quote more at large from the Judge; but as we have said he is a Union man, we give a sentence or two among many to show this, and to show his view of slavery as an institution, and that he would not allow it to come into competition with the preservation of the Union: "I am not, nor ever was, pro-slavery in feeling or in principle. I would delight to see all men free. But I know that this is impossible until the different races approximate more nearly to moral equality." Speaking of the "less ambitious masses" in the South, who "rushed inconsiderately into the maelstrom of this shocking rebellion," he says: "They ought to have known better, and set up for themselves. But, had they not been deluded,

securities for the normal expansion of slavery by their suicidal abrogation in 1854 of these pledges of national faith, thereby indicating that their agitations of moot questions of slavery were intended, not for that institution or its incidents, but only for independence and power. 4th. They knew, that, before President Lincoln's inauguration, Congress had organized all the new Territories without any interdiction of slavery, and proposed also an amendment to the Constitution expressly and irrevocably providing against any Congressional interference with slavery in any State; and they knew that the incoming President and party were committed, by their Chicago platform, against all such intervention; and, moreover, knowing that a majority of Congress and of the Supreme Court were on their side, enough of the Southern members of Congress abdicated to give the Republican party a majority, thus showing that they were plotting pretexts for revolt; not for security to slavery, but for independence and a different form of government. 5th. They knew or ought to have known that their peculiar institution would be safer and more peaceful under our National Constitution binding on all the people, North, as well as South, than under a compact' of Confederation by 'sovereign States,' without a semblance of legal obligation on any people or States not parties to it. 6th. They wantonly destroyed the unity and nationality of their Democratic party in 1860, and thereby promoted Mr. Lincoln's election, which they preferred to that of Douglas or Bell, and then made that election a prominent pretext for secession. 7th and lastly. Some of the leaders, without contradiction or dissent, said in Convention that they had been hatching independence for more than thirty years, and rkliculed the idea that antislaveryism, in any of its phases, was the cause of their secession."-Louisville Journal, Oct. 19, 1863. Many persons at the North, and some papers, both secular and religious, embracing those who are loyal and disloyal, have most strenuously maintained that slavery was not the cause of the rebellion; that it was not to render it more secure against supposed aggressions that the States seceded; that this was "a mere pretext." We shall see the fallacy of this position from testimony

which cannot be overthrown.

and the issue had really been between the Union and slavery, even then they ought, for their own welfare, to have stood by the Union, which would surely be better without slavery than could be slavery without such a Union."

Judge Robertson's position as to the ground of the rebellion is very much like that of some others among loyal men. We are not, at this point, concerned with the reasons which he gives for it, but rather with the question of its correctness. But before adducing the proof for a contrary position, we will state some of the obvious discriminations which should be borne in mind.

IN WHAT SENSE SLAVERY IS THE CAUSE.

When slavery is charged with having caused the rebellion and the war, no more can justly be meant than that it is the occasion of both. Nor is this all. It is scarcely just to hold the institution, as such, to this responsibility. It has been made the occasion. Nor does this exhaust the proper distinctions of the case. It has been made the occasion only in the hands of wicked and designing men. Many slaveholders are as true and loyal to the Government, and have shown this during the whole progress of the rebellion, as any men in the country. Nor is this seen in the Border States only. If these designing men, whether open or secret rebels, are found among the slaveholders of every Border State, so also loyal slaveholders, who have been such from first to last, may probably be found in every seceded State. As our arms have advanced, this has been found true; not merely where men have avowed their loyalty in the hope of retaining their slaves, or of receiving compensation for them from the Government, but where some of the largest slaveholders have always retained their loyalty notwithstanding the terrors

IN WHAT SENSE SLAVERY IS THE CAUSE.

41

of rebel rule. We personally know such cases in the Southwestern States, those of men who have been obliged to keep silent, but who nevertheless have maintained their allegiance to the Government. It is also no doubt true, that many in those States who gave in their adhesion to the rebel leaders did so under duress, to save property and life, and who may therefore be regarded, without any straining of that charity and patriotism which both moral and political justice should extend to them, as truly loyal men. It would be among the strangest of all phenomena if these things were not so. It would be tantamount to saying that all men in the South conceded the superior wisdom and approved the measures of the rebel leaders, and sustained them on these grounds; whereas, it is known that from the first, many men in the seceded States, far more sagacious and less blinded by ambition than those who assumed the control of affairs, warned the people against rebellion, pointed out the failure of their schemes, declared the falsity of their prophecies, foretold the ruin which would come upon their section of the country, and the result has already vindicated their sagacity and sealed their patriotism. It is therefore not just to hold the institution of slavery, as such,-embracing, of consequence, all slaveholders,-responsible, either for the rebellion or the war.

What is true is this: that ambitious men, fearing without just cause that the Administration now in power, and the party that had put it in power, designed to destroy slavery in the whole country,-or, if not believing this, pretending at least to believe it, and taking this ground before the people, and convincing large numbers that this was their design,-induced the States to rebel, that they might give to the institution greater expansion, security, and power, and, with God's permission, perpetuate it for

ever. This was substantially the position taken by leading men, the controllers of public opinion, in both Church and State.

MODERN VIEWS AND POWER OF SLAVERY.

It is among the clearest facts known, that within the period of some thirty years or more, a total revolution had taken place in the Southern mind, extending to almost the entire people, regarding the status of slavery as an institution, embracing its political, social, and moral character and relations. The causes of this change were, in part, the enormous pecuniary profits of the institution, which led political economists and statesmen to defend and commend it, and thus to repudiate the views of the fathers of the Republic; and, in part, the teachings of the ministers. of religion, who had discovered new light in interpreting the word of God, which led them to defend and commend it as a Divine Ordinance, and thus to repudiate the views of the fathers of the American Church. And it is a fact of marked significance, that, in this change of opinion, the clergy, in many distinguished instances, led the way, and they are no doubt justly held to a higher responsibility for it than any other class of men. They will not of course deem this any disparagement, although they might decline the distinction here given them, for they claim to have done a good work. Of the reality of this change, and who are mainly responsible for it, we shall give the evidence in due time.

This revolution in Southern opinion, made slavery, in many important respects, a totally different affair in Southern society from what it had ever hitherto been regarded, It was so interwoven with its whole structure, was so completely the basis of labor, in a section of country almost wholly agricultural, and brought to the coffers of the mas