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.

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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

MODERN VIEWS AND POWER OF SLAVERY.

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It influenced all their

ter such untold wealth, that it had become the most vital element in Southern civilization.* It gave social position and political power. It prescribed customs to the household and gave laws to the State. systems of education and made a tenet in their religion. The mechanic and the day-laborer, the gentleman of leisure and the man of business, the lawyer and the physician, the judge and the clergyman, all professions and all institutions, came under its sway and called it master. It was respectable, honorable, a necessity, divine. It had no traceable origin; it had always existed. It was sanctioned by the law of nature, by the consent of all times and all peoples, and by the law of God. It had come from the Patriarchs, was embedded in the decalogue, regulated by the institutions of Moses, sustained by the Prophets, vindicated by Christ and the Apostles. All this had become the staple of Southern thought, the touchstone of Southern fidelity. It was promulgated in books and newspapers, harangued from the stump and in legislative halls, taught in the schools, pronounced in the courts, and preached from the pulpit. Southern society had become permeated with these views. It lived and breathed in this intellectual and moral atmosphere. The sentiments and feelings which such a system begat, sustained men through the activities of the day, gave them repose at night, and administered consolation in the hour of death.

When matters had come to this pass, under the teachings of recent times and the golden reign of the Fibrous King, how was it possible for the leaders in such opinions to be content that slavery should remain in the straitjacket put upon it by the fathers of the Republic? How

*Must I pause to show how it (slavery) has fashioned our modes of life, and determined all our habits of thought and feeling, and moulded the very type of our civilization?"—Dr. Palmer, Thanksgiving Discourse, New Orleans, Nov. 29, 1860.

could they any longer revere the political maxims of Washington and Jefferson, Madison and Henry, any more than they could regard with favor their sentiments upon slavery? The institution had become so important in their eyes that verily they thought the whole country was theirs; that they could take their slaves to every State and plant them in every Territory; that Congress, was theirs, that the Presidency was theirs, that the Supreme Court was theirs; that, indeed, the whole people were theirs, with the wealth, greatness, prosperity, and glory of the nation -in a word, that they had made them all.*

*"The unexampled prosperity and growth of the United States, have been in exact accordance with the development of tho slave population, the slave territory, and the slave products, cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, and naval stores, of the South."Dr. Smyth, of Charleston, S. C., in the Southern Presbyterian Review, April, 1863. Dr. Palmer, contrasting the North and the South, speaks of “the exemplary patience with which she (the South) has endured a system of revenue legislation, flagrantly and systematically discriminating against her, and in favor of the North. But the abundant fertility of her soil has enabled her to grow rich, even whilst contributing two-thirds to the revenue of the Government."-Ibidem, April, 1861. To show the absurdity of Dr. Palmer's statement, we only need to present the official figures. The "revenue" raised from imports will be a proper criterion; and, with the exception of the public lands, duties on foreign importations were almost the only source of "revenue" to the General Government. We do not find in the latest census returns (for 1860) the amount so stated as readily to show what proportion was collected in the Free States and what in the Slave States; nor do we find, in any one year, returns from all the ports given in the tables. But in De Bow's "Compendium of the Seventh Census," the revenue for 1853, collected from the following ports, is stated. This is probably a proper standard for any year: