The Confederate secession

Preface

In submitting the pages that follow to the judgment of the public, I feel that I am bound to preface them with a few words of apology, both for themselves and for the period of their appearance.

They have taken much longer in the writing than would appear at first sight. A practised writer could probably have completed them in a week or ten days. I could under no circumstances have done that ; but had there been nothing to hinder, I could, no doubt, have finished them much more quickly than I have done. But a malady which has been upon me for a long time has at length so affected my hand as to make writing always a difficulty, sometimes an impossibility ; and I have been

VI PREFACE.

forced to write slowly and very little at a time. This is no excuse for inaccuracies, if there are any, or for defects of judgment, of which I am but too conscious. But it may serve to palliate the faults of unconnectedness and repetition. I have endeavoured to correct these faults on revision ; but I could not do so thoroughly without writing it all over again, and it hardly seemed to deserve that trouble.

The same cause will account for the inappropriateness of the appearance of this sketch at a time when there is such a widespread belief, on both sides of the Atlantic, that peace is not far distant. A good deal of the language in it may seem exaggerated and out of place at the present moment ; but there was no idea of peace three months or even one month ago, and it must be more than three months since I began it.

Newbattle Abbey, Dalkeith.

Sept. 9, 1864.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE RIGHT OF SECESSION, ... 1

II. THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH — PRESIDENTIAL

Chapter I. The Right Of Secession

Peehaps there are still persons in this country who are under the impression that the cause of the war which is at present raging in America is the conscientious desire of the majority of the inhabitants of the United States to free their country from the stain of slavery; that the minority, alarmed lest their power of exercising wanton tyranny over the negroes should be taken away from them, have most unjustifiably rebelled ; and that the Federal Government, being naturally indignant at their attempt at rebellion, has exercised the power which it possesses under the Constitution to compel the slaveholders to return to their allegiance, in order that they may be forced to give up their infamous right of property in

/ A human flesh* Possibly, also, those who entertain these opinions may also believe that Congress has in America the same power that Parliament has with us ; and that the States stand to the Central Government in the relation that our counties do. These views have been contradicted over and over again. But still they may have some weight with those who may perhaps take a superficial interest in the subject, without caring to go at all deeper into it.

Even in the case of such people, however, it seems hardly fair that they should sympathise with the North, as a matter of feeling, because slavery is allowed in the Confederacy. If Prussia were to

* This hypothesis, -which I put as a possibility, has just been confirmed by a statment made on July 28 in the House of Commons by the member for Leicester, that "this was simply a question of the determined and continuous will of the North to put down slavery." He gives, at the same time, a very good measure of his temper and his knowledge, by going on to make the testy but irrelevant remark that a former speaker seemed to take his facts from Mr Spens (I suppose he meant Spence), and his principles from " Manhattan." If Mr Lindsay does so, he must have a strange idea of the connection between principles and facts. He may or may not take his facts from Mr Spence, though it is difficult to say upon what, as far as the debate was concerned, Mr Taylor founded the assertion that he "seemed" to do so. But how upon Mr Spence' s facts he can found "Manhattan's " principles is left to the imagination. It might as well be said of a zealous Presbyterian that he took his facts from Dr Cumming and his principles from Dr Newman. Probably the orator never troubled himself to inquire what "Manhattan's" principles were.

make an unjust attack upon Belgium, I doubt whether the most fiery spouter at Exeter Hall would claim our sympathy for her on the ground that the war was waged by Protestants against Papists. And it is not very long since the universal clamour of the country forced the unwilling Government to undertake that perhaps somewhat unnecessary crusade against Eussia, on behalf of a people, who are not only slave-owners, and slave-owners in an aggravated form, but also Mohammedans, polygamists, and barbarians. It was not till after the war was over that we awoke to the conclusion, that their overthrow, however it might affect the balance of power, would be an undoubted blessing to those millions of people whom their rule now keeps in a very abject state of degradation.

I do not think that the question between South and North is one that ought to be decided on sentimental grounds. I do not know that the former need object very much if it was. The fault with which she is charged is this : that her States have inherited, through no fault of theirs, a bad institution, which was bestowed upon them by ourselves, and, in truth (this is kept out of sight as much as possible), forced down their throats, not only without consulting them, but also in the teeth of their most vehement protestations. Viewed in this light, surely

4 THE RIGHT OF SECESSION.

she is more deserving of pity than of condemnation, at least from us. And even taking that fault at its worst, and not allowing of any mitigating circumstances, surely it is not the only crime in existence. If the South is guilty of that one, the North has been guilty of crimes and villanies enough, even on this very negro question, to make our sympathy at least neutral, and deprive her of any right to share in it. And unless we are prepared to maintain that the fact of having succeeded to the inheritance of slavery is enough to deprive those who have so inherited of all claim to be considered in the light of human beings, is there no sentiment to be evoked on behalf of a people who, for four years, have been making a struggle for their independence, such as, perhaps, has no parallel in history ?

But, as I said, I do not think the decision of the question ought to be allowed to rest on sentimental grounds. If the Southerners have a right to withdraw from the Union, we ought to wish them success, even if the "peculiar institution" were as black as it is sometimes painted. And whether they have that right, depends on the answer that may be given to these three questions. If upon any one of them an affirmative is returned, cadit qucestio.

1. Have nations any right to change their forms of government ?

2. Is this right stronger or weaker in the case of Americans ?

3. Is Secession to be considered as rebellion at all?

There are thus three stages. A person who would not admit the right of Naples to throw off the yoke of the Bourbons, might admit that the people of Western Virginia had the right to throw off the government of their State, and set up for themselves, though, of course, it would not follow that President Lincoln had any right to do it for them. And a person who might insist on the inhabitants of the Kanawha Valley being kept under the Bichmond Government whether they wished it or not, might still think that it was quite open to that Government to separate itself from the Federal Union.

Let us suppose the answer to the first question to be No. We will suppose a stanch believer in what used to be called the Divine Bight of Kings, and now goes by that of the Cause of Order. No, says he. Borne, if she rose against the Pope — Venice, if she rose against Austria — would be grossly criminal. The movement which created the present kingdom of Italy was altogether abominable. It was very wrong in our ancestors to drive out James the Second, and in the Greeks to drive out the Turks.

Well, but without entering into that question, have not Americans, at any rate, a right to choose their own rulers ? Is there no precedent in their history for such a thing ?

Yes, there is ; but it is a bad one. The success of the thirteen colonies does not prove them to have been in the right. They had not even the beggarly excuse of being oppressed, as they themselves avowed. Franklin said that the revolt was upon a mere point of honour ; and he ought to have known something about it, as he had a good deal to do with getting it up. But, however this may have been, from the moment their independence was recognised matters entered upon a new phase. By that recognition, George the Third placed the American Government in the position which his own had held.

But what government did he recognise ? Did he recognise the American Union as a single body ? He recognised nothing of the kind. He recognised the thirteen colonies as separate, independent, and sovereign states. The Union was a creation of a later date. The States formed themselves into a federation for their common advantage, bound themselves to do or not to do certain specified acts, intrusted certain definite powers, or attributes of sovereignty, to the central government, and kept the rest to themselves. On the Divine Eight theory, the rebels are not the seceding States, but President Lincoln and those who have aided him in trying to break off portions of those States, in order to form new ones.

But the question of Secession is something beyond this. It is not a justifiable breach of law, for it is not a breach of law at all. I am not concerned with the proofs of this assertion, though they are so clear, I think, that he who runs may read. To bring forward excerpts from the Federal Constitution, or from those of the different States, in support of it, would be alike tedious and unnecessary. I think that the abundance of proof that exists on this subject has done the Southern cause more harm than good ; for its advocates, desirous of leaving nothing unsaid which might strengthen their case, have laid so much stress upon what Virginia said when she joined the Union, and what Kentucky said when she did so, and upon the way in which Washington and Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson expressed themselves about it, that they have run the risk of entangling their rights as freemen in a maze of technicalities. I shall avoid the danger and trouble of plunging into it, and content myself with saying that I believe that if, before seceding, South Carolina had referred her right to do so to any competent and impartial tribunal in the world, her claim must have been admitted on strictly legal grounds, without any reference to any motives she may have had for wishing it.

To persons who do not hold to the Divine Eight of government all this may seem superfluous, though from some of the arguments that one hears, one would think that, though the subjects of kings may revolt as they please, yet that the citizens of republics may not : in other words, free institutions are the only ones under which freedom is not to be allowed. But I believe many are to be found who, while admitting the right of the Southern States to secede, yet think them to have been wrong in exercising it. Their argument is that, though the North is committing a great crime in preventing the others from doing what they have a right to do, yet that the South is not free from blame in provoking what she must have known to be war, for a mere caprice ; and that she not only provoked it, but commenced it.

Now the only way in which this argument is to be met, is by a direct contradiction of every part of it. The Southerners did not secede from caprice, but from reasons which would have justified not only a secession but a rebellion. They did not provoke the war ; for all the provocation, if that name can be applied to most unsparing threats and most virulent abuse for a long term of years, came from the Northern Abolitionists. They did not commence it ; for the first act of war was Lincoln's perfidious attempt to throw supplies into Fort Sumter. And, finally, they could not know that the Northerners would resist it by force ; for not only is there no provision for such resistance by the Constitution, hut the fact that it would be illegal, and also both wicked and ridiculous, to attempt to coerce States into any course that they did not approve, has been attested by a chorus of voices from the days of Jefferson and Madison to those of Mr Secretary Seward and Horace Greeley. It is true that Seward and Greeley are now vehement supporters of the war. Philip drunk has reversed the judgment of Philip sober. I will do Mr Seward the justice to say that he is not drunk ; he only pretends to be. Consistency is not a virtue much affected by American politicians ; and perhaps Mr Seward is as remarkable a case as could be found of the want of it.*

* Mr Seward's opinions as to the legality of Secession found their expression, not very long ago, in rather a remarkable way. A New England senator, I presume an Abolitionist, presented to the House in which he sat a petition for the dissolution of the Union. The motion which he founded on it, met, besides himself, with only two supporters. Those two were Mr Seward and Mr Chase. The fact that both these men should have held, and that one of them should stdl hold, a seat in the Cabinet of the President, who is waging a long, bloody, and terrible war against an act much less strong than the measure for which they both voted, and one performed in the exercise of rights which he who remains in it has loudly avowed, would be quite incomprehensible except upon the supposition that the political morality of the North has sunk to the level of that of France in

However, I admit that if the South had seceded from mere caprice, there would have been much to condemn in her conduct, as she would have been guilty of a treason to the memory of her own greatest citizens. I think that she ought to be able to show cause why the destruction of Washington's work should not be considered in the light of a neglect of Washington's principles. If the onus probandi of the justifiableness of the war rests upon the North, that of the justifiableness of the secession may be held by those Americans who have had any love for their Union, to rest upon the South.

Let us see what she can find to say for herself.

the days of the Convention and of England in those of the Cabal. But whatever be the case with the ex-Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Seward cannot avoid criticism by throwing the blame upon the circumstances under which he lives. The facts in his biography which have been alluded to, taken in connection with the shameful episode of "OldWhitey," and the celebrated curry-comb, which is not saved from being disgraceful by being ludicrous, combine to make up a picture which is more remarkable than attractive. If Juvenal or Pope were to reappear in America at the present day, Mr Seward might have a chance of immortality.

CHAPTEE It

THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH PRESIDENTIAL

ELECTIONS.

To answer the question about what the South can say for herself, what excuse she can give for causing the disruption of a great federation, which has been looked upon by so many persons, not only in America but in Europe, as the grand experiment of freedom, it is necessary to look a little into its history.

The very first thing, I suppose, that a glance at its history shows, is that the opposition between South and North has existed from the beginning. At the convention which framed the Federal Constitution, among the various antagonisms of the different States which were pointed out, this one was distinguished as the most important of all. Slavery had nothing to do with it, for at that time nearly all the Northern States had slaves as much as the Southern ones had. Yet even then the character of the two sections differed, as might have been expected in the descendants of Cavaliers and the descendants of Puritans ; and their interests were as much opposed to one another, to use the words of a speaker in that convention, as those of Eussia and Turkey. Unfortunately, the system of government which the Convention adopted as the basis of the Federal Constitution was such as tended directly to aggravate the opposition.

I suppose the ablest of the great band of statesmen who presided over the formation of the American commonwealth was Alexander Hamilton, Scotchman by descent, West Indian by birth, New Yorker by residence. There was no more ardent supporter of American independence than he, no more daring soldier, and no more earnest politician. Yet though he was the most trusted confidant of the Eepublican leader "Washington, and though he was the leader of the band which first made its way over our intrenchments at Yorktown, he was a warm admirer of England and her institutions. I believe that nothing would have pleased him better than to have adopted our Constitution bodily — King, House of Lords and all. This, however, was out of the question, considering the state of feeling in America ; and he proposed, as the next best thing, first a President for life, and then, as that would not do, a President for

PEESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 13

ten years. Had either of these suggestions been adopted, the antagonism I have mentioned might have been kept under. A perpetual President, and in a less degree, one for a long term, would have had a direct interest in preventing the opposing sections from coming into direct collision with one another. A President for four years — for that was the term which, in spite of the counsels of Hamilton, in spite of the recommendation of its own committee, the Convention fixed upon — has no such interest. The frequency of presidential elections has the effect of keeping the community in a constant state of turmoil and agitation. As a result of this, agitation becomes a trade, and the President comes in hampered with pledges and promises, which he has to swallow by the hundred in order to obtain the votes of his party. His short term of office does not give him time to work these off, and have leisure for governing for a few years, so as to promote the general welfare, even if he does not do his best to make things worse by intriguing with either faction, with the object of securing his own re-election.

It becomes a matter of importance to inquire to whom the pledges and promises which are forced upon the expectant President are given. The answer to this question reveals what is perhaps the most powerful of all the causes which have caused the fall of

14 THE NOKTH AND THE SOUTH:

the Great Bepublic. I need not describe how American elections are got np. If they were directly the work of the people it would he had enough. The great interests of the South and the North were so strongly opposed to one another, and their distinctly marked geographical separation afforded so little chance of rubbing down asperities by constant contact, that there could be but slight hopes of anything like a permanent compromise between their representatives being attained or allowed; and universal suffrage, whatever be its other merits, does not tend to the election of the best men, but rather to that of the most fluent echoers of the cry of the hour. But, bad as this system may be held to be, the one which actually prevailed was worse. The real electors were not the people, but a class of professional agitators. It is difficult at first to believe in the enormous power of which this class grew into the possession; and nothing short of the most striking evidence would make it at all credible. Unfortunately, however, such evidence exists. These men are not statesmen, and have never pretended to be; they simply look on politics as a means of making money. This is the way they go to work.

Some little time before the presidential election comes on, the agitators of each party meet in conclave for the purpose of selecting their man. In the selection, ability and services to the State are not looked upon as any recommendation, but rather operate as a ground for exclusion. They do not want a man with any very strong opinions or a will of his own, but a pliable man, who will act as he is bid by his party, and those by whom the party is managed ; and the quality most in demand is insignificance. This great principle being kept in view, the election is made. In case the "caucuses" of the different States do not agree in the person they pitch upon severally, their representatives meet in a general party convention at some central place, and out of the different nominees of the local ones pick out that man who among them will answer their purposes best; and after having given the required number of promises to the satisfaction of the members of it, the happy man goes forth to the people as the candidate of his party.

The framers of the Constitution, in their desire, while adhering to the principle of popular election, to avoid the dangers of universal suffrage, devised the expedient of intrusting the choice of President to a select body of electors, whom the people were to nominate, but in whose hands, after they had been nominated, the matter was to be entirely left. But this difficulty did not long stand in the way of the managers. They did not only choose the President, but they chose the electors also ; and it came not to matter much who the electors were, as they were simply delegates, pledged not to exercise any judgment at all, but simply to vote as they were bid; and this has been the system up to the present day. Under it, as may readily be seen, no individuality, no political diversity of opinion outside the great party lines, no minute shades of difference can, generally speaking, be allowed to appear; and thus it has come to be said, and not without truth, that there is no country in the world whose inhabitants are so utterly deprived of independence in politics as are the citizens of the American Union.

The effect of the way in which the election of President is managed is enough to canker the whole public life of the country. As I said, the electors of the chief magistrate have no power of choice, but are simply the delegates of two cliques of corrupt and unprincipled traders in politics, to whom one side is pledged to vote en masse for A, and the other pledged to vote en masse for B. A and B are probably two obscure men, with few antecedents, lest those antecedents should gain them enemies and cause a split in their party, and little strength of character, lest they should object to make all the promises required of them. It is perfectly well known beforehand which will be the President, as the majority in each State returns all the electors to which that State is entitled. As soon as the election is over, every single office-holder of the Union, from the highest to the lowest, is turned out in order to satisfy promises; and of course, as the clamourers for official spoils multiply, offices have to be multiplied too.

I am more concerned at present with the election of members of Congress than with that of the President. The same evils tell in their case, at least in the case of the House of Representatives, though in a less degree. But even if these elections were so managed as to afford no room for direct corruption and jobbery, yet it is impossible that they should not be affected by the results of the temper and spirit which the quadrennial presidential battle produces on the popular mind.

The evils which I have mentioned prevailed chiefly in the Northern States. That the South has been entirely free from them is not to be supposed ; but though her States are very democratic in habit and feeling, yet there is not in them the same jealousy of all superiority, intellectual or other, as is to be found on the other side of the Potomac and Ohio. I think this has been shown of late, not only by the way in which they have unreservedly intrusted their executive and legislature, their army and navy, to the best men they could find, but also by the very judicious alterations which they made in the Constitution

B

18 THE NOKTH AND THE SOUTH:

of the Union before adopting it as that of their Confederacy. In one State, South Carolina, the mischievous effects of the system of elections have heen completely obviated by the rule of leaving the nomination of the choosers of the President to the State Legislature.

The natural result of this was that the public men whom the South produced were, as a body, superior to those of the North. This gave them an influence more than proportional to their numbers. But in the particular matters which were the subject of Federal legislation this did not do much good: for numbers were plainly what were required. The want of the power of balancing the overwhelming weight of votes against them was felt with constantly increasing urgency. During the greater part of the history of the Union, they contrived to keep their heads above water by the alliance of the Northern Democrats, the party of States Eights and Conservatism. It has not been always that that party has been most deserving of sympathy. Few in this country would be disposed to take the part of the Virginian Democrat Jefferson against the New York Federalist Hamilton. But things are different now. The different factions which have succeeded one another in opposition to them have got further and further away from the principles of the Fathers of the Union. They have become more and more the party of the North, of Northern interests as opposed to Southern. That there should be such a party, as one of the subordinate agents in moving the wheels of the State, is perhaps natural ; but the fact of that party's gaining the preponderance, coupled with that of the way elections have been managed in the North, has caused the disruption of the Union.

For a long time things went on, not very well, but passably. The South and its allies got the honour of governing. The North got the dollars. The Southerners managed the foreign policy, carried through the successful war with Mexico, and more than once prevented an English war when their Northern kinsmen were seized with an appetite for territory. But they had to pay a pretty heavy price for the honour of doing so. There was only one part of government that the North cared much about, and that part she was determined to have her own way. Let the South, if she likes, supply the officers of army and navy, the orators, administrators, and diplomatists. The North can humour her, for the North must have the control of taxation.

This implies a good deal, as it is an important point. There is, or was till lately, only one way in which Federal taxation could be raised to any large amount. It was not to be tolerated that the free and enlightened citizens of the Great Eepublic, where the Almighty Eagle spreads his catawampous wings in the setting sun, should be disturbed by the visits of the tax-gatherer. But the Bird of freedom did not object to customs duties, and customs duties would not only pay the Federal expenses to a very great extent, but also act as a protection to native manufacturers. The idea of making the benighted foreigners pay the cost of the best Government in creation, was pleasing alike to the patriotism and the smartness of the citizens ; and it was an additional satisfaction to the pious manufacturers of New England, that they enjoyed thereby a pretty large bonus at the public expense.

There was, however, this difficulty. It is needless to point out that the fact of a Federal union, with perfect free trade among all its component members, made it absolutely necessary that the duties on importations from abroad should be perfectly identical in all parts of it ; and there was a part of the American Union to which this arrangement was by no means acceptable. The North was, or might be, self-supporting. It manufactured its own implements; it made its own clothing ; it grew its own corn. Its connection with Europe, as far as its own productions were concerned, consisted in selling its surplusage and receiving foreign gold in exchange. But with