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A LETTER 
 
 ENGLISH mmj) ON THE 'AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 NEW YORK.- 
 ANSOX D. F. RANDOLPH, 
 
 No. 683 BROADWAY. 
 1863. 
 

 printer, 
 
 
 
A LETTER. 
 
 New York, July, 18C3. 
 
 Sib , K. C. B. 
 
 Mt Dear Friend : — 
 
 .... You think that our government cannot put down 
 the rebellion ; and that even if it could, it would be render- 
 ing a questionable service to the world, as the American 
 people would then soon become too powerful for the safety of 
 other nations. On both these grounds, you wish to see the 
 war brought to an end by the acknowledgment of the Con- 
 federacy as an independent nation. 
 
 I will not discuss your second reason at any length. You 
 do not doubt that the more powerful any nation should 
 become the better for the world it would be, provided its 
 councils were guided by justice and enlightened views of 
 policy. Without and with such guidance, then, let us see 
 how this country would stand towards foreign nations. "With- 
 out justice and integrity, both among its citizens generally 
 and in its councils, this Republic could not last long, but 
 must soon be self-destroyed. This is an axiom in the judg- 
 ment of our best men. K thus self-destroyed — a prey to 
 internal dissension, disorder, and violence — this country would 
 be a beacon to teach other nations the supreme importance 
 of private and public virtue. But let the principles of our holy 
 religion be in the ascendant, and our country would be the 
 means only of good to the world, sharing with the people of 
 other lands the pursuits of commerce and science and the 
 blessings of Christianity. On either supposition, this country 
 would not be an object of fear. But if there is danger to be 
 apprehended, it must spring from the division and not from 
 the union of these states. Once divided, if it were possible 
 for two nations to exist in this land, large standing armies 
 
4 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 would be kept up by both, occasions of misunderstanding 
 with foreign powers would be doubled, and wars with them 
 would be of frequent occurrence. 
 
 Turning now to the main thing — whether the rebellion can 
 be put down depends on whether it ought to be put down. 
 Christian nations, like Great Britain and the United States, 
 may be taken to have reached such a condition of moral ad- 
 vancement that what is right in theii* great questions will in 
 the end win the day. "What is wrong in these countries must 
 sooner or later go to the wall. I need not stop to prove this. 
 
 Now do not think that I am going to inflict on you an 
 extended discussion of the question, when I ask, Is the rebel- 
 lion right ? To show that it is not right, I need but recall 
 your attention to a few salient points of the case, as between 
 the government and the rebellion, or as between the nation 
 and the rebels. However familiar these points may be to 
 intelligent men on this side of the Atlantic, we cannot expect 
 our European friends to be thoroughly acquainted with them. 
 
 Singling out a few topics from the crowd, I will ask you first 
 to consider, on what ground and for what reasons any people 
 are justifiable in rising up against the government that is over 
 them. Intolerable oppression is a sufficient cause of revolu- 
 tion, but in this country nothing of this kind has existed. 
 Principles adopted by the rulers of a people, which would 
 reduce them to bondage, would justify armed resistance to the 
 government if there were no other redress ; so our fathers 
 judged when they resisted the British crown in the attempj; 
 to impose taxation M'itliout granting representation ; but under 
 our constitution, notliing of this kind has occurred or could 
 take place. On the other hand, it is a Christian duty to ren- 
 der oljcdience to tlie powers that be, which are ordained of 
 God, in tlie administration of all authority which does not 
 contravene his holy will. " The powers that be," in our case, 
 certainly inchule tlie general, national, or federal government, 
 which for so long a period has been recognized at home and 
 abroad as a lawful government. I know the ready answer of 
 many to this statement, that it begs the question as to which 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 5 
 
 government, national or state, the allegiance of the citizen is 
 due. I shall revert to this matter hereafter. At present it is 
 sufficient to say, that, de facto, the federal government was in 
 the regular exercise of its authority in all parts of the country, 
 and had long wielded this authority, unopposed, unchallenged. 
 ISTearly three generations of men had lived in peace under this 
 government. It was clearly therefore a government such as 
 the apostle contemplated when he spoke of " the powers that 
 be." And on the broad ground of the divine commandment, 
 I do not hesitate to claim your condemnation of this war as a 
 wrong thing. In itself, apart from its painful circumstances, 
 in its first conception and its first outbreak, it is in violation 
 of our highest rule of duty. We were at peace amongst our- 
 selves, and had been for eighty years. We are now at war, 
 simply because our reckless fellow-citizens did not fulfill their 
 Christian duty to the lawful government of the country. But 
 I do not wish here to discuss a religious question, and I pro- 
 ceed to other views. 
 
 Look, then, at the public beginning of this war. I refer 
 not now to the secret history of previous years. We have 
 been told, indeed, that the war was begun by the Xorthern 
 States years ago, but this is simply not true. It is well known 
 that the policy of the government was controlled by Southern 
 influence for many years, and no act of the government can 
 be cited which was unfriendly to the slaveholding States. 
 Nor is it true that the legislation of the Free States, as States, 
 was generally hostile to the interests of the Slave States. 
 Some of them had enacted laws to neutralize what were con- 
 sidered the odious features of the Fugitive Slave Law of Con- 
 gress, and especially to secure the right of a trial before a 
 jury for a colored man who might be claimed as a fugitive 
 slave ; yet these laws were either repealed by the States them- 
 selves, or else set aside by the decision of the Supreme Court. 
 The people of the Free States were indeed unwilling that 
 slavery should be introduced into the national territories, but 
 they opposed this in a lawful way. They were willing that 
 slaveholders should take all the property into the territories, 
 
6 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN "WAR. 
 
 that they could take themselves. Moreover, it was a barren 
 question, so far as the Slave States were concerned, for they 
 had no slaves to sj^are for the territories ; and if they had, 
 hardly any part of the territories was adapted to slave labour. 
 
 But I need not refer to these old discussiotis, nor to others 
 on kindred topics. They were discussions. They were not 
 war, surely. I pass them by, and come to the public begin- 
 ning of this dreadful conflict. You know who first took up 
 the sword, and the fatal events that at once followed the 
 attack on Fort Sumter. Fix your attention on that com- 
 mencement of the war ; and then, to see that it was all wrong, 
 call to mind the fact, that all peaceful measures had not been 
 tried in vain, and some had not been tried at all, before the 
 leaders of the rebellion resorted to the argument of military 
 force. 
 
 They might have kept their place in the Union, and 
 trusted to discussion and the ballot, feeling sure that if right 
 were on their side they would in the end regain the ascend- 
 ancy in our national councils. Or they might have proposed 
 Amendments to the Constitution, in order to secure greater 
 protection to their peculiar interests, and in this way have 
 obtained a peaceful settlement of agitating questions ; there 
 can hardly be a doubt that such amendments would have been 
 made in order to satisfy the claims of the Slave States. It is 
 indeed known now that great concessions were offered to their 
 representatives in the Peace Convention at Washington, in 
 February, 1861, but they were rejected by the ultraist mem- 
 bers from the Southern States. 
 
 K they considered it impossible, however, to abide longer 
 by the regular movement of our forms of government, as a 
 last resort before proceeding to war, they might have asked 
 for tlie extra-constitutional measure of a Convention of all the 
 States. This would have been a revolutionary measure, but 
 not one that would have resulted necessarily in acts of violence 
 and Idood.slied ; the revuhition might even have been a peace- 
 ful one — a thing no longer possible after the attack on Fort 
 Sumter. After tliat, tlie government had to stand for its 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 1 
 
 existence, war could no longer be delayed ; but prior to Ibis 
 fatal proceeding a convention miglit have been called. If it 
 had been refused, a declaration of whatever was regarded as 
 grievances could have been formally issued, before separation 
 was begun by means of war. The rebels, as we must now 
 call them, could in this way have delivered themselves, in 
 some degree at least, from the awful guilt of plungmg a people 
 all in the midst of peace into the horrors of civil war. 
 
 On a popular Southern theory of our government, that 
 which regards each State as unqualifiedly sovereign, a con- 
 vention of this kind might have been called. This theory I 
 do not hold, but believe it to be altogether erroneous. There 
 can be but one sovereignty in a nation, and for eighty years 
 that has been recognized in a great variety of ways as exist- 
 ing in the general government. Every oath of office, taken 
 in any part of the country, even in South Carolina itself, in 
 legislative or judicial stations, recognized the sovereignty of 
 the United States. All foreign powers recognized it, and 
 never acknowledged the sovereignty of any particular State. 
 This high sovereignty passed from the crown of Great Britain 
 to the American nation, — at first, to the Confederation ; then, 
 to the Union ; but in no case to a State separately considered. 
 The Constitution is now our crown, to which our allegiance 
 is to be given, as embodying the will of the nation. This 
 Constitution was adopted, not by the States as such, but by 
 the people — as its terms expressly declare. Their suffrages 
 were taken in each State separately, for the sake of conve- 
 nience, but they were the suffrages of the citizens of the 
 United States, who voted directly on the question of adopt- 
 ing this charter of our national government. . It is conceded 
 on all hands that the Constitution thus adopted relates, not 
 to everything under the sun, but to the subjects contained in 
 itself, and as to these it is supreme. As to these, it is a gen- 
 eral or common government, and the preserving of the union 
 of these States is surely one of its highest objects. 
 
 It is deeply to be deplored that this view of our Na- 
 tional government as sovereign, and therefore entitled to the 
 
8 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN "WAR. 
 
 highest allegiance of all citizens, has been rejected by so 
 many of our countrymen in the Southern States. Many of 
 them are undoubtedly sincere in their belief that the sove- 
 reignty of each State is supreme, and that their allegiance is 
 therefore due to the State, and not to the United States. 
 Allowance must be made for their mistake in this respect, a 
 mistake which can be explained without impugning the in- 
 tegrity of many who have fallen into it ; but a mistake it is, 
 nevertheless, as both the history of the country and the terms 
 of the Constitution plainly show. This war will not have 
 been in vain if it result in the perpetual subversion of the 
 doctrine of unqualified State sovereignty. It is a doctrine 
 which would be always tending to break up the nation into 
 fragments, and to embroil these fragments in never-ending 
 conflicts with each other. It is quite safe to predict that if 
 the States in revolt gain their independence, they will soon 
 have reason to deplore the pernicious consequences of this 
 dogma. It will bring on endless collisions between petty 
 sovereignties ; these will go on to anarchy ; and then will 
 follow a military despotism, fell and relentless. State rights 
 we all hold, but unqualified State sovereignty is another thing. 
 There is no safety for us in this land, as citizens of a consti- 
 tutional government, but in the union of these States and in 
 tlie sovereignty of this Union. 
 
 I am quite willing, however, for the moment, to waive all 
 tliis — all reference to the doctrine of State sovereignty. I 
 leave out of view, also, the almost sole grievance alleged — 
 the denial of the right of slaveholders to take their slaves 
 into the national territories. For the point at present before 
 us, these tilings need not be considered. On any theory con- 
 cerning them, peaceful measures might have been longer 
 tried before resorting to "the last argument." And if the 
 measures already indicated had been tested, the war would 
 assuredly have been averted. In its very beginning, there- 
 fore, the rebellion was all wrong. It stained itself needlessly 
 with blood. A Christian people ought to be " slow to wrath." 
 A republican people ought to have faith in free discussion 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR, 9 
 
 and the ballot. Any people ought to try every possible good 
 method of gaining their ends before resorting to military 
 weaj)ons. I make a great deal of this. If anything is plain 
 it is that a Christian people ought not to begin war with their 
 brethren in this abrupt and hasty way. Civil war is a thing 
 too awful to be undertaken, except under the pressure of the 
 sternest necessity. And then it should be with fastings, 
 prayers, and tears. I need not remind you how the Confed- 
 erates acted, with what astonishing haste they attacked the 
 government, with what neglect of peaceful measures then 
 within their reach. "Was not such a beginning of this war 
 all wrong ? 
 
 Passing from this, let us now consider the main cause of 
 this war. In my view this cause is slavery. It is my belief 
 that the rebellion was begun for the sake of slavery. 
 
 I know that this is denied. We have been told that " the 
 North is fighting for empire, and the Sonth for independence " 
 — ^liigh-flown words ! And words without truth, so far as the 
 North is concerned. We have also been told that questions 
 of tarifib and free trade have had much to do with the war ; 
 but it is well known that the Southern States, especially in 
 the cotton-producing regions, were enjoying great material 
 prosperity. The favorite Southern Review paraded columns 
 of statistics to prove that, man for man, the people of the 
 Slave-growing States were rapidly growing more wealthy 
 than those of the Free States. Both of these alleged causes 
 of the war are of Trans- Atlantic origin. Here at home, we 
 are told that this war was caused by " the Abolitionists," 
 especially of New England. Of this I shall have something 
 to say, further on. But whatever weight may be given to 
 other causes, the one great cause is slavery. The practi- 
 cal working of this system, for a period of eighty years under 
 our government, has issued at length in this volcanic explo- 
 sion. To see this clearly, we need but look at a brief state- 
 ment of the rationale of the whole subject. 
 
 Under our slaveholding system in the Southern States, a 
 class of men has been created who differ greatly in some 
 
10 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 respects from most of our countrymen. This class has long 
 had control of the Slave States. Though few in number, the 
 people of this class hold the larger share of the property, real 
 and personal, in these States, and they possess a large part of 
 the higher intelligence and culture of the Southern people. 
 As a class these slaveholders socially and politically are the men 
 of power, wielding directly or indirectly nearly all legislative, 
 judicial, and executive authority in the State and county 
 governments. All who constitute this class do not make 
 more than a few hundred thousand in the twelve millions of 
 the Southern population. Besides them are the colored 
 people, who are mostly slaves, and the non-slaveholding white 
 people. The latter far outnumber their slaveholding fellow 
 citizens, and include many persons of high intelligence and 
 worth, especially in the Border States, and, indeed, in all 
 parts of the South ; but it is unhaj)pily true that a large part 
 of the non-slaveholding white people belongs to the class of 
 " j)Oor whites," especially in the cotton-growing regions. 
 These are to a great extent destitute of political influence, 
 and in too many instances their dependence and their igno- 
 rance fit them to be the ready agents of their slaveholding 
 neighbours. Amongst the governing class are found many 
 persons of great excellence of character, some of whom I 
 have been happy to call my friends ; many of them sigh and 
 groan under the bondage imposed by slavery on their own 
 race, hardly less than they deplore the condition of the 
 coloured people ; but they have not been able to see any 
 practicable way of terminating this double bondage. Besides 
 these, who are virtually anti-slavery slaveholders, and whose 
 numbers are only too few, there are many persons in this 
 class who are imperious, ambitions, and reckless men, such 
 as are hardly to be found elsewhere in the world. The base of 
 their position is a nai-row one. It is simply the bondage of 
 the neg)-o conpled with the monopoly of cotton. Take away 
 the bondage of the negro, and the members of this class would 
 in a single generation become homogeneous with Northern 
 or European society. Or take away the monopoly of cotton, 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN AVAR. 11 
 
 and they would soon become as earnest advocates of freedom 
 to the slave as were their fathers in 1789. Their class-exis- 
 tence is a great anomaly in a republic, creating obvious diflfi- 
 culties in the way of administering our form of government, 
 or indeed any form of government based on principles of 
 regulated liberty. 
 
 This brief analysis of the structure of Southern society 
 shows how the rebellion was possible, and it also shows its 
 cause. The property for the most part, and the political • 
 power, were in the hands of slaveholders, especially in the 
 states in which the rebellion began. Finding or fearing that 
 they could no longer control the councils of the general gov- 
 ernment, they resolved on separation at any cost. 
 
 Many of their number, it should be conceded, were opposed 
 to disunion. Some of them regarded separation from the 
 Union as the worst remedy of any grievances, and as the 
 greatest danger of their peculiar " institution." Others, espe- 
 cially in the Border States, thoroughly loyal and patriotic men, 
 we may consider as emancipated from the narrow but ardent 
 policy of their class, and able to take a correct view of their 
 duties as American citizens. Many amongst the slaveholders 
 must be deeply convinced that the doctrine of unqualified 
 State sovereignty is a very Pandora's box of evils. Many of 
 them must deplore the fearful method that was taken to adjust 
 matters with their fellow-citizens of the Free States. Many of 
 them are connected with their northern countrymen by social 
 and marital relationships, and by pecuniary interests. From 
 these various subdivisions of the prevailing class, and from 
 the ranks of intelligent and influential non-slaveholders, we 
 may hope to see hosts of union and loyal men yet rallying 
 around the beautiful flag of our country. All is not dark in 
 the southern sky. 
 
 But as events have been shaped in the past by unscrupulous 
 political leaders, it is easy to understand how slavery — the 
 common interests and the common sympathies engendered by 
 slaveholding — under the stimulus of excited appeals to the 
 passions at once of fear and of ambition, became the cause of 
 
12 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 the rebellion. Mr. Alexander Stephens, the spokesman of his 
 class, and the Yice-President of the Confederacy, was not far 
 astray when he proclaimed slavery to be the corner-stone of 
 the new empire. From the predominant influeiice of slave- 
 holders in the Sonth, we see how it was that Mr. Stephens 
 should have publicly, almost officially, avowed this awful 
 dogma. 
 
 One thing more, however, was wanting to the success of the 
 attempt to create rebellion, and that was a plausible pretext 
 with which the honest masses of southern citizens could be 
 misled. This j^retext was unhappily furnished by the ultra- 
 abolitionists in our Northern States. This phase of the sub- 
 ject must not be ignored. Varied material interests, conflict- 
 ing theories of political rights, differing views of duty in 
 regard to the support of the powers that be, have marked the 
 course of events in the Rebel States, but underlying all these 
 was an exasperated feeling towards " the abolitionists," which 
 it must be acknowledged was only too well founded. For 
 many years certain writers and speakers have poured a bitter 
 stream of denunciation on all slaveholders, and indeed on all, 
 whether living in the North or South, who would not join 
 them in their project of instant emancipation without regard 
 to consequences. These were " the abolitionists," technically 
 so called — persons who were ready to break up the Union, and 
 ev'en the Church itself, if their one idea were not adopted. 
 They failed altogether to connnand the confidence of the great 
 body of our Northern people, but they succeeded in leading 
 many of our Southern people to believe that " the North was 
 all abolitionized," and in giving unscrupulous men at the 
 South a pretext for agitation in favour of disunion. It was 
 too easy for these men to transmute the opposition to the abo- 
 litionists into opposition to antislavery men, who constitute 
 the great mass of northern people ; the next and fiital step 
 was then also easy to take, that of arraying this opposition 
 against the government itself, on the election of an unwel- 
 come pre^^ideiit. But after all, this ajjparently well-founded 
 apprehension of the abolitionists could have but little weight 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 13 
 
 with well-informed men in the South. They certainly ought 
 to have known the true state of feeling on this subject in the 
 non-slaveholding States ; and but for the ardent class feeling 
 fostered by the peculiar state of society in the slave States, it 
 would have been simply impossible to elevate such a pretext 
 into a sufficient reason for rebellion. ISTo greater proof of the 
 intensity of this class feeling could be cited than the formal 
 manifesto adopted by the Convention of the State of South 
 Carolina, to set forth the reasons for secession. These reasons 
 all hinge on a single idea, the j)Vot£ction of slavery. This was 
 supposed to be endangered, although the South Carolinians 
 had not lost a score of slaves in thirty years by reason of 
 the abolitionists. 
 
 I need not dwell longer on this statement of the cause of 
 the rebellion. It were easy to confirm these views by proofs 
 di*awn from our recent history ; indeed, our history can not 
 be understood by a foreigner without some such clue to its 
 tangled course as I have now given you. ' And I may now 
 ask. Can dispassionate men in other countries regard a rebel- 
 lion for the sake of slavery as in itself right ? Is it right to 
 break up a good government, and to overwhelm a peaceful 
 people in the deluge of civil war, in order to protect and 
 perpetuate the bondage of our fellow-men? Is it right to 
 countenance the establishment of a great Pro-Slavery Power ? 
 Suppose this war to result in the independence of the rebel 
 states, the Confederacy an acknowledged nation, slaveholding 
 still one of its honored institutions, with all its breaking 
 up of families and other enormous evils* ; in a word, suppose 
 a powerful despotism, based on human bondage, is to be the 
 end of this rebellion, would you regard this result as right ? 
 
 I do not wish you to understand, however, that our govern- 
 ment is waging a war for the destruction of slavery. It is 
 waging this war for the defence of its own existence. This 
 is assailed by rebel forces in the interest and at the instigation 
 of slavery. Tlie war, on our part, is for union, and against 
 secession ; or, rather, for government, and against anarchy. 
 Anarchy, we are firmly convinced, would soon follow in the 
 
14 . LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR, 
 
 train of secession. On our theory of government, secession 
 ends inevitably in the overthrow of common order. If the 
 majority, acting within the limits of the Constitution, may 
 not rule ; if the minority may secede when they fail to carry 
 an election, then there is simply no hope of preserving the 
 Kepublic ; and, in this country, there is then no hope of having 
 any stable government whatever. An unscrupulous mayor 
 of this city endeavored, two years ago, to lead New York in 
 the footsteps of South Carolina. He proposed that this city 
 should secede ! Other cities, counties, and states might each 
 or all secede, if this dogma of secession is to be recognized, 
 and the result would soon be anarchy. Do not wonder that 
 all right-minded Eepublicans look with horror on this new 
 method of settling political discussions. And do not fail to 
 consider that we hold this war on our part to be primarily a 
 defensive war. It was forced upon us, and we are waging it 
 in defence of the country, of common order, of civilization 
 itself; all of which are put in peril by the false prmciple 
 wrapped up in the idea of secession. 
 
 But wliile our Government is not waging an anti-slavery 
 war, the war itself sweeps the whole subject of slavery into 
 its wake, and the end will very probably be a great change 
 in the condition of slavery— perhaps its entire overthrow. 
 This is not likely to result, however, from any summary pro- 
 cess. Tlie President's proclamation on the subject has been 
 both lauded and denounced ; but its friends and foes have 
 been alike disappointed. It can be enforced only ^xtri passu 
 with the advance of our armies, and their advance would 
 have led to the virtual overthrow of slavery within their lines, 
 even if there had been no proclamation. Thus multitudes of 
 slaves would have become free, and could never be reduced 
 again to bondage. Freedom must follow the flag of the 
 Union in such a conflict as this. 
 
 In the end, the rebellion will be put down, the authority of 
 the Government will be re-established, and the question will 
 arise. What is to be done with the slaves who have not been 
 set free by military force, if any such remain? Will not 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 15 
 
 Stat* laws resume their sway over tliem? Will not slavery 
 itself be re-established with the restoration of the Union? 
 According to the nsnal working of our form of government, 
 this result would be inevitable. The General Government 
 has nothing to do with slavery in the States, though in the 
 District of Columbia, the national forts, and the national ter- 
 ritories its authority over slavery cannot be doubted. The 
 President's proclamation of freedom was issued by him as com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army, simply as a war measure, a meas- 
 ure of great force, but one that he might recall, or his successor 
 might recall it ; and, at any rate, it is a measm-e without any 
 but moral force beyond the lines of the army, and it is one which 
 must terminate with the war itself. If the war should go on 
 for some years, this measure will probably result practically 
 in setting the slaves all free. If a State now in rebellion, 
 on the other hand, should rescind her ordinance of seces- 
 sion and return to the Union, it would not, indeed, remand 
 the freed slaves to bondage, but slavery itself would continue 
 in her limits as heretofore ; with the great exception, how- 
 ever, that it would henceforth be subject to powerful modify- 
 ing influences, all tending to the complete emancipation of 
 the slaves. 
 
 I believe that both religious and material influences will 
 hereafter unite in turning the minds of men, in all sections of 
 the country, to the importance of removing slavery as the 
 great cause of our trouble. On the former class of these con- 
 siderations I do not enter, except to express my belief that 
 doing unto others as we would that they should do unto us is 
 the only law that can properly adjust the relations of the 
 white and colored races ; and this law, I am sure, must lead 
 to the destruction of slavery. Material interests will lend 
 their aid in efiecting this result. Supplies of cotton will 
 be obtained elsewhere than in our Southern States. Tlieir 
 monopoly of this article has had much to do with the rebel- 
 lion — with its purpose and plan, its determined attitude, and 
 the sympathy for it abroad. But the war is fatal to this mo- 
 nopoly. "Whatever the issue of the war may be, the price of 
 
16 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 cotton in this country must, for many years, be greatly in- 
 creased. It must bear a heavy export duty liencefortli, to aid 
 in defraying the interest of the vast war debt, a duty imposed 
 by the Government when the rebellion is put down, or by the 
 Confederacy, if the rebellion is successful. This higher price 
 will 2:0 far to turn the scale in favor of cotton from India and 
 other countries, Tlie diversion of capital into other channels 
 will tend to the same result. The adaptation of machinery 
 to the manufacture of cotton of short fibre, the greater use of 
 flax and wool for clothing, the substitution of Chinese labour- 
 el's for African slaves, or of free African labour for the labour 
 of bondage, would all tend to free the world from its depend- 
 ence on slave-grown cotton, and equally to overthrow slavery 
 itself. This result I believe to be inevitable. I could wish 
 to see it effected gradually, to see such great social and indus- 
 trial changes effected peacefully, to see the burden of south- 
 ern loss in the emancipation of slaves lightened by national 
 liberality; but this rebellion may change all this, and it 
 may be the will of God that slavery should perish in the 
 bloody waves of the war it has begun. Many questions of 
 great importance and perplexity will then have to be settled, 
 requiring the highest degree of wisdom on the part of our 
 public men. 
 
 Such are the relations of the country and of the war to 
 slavery. The friends of good order and of human progress, 
 therefore, see before them two opposite things: on the one 
 hand, an attempt to establish by rebellion an avowedly pro- 
 slavery confederac}^ ; on the other, the lawful government of 
 the country, restored to its ancient anti-slavery policy, the 
 policy of Washington and of Jefferson, conducting a war of 
 self-defence. Need I ask which ought to succeed ] 
 
 If I misjudge not, these views clearly establish the main 
 thing in the case. They show which side is right and which 
 is wrong in this most unhappy conflict. Right is surely on 
 the side of tlie nation. And hence, sooner or later, the rebel- 
 lion \\\\\ be u\'erthroM'n. In our country, as in yours, riglit will 
 triuiiipli ill the end. Believing this to be a correct stiitemcnt 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 17 
 
 of the moral question involved, I will only add, before leaving, 
 it, that it shows, first, why all right-minded men in this 
 country should stand up for the government ; second, a strong 
 reason why foreign nations should withhold their sympathy 
 from our misguided countrymen in the South; and, third, 
 one of the main reasons which will bring to pass the eventual 
 reunion of these states. It is only on the last of these topics 
 that I will make a brief remark. 
 
 There are in this country multitudes of intelligent, consci- 
 entious people, both in the South and in the Xorth. Far too 
 many of these have long abandoned the care of public affairs 
 to the politicians of the day. It has been a woful mistake. 
 But these men must more and more look into the questions 
 now undergoing the fierce argument of war. And they will, 
 in the end, form a right judgment concerning them. They 
 are now, alas, far too many of them, upholders of the rebel- 
 lion. No man doubted the honesty of the late " Stonewall " 
 Jackson, and multitudes like him in their religious character 
 are still in the ranks of the rebellion. Few of these men 
 would now embark in such a conflict. Many of them enlisted 
 in it against their better judgment, and many of them under 
 most erroneous impressions and under expectations which 
 they have already found to be delusive. These are minor 
 things ; the main thing is that these good men will, in the end, 
 see that they have done wrong. This conviction, in the case 
 of such men, will be followed by an honest effort to regain 
 the true ground of loyalty and union. They are men who 
 can acknowledge their errors. I believe they will, sooner or 
 later. They will see and say. This rebellion was not merely 
 a political blunder, but it was all wi'ong. And then the con- 
 flict will shortly come to an end ; or, if already ended, so far 
 as military proceedings are concerned, the work of reconstruc- 
 tion and reunion will go on apace ; their influence will be 
 controlling, to a large degree. Let it not be said that this is 
 to expect in the passions of war what was not found in the 
 days of peace. True ; but war is a great teacher, and I am 
 now referring to men wlio will learn righteousness when 
 2 
 
18 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 judgments are in the earth. Neither let it be said that this 
 is mere Northern Phariseeism ; nay, though men of this same 
 class in the Northern States have been kept from lifting their 
 hands against the government that God ordained over them, 
 yet they have their errors to confess ; and they will learn, 
 in the school of deep affliction, the great lesson of forbear- 
 ance toward their Southern fellow-citizens, and of sympathy 
 with them as fellow-sufferers. 
 
 These good men can make their influence felt in ending 
 this war; and they must do this on the ground of right. 
 They must also take such an active part hereafter in the con- 
 duct of public affairs, as will make it impossible for corrupt 
 men to climb into stations of honor and emolument, — such 
 a part as will make a Roman Catholic prelate hesitate to 
 address a crowd of foreigners, " men who are called rioters," 
 without uttering any condemnation of their crimes of murder 
 and arson. In this respect the schooling of war may be a 
 national blessing. I must not dwell on this topic, but my 
 heart glows with hope when I remember how many hundreds 
 of thousands, and even millions, of such intelligent and con- 
 scientious people there are in our country, and when I feel 
 persuaded that they will yet wield their great influence to- 
 gether for the common good. 
 
 But in the meanwhile? 
 
 Yes, you say most truly, This war is a dreadful thing. Its 
 losses, sufferings, destruction, and death are awful things — can 
 they not be ended ? And you ask, Can you suggest nothing 
 at all for their termination? Would to God these terrible 
 evils were indeed at an end ! It is most lamentable to see 
 the evils of war in so many distressing forms all around us, 
 but after long and earnest reflection I can see onl}' one way 
 in which they can be brought to an end, and that is by the 
 dispersion of the military force of the rebels and the re-es- 
 tablisliment of the authority of the Government. But let me 
 invoke your help, my dear friend, by supposing a case near 
 your own home that would be in some respects parallel to 
 oui's, and by asking what you would then do yourself. 
 
LETTER OX THE AMERICAN WAR. 19 
 
 We have the Soutli and Slavery. You have Ireland and 
 Romanism. The Romanist priests correspond closel}'- to our 
 slaveholders in one respect, in their power over the ignorant 
 masses of their people. Thev also have an intense dislike of 
 the government of their country. Now suppose Ireland to 
 be in rebellion, — southern Ireland. Ostensibly it is for de- 
 liverance from English oppression, — for independence ; " too 
 long has Ireland borne the hated yoke of the Saxon ;" but 
 really it is a rebellion in the interest of Romanism, and it en- 
 joys the sympathies of bigotted Romanists in other lands, 
 even as our southern aristocrats are honored in certain Euro- 
 pean circles of society. The Irish rebellion is countenanced 
 by priests and bishops, and it enrols the ignorant masses in 
 its ranks, led by ambitious leaders after the type of O'Connell, 
 like our "poor white trash" in the South, who are followers^ 
 of Jefferson Davis. It is a rebellion without adequate cause; 
 it strikes deadly blows against the Queen's good government, 
 and yet it demands to be let alone ! All it wants is separation 
 from England, and independence — that is all ! And it wants 
 this for no other earthly reason than because the spirit of Ro- 
 manism is hostile to the enlightened policy of the British 
 nation. In this case what would you do ? Would you counsel 
 the Queen to let Ireland go? Would you come to terms with 
 the bishops at the head of their armies ? Would you yield up 
 to destruction the property, and to death or banishment the 
 persons, of loyal people in Ireland? Could you thus counsel 
 your Sovereign ? Never ! You would call forth the military 
 power of the kingdom to put down the rebellion. You 
 would not put money or life in the scale against the integrity 
 of the nation. Your public men would not express their sym- 
 pathy with the rebels, nor your Times sneer at the efforts made 
 to put them down. Your religious newspapers would not feel 
 " unable to see anything to be gained by such a conflict," nor 
 would they look on both parties as " equally to be pitied," or 
 perchance to be rebuked with a self-righteous severity. The 
 common voice of England and Scotland, and of all that was 
 loyal in Ireland, would require the rebellion to be put down 
 at any and at every cost. 
 
20 LETTEE ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 Yon would not wage the war against the Eoman Catholic 
 religion, however, though you might feel assured that it was 
 at the bottom of all the trouble, the real cause of all the 
 calamities. You would not destroy the Romanist churches, 
 nor overthrow by military force the superstitious ideas of the 
 bigotted people ; but you would at the same time rejoice that 
 the war against the rebellion tended greatly to weaken the 
 attachment of the Irish people to a religion that brings upon 
 them such evils, and destroys in their hearts the feeling of 
 loyalty to your admirable Queen. In honest truth, you would 
 do very much what we are trying to do. You would stand 
 for your Queen and country. 
 
 And yet, you might counsel her majesty to let the Irish go, 
 to recognize the kingdom of Ireland, with almost infinitely 
 less of sacrifice and of the risk of terrible evils, than we 
 should sufier in consenting to a Southern Confederacy. Ire- 
 land lies across an arm of the sea from England ; you could 
 be»separated. But there cannot be two governments in this 
 land. We must be one nation, whether its policy be anti- 
 slavery or pro-slavery. No peace between the Union and the 
 Confederacy could stand long. It would be but an armed 
 truce, to be maintained by a large militar}' force and fortifi- 
 cations without number, on both sides of a geographical line 
 3,000 miles in length. It would be a truce incurring hourly 
 risk of ending in bloodshed. Fugitive slaves would cross over 
 the line, be reclaimed, and not be returned, though followed 
 by armed troops, to be repelled by troops more numerous. 
 Unlawful commerce, resulting from different tariffs, would 
 require custom stations at every mile, giving rise to number- 
 less angry collisions. The great rivers, rising in the north, 
 reaching the sea in the south, freighted even now with the 
 commerce of more white people than can be found in all the 
 rebel states, forbid the separation of the north and the south ; 
 so do the chains of our mountains, running as they do from 
 the north to the soutli. The exam])les cited in reply to this, 
 from different nations dwelling on the Rhine and the Danube, 
 arc of little force. Tlie element of slavery is not found among 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 21 
 
 them. The extent of their territory is not very large. Other 
 points of difference will be apparent to one who considers 
 what goes to constitute a nation. And at any rate it is 
 best for people living on a common great river to be under 
 one government, provided, only, they are of a common stock, 
 of the same language and the same religion. The Creator of 
 this broad land has shown his will, we may reverently be- 
 lieve, that its inhabitants should be under one government. 
 
 Deeply do I feel the impossibility of our having any long 
 continued peace between two governments occupying this 
 one territory, especially when so related as would be a pro- 
 slavery and an anti-slavery power. If it had been considered 
 at all practicable to avoid perpetual trouble, outbreaks, scenes 
 of violence, followed by war on the borders, and ending in 
 war in all the land, I in common with thousands of our 
 northern people would have almost welcomed separation 
 from our misguided southern fellow-citizens, yes, almost on 
 any terms, long before the attack on Sumter. Lovers of 
 peace, having a perfect horror of war, though like the true 
 mother we could not have willingly consented to see our be- 
 loved country divided in twain, yet we miglit nevertheless 
 have yielded almost everything for the sake of peace, if there 
 only could have been continued peace. Alas, there was to 
 be no peace for us ! This war has come. There can be no 
 peace while the rebellion lasts. We must go on in this dread- 
 ful conflict, so far as I can forecast the future, even as you 
 would go on in an Irish rebellion, until the authority of the 
 government is once more established. 
 
 I do not despair of the Eepublic. I never did. The pros- 
 pects of the rebellion are now heavily overcast. Its territory 
 is reduced by the loss of Maryland, Western Virginia, Mis- 
 souri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and portions of other States, so 
 that it is hardly one-half as extensive as it was a year ago ; 
 and the reduction hi its resources of men and military sup- 
 plies is even greater. It has lost the command of the Missis- 
 sippi. It has lost prestige. It is becoming demoralized. 
 Singular as it may appear, its strength is outside of itself — in 
 
22 LETTEE ON THE AMEEICAN WAR. 
 
 the lingering sympathy of its northern friends and its hopes 
 of European intervention. But its northern sympathisers are 
 diminishing in number, though the virulence of their leaders 
 may be increasing. The honest masses of the Democratic 
 party are as loyal as any of our citizens. A few of their 
 political leaders are no donbt disloyal men, but they would 
 quickly be displaced if they should show in clear colours 
 their treasonable purposes. Besides, they meet with no en- 
 couragement even from the rebels ; for they, with a stead- 
 fastness worthy of a better cause, refuse to listen to any terms 
 of reconciliation, except on the basis of southern independ- 
 ence — a basis that will never be acknowledged. 
 
 As to European intervention in aid of the rebellion, you 
 ought to be well informed concerning the probability of such 
 assistance. It is astonishing to me that it should be seriously 
 thouglit of. I think your government understands the case 
 too well, to commit folly so great and a crime so deep as to 
 array itself on the side of the rebels. I deplore greatly the 
 sufferings of your countrymen in Lancashire and other places, 
 and of the workmen in so many French factories. It seems 
 to be the will of God that all connected with our slave-grown 
 cotton, at home and abroad, should be brought into distress. 
 Intervention, however, would but increase this distress. It 
 would at once result in war. The ocean would soon be cov- 
 ered with privateers. Burning the captured ships after plun- 
 dering them would be the rule, following the unprohibited 
 Confederate example. The freightage of our commerce in 
 our own ships has been nearly destroyed by half-a-dozen of 
 Alabainas and Floiidas. Judge of the disastrous results to 
 your commerce, when hundreds of similar privateers are let 
 loose upon it. War between your country and mine would 
 be the greatest calamity in other respects to butli nations and 
 to tlie world. It would tend rapidly to overthrow the rising 
 civilization of many countries. It would be ruinous to the 
 ha])piiiessof myriads of your people and mine. I dread even 
 to think of such calamities as at all probable. But if you can 
 stand them, wc can. Indeed, we must— in self-defence; for 
 
LETTER ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 23 
 
 no otlier war with your country will our people wage, not- 
 withstanding the instigation of some of our neM'spapers, 
 especially those conducted by some of your former country- 
 men ; but in defence of our national existence, we shall shrink 
 from no calamities. How infinitely better it were, however, 
 for our nations to live in peace with each other ! And, if 
 need be, to stand together against the power that threatens the 
 peace and liberty of the world ! 
 
 I refer to the portentous power of !N^apoleon III. It is 
 difficult to understand his probable course. He is capable of 
 doing anything that is wrong, but he is not blind to his own 
 interest. What advantage he could gain by taking up the 
 cause of the rebellion, that would for a moment counter- 
 balance the various dangers of such a course, and the im- 
 mense debt which he must incur in a fruitless war with this 
 country, I am at a loss to conceive. Indeed, I seriously think 
 that his purposes of foreign aggression have their object 
 much nearer home, I have for years believed that his greatest 
 purpose is the invasion of England. Let. him hold London 
 as a military post, and he will have reached the highest pin- 
 nacle of fame. Compared with this, what would be the ecJat 
 of protecting a few Creole Frenchmen in Xew Orleans? 
 Your country does well, my dear friend, to be on its guard 
 against the designs of this dangerous, bad man. As for us, 
 we are 3,000 miles distant. This may not perhaps save us 
 from the curse of his reckless ambition, but with our large 
 military force and resources, and with the blessing of Provi- 
 dence, it will enable us to take good care of all the ships and 
 men he may send across the Atlantic against us. Few of 
 them would ever return. Indeed I cannot believe that even 
 Napoleon HI. will consider it safe or prudent " to mix him- 
 self up " with a conflict in which he can reap little gain and 
 less glory, coupled with infinite loss and dishonor. 
 
 With exhausted strength at home, with lessening sympathy 
 in the Northern States, with little hope of help from France, 
 what remains for the Confederates? My answer is, the 
 speedy end of their rebellion. And my prayer is that it may 
 
24 LETTER ON THE AMERICAN" WAR. 
 
 be brouglit to an end before the people of tlie Free States be- 
 come inflamed by a spirit of revenge. Thus far no such feel- 
 ing commonly exists amongst us. "Were the rebellion now 
 ended, gladly would our people pour forth their treasures to 
 relieve the great distress prevailing in the southern part of 
 the country. 
 
 Tlie rebellion ended, its leaders will withdraw from public 
 life ; some of them will emigrate to other countries. Its 
 honest but deluded adherents will be glad to find themselves 
 enjoying peace again in the Union. Slavery will cease to be 
 a controlling power in our national councils. The anti-slav- 
 ery feeling of the country, in the Ilforth and South alike, will 
 be deepened and chastened. Industrial and moral causes will 
 resume their peaceful sway, tending more and more to the 
 freedom of the slaves, and to the best treatment of the 
 negroes when free. And our citizens will have learned les- 
 sons of wisdom from the calamities of these dark days, such 
 as by God's blessing will make them a better peoi^le, less 
 self-confident, and, more than ever fitted for the high trust of 
 self-government. 
 
 With this hope, I close this long letter, only adding the 
 sincere regards with which I am, 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
f 
 

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