The Express.
London, England, 1862-05-02 00:00:00

[Stamped, id. Additional

his property. of all descriptions, with the risk of
hostile armies shattering the whole system into
ruins. Hence, to support the theory that slavery
as a system has been the cause of existing events,
we must suppose its people ignorant of their eon-
etitution and all its safeguards, and blind to evils
and dangers inevitable in the change, and so ob-
vious that he who runs may read them. Bid the
OM of the South have been through the history of the
United States the ablest statesmen of the Union, and it
cannot be conceived that they could be blind to conic-
' so manifest. The truth is apparent that, so
Cer"aluslavery is concerned, the South has !very pos-
sible reason for remaining in the (Tinos, and
(that they have acted in direct opposition to
that interest under the influence of other and more
powerful considerations" (p. 134-5). "It may be said
that although the present state of facts may be as
we have described, yet that the accession of the
republican party to power produced an apprehen-
sion that the strength of the North might be even-
! tually exerted to abolish slavery, and that the
I South have acted in this anticipation."
Not only " way it be saidj" but, as we have seen,
he has himself Raid it. " /iut this theory can only be
I entertained," he coolly continues, "by those who
art unacquainted with American politics. There
exists in the North a small sect of abolitionists,
zealous to fanaticism, but resolute untiring men.
In numbers they are a handful. In polities they
are tabooed by both parties. By the mass of the
people at the North they were avoided and ridiculed.
At the present moment they stand apart in their
laction from that of the Washington government, and
. are one of itemost perplexing difficulties." (P. 136.)
He has, however, told us a few pages previously that
"the abolitionists now impelled those in power."
It thus appears that what we read at page 106 was
all false—that the Southerner does not ' see in the
election of Mr. Lincoln the determination of the
! North as a body to act upon the question of slavery,
in disregard of the constitution ;" that he does not,
I"in the action of the abolitionists now impelling those
in power, forebode the destruction of his property,
the ruin of his State, and the danger of his life ;"
he leaves the Union for " other and more powerful
considerations." What the "other considerations"
are which act upon the Southerner more power-
fully than the prospect of seeing his property de-
, strayed, his State ruined, and his life put m danger
by the abolitionists, Mr. Spetce has not been good
enough to inform us ; but they must be something
novel as well as awful.

I think you will see from the foregoing that it is
in the highest degree improbable that anybody who
knew nothing of American politics, and bad formed
no opinion on the present crisis previous to reading#
the jumble of absurdities forming Mr. Spenoe
disquisition on " the causes of the disruption,"
could form from it any clear idea whatever of the
infitieuces which operated on the South in seceding.
Any one who thinks he has profited by its perusal
was certainly satisfied before he took it up, that the
Mega deserved to go to ruin for some reason or
other, be did not much care what, and has adopted
Mr. Spence's compound as the first and most
agreeable that came to band.
So much for Southern motives for disruption.
Now let us see what we can learn of Northern
intentions in electing Lincoln or in • on the
present war. Let me observe here that Mr. Spence,
a passionate partisan, and avowedly so throughout
his work, never becomes so excited as when he
undertakes to resist the appeal of the North for
sympathy from Englishmen, on the ground that the
war is being carried on on their side against
slavery. This he declares "to be a mockery of
our reason, based on some great delusion in those
who ask it ;" and during the remainder of his
attempt to reply to it his exertions become so violent
that he completely disencumbers himself of both
law and facts, and betakes himself to very
incoherent declamation. He has already informed
us " that the republican party comprises the great
mass of the intellect and wealth of the North,"
and he might have added, of its professed Chris-
tianity. He now proceeds to accuse this party of
oppoong slavery as a mere " matter of party."
" The democrat," he says, "supports slavery ; the
object of the republican is to defeat the democrat ;
therefore he must needs object to slavery as a party
matter." (P. 137.) He adds—forgting again all he
has told us about Southern fears—" the Southerner
is well aware of all this. The agitation of the ques-
tion has no shock of novelty, it has existed for half s
century, and has frequently been more violent than at
any period of the part year. They are well aware of
the considerable portion of make-believe in American
professions. They had ample evidence of the in-
tended policy of the republican party and of the
goyernmegt now under its control." (P. 138.) He
then cites-the passage in the republican platform
drawn up at Chico in 1860, recognising as in-
violate the right of edth State "to order and con-
trol its own domestic 'institutions, according to its
own judgment exclusively ;" also Mr. Lincoln's in-
augural address to the same effect Warming with
the subject, he at last assures us, that so little
sincere hostility to slavery is there at the North,
that, in cane of the South eventually achieving its
independence, " a very prominent condition of
the treaty of peace will doubtless be the rendition
of slaves ;" in other words, Mr. Spence is of
opinion that the rage and indignation which
greeted the Fugitive Slave Law at the North,
and which sent Daniel Webster, their idol,
broken-hearted into private life for having
supported it, was all a sham, and that the
I people will accord cheerfully to a detested enemy
after a bloody war, what it accorded unwillinglyto
a party of its own citizens, which was, according to
ldr. Spence, down to last year in full possession of
" political supremacy."
He has, as we have seen at
.page 106, described
the abolitionists "as now impelling those in
power ;" at page 136, however, he describes them
as " a small sect" " tabooed by both parties," and
" avoided and ridiculed by the mass of the people
at the North ;" and "as standing apart in their
action from the government." As we have just
shown also he denies that the republican party are
animated by any hostility to slavery. At page 147,
however, he accuses the North of having changed its
moral standard with respect to slavery and seeking
to force its altered views upon the South," and
adds, " Any American has a clear right to urge the
abolition of slavery in his own State amongst his
own people, and to use such form of persuasion as
may seem beet to him. But it becomes a very dif-
ferent thing when one section assumes this right
against another section." On the preoeding page (148)
ho tells us that the agitation against slavery at the
North is la gnawing agitation,', which not only
aims at the destruction of their property (that of
the Southerners) accompanied by the jeopardy of
their existence, but holds them up to scorn in the
press, in the pulpit, in society, as men of no prin-
ciple of no humanity ; which depicts them as
monsters in novels, and denounces them as repro-
bates in sermons.' He adds, moreover, that
" the Southerner is conscious that the rising gene-
ration at the North is being educated to look on him
as oneof a lower order of civilisation, ass culprit and
a sinner, whom it is a religious duty to reclaim
from the error of his ways, or to punish him for hie
wickedness." (P. 146.) Yon see the demand he
makes on our stupidity here. He requires us to be-
lieve either theta small sect at the North, "tabooed

by both parties," and " avoided and ridiculed by
the mass of the people," nevertheless had the con-
trol of the pulpit and the press, and of society,
and more than this, of the education of the young,
and used them against slavery with such terrible
effect as to madden the Southern States, containing,
as he says at page 145, " the most accomplished
and refined of American society," into revolution
and civil war, or else that the republican party,
comprising, as he also states, "the wealth
and intellect of the North," and the masses of the
Northern people, though animated by no hostility
to slavery, actually have been such scheming

[TWOPENI

hypocrites as to use their books, newspapers,
churches, for years, for the furious denunciation
of it, anal as a crowning stroke of baseness, have
trained their children up to loathe it, and to loathe
anddespiseshtveholders, simply "asapartymatter
and for the purpose of " defeating the democrats."
More than this, if more be possible, he actually
identifies the abolitionists with the Northern
people, by reproaching them at p. 149 with having
failed to emancipate the slaves in the district of
Columbia ; at p. 160, with having failed to emanci-
pate them in the little state of Delaware, and with
the poverty and degradation of the free blacks at
the North ; and to crown all, at p. 151 with not
having suppressed the slave trade at Boston and
New York. "How," he asks, after enumerating
all these sins of " omission, "shall we account for
the apathy of the abolitionists at home ?' Now it
is plain, even if we were all as muddlebrained as
Mr. Spence evidently takes us to be, that if the
abolitionist& be only a amall " tabooed," " ridi-
culed," and " avoided sect," at the North,
it is absurd to reproach them with any
of these things ; and if the rest of the
republicans be as notoriously wanting in hostility
to slavery as Mr. Speuce declares them to be, there
was no inconsistency whatever in their leaving it un-
touched, even where they had the power to abolish
it--a power which, however, according to Mr.
Spence's own showing, in other places, they neves
, either in Delaware or the district of Co-
tbe South, by leaguing itself with the
foreign pro-slavery democrats of the North, "was
always able to outvote than, and command a constant
majority." (P. 103.)
Through the whole of this extraordinary per-
formance Mr. Spence quotes but one fact in sup-
port of his various conclusions, and this, as might
be expected, he mis-states. The blunder displays
such a want of care that it would be inexcusable
under any circumstances, but it is doubly inex-
cusable when committed by a writer who has been
set up for the last six months as the highest
authority in England upon questions of American
constitutional law. He alleges as a proof of the
truth of his statement, that the South neither
feared anything nor had anything to fear touching
slavery from the accession of the republicans to
power, that a certain "addition has been made to
the constitution since Mr. Lincoln's inauguration,"
and that "it was proposed by Congress on the
3rd of March last (1861), and runs thus :—' That
no amendment shall be made to the constitution
which will authorise or rive Congress lower to
abolish or interfere, within any State, with the
domestic institutions thereof, including that of
persons held to labour or servitude by the laws of
the said State." "It is," says Mr. izazz
" therefore, now part of the constitution a
of the United States that its government has no
power, and never shall take any power, to interfere
with slavery in any of the States.' And irtheron, in
reference to the same thing, he adds, " now delouse
of at constitution, supreme above the powers of
Cowma, ordains that slavery, so far as Federal
legislation or government extends, is irrevocable
in the United States " (pp. 140.1).
Now if he had read carefully the copy of the
constitution of the United States, which he has
printed in the appendix to his own book, he would
have seen that the sth article of that instrument
runs as follows : _ _ _

" The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both
houses shall deem it necessary, shall propos!,
amendments to this constitution, or, on the apph-
cation of the legislatures of two-thirds of ths
several states, shall call a convention for proposing
amendments, which in either eass shall be valid to
all intents and purposes as part of this oonstiku-
Moo, whew ratified by the iegierss of three fourths
of the several States, or by conventions in three.
fourths thereof, as one or other mode of ratification
may be proposed by the Congress."
So that in order to become part of the oonstita-
tion the above amendment in March, 1861, must
have been agreed to by the legislatures of at least
twenty-five States, or, in other words, by
all the Free States and six of the Slave
States. This, I need hardly say, was
not yossible, even if it had been tried ;
but it was not tried. The proposition
Cowes

was not voted upon at all after
stioderseed it. The States that had then
would not have accepted it, and few
of the Free States would have concurred in it. So
that it forms part of the Federal bond, " supreme
above the powers of Congress," nowhere except in
Mr. Spence's imagination, and yet he has actually
added it to the list of amendments to the oonsti-

tntion in_ Ina appendix, with the date of its

44 ravage,
Hie treatment of the question of slavery iu the
territories is as much marked by confusion and
inaccuracy as the rest of his essay.
April 28.

E. L. G: