The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-20 00:00:00

SOUTBERN CLAIMS TO ENGLISH

SYMPATHY.

(From the New York Tribune.)
Years ago, when the text of Punch was read, not
tolerated for the sake of its illustrations, there ap-
peared among the latter a large cut by Richard
Doyle, entitled, if we remember aright, " The
Smartest Nation in all Creation." It represented a
villanous-faced Yankee lolling in a rocking-chair, a
slave-whip and revolver held carelessly in each hand
the long, ungainly legs sprawling over a fallen bust
of Washington, while in the upward curling smoke
of the cigar inserted in the evil mouth were deline-
ated sundry 'little vignettes illustrative of our as-
sumed national characteristics. Therein one saw
slave-whippings and hangings, duels with muskets
and bowie-knives, Lynch law, filibusterism and re-
pudiation, and similar agreeable subjects, all of them
presenting a tolerably comprehensive picture of the
European estimate of the ugly side of American in-
stitutions. As Punch now, in his national capacity
of puppet, is doing his worst and meanest to incite
hatred and contempt, not of the American body
politic, but of that half of it still faithful to its Go-
vernment and laws, we would commend to the Bri-
tish public and to Europe the following proposition.
That all or nearly all cf American characteristics,
legislation, and proclivities, reprobated in the eyes
of the world are intrinsically Southern—appertain-
ing to or originating in the rebellion, section of onr
nationality ; for the success of which British sympa-
thies are now so perversely enlisted. Without ex-
pecting to do more than merely suggest some of
these, we shall put them on record as appropriate
übjecis ror British contemplation.

First, as to characteristics: The popular pictorial
representation of American nationality in Europe
is a tall, thin, long-haired man, of cadaverous coun-
tenance, with cunning, deep-set eyes, and strongly
marked features,

" A good deal like a -vulture in the face I"
attired in an unfashionable suit of clothes, including
short pantaloons, a wide-brimed straw hat, clumsy
boots and a revolver or bowie-knife. This individual
is supposed to chew tobacco unceasingly, to expec-
torate fluently, to ignore social decencies and pro-
prieties, to be prone to use the murderous weapons
which he habitually carries upon small provocation
—to be, in short, vulgar, brutal, violent and aggres-
sive. Where was this ideal studied from ? Is there
anything like it in New York, in Pennsylvania, in
New England ? Assuredly not. But every one of
these particulars (except, perhaps the revolver—
that would be above his means) applies to the
Georgia " cracker" or the " up-country " South
Carolinian. Our correspondents described whole
military companies composed of such material pour-
ing into Charleston on the evacuation of Fort
Moultrie for Sumter by Major Anderson, burning
to assault the latter and avenge the " insult" to their
" sovereign" States. And, despite the Richmond
correspondent of the London Times, of such men is
the main bulk of the rebel army composed. The
" Yankee" of European caricature can hardly be
considered an exaggeration of the lower phase of
Southern character, and belongs essentially to it.
Unconsciously and most unjustifiably he is accepted
abroad as the type of our nationality, not as the
miserable abortion that has grown up within its
shadow.

Secondly, as concerns legislation: Here we shall
find the South the persistent enemy of Liberty, of
Constitutionalism, and of Great Britain: the con-
sistent advocate of aggression, filibusterism, and
war. A very few data will suffice to prove this.
It was Southern politicians who affected the acqui-
sition of Louisiana, turning the Anti-Slavery Re-
public of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton into a
republic of freemen governed by slaveholders, by
passing a bill which, in the words of Jefferson, then
president, " was destined to annul the constitution of
his country, and indefinitely to extend an institution
upon which he had himself sought to place the seal of
death twenty years before." His consent, as that o f
the people;!was solicited, and in part gained, on the
grounds that the proposed purchase would damage
En gland,the favourite of Federalism, while drawing
us closer to France. It was the South that, in pur-
suance of its unvarying policy of the extension of the
area of slavery, secured the admission of Missouri
as a Slave State, the passage of the famous "com-
promise" (which it subsequently abrogated for iden-
tical reasons), and contrived the annexing of Texas,
thereby extending its accursed institution over avast
tract of country that had previously abolished it.
To effect this and overcome the repugnance of the
North, Southern politicians proclaimed that Eng-
land had secret designs upon Texas, and that the
embryo State, rebuffed by her natural friends, would
inevitably throw herself into the arms of " perfidious
Albion" if not accepted by us. It was the South
that instigated the war upon Mexico, resulting in
the acquisition of more territory, for the same bad
object, but imperfectly attained, in consequence of
the gold discoveries of California inducing its ad-
mission as a free State, which the South bitterly op-
posed until the compromise measures of 1850 gave
her more than an equivalent. It was the South that
abolished the Missouri compromise and carried
blood and fire, and banners bearing the inscription
of "God and Slavery" into Kansas. It was the
South that coveted Cuba, Nicaragua, the West
Indies ; that organised filibustering expeditions
under Lopez and Walker; that indorsed the infa-
mous Cuban manifesto, justifying the stealing of that
island, in case Spain demurred at parting with it for
a stated price. It was the South that proposed to
reopen and legalise the slave trade. It was in
Southern seaports that free coloured seamen, British
subjects, were subject to be whipped and imprisoned
for going ashore, an instance of which was only
frustrated at Norfolk, Virginia, as late as February,
1857, by the British consul, Mr. G. P. R. James,
paying costs under protest. It was the South that
invented repudiation ; that has chosen an arch-re-
pudiator for its first President. It is the South
which has upon all occasions traded in and pandered
to the anti-English feelings of our adopted Irish
citizens, avowing itself a war party and its policy
as aggressive and hostile toward Great Britain. If
these be recommendations to her good-will, here are
surely enough of them ?