The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-25 00:00:00

'4 USES OFTRE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR,

(Continued from the Times of May 23.)
It is strange that Englishmen should find diffi-
culty in understanding that the United States Go-
vernment is a nation among the nations of the
earth ; a constituted authority, which may be over-
thrown by violence, as may be the fate of any
State, whether kingdom or republic, bat which is
false to the people if it does not its best to pre-
serve them from the horrors of anarchy, even at
the cost of blood. The " United States" happens to
be a plural title, but the commonwealth thus de-
signated is a unit, "epluribus unum." The Union
alone is clothed with Imperial attributes ; 'the
Union alone is known and recognised in the family
of nations ; the Union alone holds the purse and
the sword, regulates foreign intercourse, imposes
taxes on foreign commerce, makes war and concludes
peace. The armies, the navies, the militia belong
to the Union alone,and the President is Commander-
in-Chief of all. No State can keep troops or fleets.
What man in the civilized world has not heard of
the United States ? What man in England can tell
the names of all the individual States ? And yet,
with hardly a superficial examination of our history
and our Constitution, men talk glibly about a con-
federacy, a compact, a copartnership, and the right
of a State to secede at pleasure, not knowing that
by admitting such loose phraseology and such
imaginary rights, we should violate the first prin-
ciples of our political organization, should fly in the
face of our history, should trample under foot the
teachings of Jay, Hamilton, Washington, Marshall,
Madison, Dane, Kent, Story, and Webster, and ac-
cepting only the dogmas of Mr. Calhoun as infal-
lible, surrender for ever our national laws and our
national existence.
Englishmen themselves live in a united empire ;
but if the kingdom of Scotland should secede,should
seize all the national property, forts, arsenals, and
public treasure on its soil, organize an army, send
forth foreign Ministers to Louis Napoleon, the Em-
peror of Austria, and other Powers. issue invita-
tions to all the pirates of the world to prey upon
English commerce, screening their piracy from
punishment by the banner of Scotland, and should
announce its intention of planting that flag upon
Buckingham Palace, it is probable that a blow or
two would be struck to defend the national honour
and the national existence, without fear that the
civil war would be denounced as wicked and fratri-
cidal. Yet it would be difficult to show that the
State of Florida, for example, a Spanish province,
purchased for national purposes some 40 years ago
by the United States Government for several mil-
lions, and fortified and furnished with naval yards
for national uses at a national expense of many
more millions, and numbering at this moment a
population of only 80,000 white men, should be
more entitled to resume its original sovereignty
than the ancient kingdom of William the Lion and
Robert Bruce.
The terms of the treaty between England and
Scotland were perpetual, and so is the constitution
of the United States. The united empire may be
destroyed by revolution and war, and so may the
United States ; but a peaceful and legal dismember-
ment without the consent of a majority of the whole
people is an impossibility.
But it is sometimes said that the American Re-
public originated in secession from the mother
country, and that it is unreasonable of the Union to
resist the seceding movement on the part of the
new Confederacy. But it so happens that the one
case suggests the other only by the association of
contrast. The 13 colonies did not intend to secede
from the British empire. They were forced into
secession by a course of policy en the part of the
mother country so as no English Administration at
the present day can be imagined capable of adopt-
ing. Those Englishmen in America were loyal to
the Crown ; bat they exercised the right which cis-
Atlantic or transatlantic Englishmen have always
exercised, of resistance to arbitrary Government.
Taxed without being represented, and insulted by
measures taken to enforce the odious, but not exor-
bitant imposts, they did not secede, nor declare their
independence. On the contrary, they made every
effort to avert such a conclusion. In the words of
the forest-born Demosthenes"—as Lord Byron
called the great Virginian, Patrick Henry,—
" The Americans petitioned, remonstrated, cast them-
selves at thefoot of the Throne, and implored its interposi-
tion to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministers and Par-
liament. But their petitions were slighted, their remon-
strances procured only additional violence and insult, and
they were spurned with contempt from the foot of the
Throne."

The " Boston massacre," the Boston port-bill,
the Boston tea party," the battle of Lexington,
the battle of Bunker's-hill were events which long
preceded the famous Declaration of Independence.
It was not till the colonists felt that redress for
grievances was impossible that they took the irre-
vocable step, and renounced their allegiance to the
Crown. The revolution had come at last, they had
been forced into it, but they knew that it was re-
volution, and that they were acting at the peril of
their lives. "We must be unanimous in this busi-
ness," said Hancock ; " we must all hang together."
"Yes," replied Franklin, " or else we shall all hang
separately."

The risk incurred by the colonists was enormous,
but the injury to the mother country was compara-
tively slight. They went out into darkness and
danger themselves, but the British empire was not
thrown into anarchy and chaos by their secession,
Thus their course was the reverse of that adopted
by the South. The prompt secession of seven States
because of the constitutional election of a President
over the candidates voted for by their people was
the redress in advance of grievances which they
may, reasonably or unreasonably, have expected,
but which had not yet occurred. There is the high
authority of the Vice-President of the Southern
Confederacy, who declared a week after the elec-
tion of Mr. Lincoln that the election was not a
cause for secession, and that there was no certainty
that he would have either the power or the inclina-
tion to invade the constitutional rights of the South.
In the Free States it was held that the resolutions
of the convention by which Mr. Lincoln was nomi-
nated were scrupulously and conscientiously framed
to protect all those constitutional rights. The ques-
tion of slavery in the territories, of the future ex-
tension of slavery, was one which had always been
an open question, and on which issue was now joined.
But it was no question at all that slavery within a
State was sacred from all interference by the general
Government, or by the Free States, or by indivi-
duals in those States; and the Chicago Convention
strenuously asserted that doctrine.
The question of free trade, which is thrust before
the English public by many journals, had no imme-
diate connexion with the secessios, although doubt-
less the desire of direct trade with Europe has long
been a prominent motive at the South. The Gulf
States seceded under the moderate tariff of 1857,
for which South Carolina voted side by side with
Massachusetts. The latter State, although for
political, not economical, reasons it thought itself
obliged since the secession to sustain the Pennsyl-
vania interest by voting for the absurd Morrill Bill,
is not in favour of protection. On the contrary, the

great manufactories on the Merrimac river have
long been independent of protection, and export
many million dollars' worth of cotton and other
fabrics to foreign countries, underselling or com-
peting with all the world in open market. It would
be impossible for any European nation to drive the
American manufacturer from the markets of the
American continent in the principal articles of
cheap clothing for the masses, tariff or no tariff.
This is a statistical fact which cannot be impugned.
The secession of the colonies, after years of op-
pression and grievances for which redress had been
sought in vain, left the British empire, 3,000 miles
off, in security, with constitution and laws noire.
paired, even if its colonial territory were seriously
diminished. The secession of the Southern States, in
contempt of any other remedy for expected griev-
ances, is followed by the destruction of the whole
body politic of which they were vital parts.
Not only is the united Republic destroyed if the
revolution prove successful, but, even if the people
of the free States have the enthusiasm and sagacity
to reconstruct their Union, and by a new national
convention to re-ordain and re-establish the time-
honoured constitution, still an immense territory is
bat. But the extent of that terntoryis not the prin-
-1

cipal element in the disaster. The world is wide
enough for all. It is the loss of the southern marine
frontier which is fatal to the Republic. Florida and
the vast Louisiana territory purchased by the Union
from foreign countries, and garnished with fortresses
at the expense of the Union, are fallen with all these
improvements into the hands of a foreign and un-
friendly Power. Should the dire misfortune of a
war with a great maritime nation, with England or
France for example, befall the Union, its territory,
hitherto almost impregnable, might now be open
to fleets and armies acting in alliance with a hos-
tile " Confederacy," which has become possessed
of an important part of the Union's maritime line
of defence. Moreover, the Union has 12,000 ships,
numbering more than 5,000,000 tons, the far greater
part of which belongs to the free States, and the
vast commerce of the Mississippi and the Gulf of
Mexico requires and must receive protection at
every hazard.
Is it strange that the Union should make a vigo-
rous, just, and lawful effort to save itself from the
chaos from which the Constitution of 1787 rescued
the country ? Who that has read and pondered the
history of that dark period does not shudder at the
prospect of its return ?
But yesterday we were a State—the Great Re-
public—prosperous and powerful, with a flag known
and honoured all over the world. Seventy years
ago we were a helpless league of bankrupt and law-
less petty sovereignties. 'We had a currency so
degraded that a leg of mutton was cheap at 1000 dols.
The national debt, incurred in the War of Indepen-
dence, had hardly a nominal value, and was consi-
dered worthless. The absence of law, order, and
security for life and property was as absolute as
could be well conceived in a civilised land. Debts
could not be collected, courts could enforce no decrees,
insurrections could not be suppressed. The army of
the Confederacy numbered eighty men. From this
condition the constitution rescued us.
That great law, reported by the general Conven-
tion of 1787, was ratified by the people of all the
land voting in each state for a ratifying Convention
chosen expressly for that purpose. It was promul-
gated in the name of the people :—" We, the people
of the United States, in order to forma more perfect
Union, and to secure the blessings of liberty for
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish
this constitution." It was ratified by the people—
not by the States acting through their Governments,
legislative and executive, but by the people electing
especial delegates within each State ; and it is im-
portant to remember that in none of these ratifying
Conventiens was any reserve made of a State's right
to repeal the Union or to secede.
Many criticisms were offered in the various rati-
fying ordinances, many amendments suggested, but
the acceptance of the constitution, the submission to
the perpetual law, was in all cases absolute. The
language of Virginia was most explicit on this
point. " The powers granted under the constitution,
being derived from the people of the United States,
may be resumed by them whenever the same shall
be perverted to their injury or oppression." That
the people of the United States, expressing their
will solemnly in national Convention, are compe-
tent to undo the work of their ancestors, and are
fully justified in so doing when the constitution
shall be perverted to their injury and oppression,
there is no man in the land that doubts. This
course has been already indicated as the only peace-
ful revolution possible; but such a proceeding is
very different from the secession ordinance of a
single state resuming its sovereignty of its own free
will, and without consultation with the rest of the
inhabitants of the country.
" There was no reservation (says Justice Story) of any
right on the part of any State to dissolve its connexion or
to abrogate its dissent, or to suspend the operation of the
constitution as to itself."
And thus, when the ratifications had been made,
a new commonwealth took its place among the na-
tions of the earth. The effects of the new constitu-
tion were almost magical. Order sprang out of
chaos. Law resumed its reign; debts were col-
lected ; life and property became secure ; the na-
tional debt was funded and ultimately paid, prin-
cipal and interest, to the uttermost farthing; the
articles of the treaty of peace in 1783 were fulfilled,
and Great Britain, having an organised and united
State to deal with, entered into a treaty of commerce
and amity with us—the first and the best ever
negotiated between the two nations. Not the least
noble of its articles (21st) provided that the accept-
ance by the citizens or subjects of either country of
foreign letters of marque should be treated and
punished as piracy. Unfortunately, that article and
several others were limited to 12 years, and were
not subsequently renewed. The debts due to British
subjects were collected, and the British Govern-
ment at last surrendered the forts on our soil.
In the last 19 years there have been four sepa-
rate tariffs passed by the American Congress, and
nothing is more probable than that the suicidal
Morrill tariff will receive essential modifications
even in the special session of July ; but the woes
caused by secession and civil war are infinite ; and
whatever be the result of the contest this genera
tion is not likely to forget the injuries already in
flitted.

The great Secession, therefore, of 1860-1 is a re-
bellion, like any other insurrection, against esta-
blished authority, and has been followed by civil
war, as its immediate and inevitable consequence.
If successful, it is revolution, and whether success-
ful or not it will be judged before the tribunal of
mankind and posterity according to the eternal
laws of reason and justice.
Time and history will decide whether it was a
good and sagacious deed to destroy a fabric of so
long duration, because of the election of Mr. Lin-
coln ; whether it were wise and noble to substitute
over a large portion of the American soil a Confe-
deracy of which slavery, in the words of its Vice-
President, is the corner-stone, for the old Republic,
of which Washington, with his own hand, laid the
corner-stone.

It is conceded by the North, that it has received
from the Union innumerable blessings. But it
would seem that the Union had also conferred bene-
fits on the South. It has carried its mails at a
large expense. It has recaptured its fugitive slaves,
It has purchased vast tracts of foreign territory, out
of which a whole tier of Slave States has been con-
structed. It has annexed Texas. It has made war
with Mexico. It has made an offer, not likely to
be repeated, however—to purchase Cuba, with its
multitude of slaves, at a price, according to report,
as large as the sum paid by England for the eman- i
cipation of her slaves. Individuals in the Free
States have expressed themselves freely on slavery,
as upon every topic of human thought, and this
must ever be the case where there is freedom
of the press and of speech. The number
of professed abolitionists has hitherto been very
small, while the great body of the two prin-
cipal political parties in the Free States have
been strongly opposed to them. The Republican
party was determined to set bounds to the exten-
sion of slavery, while the Democratic party favoured
that system, but neither had designs secret or
avowed against slavery within the States. They
knew that the question could only be legally and
rationally dealt with by the States themselves.
But both the partiei, as present events are so
signally demonstrating, were imbued with a pas-
sionate attachment to the Constitution—to the esta-
blished authority of Government, by which alone
our laws and our liberty are secured. All parties
in the Free States are now united as one man, in-
spired by a noble and generous emotion to vindicate
the sullied honour of their flag, and to save their
country trom the abyss of perdition into which it
seemed descending.
Of the ultimate result we have no intention of
speaking.
Hall is to end in negotiation and
separation, not-
withstanding the almost interminable disputes con-
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as the result of total defeat in the field, it is at any
rate certain that both parties will negotiate more
equitably with arms in their hands than if the un-
armed of either section were to deal with the armed.

If it comes to permanent separation, too, it is cer-
tain that in the Commonwealth which will still
glory in the name of the United States, and whose
people will doubtless re-establish the old Constitu-

tion with some important amendments, the word
secession will be a sound of woe not to be lightly
uttered. It will have been proved to designate,
not a peaceful and natural function of political life,
but to be only another expression for revolution,
bloodshed, and all the horrors of civil war.
It is probable that a long course of years will be
run,
and many inconveniences and grievances en-
dured, before any one of the Free States secedes
from the reconstructed