The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-04-17
THE NATIONAL ERA: WASHINGTON, D. G, APRIL H. 1856

we have: we have looked after our interests,
she, after hers. She has Islands in the West
Indian Archipelago, proprietary and commercial
interests In Central America, possessions on the
Pacific coast, an empire in North America. Is
wise provision for these vast interests, an ill of.
nee to usa Did she interfere when we made
war on Mexico, took from that Power vast ter
ritories, and established our empire on the Pa
cihcf Do we not know that, had it suited our
own domestic relations, it was always in our
power to have annexed Yucatan, ond one after
another of the States of Central America, with.
out offensive interference on her part? Was
it an ill office to us, when she agreed to the
Treaty of Reciprocity, by which her North Amer.
lean Colonies became one commercially with
the United States? And is it not notorious
that we might have had the Sandwich Islands,
if our Government had wanted them, so far as
England was concerned? All this talk of Eng.
lands meeting US, and hemming US in on every
side, has not a particle of truth in it. Both
nations, in the vast circuit of their doninions, of
ten touch each other: questions of right or in
terest at times necessarily arise between them
each, of course, sets forth and guards its own
rights, as it understands them, not out of i'll will
to the other, but from q natural regard to its
own welfare. What folly to charge proAigate
ambition or hostile intentions upon either, sim.
ply because it urges and advocates its own
claims
But Mr.. Boyce arraigns her for another Of
fence:
=" Her purpose is, if possible, to break mp our
Union; and to do this she stimulates the Sia-
very agitation at the very moment she is hold
ing hundred millions of white men in bondage
In India. She has naturally no antagonsm
with the South, for her prosperity in q very
great degree depends upon the cotton of the
South. Her antagonism is to the North. She
uses the Slavery question as q means to break
up the Union. Once the purpose accomplish
ed, she would trample upon the North and
court the South"
Is it worth while to expose the extreme folly
of all this England's purpose lis to break up
the Union!" In what secret archives is this
written? When did she begin to reveal this
purpose? By what acts has she attempted 10
fulfil it? Was it by the settlement of the Ore
gon and the Eastern Boundary questions, in
accordance with the policy of Southern statss.
men? Was it by the Extradition treaty, by
the Clayton.Bulwer treaty. by the Reciprocity
treaty? All of these acts were intended TO
secure amity and concord between the two ma
tons. Oh she shows this purpose by slim
ulating the Slavery agitation Her people
agitated the question of Slavery when the sys-
tenn existed in her colonies; but, we agitated
it before they did, and abolished it, too, in the
wealthiest States of this Union, before they
thought of doing it in the West Indies. Our
agitation was movement entirely independ-
ent OF theirs, and has been kept up since theirs
ceased. What have the English people to do
with the great movement in relation to Slavery
in this country? Occasionally an English re.
view contained an elaborate article on the alb.
stract question, which the Southern planter
reads without excitement. Now and then a
fraternal memorial comes across the Atlantic.
from members of some religious society in
England, kindly and respectfully bearing their
testimony before their affiliated church breth
rem in the United States on the manifold evils
OF Slavery-memorials which awaken no sen.
sation anywhere. Ninety-nine hundredths of
the English people, in fact make not the
slightest effort in any way to provoke or keep
alive the Slavery agitation among us. Mr..
Boyce cannot be ignorant of this, nor can he
be ignorant of the fact that by no act, direct
or Indirect does the English Government ever
attempt TO influence public opinion in this
country on that subject. Mr.. Boyce must have
lived in world of dreams, fancy world, until
his extravagant visions have assumed to him
an air of reality.
But, what medley England has no an.
tagonism to the South she must have cotton
and so, she is desperately resolved on breaking
up the Union, by stimulating the Slavery agi-
tation, when, could such an event be brought
about in such way, civil war would stop the
production of cotton, and the fields of the
South would be laid wastel Sagacious Eng.
land
But, her antagonism is to the North"
She is going to break up the Union in her
Abolition crusade, for the purpose of tram.
ping the North under foot. She hates Slavery
so badly, that she cannot rest till she get her
foot upon the only States of the Confederacy
which will not tolerate it And then-she is
resolved to break up the Union, so as to tram.
pie upon and destroy the North, with its seven.
teen millions of free people, having found it
30 easy to extinguish the three millions of Col.
onists who rose up against her in l776l
Break up the Union, when she knows that
the next step would be new Union, composed
of the free States, and her own North Ameri.
can Colonies, which then would readily dispense
with her Government Break up the Union,
light up the torch of civil and servile war in a
country, whose cotton-fel supply her looms,
whose granaries feed her laborers, whose cou-
merce, more than that of any other part of DE
world, pours wealth into her treasury
Let us have done with such absur1ities.
England has common sense, if she has nothing
else; give her credit for that, and you dissredit
the wild fantasies and prejudiced clam! RS Of
the whole tribe of Anglophobic orator. and
journalists. A
SENATOR sEwARD's SPEECH,
The speech of Senator Seward, published in
this weeks Era, will be read with deep interest
1t will move the heart of the nation. The able
Geographic correspondent of the New York
Euenino Post q journal not ant IN nra;sa M