The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-12-04
OUR CAUSE IN ENGLAND.
SPEECH OF HENRY WARD
BEECHER.
HIS IMPRESSIONS IN ENGLAND.
Feelings Of Different Classes in
England Towards the
United States.

A crowded audience assembled in the
Brooklyn Academy of Music to welcome
Rev. HENRY WARD BEEcHER on his re-
turn from Europe, and to hear his narra-
tive of personal experiences in England.
Mr.. BEEoHER's entrance upon the stage
was the signal for long outburst of hearty
applause, repeated again and again. Final
" the audience rose and gave him three
cheers.
After some preliminary remarks, Mr..
BERoHER said:
DENIAL OF MORAL SYMPATHY.
The denial of moral sympathy in Great
Britain was only interpreted by the active as
sertions of certain parts of the British people
on behalf of the South, so much so that it,
think, will scarcely be denied by any man that
if the shipyards, and foundries, and looms, and
shops of Great Britain, had refused the succ0r
to rebellion, the rebellion would have died out
in the nation long ago. said in private what
it did not seem altogether judiciOus to say in
public that in some sense might bring this
war and lay it at the feet of the British people,
and say, not that you intended 1t, but that the
course of conduct pursued, legal or illegal, was
SUCH tQ8L, Out lOT yOus tulS ACUCAlOu WOuAO
have persisted almost in the beginning of it.
TApplause.J 81
WHAT TIE REBELS HAVE DONE IN ENGLAND.
found the most active and inscriptions
efforts made by our Southern men to stir up
animosity towards our country. And let me
say that the bad cause was better served than
q good one there, as to some extent 1t has been
in our own land; for am sure that the South,
fora bad cause, has more nearly put forth every
particle OF strength that it has to put forth than
we have for a good cause. And as it il at
to England to influence public opinion, they
sent a score; where we put one book of infor-
nation, they put q library; where we touched
one spring they touched hundred. They
seemed to pervade England, and they seemed
with the unerring instinct of selishness and
despotism, to know just where to undermine
the generous and better feelings-just where to
invoke the influence of ignorance-just where
to touch men so that principle should fall and
profit take its place. Applause.) You NAV
then imagine the surprise and skepticism with
which, under these circumstances, received
the assurance of friends on every side that the
great heart of the British nation was on our
side.
Mr.. Beecher then took up one part of Eng
lish society after another, to show the feeling
Of different classes towards u.s. beginning with
THE COMMERCIAL GLASS.
First, there is the great commercial class of
England-those that are making money, and
those that have made it; if you please call
them the Plutocracy. They are against us. In
the first place there is large class of men that
are actively employed in supplying the South
with all its necessities-except principle
Qaughter)-and they are making, or suppose
they are making, large fortunes. We cannot
doubt which side they take. The next is a very
Large class of men who, for precisely an oppo-
site reason, somehow are opposed to the North
and in favor of the South namely, those who
have been accustomed to make money, but find
this interrupting war has stopped their profits,
and men that want to make money and do not
they are opposed to us. And between these
two classes an intermediate one, of men who
are bewildered and perplexed, and see that bu-
siness is more or less affected, as it is over the
whole continent, by its sympathetic relations
with this continent. They say when will this
war end and as the offensive is on the north
en side, they feel as though whenever the
North will stop aggressing the South the war
will stop. So in the main they are against US.
1t may be lowered down to this: that while
there are very noble exceptions here and there
all through England-men that stand out of
their class, above it and against it, not speak
ing comprehensively-the commercial class of
England are against the North and in favor of
the South.
THE RELIGIOUS CLASS. .
1t very difficult to analyse the causes that
have turned both the established churchmen
and the dssenters, in respect to their most in
huental men, against US. do not think it SO
in respect to the laymen; but the influential
laymen and the influential clergymen think
are averse to us as q body. The ground usual.
ly taken is this: That the North is not sincere;
and, secondly, that the war is great sin. And
nowhere else in this world is there so tender
conscience on the subject of war MS in Great
Brltaln-when she is not waging it herself
(Great applause.( She has, I believe. only
three wars on hand now-in China Japan,
and, believe in Aastralia-no matter where it
is, it is somewhere; and the rest of her leisure
she occupies with profound regret and hor-
ror for this American war. Ifit was for but q
ship on the sea, she was ready to 90 to war
with us; lift was for the territory Of remote
island in the Antarctic ocean, she was ready to
60 to war with the savages; if it was but to beat
down the cities of Japan, she had no OBJ ,ection
to burn city with 100, 900 inhabitants in it;
OUT when people are making war for their
own life for everything that dignifes humani-
ty, they stand throwing up their hands that
men will make war. daughter But am
sorry to say that while from the Friends, who
have always maintained as against their own
country consistent testimony against war, it
should have been expected that we would re-
SSA'S VIZ SiOuSCSC NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. lTOIu CQOSc
men. that had no particular objection to the
Crlmean war. none to the opium war in China,
and none to the war that they now have, if not
on their hands, on the tips of their fingers |
told them to their faces in Exeter Hall there
was not a land OIL the face of the globe against
which they had not dashed their bloody prows.
and that their flag was a symbol of their his
tory-a cross inscribed on a fed of blood
(Great applause)
THE NOBILITY.
The English nobility as o class are also
against US. l shall read some very noble ex-
ceptlons by and by. But these exceptions do
not alter the general statement that the nobility
as class are against us. For the most Obvi-
Gus reason we are not accustomed to estimate
the effect of our examples upon European in
stitutlons. When he takes his walk abroad, it
Is not the elephant that weighs and measures
ms own gravity as he trcads on the field mouses
tail. 1t is the mouse that meditates. (Laugh.
ter.) A gigantic nation. such US this on such
continent this, while we are treadiny on
the steps of accomplishing history, we are not
feeling the jar that we ourselves are making:
out they that lave thrones and aristOcratic
privileges do; and they are the best interpret
ems OF the reactiOnary influence of American
IDEAS and American institutions. And it was
the Saturday RevieW. that scholarly, keen bril-
nant. unprlncipled paper Of England-it was
that paper that had the frankness to say that