offices-in their own hands. With the advancement of civilization and the progress of knowledge the abolitionist feeling spread, and with their growing power came a growing desire to stem the progress of slavery. The abolitionists began to contest what they would have previously yielded with merely a grumble. They opposed the admission of Missouri, Texas, and California as slave states; nay, they even went so far as to bring forward a candidate for the presidential chair. As might have been expected, their first attempt was a failure; but nil desperandum was their motto, and we find them in 1860 putting forward as a candidate for that chair Abraham Lincoln, a man of sworn hatred to slavery, yet not in the most thorough sense an abolitionist. He was not, in fact, an out-and-out abolitionist, that is, he does not belong to the same "school" as Wendell Phillips, Garrison, &c., but is a strenuous advocate of its non-extension.

Slavery, it must be known, is aggressive. It needs new land on which to spread itself. A few years serves to exhaust unaided nature, and the slaveholder needs fresh land; for to aid Nature in her efforts of production requires thought, but this unfetters the negro's mind; and his mind, once free from the trammels of ignorance, will speedily shake off the fetters which bind his body. Therefore the slaveholders must have fresh land. But their own dominions are comparatively very insignificant, and so they demand admission with their slaves into other territories. The great difference, and the way in which the North has opposed the South ever since the having or not having slaves divided them into two political parties, has been by resisting the extension of slavery into new states or territories. In 1818 the contest about Missouri began, both parties (North and South) claiming it. It was at length terminated in favour of the slaveholders, and by the Missouri compromise,—that is, the striking of a certain line beyond which slavery should not extend. Then followed a most unjustifiable aggression, on the part of the South, upon Mexico, in the filibustering expedition which robbed her of Texas,-also added as a slave state-thus giving more weight to Southern influence in Congress. In 1852, Kansas was contended for with the bowie-knife and revolver. Kansas is far beyond the line prescribed by the Missouri compromise, which the Southerners attempted to set aside by saying that every territory ought to have its own choice whether it would be admitted as a free or a slave state. Again, they contested for California, which was, however, admitted as a free state. As each successive territory, having attained its quota of inhabitants, applied to be admitted into the union, the wildest and most tremendous struggles ensued as to whether they should be admitted as slave or free states, and the battle of freedom was fought over and over again, in the press and on the platform, and sometimes with the sword and blood. Fiercer and fiercer grew the struggle, as the North-their energies and determination quickened by the passing of the fugitive slave law, which made every man a jailer for the South; the Dred Scott

decision, which denied to the black man a single inch of ground within the whole Union on which he could shake off his shackles and say, "I'm free;" and the repeal of the Missouri compromise,-felt their strength gradually increasing, and the South as gradually felt the preponderance of power slipping from their grasp; and when in 1860 the South put forth Mr. Breckenbridge, and the North Mr. Lincoln, all minor questions were thrown aside for a grand rally on the vital point of slavery.

Mr. Lincoln, we have said, was a non-extensionist. Mr. Breckenbridge, however, contended that the territories belonged alike to each state, and that every man ought to be allowed to emigrate there with his slaves; and he brought against the party of Mr. Lincoln nine charges showing why he was more worthy of the suffrages of the people than Mr. Lincoln, all of which directly attacked that gentleman's anti-slavery principles. Silently the abolition movement had been doing its work in the hearts of men; but, like the broad and mighty waters of the Niagara, sweeping in their majestic grandeur to the falls, it was irresistible in its force, surprising for a moment even those who thought they had gauged its strength. On November 6th, Mr. Lincoln was elected; and on December 29th, South Carolina was in rebellion, declaring in its ordinance of secession, as one of the causes for the step it had taken, that "a party of the United States had elected to the high office of President a man opposed in principle and purpose to the institution of slavery." If it was not Mr. Lincoln's election, why did they not previously speak of rebellion? and why did they stay to contest the election with him, and thus give him as lawful a right to be their chief magistrate as Queen Victoria has to be Queen of England? And if they objected to Mr. Lincoln, was it to him or to his anti-slavery opinions? or if anything else, why was it not stated in their charges against him? With these questions pressing on our mind, we cannot but decide that it was the election of Mr. Lincoln, who in their eyes represented ultimate abolition, that induced them to fly to arms, to rebellion, and to the terrible slaughter of this war.

2. Natural facts and precedents." When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume amongst the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent regard to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation."* And having done so, we generally find them forming a constitution and making laws which will entitle them especially to that freedom which they were denied under their old government. We find that the colonies of America rebelled because of unjust taxation and unequal representation; and in their new government they deputed to the national government, in which each state was fairly repre"Declaration of In lependence of the United States."

sented, those external or national affairs belonging to them as a power of the earth, but retained to themselves (ie., each state) the managing of internal or municipal affairs. Of course, looking for like consistency in the Confederate States, we shall demand that their secession ordinances contain their whole causes for rebelling; and that in their new constitution all these grievances shall be remedied. Are they? The answering of this question leads us to our third point.

It

3. The ordinances of secession, and the constitution of the Confederate States.-For a state just about to take its stand in the sisterhood of nations, it is of the greatest importance to set forth plainly the causes which impel it to that act, and to form a good constitution. The former is its apology to the world for temporarily disturbing its peace; and the latter marks the stand it intends to take among nations, and the foundation of future laws. either throws the young state forward or backward in the scale of civilization; for if it is formed so as merely to take in the narrow horizon of the present, it is almost worthless; for a man cannot rise above the object of his worship. Having reached its level, he must not only raise himself, but drag up his idol also; and so with a nation. It will progress faster when it has only itself to drag along, than when cumbered with the whole weight of the laws and the machinery of legislature. We will glance over the ordinances and the constitution."

We have said that, early in November, Mr. Lincoln was elected, and towards the end of December South Carolina issued her ordinance, of which the following is the pith:-"Those states [Northern] have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions, and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen states. They have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery, and have permitted the open establishment amongst them of societies (abolition) whose avowed object it is to disturb the peace and claim the property of the citizens of the other states. They have assisted thousands of our citizens to leave their homes; and those who remained have been incited to servile insurrection, and have elected to the high office of President of the United States one whose opinions and purposes are opposed to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration, because he has declared a community cannot permanently exist half slave and half free; and that the people are to rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of extinction."

Florida, Texas, and the others, follow in the same strain; so that it will be useless to repeat them, but merely to point to them and turn to the constitution. Any one taking the two, and comparing them, will find that there is little or no material difference betwixt the constitution of the Confederate and of the United States, except in the following instances, which, we believe, embody all for which the South is fighting:-(1) No bill of attainder or ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in

negro slaves, shall be passed (Art. i., sec. 9). (2) That citizens in any state shall have the right of sojourn in any other state of the Confederacy, with their slaves; and the rights of property in such slaves shall not be thereby impaired (Art. iv., sec. 2). (3) That any slave unlawfully escaping, or carried from one state or territory into any other, shall not, in consequence of any law therein, be discharged from such service or labour (Art. iv., sec. 2). (4) That the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government (Art. ix., sec. 4). Looking at these measures, will our conclusions be very illogical if we decide that slavery is the cause of the present terrible war?

OF THE LATE RUPTURE.

4. The orator and the pamphlet.-It is not what the Times,* the Saturday Review, the Standard, or the Morning Herald thinks, nor is it what this or that statesman or M.P. thinks, that we are to base our conclusions upon, as to what is the source of the struggle. No; we will have the evidence from their own lips. Nor will we have words spoken in secret, but words of which they were, and are still, proud to own the authorship. Mr. Stephens, in his oftquoted words, says, "The new constitution has put to rest for ever the proper status of the negro. THIS WAS THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea (negro equality). Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination, is his natural and normal condition." The Richmond Enquirer says:"The war was begun and carried out to protect the slavemaster in his property in the negro." All the religion in the South clubs together to produce an address in which it declares that abolitionism is an interference with the plans of divine Providence. Dr. Thornwell says, "The general, almost universal attitude of the Northern mind is one of hostility to slavery. .. The triumph of the principles which Mr. Lincoln is pledged to carry out is the death-knell of slavery." To multiply instances and quotations would be useless; what we have given is far more convincing than the mere ipse dixit of any Englishman, even though he were a Brougham.

5. The men who have joined the ranks of secession.-We take a colouring from the society we mix in; our characters are moulded by various external influences pressing upon them; and all projects receive a bias from their leaders. We could not bring together a number of woollen merchants to talk on any subject, but the greatest possibility is that the last prices of "Exchange" would be mentioned before the lapse of many minutes. A parliament represents a nation, and a nation of Cromwells could not tolerate a

Yet we might bring forward the chameleon Times to speak for us; for on the 7th of January, 1861, it said, "The North is for freedom, the South for slavery. The North is for freedom of discussion; the South represses discussion with the tar brush and the pine faggot."

Charles, nor a feeble James represent Plymouth rock. All revolutions are eminently characteristic of their leaders. France, under Napoleon, was, to use the words of Emerson, "a nation of Napoleons." The spirit of the chief permeates and is the moving power of the whole body. The whole of the people of the Southern states are little Jefferson Davises and Stephenses. The latter raised their banner, and all Secessia flocked to it. And if the South is represented by its public men, let us examine the stuff they are made of. There is the President, of Kansas notoriety; Stephens, the advocate for the reopening of the slave trade; Mason, author of the fugitive slave law; Crittenden, Toombs, Palmer (a man whom no Englishman ought to mention without an apology for so doing), Slidell, and hosts of others of the same stamp, who have ever advocated in the senate chambers of the United States, at the bar of justice, and on the platform, the extension of those laws which denude the black man of his manhood, and tear in sunder and desecrate every tie of humanity, and banish every happiness that makes life worth the living for. These men we find at the head of affairs in the South,-men who, as originators of the struggle, should know for what they are fighting, and we hear these men continually publishing to the world that in the defence of negro inferiority they are willing to die. Yes, they tell us, with the heartlessness of hell, that slavery is the cause of the war. We heard it in the cannon-shot of Fort Sumter, we see this in every bullet that whistles from Secessia's rifles. It is a truth, cut blackly and deeply on the page of history, that the South rebelled that they might set all their energies to work to forge another link in the negro's chain, and that link was to endure to ETERNITY.

Doubtless there will be many saying that though all these tend to prove that with the South the origin of the war was slavery, we have not as conclusive evidence that the North is fighting to abolish it, but to maintain the Union. We grant the North is fighting to preserve the Union; still we must say, with the Rev. M. Miller, that it is not the Union alone, but the Union under such conditions as shall ultimately abolish slavery." When the North drew the sword, it was not with the avowed object of abolishing slavery, but to maintain the Union which will ultimately abolish slavery. They fought against the one great slave power of the world, who demanded the possessions for which their Northern forefathers fought, bled, and died, on which to spread their institution; and Mr. Lincoln and his party merely took the sword in self-defence, and fought against slavery as much as any person fights for a thing of which another attempts to rob him. Who ever heard of a gentleman and a burglar fighting for a watch? True, the burglar fights to gain possession of the watch, but the gentleman merely fights in selfdefence, to maintain his rights. So the North only fought for the maintenance of laws which the South acknowledge would ultimately abolish slavery. Again, others have said, Why did they not attempt to abolish slavery quietly? There is a time for cool and calm deli