That Line, So Drawn, Would Have Given Virginia,
Maryland, Kentucky, And Missouri To The Southern Republic.
The
great effect of the war to the North will be, that the Northern men
will draw the line of secession, if any such line be drawn.
I still
think that such line will ultimately be drawn, and that the Southern
States will be allowed to secede. But if it be so, Virginia,
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri will not be found among these
seceding States; and the line may not improbably be driven south of
North Carolina and Tennessee. If this can be so, the object of the
war will, I think, hereafter be admitted to have been good.
Whatever may be the cost in money of joining the States which I have
named to a free-soil Northern people, instead of allowing them to be
buried in that dismal swamp which a confederacy of Southern slave
States will produce, that cost can hardly be too much. At the
present moment there exists in England a strong sympathy with the
South, produced partly by the unreasonable vituperation with which
the North treated our government at the beginning of the war, and by
the capture of Mason and Slidell; partly also by that feeling of
good-will which a looker on at a combat always has for the weaker
side. But, although this sympathy does undoubtedly exist, I do not
imagine that many Englishmen are of opinion that a confederacy of
Southern slave States will ever offer to the general civilization of
the world very many attractions. It cannot be thought that the
South will equal the North in riches, in energy, in education, or
general well-being. Such has not been our experience of any slave
country; such has not been our experience of any tropical country;
and such especially has not been our experience of the Southern
States of the North American Union. I am no abolitionist, but to me
it seems impossible that any Englishman should really advocate the
cause of slavery against the cause of free soil. There are the
slaves, and I know that they cannot be abolished - neither they nor
their chains; but, for myself, I will not willingly join my lot with
theirs. I do not wish to have dealings with the African negro,
either as a free man or as a slave, if I can avoid them, believing
that his employment by me in either capacity would lead to my own
degradation.* Such, I think, are the feelings of Englishmen
generally on this matter. And if such be the case, will it not be
acknowledged that the Northern men have done well to fight for a
line which shall add five or six States to that Union which will in
truth be a union of free men, rather than to that confederacy which,
even if successful, must owe its success to slavery?
* In saying this I fear that I shall be misunderstood, let me use
what foot note or other mode of protestation I may to guard myself.
In thus speaking of the African negro, I do not venture to despise
the work of God's hands. That He has made the negro, for His own
good purposes, as He has the Esquimaux, I am aware. And I am aware
that it is my duty, as it is the duty of us all, to see that no
injury be done to him, and, if possible, to assist him in his
condition. When I declare that I desire no dealings with the negro,
I speak of him in the position in which I now find him, either as a
free servant or a slave. In either position he impedes the
civilization and the progress of the white man.
In considering this matter it must be remembered that the five or
six States of which we are speaking are at present slave States, but
that, with the exception of Virginia - of part only of Virginia - they
are not wedded to slavery. But even in Virginia - great as has been
the gain which has accrued to that unhappy State from the breeding
of slaves for the Southern market - even in Virginia slavery would
soon die out if she were divided from the South and joined to the
North. In those other States, in Maryland, in Kentucky, and in
Missouri, there is no desire to perpetuate the institution. They
have been slave States, and as such have resented the rabid
abolition of certain Northern orators. Had it not been for those
orators, and their oratory, the soil of Kentucky would now have been
free. Those five or six States are now slave States; but a line of
secession drawn south of them will be the line which cuts off
slavery from the North. If those States belong to the North when
secession shall be accomplished, they will belong to it as free
States; but if they belong to the South, they will belong to the
South as slave States. If they belong to the North, they will
become rich as the North is, and will share in the education of the
North. If they belong to the South, they will become poor as the
South is, and will share in the ignorance of the South. If we
presume that secession will be accomplished - and I for one am of
that opinion - has it not been well that a war should be waged with
such an object as this? If those five or six States can be gained,
stretching east and west from the Atlantic to the center of the
continent, hundreds of miles beyond the Mississippi, and north and
south over four degrees of latitude - if that extent of continent can
be added to the free soil of the Northern territory, will not the
contest that has done this have been worth any money that can have
been spent on it?
So much as to the object to be gained by the money spent on the war!
And I think that in estimating the nature of the financial position
which the war has produced it was necessary that we should consider
the value of the object which has been in dispute.
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