power than the thirteen colonies could allege ;in extent, in numbers, in wealth, in commerce, in every element indeed of national strength. They are also, what the colonies never were a united people. They have the plea of that example which the colonies set them. They believe in a constitutional right to separate, which the colonies could not allege. They act upon doctrines instilled as part of the national education, all of which impel in the direction they now take.

What indeed is the meaning of liberty, if the people of a vast empire, numbering in all twelve millions, are to be compelled to remain under a government against their will? What is the advantage of being fettered together, in a Union of that hate, which relations alone can feel? The fraternity of the French has been translated, "Be my brother, or I kill you." In what does this differ--" Remain in fraternal union with me, or I invade you, and take your life?" A desire for self-government none will deny as a natural product of American soil. Whether there were grounds for acting upon it, of sufficient weight, remains yet to be considered. The existence of such a desire will not be a justification for provoking the terrible evils of revolution, unless there be very grave causes, that seem to admit of no other manner of removal. Let us therefore consider the principal grievances that have been alleged as the grounds for carrying out this desire into action.

CHAPTER IV.

CAUSES OF DISRUPTION.-THE SLAVERY QUESTION.

DR. MACKAY, in his recent work, "Life and Liberty in America," remarks: "The struggle between the North and South, of which the negro is made the pretext, is, as all the world knows by this time, a struggle for political power and ascendancy." Agreeing entirely as to the fact, we differ in opinion as to its being so generally known. There are numbers in this country who do verily believe that the present conflict is between Slavery, and an effort to abolish it. Because the Northern are called Free, and the Southern Slave States, their respective names have been adopted in the minds of many as symbols of the principle at issue. And there have not been wanting advocates of the Union, who have thought it right, or expedient, to profit by our repugnance to Slavery, and to take advantage of our assumed ignorance of American affairs, to enlist a large amount of sympathy in their favour, by fostering this popular impression, and giving this colour to the contest.

All know the advantage of a telling "cry." This

is not only a telling one, but many surrounding circumstances give to it the appearance of reality. Yet we shall find it a complete delusion, and in its results a deplorable one. Its effect is to defeat the very object, the just and benevolent desire of those who are thus misguided. They wish to remove the fetters from the slave, and yet are led by this error to support the direct means of riveting them. But before we examine in what way, and how far, Slavery has really contributed to the disruption of the Union, it may be well to inquire briefly into its real condition in the United States. The subject is one in which feeling becomes so intermingled with reason as to render it difficult of discussion with perfect calmness. And there is none upon which feeling once aroused becomes inflamed with more violent excitement.

In this country the wrongs of Slavery were denounced with a fervid eloquence, of which the vibrations are yet lingering on the ear. Since the removal of the evil from amongst ourselves, we have striven to atone for our share in the wrong, by patient, long-persevering efforts to eradicate the Slave Trade,- efforts that have been little rewarded, unless it be in the consciousness of a right employment of unselfish power. And these efforts have maintained in active existence the sentiments that pervaded the country in the days of Wilberforce and Clarkson. As no difference of opinion exists upon the subject here, there are none who need to be converted by exaggerated statements,

or stimulated by excited appeals. We deplore Slavery as a lamentable evil, and regard it as a great human wrong, and yet we may calmly seek out the facts, and judge of them in their true dimensions. When stripped of all exaggeration they will still be found sorrowful enough; for there is sufficient degradation to the black, and injury enough to his master, and detriment enough to society at large, were there no romance to distort the truth, or rhetoric to sweep away our judgment.

The question arises at once, whether we shall speak of the rule, or the exceptions to it. The great majority of slave-owners are men of as much natural humanity as their fellow-men, yet there will occasionally be found a "Legree" amongst them. They have the plainest possible interest in promoting the health and comfort of their people, but occasionally one will be found, whose passions neither humanity nor self-interest can curb. The great mass of the negroes, too, are in the possession of more robust health, more plentiful food, and more exemption from care, than many classes of the labourers of Europe; yet there are instances of cruel griefs, and barbarous suffering amongst them. The abolitionist culls out these exceptional cases, and presents them as samples of the whole. Now it will readily be seen how terrible a picture might be drawn of the atrocities committed in this country every month of the year. That picture might be shaded in with brutality which is not very rare in the colliery districts, or the dense

ignorance existing yet in some few specimens of the agricultural mind,-extracts might be collected from the records of the courts, of murders, and madness, of poisonings, and suicides; and if this picture were presented to the people of Japan, it would give them just as correct an impression of the state of society in England as abolitionist romances convey of the general condition of Slavery in America.

What, indeed, are the simple facts? The negroes have at all times abundant food; the sufferings of fireless winter are unknown to them; medical attendance is always at command; in old age there is no fear of a workhouse; their children are never a burden or a care; their labour, though long, is neither difficult nor unhealthy. As a rule, they have their own ground, and fowls and vegetables, of which they frequently sell the surplus. So far, then, as merely animal comforts extend, their lot is more free from suffering and hardship than those of many classes of European labour. Take the life of a collier, for instance: what can be imagined more dismal, more narrowing to the mind, more repugnant to every impulse of human nature, than to toil through life, crouched in low passages, seldom permitting to stand erect; breathing a close and vitiated air; shut out from voice or face of fellow-man; labouring on alone in the dank gloom, like some solitary insect toiling in a vault; shrouded in darkness, except the miserable glimmer that makes