A Lecture on THE CIVIL WAR in AMERICA

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A Lecture on THE CIVIL WAR in AMERICA

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Delivered at the Rothesay Mechanics Institute
by James Lamont
of Knockdow

PREFACE

This lecture was written at sea last winter, while I had not access to the books of reference, which must be it excuse for many imperfections but I believe the facts will be found correctly stated.
I wish to add, that the subsequent events, and particularly the almost unanimous re-election of MR. LINCOLN, have confirmed my belief that the war can only terminate in one way, viz, by the entire suppression of the insurrection, and the consequent emancipation of the slaves.
J.L.
December 7, 1864.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

When I was cruising last winter in my yacht in the Mediterranean, I had the pleasure of passing an afternoon with the illustrious General Garibaldi. I found that great man living in the plainest manner, like an Italian farmer, in a cold half-furnished house in the desolate rocky Island of Caprera, off the coast of Sardinia.

Amongst many other remarks, replete with wisdom and sagacity, which Garibaldi addressed to me, he said, alluding to the civil war in America, “How does it happen that you English, who love liberty and freedom so much, so generally sympathise with the Southerners in this war?” “I,” he continued, “have been a great deal in America, both north, and south, central, east and west, Atlantic and Pacific sides, and I am very strong for the United States Government, because I think they are fighting for the cause of freedom.” I could only reply to Garibaldi by saying, that although I must admit that a majority of the upper classes of society in Britain did undoubtedly take a Southern view of the matter, still, that I thought the bulk of the intelligent and well-informed people amongst the middle and lower classes of my countrymen, agreed with him in thinking that the Northern government were fighting the battle of liberty and of human progress. And, further, that I thought if the people of Britain were better informed on the subject than they generally are, the Southern sympathisers would be confined to those of despotic opinions and inclinations.

I confess I have wondered often myself how it cam to pass that so large a section of the liberty-loving people of Britain were Southern sympathisers, I can only account for it in my own mind by attributing it to the surpassing ignorance about America and the Americans which prevails in this country, even amongst people who are otherwise generally well-informed. I, ladies and gentlemen, may venture to claim a tolerable acquaintance with America and the Americans, because I have been four times on the American continent, and twice, at an interval of four years, throughout the length and breadth of the United States, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canada frontier, and from the River Mississipi to the Atlantic; and I will endeavour, in the few remarks I am about to offer, to give you my ideas of the causes and probably effects of this rebellion, and also of what I conceive would be its effects, if it pleased God to allow it to become successful.

You are all doubtless aware that, when the American Colonies attained their independence, they had then a body of about 500,000 Slaves in all the thirteen original States. Jefferson, and some others amongst the master minds who framed the Constitution, clearly foresaw the difficulty and danger which would some day arise to the infant republic from this cause, and they were anxious to adopt some means for the gradual extinction of slavery, but they had not sufficient power in the councils of the republic to do this against the wish of the slaveowners, without the danger of causing a split in the newly-formed nation. Also, slavery as it then existed was as mild, merciful, and as considerate a system as it is perhaps possible for slavery ever to be; the slaves were mostly held in small numbers, and were treated pretty much in the patriarchal fashion, that is, as the friends and fellow-labourers of their owners, and not like herds of brute-beasts and cattle, as they are now. Besides, it was then though that in a generation or two slavery would wear itself out; and upon the whole, it was not thought a matter of very great importance, so the subject was allowed to drop, and the system of negro-slavery was formally incorporated into the Constitution. But I venture to affirm, that, if the anti-slavery party of that day could have foreseen the enormous extension that slavery would attain, owing to the demand for cotton, caused by the inventions of Arkwright and others, and also owing to the rapidity with which the negro race increases and multiplies in these regions, they would not have left to a future generation the terribly enhanced difficulty of dealing with the question, but they would have insisted on the passing of some enactment which would have insisted on the passing of some enactment which would have provided for the gradual emancipation of the negros – such, perhaps, as that which was adopted by the republics of South America, who, upon attaining their independence, passed a law which said, that “no person should be born into slavery after Independence Day.” I was in the republic of Venezuela about forty years after the passing of this wise and humane law; slavery was then almost extinct, and its extinction had come about so slowly and gradually that no person was ruined or even materially injured by it. When in the United States in 1856, I held a long conversation on the subject of slavery with a gentleman of Kentucky, a proprietor of many human chattels. He argued the question, unlike most slaveowners, in a temperate, gentlemanlike, and sensible manner, admitted that slavery was, in the abstract, a bad system and a great evil to the country, but could not see how it was to be done away with, without ruin and injury to many. I told him what I had seen in South America, and suggested that such a plan of gradual emancipation was the only way that I saw of meeting the difficulty. I regret to state that his reply was of such a nature that I cannot venture to repeat it, but it showed, as much as anything that ever came under my observation, the inveterate habit that even the refined and educated slaveowners invariably acquire, of regarding their slaves not as human beings, but as cattle, -- as beasts that perish.

Now then, therefore, slavery being established as a formally recognized institution, and the profits of it very much increasing, a large and influential body of slaveowners grew up, who looked upon it not merely as an evil to be tolerated, from the difficulty of doing away with it, but as an institution to be cherished and increased and perpetuated; and their efforts for many years were strained to the utmost to get such a preponderance in the Congress as would enable them so to extend and perpetuate it. These slaveowners formed a compact and united body, with the strong stimulus of self-interest to guide them; and by always acting together, or in coalition with that party in the North who were least opposed to slavery, they managed for a long time to obtain a President at every election who was either a pro-slavery man, or at least not opposed to slavery, and they continued to have the whole home and foreign policy of the Union framed to suit themselves.

For a long time they succeeded in having everything their own way. For instance, they demanded a prolongation of the African slave-trade for twenty years, and they got it. They asked the three-fifths representation of slaves in the Constitution, and it was granted them. They asked the purchase of Louisiana territory, and it was purchased. They asked for the purchase of Florida, and it was done. They clamoured for the annexation of Texas, and, in flagrant violation of the laws of nations it was annexed. They asked to have their “peculiar institution” introduced into the newly-formed States in the southern part of the basin of the Mississippi, and it was there established. They clamoured for the admission of the new State of Missouri as Slave State, and it was so admitted, although Missouri lies to the north of any previously existing Slave State. They asked for the Missouri Compromise Bill; that is to say, a bill declaring that all new States to the south of latitude 35° 30’ should be Slave States, and all to the north of that line Free States; and for the sake of peace the measure was carried. This at first sight appears a fair enough arrangement, but as soon as Kansas and other territory likely to become Free were about o be organized, they asked for the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, that they might introduce slavery there also; and even this was conceded to them. And herein I rather think the slaveowners made a mistake, because Kansas is not suited for a Slave State either by soil or climate; and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was only carried with great difficulty, and after acrimonious debates in the Legislature; also, because their design to extend slavery into all the vast fertile regions lying to the south-west had now become patent to the rest of the nation, and it aroused against them a strong feeling on the part of those who objected to the indefinite extension of slavery, not so much on moral and religious grounds as because they believed it to be a bad system, politically and economically. These people shortly became a very powerful party, and were popularly known as the anti-slavery party.

And now I must beg of you not to confound the anti-slavery party with the abolitionists. The abolitionists were those who objected to slavery on moral and religious grounds, and who wished to do away with it by emancipating the slaves immediately. They were very small and uninfluential party, and were confined chiefly to Massachusetts and some of the other New England States. They, however, numbered some very distinguished people among their ranks, particularly Mrs. Beecher Stowe and Mr. Summer. They were very sincere and well-meaning people, but I very much question whether they did not do more harm than good, because it would have been manifestly unjust, as well as impolitic, to adopt their path of immediately and unconditionally liberating 4,000,000 of slaves; and their efforts, accompanied as they were by very violent speeches and publications, had a highly exasperating effect on the Southern slaveocracy.

The slaveowners finding that, in spite of all their efforts, they were likely to lose ground in the legislature, from the vast increase of population, caused by immigration into the wheat growing States of the north-west, and consequent admission into the Union of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, now had actually influence enough to involve the country in war with the neighboring republic of Mexico, which, from its not permitting slavery, or even the capture of runaway slaves within its boundaries, they had long hated. They felt, in fact, that Mexico was setting a very bad example, and required to be punished. But they had also a deeper motive, which was to carve some fresh Slave States out of the territory they made sure of conquering from Mexico, so as to effect a counterpoise to the new Free States of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Every one knows the result of the Mexican war, namely, that the Mexicans were beaten, and had to surrender a large portion of their territory, part of which was formed into the State of California. The slavery part, however, did not have it all their own way this time, for, chiefly owing to the exertions of that learned and intrepid traveler, General Fremont, it was decided that the magnificient acquisition of California should become a Free State. All honour to General Fremont for this! And here let me remark, that if he had carried the Presidential election of 1856, instead of that miserable paltry, contemptible traitor, Buchanan, we should never have heard of this rebellion, or, if it had still broken out, it would have been repressed by the strong hand at the very commencement.

Great disappointment, I believe, was felt in the Slave States at California being declared a Free State, and it became necessary to fall upon some other plan of increasing slave territory, and, accordingly, the filibustering expeditions to Cuba and Central America, of which you have all read were organised. These piratical attempts upon friendly nations brought great odium upon the American name in Europe; but, I believe, there were nowhere so much condemned as amongst the orderly and peace-loving population of the Northern States, because they knew what Europeans did not generally know, that is to say, the ulterior object of these nefarious expeditions; but they were connived at, not, as I believe, because the United States Government was too weak to prevent them, but because that Government was then administered in the interest of the slaveowners. We all know how these filibustering expeditions failed, and how the leaders were put to death – deservedly and righteously put to death – by the authorities of the countries they so inexcusably invaded. I was in Cuba very shortly after the failure of Lopez’s expedition, and when some of his band were still lurking in the mountainous parts of the island, and I saw in Havana the very chair in which that notorious filibuster was garotted.

Well, then, the filibustering expeditions having broken down, it must have become obvious to men of so much political sagacity, as the leaders amongst the slaveowners undoubtedly were, that their cause was losing ground, and that they must submit to being hemmed in by a cordon of Free States around them; and I believe it was from that time that a party among them first seriously formed the resolution to rebel, or, as they call it, to “Secede.” I call it to rebel, because I have read the American Constitution very often and very carefully, and I confess that I entirely fail to see that it gives to any State, or to any body of States, any right whatever to secede from the general body of the nation. According to my humble understanding, they had no more constitutional right to secede than Scotland, or Ireland, or Wales, have to secede from the rest of the British Empire. If any such right had been intended by the framers of the Constitution, why, it would have stultified their whole labour, and rendered the Constitution a mere farce, because the existence of any such right would simply render Federal government impossible.

In 1856, however, they still succeeded, in coalition with the Democratic party of the North, in carrying the Presidential Election in favour of the Mr. Buchanan, in opposition to General Fremont, the anti-slavery candidate; and during the term of his Presidency, Mr. Buchanan, and his Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd, traitorously gave them every facility in maturing their projects of revolt, especially by stripping the national arsenals and magazines in the Free States, and by sending the ships of war to remote parts of the world. At the next Presidential Election, in 1860, however, the legitimate power of the slaveowners fairly came to an end, by the election for President of Abraham Lincoln, the chosen candidate of the now great and influential party who were determined to resist any further extension of slavery, but who, at the same time, had no desire or intention whatsoever of meddling with slavery as it existed. This moderation, however, would not satisfy slaveowners, because they well knew that, if the slave territory was once circumscribed and limited by given boundaries, then their cherished institution was doomed, and must sooner or later come to an end – perhaps not in this generation or in the next, but inevitably some time or other.

Now, I need not point out to you how the election of Mr. Lincoln was immediately followed by the revolt of the majority of the Slaveholding States, and I do not intend to enter into the military history of the war at all; but what I do wish, most particularly, to urge upon your attention is this: --

First: That the slaveowners began the war.
Second: That they had no moral or constitutional right whatsoever to rebel or secede.
Third: (and this is the really material and important point): That they began the war not because their property or their liberties were in any way threatened, (as I have already explained to you, the abolitionist party, who alone could be considered as an aggressive party, were so few and uninfluential as to be of no account,) but they began the war because, owing to the growth of population in the Free States, and the spread of anti-slavery opinions, they had lost their legitimate political preponderance in the Union; and because they clearly saw that they would not be permitted to extend the diabolical institution of negro slavery into the vast regions, as yet unpopulated and uncultivated, to the south-west, or to revive the African slave-trade.

Finally: I have no hesitation in characterizing this rebellion as the most audacious and unprincipled conspiracy against Christianity, civilization, and the rights of labour that the history of man can disclose.

Now, as to Mr. Lincoln’s political conduct since the war began. Mr. Lincoln may not be a man of transcendent genius, but I believe him to be a man of thoroughly honest, sincere, conscientious, and patriotic; and if you take a glace at his position, you will see that, at the outbreak of the war he was surrounded by very uncommon difficulties, which it must have required no ordinary man to face at all – much less to surmount them, as he has done. When he ascended the Presidential chair, he found a large section of the nation, amounting to perhaps one-fourth of the white population, in open revolt. He found every department of the government disorganised. He found the national arsenals empty, and the fleet dispersed in the remotest parts of the earth; there was no money in the treasury, and no taxes existing by which money could be readily raised; the standing army was so small as to be of little account, and many of the officers had deserted to the rebels; and, lastly, there were few or no generals in the service who had ever seen war upon a large scale, and were consequently unable to command large armies in the field. I cannot fancy a more appalling combination of difficulties for the newly-elected ruler of a nation to encounter. I hold that Mr. Lincoln was not only perfectly justified, but bound to attempt to prevent the secession by force of arms, and I think that future ages will do him justice for the uncommon energy and straightforwardness which he has displayed in doing so. I have often heard Mr. Lincoln and his advisers attacked for not being sincere in their endevours to pout down slavery, but they never wanted to put down slavery, or to interfere in any way with slavery as it existed. Mr. Lincoln never was a professed abolitionist, and I don’t think that at first there was a single abolitionist in his Administration. All they wanted was to prevent, by every constititutional means, the extension of slavery into new States, which, as I before explained to you, is a widely different thing that abolitionism. Mr. Lincoln has repeatedly and openly stated, that he had neither any desire nor any right to interfere with slavery as it existed. Again, with reference to his famous Emancipation Proclamation, he has been bitterly assailed for trying to stir up a servile war, and for inconsistency in proclaiming liberty to the slaves in the revolted states, which were out of his power, while he still held in bondage those in the loyal Slave States, which were within his power. His defence is easy; for I deny the intention of creating a servile war. No servile war has followed, but if it had, I think the slaveowners would have richly deserved it. Mr. Lincoln would have had no right whatsoever to emancipate the slaves of loyal citizens; whereas, his position as Generalissimo of the armies of the republic gave him a perfectly constitutional right to proclaim freedom to the slaves in the revolted states, as a military measure for weakening and distracting the enemy.

I think that long ages after Abraham Lincoln, and all the other actors in this terrible and sanguinary drama, shall have passed away, his famous Emancipation Proclamation will survive as a monument of his political sagacity, and as the Magna Charta of the black race in America. Does anybody think it is not meant to be acted upon?

From the President’s Message, December, 1863

“These laws and proclamation were enacted and put forth for the purpose of aiding in the suppression of the rebellion. No servile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked the measures of emancipation and arming the blacks. To now abandon them would be not only to relinquish a lever of power, but would also be a cruel and astounding breach of faith. I may add at this point, that while I remain in my present position, I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation, nor shall I RETURN TO SLAVERY ANY PERSON WHO IS FREE BY THE TERMS OF THAT PROCLAMATION, OR BY ANY ACT OF CONGRESS.”

“I SHALL NOT RETURN TO SLAVERY ANY PERSON WHO IS FREE BY THE TERMS OF THAT PROCLAMATION, OR BY ANY ACT OF CONGRESS.”

So far from being lukewarm or insincere in his attempts to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, I think that Mr. Lincoln has done everything that he possibly could do, constitutionally, to pave the way for total emancipation. For instance, -- First: He has abolished slavery within the district of Columbia, which is subject to the authority of the central government. Second – He has held out great inducements to the loyal Slave States to adopt a system of gradual emancipation. Third – He has formally recognized and received the ambassadors from the black republics of Hayti and Liberia. Fourth – He has concluded with the British government a treaty for the better suppression of the slave trade, with the mutual right of search suspected vessels. Fifth – He caused to be hanged in New-York the convicted captain of a slaver, named Gordon; and be it observed that, although by our laws the slave-trade is piracy and a capital offence, our own government have never shown their sincerity by putting the law in force in like manner. Sixth – He has repealed the fugitive slave law. Seventh – But by far the most important of all the anti-slavery measures of Mr. Lincoln’s administration, is a law lately passed which for ever prohibits any extension of slavery into the territories of the United States. Now, after all that, how can anybody assert that Mr. Lincoln’s Government are not sincere in their anti-slavery opinions?

From the President’s Message, December, 1863.

“The movements by State action for emancipation, in several of the States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, are matters of profound gratulations; and while I do not repeat, in detail, what I have heretofore so earnestly urged upon this subject, my general views remain unchanged, and I trust that Congress will omit no fair opportunity of aiding these important steps to the great consummation. Tennessee and Arkansas have been cleared of insurgents, and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their respective States; and of those States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which, three years ago, would tolerate restraint upon the extension of slavery into territory, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it, within their own limits. Of those who were slaves at the beginning of the rebellion, full one hundred thousand are now in the United State military service.”

I have heard of people saying that, “apart from the question of slavery, the South ahs every claim upon our sympathies, because they are fighting for their freedom!” The Southern secession and slavery apart! The play of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out! Why the two things are inseperable and indivisible; and I would submit to you, that the seceders cannot be truly said to be fighting for their freedom, because they were free as they could be before, and nobody proposed to curtail their liberties in any way; but the freedom they are fighting for is the freedom to maintain, and to extend, and to perpetuate, the most gigantic and the most atrocious tyranny over others that has ever disgraced the annals of mankind? It seems to me, that any one who sympathises with the slaveowners can only do so from one of two reasons – either from the most profound ignorance of history and the state of America for the last thirty years, or because he is a sincere and devoted admirer of slavery!

You may have observed that in the foregoing remarks I have generally use the word Slaveowners instead of Southerners. I have done so advisedly, because I believe that this is entirely a slaveowner’s rebellion, and I believe that there are many people in the South who were quite opposed to the revolt from the first, and who would gladly return to the Union now, if they could. It is asked why they don’t declare themselves? I say, simply because there is such a reign of terror existing in the South, that they do not dare to do it. The life of any man who should venture to declare himself a Unionist in the South now, would not be worth a dollar! I once heard a Virginia gentleman declare, that “he would be a safer man in his native State if he were known to have murdered his own father, than if he were even suspected of being an abolitionist!” So much for liberty of opinion in the South.

Now, I may be expected to say something about what I have seen of the actual state and condition of the slaves in America, to justify the strong opinions I have expressed against the cause of the slaveholders. I have seen a good deal of negroes, both in a state of liberty and in a state of slavery. I have seen this unhappy race under as great a variety of circumstances, and in as many different parts of the world as perhaps any man living. I have seen negroes wild in the native forests in Africa. I have seen them packed, almost like herrings in a barrel, on board of a captured slaveship. I have seen the settlements of liberated slaves in Sierra Leone. I have seen thousands of newly imported Africans working under the whips and the pistols of the overseers, in the cane-fields of Cuba. I have seen negro slaves in most of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire – Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Tripoli, and Tunis. I have seen the emancipated or half-emancipated slaves in the French island of Martinique, working under what is there called the “apprenticeship system.” I have been four times in the British West Indis, where I own some property myself, and I have there had ample opportunities of observing the emancipated negroes working as free labourers, and earning good wages, both upon my own estates and other peoples’. In the republic of Venezuela, I have seen the negroes liberated under the gradual emancipation system which I have described. And, as I have mentioned before, I have been twice, at an interval of four years, in most of the Slave States of the Union. So that, upon the whole, I venture to think that my opinion about negro slavery may be, at all events, worth as much as that of people who have never seen a slave or spoken to a negro in their lives, or who perhaps may have made a hasty run through the United States, and, judging by the few slaves they have seen as servants in private houses, hotels, and steamboats, have then written articles in ‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ or other pro-slavery publications, in which they try to make the British people believe that the “slaves are far better off than any European peasantry, and that they walk about on Sundays dressed in broadcloth coats and silk gowns, and wearing gold watches and chains.”

A deal of nonsense has also been talked and written about the “elevating and ennobling effect which slavery has upon the character of the ruling class.” Let me assure you, that all this is quite incorrect, and that the facts are far otherwise. Slavery is a bad, an accursed system. It is bad in a moral, in a social, in an agricultural, in a political, and even in an economical point of view. It is infamously unjust to the negro. So far from being “elevating and ennobling,” I think it has a most demoralizing effect upon the character of the slaveowners themselves, and it has an infinitely degrading and brutalizing effect upon the middle-class, who are not themselves slaveowners. The condition of the slaves – at least of the agricultural slaves, who amount to nineteen-twentieths of the whole – is not to be compared to that of the poorest and the most wretched peasantry in Europe. I believe that in the main the slaves are well treated – that is, they are treated just as well as any farmer among you treats valuable cart-horses – no better and no worse. The most cruel man is not likely to flog a valuable cart-horse to death for his amusement, and he gives it a sufficiency of the cheapest food which will enable it to do as much work as possible; and so with the slaves. I believe they generally get as much, but not more than as much, of the coarsest and cheapest food which will keep them in good working condition; and of the coarsest and cheapest raiment to cover them, a bare sufficiency; also, enough cottages to live in – good enough to keep out the rain and the cold. When they are ill, self-interest will dictate the judiciousness of giving them physic and medical attendance that they may soon be able to work again.

So much for the sunny-side of slave existence; but upon the other hand, they have got to work to the verge of human endurance. That is to say, during crop time on the sugar and cotton estates, they work seventeen hours a-day, and during the remainder of the year, generally twelve hours a-day. If they are lazy, they are mercilessly flogged, both men and women; and if they are mutinous, they are mercilessly shot. The family tie is totally disregarded, and men are separated from their wives, and children from their mothers, without ceremony, whenever it suits the interest of the owners to sell them, or transfer either to another estate.

I cannot venture in public lecture to touch upon the state of morals which slavery engenders, both amongst the masters and the slaves, but I may mention, that many slaves are as white as we are, and that there are many instances of men having sold their own sons and daughters, their own brothers and sisters. In some of the States, marriage between a white and a coloured person is illegal. In most of the States, it is illegal to teach a slave to read, and there are many cases of persons having been driven from the State, tarred and feathered, and even hanged by lynch-law, for so doing; so that the poor slave is denied even the consolation of religion, and a knowledge of the Bible, to enable him to bear his hard lot. In some States, the legal and customary punishment for a slave who kills a white man is burning alive. In some States, it is illegal for a man to emancipate his own slaves, unless he takes them out of the State; nay, so desperately afraid are the slaveowners of the dreadful example of free negroes, that in South Carolina, if a British, Yankee, or any other vessel goes there with a black seaman or cook on board, the man is taken out of the vessel and lodged in the public jail like a felon, and at the owner’s expense, while the vessel remains in port.

I have heard some slaveowners, and even some of their sympathizers in this country, defend their cherished institution on scriptural and ethnological grounds, and argue that slavery is “a Divine institution,” and distinctly authorize by the Bible; also, that “slavery is the great means whereby, under Providence, the black races of Africa are to be regenerated and brought within the pale of Christianity.” This seems to me the rankest hypocrisy and blasphemy; and judging by my own personal observation, I think that the lot of a heathen savage in the wilds of Africa is a much more enviable one that that of a slave on a Christian plantation in Louisiana or Caroline. I freely admit that the negro is not intellectually the equal of the white man, but I do not see how that gives us any Divine authority for enslaving him; and the laws I have mentioned against intermarriage, and against teaching slaves to read, do not appear to me well-calculated to promote Christianity and civilization amongst them. I also admit that some passages of the Bible may be twisted and distorted into an apparent sanction of slavery, but I would have you to observe that these passages say nothing about negro slavery, and therefore they afford the “Southern chivalry” every bit as good an authority for making slaves of you and me, my friends, if they could catch us, as for enslaving the negroes!

But, again, I have heard ill-informed people argue that “the question of slavery had nothing at all to do with the rebellion – that the quarrel was altogether a commercial one; that the Southerners were a body of free-traders groaning under the protective tariffs of the North, and that they had seceded in order to establish free-trade with Britain and other countries.” Upon this subject, hear what the great apostle of free-trade, Mr. Cobden, says – a good authority you will admit, and a man who knows America as well as any living European statesman: --

“I traveled in the United States in 1859, the year before that fatal shot was fired at Fort Sumter, which has had such terrible reverberations ever since. I visited Washington during the session of Congress. Now, I carry a flag wherever I go when I travel abroad, whether in France, America, Austria, or Russia. I at once because the centre of all those who have strong convictions and purposes with reference to free-trade principles. While I was at Washington, I was disappointed at finding there was so little interest felt on the free-trade question. There was no party formed, no public agitation, no discussion whatever, upon the subject. The ground, the political field, was wholly occupied by one question, and that question was slavery. I will mention an illustrative fact, which I have not see referred to, and to my mind it is conclusive on this subject. In December, 1860, when Congress was sitting, and when the country was in the agony of suspense, fearing this impending rupture, Congress appointed a committee, consisting of thirty-three members, being a representative from every state then in the Union, and that committee sat from December 11, 1860, to January 14, 1861. It was called the Committee of Thirty-Three, and was instructed to inquire into the perilous state of the Union, and to try and devise some means by which the catastrophe of secession should be averted. I have a report of the proceedings of that committee. I believe there is not another report in this country; I have reason to know so. There are forty pages; I have read every line. The representatives of the Slave States were invited by the representatives of the Free States, to state candidly and frankly what were the terms which they required, in order that they might continue peaceably in the Union and in every page you see their propositions brought forward. From beginning to end of these forty pages, there is not one syllable said about tariff or taxation. From beginning to end, there is not a grievance alleged but that which is connected with the maintenance of slavery. There are propositions calling upon the North to give increased security to the maintenance of that institution. They are invited to extend the area of slavery, to make laws by which fugitive slaves shall be given up. They are pressed to make treaties with foreign powers, by which those powers should be required to give up slaves. But, from the beginning to the end, no grievance is alleged but what is connected with slavery. It is slavery, slavery, slavery, from beginning to end.”

I have also taken the trouble to acquire a little information on this point, which completely knocks the bottom out of that theory.

It will naturally occur to you to ask, how it came to pass that the South, who, up to the Presidential Election of 1860, always commanded a majority in the legislature, allowed protective tariffs so prejudicial to their interests to exist? I won’t bore you with statistics, but I have got a summary of all the division in Congress, upon the subject of protection since 1830, and it so happens that, in very nearly every instance, a majority of the Southern members present voted with the protectionist party! But why did they do this? I will tell you why they did it. In the great state of Louisiana, which mostly consists of the rich alluvial lands of the delta of the Mississipi, there is – or used to be before the war – grown about 200,000 tons of sugar, or about equal to one-half of the total consumption of the United States. There are occasional frosts in Louisiana, and frost is deadly to the growth of the sugar-cane, for which reason sugar cannot be produced in Louisiana on an average for less than 5 dols. A cwt; whereas in Brazil and the West India Islands, it can be produced for 3 dols. a cwt, or even less. It is quite clear from this, that, under a system of free-trade, sugar cultivation could not exist in Louisiana; but it suited the great proprietors of Louisiana to make sugar, and therefore they got a protective duty of 30 per cent ad valorem laid upon all sugar from foreign countries; or, in other words, the people of the United States were made to pay to the sugar growers of Louisiana an annual subsidy of, in round numbers £a1,400,000, which quite accounts for a majority of the Southern members voting almost uniformly in favour of protection; and so, I hope you will not be deluded into a belief that the slaveowners are fighting to inaugurate a reign of free-trade any more than one of liberty!

In spite of all these facts, some people, however, have the hardihood to assert that, in the case of the Southerners attaining their independence, they will emancipate the negroes sooner than if the Union is maintained. I cannot help regarding this as the most monstrous piece of absurdity that has ever been talked on the subject! All the evidence we have leads, in my opinion, to a diametrically opposite conclusion. I have tried my best to explain to you my belief that the South began this war because they saw they would not be allowed to extend, and so perpetuate, slavery. Their press and many of their chief public men – amongst them Mr. Mason in this country – have openly state, that “they wish it to be clearly and distinctly understood, that slavery was to be the basis and the corner-stone of their republic – that they regard it as a Divine institution, and an institution to be cherished, extended, and perpetuated.” I believe I have quoted the very words used by Mr. Mason, at a dinner-party, to which I was once invited to meet him. I believe, if it had pleased God to allow this infamous rebellion to become successful, that it would have been the means of riveting the fetters of the slave for ages to come. I believe that one of their first measures would have been the revival of the hellish African slave-trade. I believe that their success would ultimately have been as baneful to the whites as to the slaves; because, in these countries the white race deteriorates and decreases, unless supplied with fresh blood from Europe or from the North; and in the course of a few generations they would have sunk to the moral, physical, and political condition of the whites of Peru and Mexico; whereas the blacks, to whose constitution the climate is exactly suited, would have gradually come to outnumber their oppressors. Then there would have followed sanguinary insurrection, and horrible measures of repression, such as we read of having taken place in Lacedǽmon and the other slaveholding military oligarchies of antiquity.

But to return to the war. I think that in the main this war has been conducted on both sides in a humane and a considerate manner. Of course war, and especially civil war on such a gigantic scale, cannot be carried on without great destruction to life and property; but there have been no instances yet, with one or two trifling exceptions, of killing prisoners in cold blood, or burning or plundering towns; and I think the most atrocious acts of the whole war, of which I have read, were the capture of 800 poor negroes – non-combatants – who were burying the slain between the armies’ under a flag of truce, by that “sainted hero and Christian Stonewall Jackson, and the massacre of unresisting prisoners at Fort Pillow, in cold blood. But upon the whole, I maintain that this war has been conducted in a way which future and impartial historians will contrast very favorably with any civil war which has preceded it, in all the history of the world. Compare it with our own sanguinary civil wars, and with the atrocious severities which followed the battles of Sedgemoor and Culloden. Compare it with the civil war in France, and the “noyades” and “mitraillades” of Lyons and La Vendée. Compare it with the Carlist war in Spain, where no quarter was given on either side. Compare it with the horrible history of the Greek war of independence, where capitulations were habitually violated, and whole garrisons put to the sword in cold blood. Compare it with the cruel executions which followed the Hungarian war of ’48, or those in Poland now, and I think it will be found that the New world has set an example of humanity and forbearance worthy of imitation in the Old.

I think great credit is due to Lord Palmerston’s Government for the steady and dignified neutrality they have preserved, and for their having resisted the clamours of the pro-slavery party in this country, for the recognition of the South and the non-recognition of the blockade. I believe that the Cabinet have not been unanimous on the subject and that it is to two members of it that we are mainly indebted for having avoided the indelible disgrace of being the first to recognize a power based upon slavery – I mean the President of the Board of Trade, and an illustrious and liberal-minded duke, who is a neighbor of our own. Besides, I am at a loss to see how recognition could benefit them, unless we were prepared to follow it up by an armed intervention in their favour; and our recognition would be such a bitter and exasperating insult to the United States Government, that I think it would very likely be the means of embroiling this country in war with them, which I believe is what a few malignant and short-sighted individuals, both in this country and in America, would like to see; but, for my own part, I have no hesitation in declaring to you, that I would rather see this country at war with every nation in Europe at once, that engaged in a fratricidal war with the United States of America. In the first place, on probably immediate result of a war with America would be, wheat at a hundred shillings a quarter, (it was at 126s 6d. during the war of 1812,) which, although very delightful to our agricultural friends, would not be quite so gratifying to the rest of the nation. A second result would be, an income-tax of at least one shilling, and perhaps two shillings, in the pound; war duties upon everything; and prices of every foreign commodity enhanced by war insurances of twenty or thirty per cent. at least. All this would not be satisfactory to any class of the community. A third result of the war would inevitably be, the immediate conquest of Canada, and probably of New Brunswick, by the Americans. Finally, let me tell you, that I am not by any means clear in my own mind that we should get so much the best of the war, either by land or by water, as some people fancy. We did not do so in the Revolutionary war, and we didn’t do so in the war of 1812, when the Americans were comparatively unprepared. Now, they have got an enormous army of veteran soldiers in the field, and a fleet of 600 vessels of war on the ocean. So, for every reason, I think it is much to be desire that the British public should, by every means in their power, seek to strengthen the hands of the administration in maintaining the neutrality of this country.

As for the Emperor of the French interfering single-handed, just let him try it, and I undertake to say, that France will get the most tremendous thrashing, both by sea and land, that she has had since Trafalgar and Waterloo.

Now, as to the alleged inefficiency of the blockade, which the pro-slavery party urge as a reason why we should not recognize it, it is no doubt perfectly true, that it was settled by the treat of Paris, that no “paper blockades” should be recognized, and that “a blockade, in order to be recognized as such, must be effective;” but I think a blockade consisting of 500 vessels can hardly be called a “paper blockade;” and, although it is also undeniably true, that many merchantmen have run the blockade successfully, still, it must be borne in mind that, in the nature of things, no blockade ever was or ever will be impenetrable. Also, steamers have very much altered and modified blockades, and rendered it more easy for an occasional vessel to break them. Many neutral merchantmen broke our own blockades during the Russian war. But, upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the present blockade of the Southern coast is about the most stringent and effective one that has ever been attempted upon a large scale, and I think that the enormous prices of all foreign commodities in the Confederacy abundantly bear me out in saying so.

From the President’s Message, December, 1863.

“The extensive blockade has been constantly increasing in efficiency. If the navy has expanded, yet on so long a line it has so far been impossible to entirely suppress illicit trade. From the returns received at the Navy Department, it appears that more than one thousand vessels have been captured since the blockade was instituted, and that the value of prizes already sent in for adjudication amounts to over thirteen millions of dollars. The naval force of the United States consists at this time of 588 vessels, completed and in the course of completion, and of these, 75 are iron-clad or armoured steamers.”

However, if any gentleman thinks the blockade is too lax, it is a perfectly legitimate enterprise for him to freight a vessel and try to break it; only, if his vessel is unlucky enough to be captured, let him bear his loss with equanimity, and don’t let him make a disturbance about it, and try to embroil his country in war with the United States on that account.

I will not say much about the building of vessels of war for the Confederates in this country, because common sense must show any one who reflects upon the subject, that if we recognize the legality of such a proceeding as part of the international law of the world, we are likely to be the greatest sufferers by it ourselves eventually, and it might be made the means of utterly destroying our maritime supremacy in the event of our being engaged in any future war. Therefore I say, if the Foreign Enlistment Act is not sufficiently stringent to prevent privateers, intended to burn and destroy the merchant vessels of a friendly nation, from being built and fitted out in our ports, why, the sooner it is made so the better is it likely to be for ourselves at some future day. Let us bear in mind and put in practice the golden rule, of doing to others as we would have others do to us.

A few words as to the probable results of this war, and the probable future of America, and I will have done. I don’t think it is of very great importance to us, in a national point of view, whether the American Union is maintained or is broken up. If anything, I thin it is for our interest that the United States should continue to form a great and powerful nation; and I confess that I am not amongst the number of those who entertain an unworthy and a little-minded jealousy of the power and prosperity of the great republic, and who are therefore desirous of seeing it broken up. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking, judging from all the past history of the world, that it is likely the vast regions now embraced in the United States, comprehending, as they do, so many degrees of latitude and so many different interests, will ultimately form not only two, but four or five wealthy prosperous nations, but I don’t think the present generation will live to see the disruption. For my own part, and with all my love and admiration for the great American people, IO must confess that I feel somewhat indifferent about their union or disunion. The interest I take in the present quarrel arises solely form the fact, that I think it involves the temporal and eternal welfare of 4,000,000 of our fellow-beings – the slaves; and I have done my best to explain to you how I conceive their interests are effected by the war.

There are those who, even without any malignant feeling towards America, predict the downfall of the republic from the immense amount of National Debt they have contracted during this war. The debt is heavy, no doubt; I believe it now amounts to nearly one-half what our own does, but the population of the United States is fully equal to that of these kingdoms, and it is increasing in a prodigiously faster ratio; and the resources of the country for the future are also enormously great than ours are.

Mr. Chase, in his financial report of December, 1863, says that the estimated debt of year 1864, was 1,686,000,000 dols., or, in round numbers, in English money, £340,000,000.

We must also bear in mind that their National Debt has been almost entirely expended within the nation, whereas the money ours represents was scattered in shiploads over half the countries in Europe. So that, taking all these things into consideration, I think they will be able to pay the interests of it without much difficulty; and I feel quite confident that, within two years after the suppression of this rebellion, -- for I never have doubted for one moment that it would be suppressed – the United States will be more prosperous and more flourishing than ever, and that these splendid countries will continue for ages to come to be the refuge of the destitute and the oppressed of all the nations of Europe.

And now, allow me to add, that although I cannot hope to have carried the whole of my audience with me, still I am grateful for the attentive and dispassionate way in which you have listened to me; and if I have made a convert of even one individual amongst you who was previously a sympathizer with slavery, I shall consider that the time and labour I have devoted to the preparation and delivery of this lecture have not been thrown away.

In conclusion, let me remark, that if any of you are desirous of acquiring a fuller knowledge of the slavery system, and of the political history of America for the last thirty years, so as to understand the causes which have led to this great revolution, I advise you not to take your opinions from the malignant misrepresentations of the pro-slavery newspapers in this country, but to read such works as Professor Cairns’ book “On the Slave Power,” Olmsted’s “Cotton States,” Kemble’s “Residence on a Georgian Plantation,” and an article in the January number of the ‘Edinburgh Review’ on the “Negro Race in America.”

Linked to James Lamont

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