_South_, inflaming sectional
passions and hatred, with the fixed purpose of dissolving the Union. As
all the slaves whom England had sent to Boston, had been manumitted in
1780, and there was no slavery there, the object was, not to abolish
slavery, or the mission would have been to the South, where the
institution and the power over it existed, but the movement was made in
the North, not to destroy slavery, but to dissolve the Union. England
having failed to accomplish our overthrow in the two great wars of 1776
and 1812, she commenced the third war upon us, not from the mouths of
her cannon, but in zealous efforts, continued now for more than a fourth
of a century, to divide the Union, by the agitation of this question. We
are indebted to England for the curse of slavery, and then for the
slavery agitation. In this she has been but too successful North and
South; but if slavery should perish in the conflict, she will mourn the
result, because it removes our only dangerous element of discord.

And now the curtain has risen on the fourth act, and England, as always
heretofore, is the chief actor. And where now is the great anti-slavery
agitator? Why, England has reversed her position, and suddenly
discovered the surpassing beauty and perfection of secession and
slavery. Secession, an anarchical absurdity, destructive of all law, and
all government, she kindly adopts as the true theory of our system. This
heresy was discarded by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and all the
illustrious founders of the Constitution. It was exposed, in all its
deformity, by Jackson, Clay, and Webster, in 1833, when it was rejected
by _every State_, except South-Carolina. But England repudiates the
doctrine at home, and abroad also, except for our country. Substituting
her wishes for the fact, she declares we are not a nation, and that any
State has a legal and moral right to secede and dissolve the Union.
Deplorable would have been the folly of such a system, and well then
might England have exulted over the failure of republics. Nothing but
her intense desire for this failure could have induced England to adopt
this absurd doctrine. The whole world perceives the motive for so false
a pretense, and history will expose and denounce it.

And now, as to slavery, let us compare the England of 1834 and 1860, and
all the intermediate period, with the England of 1861 and 1862. What a
revolution? Where now are her daily denunciations of slavery? Wher