of equal rights. In
Europe, it is needless to say, every rebellion with which an American
can sympathise is a rebellion in favor of the principle against which
the slaveholders' rebellion is an armed protest. An insurrection in
Russia to restore serfdom, an insurrection in Italy to restore the
dethroned despots, an insurrection in England to restore the Stuart
system of kingly government, an insurrection anywhere to restore what
the progress of civilization had made contemptible or accursed, would be
the only fit parallel to the insurrection of the Southern Confederates.
The North is fighting for power which is its due, because it is just and
right; the South is fighting for independence, in order to remove all
checks on its purpose to oppress and enslave. The fact that the power
for which the North fights is a very different thing from the power
which a European monarchy struggles to preserve and extend, the fact
that it is the kind of power which oppressed nationalities seek in their
efforts for independence, only makes our foreign critics more
apprehensive of its effects. It is a dangerous power to them, because,
founded in the consent of the people, there is no limit to its possible
extension, except in the madness or guilt of that portion of the people
who are restive under the restraints of justice and impatient under the
rule of freedom.

It would be doing cruel wrong to Earl Russell's intelligence to suppose
that he really believed what he said, when he drew a parallel between
the American Revolution and the Rebellion of the Confederate States, and
asserted that the right of the Southern States to secede from the
American Union was identical with the right of the Colonies to sever
their connection with Great Britain. We believe the Colonies were right
in their revolt. But if the circumstances had been different,--if since
the reign of William III. they had nominated or controlled almost every
Prime Minister, had shaped the policy of the British Empire, had enjoyed
not only a representation in Parliament, but in the basis of
representation had been favored with a special discrimination in their
favor against Kent and Yorkshire,--if both in the House of Lords and the
House of Commons they had not only been dominant, but had treated the
Bentincks, Cavendishes, and Russells, the Montagus, Walpoles, and Pitts,
with overbearing insolence,--and if, after wielding power so long and so
arrogantly, they had rebelled at t