hat men of high character and women of gentle nature should have
looked with leniency on cruelty, or have failed to visit the offender
with something more than reprobation. Had the calumnies* (* Uncle
Tom's Cabin to wit.) which were scattered broadcast by the
abolitionists possessed more than a vestige of truth, men like Lee
and Jackson would never have remained silent. In the minds of the
Northern people slavery was associated with atrocious cruelty and
continual suffering. In the eyes of the Southerners, on the other
hand, it was associated with great kindness and the most affectionate
relations between the planters and their bondsmen. And if the
Southerners were blind, it is most difficult to explain the
remarkable fact that throughout the war, although thousands of
plantations and farms, together with thousands of women and children,
all of whose male relatives were in the Confederate armies, were left
entirely to the care of the negroes, both life and property were
perfectly secure.

Such, then, was the attitude of the South towards slavery. The
institution had many advocates, uncompromising and aggressive, but
taking the people as a whole it was rather tolerated than approved;
and, even if no evidence to the contrary were forthcoming, we should
find it hard to believe that a civilised community would have plunged
into revolution in order to maintain it. There can be no question but
that secession was revolution; and revolutions, as has been well
said, are not made for the sake of "greased cartridges." To bring
about such unanimity of purpose as took possession of the whole
South, such passionate loyalty to the new Confederacy, such intense
determination to resist coercion to the bitter end, needed some
motive of unusual potency, and the perpetuation of slavery was not a
sufficient motive. The great bulk of the population neither owned
slaves nor was connected with those who did; many favoured
emancipation; and the working men, a rapidly increasing class, were
distinctly antagonistic to slave-labour. Moreover, the Southerners
were not only warmly attached to the Union, which they had done so
much to establish, but their pride in their common country, in its
strength, its prestige, and its prosperity, was very great. Why,
then, should they break away? History supplies us with a pertinent
example.

Previous to 1765 the honour of England was dear to the people of the
American colonies. King George had no more devot