e accepted, it is necessary
to make several admissions; first, that the Southerners were
absolutely callous to the evils produced by the institution they had
determined to make permanent; second, that they had persuaded
themselves, in face of the tendencies of civilisation, that it was
possible to make it permanent; and third, that they conscientiously
held their progress and prosperity to be dependent on its continued
existence. Are we to believe that the standard of morals and
intelligence was so low as these admissions would indicate? Are we to
believe that if they had been approached in a charitable spirit, that
if the Republican party, disclaiming all right of interference, had
offered to aid them in substituting, by some means which would have
provided for the control of the negro and, at the same time, have
prevented an entire collapse of the social fabric, a system more
consonant with humanity, the Southerners would have still preferred
to leave the Union, and by creating a great slave-power earn the
execration of the Christian world?

Unless the South be credited with an unusual measure of depravity and
of short-sightedness, the reply can hardly be in the affirmative. And
if it be otherwise, there remains but one explanation of the conduct
of the seceding States--namely the dread that if they remained in the
Union they would not be fairly treated.

It is futile to argue that the people were dragooned into secession
by the slave-holders. What power had the slave-holders over the great
mass of the population, over the professional classes, over the small
farmer, the mechanic, the tradesman, the labourer? Yet it is
constantly asserted by Northern writers, although the statement is
virtually an admission that only the few were prepared to fight for
slavery, that the Federal sentiment was so strong among the
Southerners that terrorism must have had a large share in turning
them into Separatists. The answer, putting aside the very patent fact
that the Southerner was not easily coerced, is very plain.
Undoubtedly, throughout the South there was much affection for the
Union; but so in the first Revolution there was much loyalty to the
Crown, and yet it has never been asserted that the people of Virginia
or of New England were forced into sedition against their will. The
truth is that there were many Southerners who, in the vain hope of
compromise, would have postponed the rupture; but when the right of
secession was