y and generously given,
and when sympathy with the South showed itself strongly in Great
Britain. Brown dealt with this question in a speech delivered in
Toronto shortly after Lincoln's proclamation of emancipation. He had
just returned from Great Britain, and he said that in his six months'
journey through England and Scotland, he had conversed with persons in
all conditions of life, and he was sorry to say that general sympathy
was with the South. This did not proceed from any change in the
feeling towards slavery. Hatred of slavery was as strong as ever,
but it was not believed that African slavery was the real cause
of the war, or that Mr. Lincoln sincerely desired to bring the
traffic to an end. This misunderstanding he attributed to persistent
misrepresentation. There were men who rightly understood the merits of
the contest, and among these he placed the members of the British
ministry. The course of the ministry he described as one of scrupulous
neutrality, and firm resistance to the invitations of other powers to
interfere in the contest.

Brown himself never for a moment failed to understand the nature of
the struggle, and he showed an insight, remarkable at that time, into
the policy of Lincoln. The anti-slavery men of Canada, he said, had an
important duty to discharge. "We, who have stood here on the borders
of the republic for a quarter of a century, protesting against slavery
as the sum of all human villainies--we, who have closely watched every
turn of the question--we, who have for years acted and sympathized
with the good men of the republic in their efforts for the freedom of
their country--we, who have a practical knowledge of the atrocities
of the 'peculiar institution,' learned from the lips of the panting
refugee upon our shores--we, who have in our ranks men all known on
the other side of the Atlantic as life-long abolitionists--we, I say,
are in a position to speak with confidence to the anti-slavery men of
Great Britain--to tell them that they have not rightly understood this
matter--to tell them that slavery is the one great cause of the
American rebellion, and that the success of the North is the
death-knell of slavery. Strange, after all that has passed, that a
doubt of this should remain."

It was true, he said, that Lincoln was not elected as an abolitionist.
Lincoln declared, and the Republican party declared, that they stood
by the constitution; that they would, so far as the constitut