passion this amendment, though passed by Congress, was not sent to the States for ratification, and therefore fell to the ground. It is, however, on record to show the readiness of the Federal Congress to debar itself for ever from any pretence to interfere with slavery in the States, and this whilst persons in this country were loudly asserting that it was to destroy slavery that the war was waged. An amendment has recently been passed, the reverse of the foregoing, and declaring the abolition of slavery. It has not yet been ratified, we believe, by the requisite number of States, and if ratified, will be a plain breach of the Federal compact, which reserved to the respective States all powers not delegated to the Government. This amendment would be in direct conflict with the body of the instrument, or rather with a prior amendment, No. 10. Soon after the date we have named, the negro question was presented in an entirely new phase. The Federal generals, finding at that early period some difficulty in appropriating what their own laws held to be private property, invented an escape from this dilemma by declaring the poor negro 'contraband of war.' Thus the growth of that virtue, which Mr. Beecher would have us to believe is nurtured by bloodshed, proceeded so far as to raise the negro from his former condition into that of a contraband commodity.

The next remarkable step in the progress of the anti-slavery movement, was Mr. Lincoln's proposal to get rid of the difficulty by shipping the race away to foreign parts. He selected a district in Central America for the purpose, assuming that its Government would make no difficulty in the matter; indeed apparently deeming it superfluous to consult them about it. This strange scheme for dealing with four millions of people was actually set in motion, but, as might have been expected, came to nothing. About this time appeared the famous letter to Horace Greeley, in which, with perfect candour, Mr. Lincoln stated that he would free the negroes, or some of the negroes, or none of the negroes, according as he found that by freeing them, or some of them, or none of them, he could save the Union. Nothing could be more explicit nothing more honest than this-nor any more direct denial of the shallow pretence that the object of the war was to give liberty to the slave. Then followed the famous slave-proclamation which he was persuaded to issue against his own judgment; for but a fortnight before, it will be remembered, that he told a deputation who urged it upon him, that it would be as futile as 'the Pope's Bull against a comet,' So it has proved. It failed to incite a servile insurrection, the only way in which it could possibly produce a practical result; nor is there reason to believe that a single negro was freed by it who would not have been

equally

a

equally freed by the action of the Federal armies without it. As war measure, nothing could be more reprehensible than to adopt such a means of fighting an enemy-any enemy-and these were of the same kin; as a matter of moral principle, nothing more inconsistent, for it prohibited the sin to the enemy and permitted it to the ally. It made right and wrong a matter of geographical convenience, for certain counties of Louisiana were to retain the system, whilst the rest were denied it; and more than this, it retained slavery where there was power to end it, and it pretended to sweep it away where there was no power to touch it. On this subject, as with the others already considered, we find constant verification of the remark of Wendell Phillips, that Mr. Lincoln, as a ruler, was 'a man without a backbone.' There is an entire absence of fixed principle or persistent action; nothing but getting along with the affairs of the day-now yielding to the pressure on this side, and now on the other; adopting no great principle without reversing it; advocating in theory that rebellion. which he resisted in practice, and accepting in practice that secession which he denounced in theory.

We have pointed out what appears to us the deplorable original error of employing the sword as a means of maintaining a Union. Another soon followed it. The basis of the Federal action, as alleged, was the belief that a loyal party existed in the South, held down in terror by a minority of violent men who had obtained 'command of the situation.' That such a party did exist was true; but it was still more clear that the edge of the sword would destroy it. In the rebellion of these States, when colonies, there was at first a large party of loyalists; but it vanished in the excitement of war. There was ample evidence that this would be the effect now, for the decision to shed blood at once drove the loyal Border States over to the opposite ranks. But admitting the theory of a loyal party-a large portion of the Southern people sound at heart but under restraint—it was then imperative that the war should be conducted as an act of calm judicial necessity, and so as to produce the smallest possible amount of exasperation or abiding hate. It has been conducted in a manner exactly the reverse of this. No war of modern times has been urged in a spirit so bitter, so unsparing, so ungenerous. The sinking of stone fleets to destroy harbours; the bombarding of dwelling-houses with Greek fire; the cutting of levées to inundate great districts and drown out the inhabitants; the shooting of prisoners, on more than one occasion, in cold blood; the official insulting of women and of clergymen; the avowed attempts to destroy by famine; the burning of mills, farm-houses, barns; the plunder of private property-these, apart from those incidents of

individual

individual outrage which ever accompany invading armies, have made memorable the names of Butler, Turchin, Pope, Sheridan, Blenker, Hunter, Milroy, M'Neill, as a band of generals, of all human beings the least fitted to restore a fraternal union. It is plain that Mr. Lincoln was not personally responsible for these things; it is probable that in his own breast he deplored them. But they are art of the history of his rule, nor did he disavow and forbid them. Some of the generals named were discarded on failure in the field; but we know of no case, even one so revolting as the murders of Palmyra, where punishment was visited on the crime. We pass from this irksome criticism. Such reflections are little heeded in the hour of triumph; but the exaggerated and fulsome tone of much that has been written invites some expression of independent thought. There are those whose recent admiration of Southern valour is now exchanged for admiration of Northern success. All have not the power to mould their views of right and wrong, so as to sympathise now with those who are expected to win, and now with those who prove to be the winners.

The death of Mr. Lincoln was in itself a sufficient calamity to the world, occurring at a time when the kindly qualities of the man, and the experience of affairs he had acquired, would have been of inestimable value. That calamity is greatly increased by calling to his place one even less fitted for it by education or knowledge, and without the redeeming personal qualities of his predecessor. That Mr. Johnson is a man of considerable natural ability we cannot doubt, for without it no man could have worked his way from the condition of a journeyman tailor to the position he held at the outbreak of the war. But there are many kinds of ability; and there is one kind which has usually been regarded in the North as by no means beneficial to the country-that of the professional politician, the man who adopts politics as a trade to live by and thrive by. Such was the occupation of Mr. Johnson, and it was successful under these circumstances. In the South, although universal suffrage prevails, the lead in political affairs is usually taken by men of education and leisure, who, as in this country, are in the habit of thus employing their time, not as a money-making trade, but as an elevated pursuit. Hence, as a rule, the leading men of the country are to be found in the political ranks. But there are exceptional districts. Tennessee, one of the younger States, contains a 'very mixed population, and a great proportion of small farmers, who are usually men of extreme prejudice and narrow education. These, from their number, could always swamp the educated classes; and with such a constituency no

man

man was more likely to succeed than Andrew Johnson. With the energy necessary to go through the work, views and habits suited to their own, and unlimited command of words, he gradually attained all the honours and emoluments their votes could confer. He was an ardent defender of slavery, and a slaveowner himself to the extent of his means; a believer in 'manifest destiny;' and, in the midst of complete democracy, something more than a democrat. A remarkable specimen of the oratory by which he convinced the intellect of his constituents may be found in the New York World' of 18th April. We forbear to give the quotation. And what judgment is to be formed by the speeches he has made so frequently since his elevation? They ring the changes on three notes-first, the boast of being a plebeian; secondly, the malediction of all traitors; thirdly, the disparagement of mercy. Was ever such a creed presented to the world? We have sought in vain for one noble sentiment, for one generous emotion, for the faintest trace of a recollection that he ruled over the sons of rebels, that his own position was the fruit of rebellion, that the first and great President he had to follow had been a traitor. When it was the business of the statesman to pour oil upon the troubled waters, the cry is for vengeance, confiscation, blood.

It has been said that this war was a struggle between Aristocracy and Democracy, in which the latter has triumphed. No delusion could well be greater than to speak of the South as an aristocratic country. Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson, both Southern men, are they to be termed aristocrats? It is very true that men of property and refinement in the South have usually a conservative spirit; but as regards the country at large and its institutions, what more utterly democratic ? The State constitutions are such as no Chartist could improve upon. Vote by ballot, universal suffrage, payment of members, short terms of office, popular election even of judges-are these the features. of aristocracy? It seems to be unknown or forgotten that the South was the leader in the downward course of democratic progress, and that Thomas Jefferson was a Southerner. Believers in democracy ought surely to love the country for his sake. If the embodiment is to be sought of what is invidiously represented as the aristocratic spirit, it would not be found amongst the planters of the South, who lead at home the simple lives of country gentlemen, but amongst the millionaires of the North, where alone are the purple and fine linen, the luxury and extravagance, the exclusiveness and self-esteem regarded as the characteristics of the aristocrat. The doctrine of State Rights has indeed been stoutly maintained in the South,

but

but not as part of an aristocratic, nay, expressly as part of the democratic creed. State Rights are the only protection against the abuse of the central power; level them, and one man wields power over a continent, and commands its resources, who is irresponsible for four years, and whom there would be nothing to restrain but the strength of private individuals, equal to that of so many grains of sand. We have seen in this war that the moment State Rights were disregarded, every barrier set up by the Constitution went down with them. It is as the bulwark of defence against despotic power and infringements of the Constitution, that the people of the South have clung to State Rights. This contest was therefore no conflict of political principles, but, as Earl Russell described it, a struggle for independence on the one side and for empire on the other. If, indeed, this were in reality a triumph of democracy, then democracy must be sorely in need of something on which to plume itself when it is thought to be a matter of pride and glorification that it has enabled 22,000,000 of people to overcome 5,000,000 of the same race.

The question naturally arises, what caused the failure of this great effort of the South to possess a government of its own? The principal cause is indeed obvious enough, the great superiority of the North in numbers and resources. If we add to the Free States the four Slave States that followed their lead, under more or less compulsion, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, and to these the districts at Federal command from an early period of the war, say half of Tennessee and Louisiana and a third of Virginia, we have a population, by the census of 1860, of 23,485,722 on the Federal side. This leaves under the rule of the Confederacy 7,662,325. Here the disparity of strength is enormous. On examination it will be found even greater than it appears; for these are the numbers of the entire populations, and that of the South included rather more than 3,000,000 out of the 4,000,000 of negroes who appear in the census. Now, although these displayed remarkable fidelity, and maintained the whole Southern people in food by their labour, still it is clear that the ranks of the Southern army would have been better filled if the whole population had supplied recruits. And the Federals had great advantages in addition to superiority in numbers. Their command of naval force, practically exclusive, was soon felt in a country intersected by great rivers. Looking back to the early stages of the war, it seems doubtful whether they could have made any progress without this advantage. The fleet was of invaluable service as a means of movement, and on two occasions saved an army from ruin-that of Grant at Shiloh, and that of M'Clellan on the James River. There was, too, that

special