Let me, in a few words, remind the reader what sort of a thing this is which the white oligarchy of the South have banded themselves together to propagate, and establish, if they could, universally. When it is wished to describe any portion of the human race as in the lowest state of debasement, and under the most cruel oppression in which it is possible for human beings to live, they are compared to slaves. When words are sought by which to stigmatize the most odious despotism, exercised in the most odious manner, and all other comparisons are found inadequate, the despots are said to be like slavemasters or slave-drivers. What by a rhetorical license the worst oppressors of the human race, by way of stamping on them the most hateful character possible, are said to be, these men in very truth are. I do not mean that all of them are hateful personally, any more than all the inquisitors or all the buccaneers. But the position which they occupy, and the abstract excellence of which they are in arms to vindicate, is that which the united voice of mankind habitually selects as the type of all hateful qualities. I will not bandy chicanery about the more or less of stripes or other torments which are daily requisite to keep the machine in working order, nor discuss whether the Legrees or the St. Clairs are more numerous among the slave-owners of the Southern States. The broad facts of the case suffice. One fact is enough. There are, Heaven knows, vicious and tyrannical institutions in ample abundance on the earth. tion of their great-grandfathers, they never put themselves the question what they themselves would do in circumstances far less trying, under far less pressure of real national calamity. Would those who profess these ardent revolutionary principles consent to their being applied to Ireland, or India, or the Ionian Islands? How have they treated those who did attempt so to apply them? But the case can dispense with any mere argumentum ad hominem. I am not frightened at the word rebellion. I do not scruple to say that I have sympathized more or less ardently with most of the rebellions, successful and unsuccessful, which have taken place in my time. But I certainly never conceived that there was a sufficient title to my sympathy in the mere fact of being a rebel; that the act of taking arms against one's fellow-citizens was so meritorious in itself, was so completely its own justification, that no question need be asked concerning the motive. It seems to me a strange doctrine that the most serious and responsible of all human acts imposes no obligation on those who do it of showing that they have a real grievance; that those who rebel for the power of oppressing others exercise as sacred a right as those who do the same thing to resist oppression practiced upon themselves. Neither rebellion, nor any other act which affects the interests of others, is sufficiently legitimated by the mere will to do it. Secession may be laudable, and so may any other kind of insurrection; but it may also be an But enormous crime. It is the one or the other, according to the object and the provocation. And if there ever was an object which, by its bare an this institution is the only one of them all which requires to keep it going that human beings should be burned alive. The calm and dispas-nouncement, stamped rebels against a particular sionate Mr. Olmsted affirms that there has not community as enemies of mankind, it is the one been a single year for many years past in which professed by the South. Their right to separate this horror is not known to have been perpetra- is the right which Cartouche or Turpin would ted in some part or other of the South. And have had to secede from their respective counnot upon negroes only; the Edinburgh Review, tries, because the laws of those countries would in a recent number, gave the hideous details of not suffer them to rob and murder on the highthe burning alive of an unfortunate Northern way. The only real difference is that the preshuckster by Lynch law, on the mere suspicion ent rebels are more powerful than Cartouche or of having aided in the escape of a slave. What Turpin, and may possibly be able to effect their must American slavery be if deeds like these are iniquitous purpose. necessary under it ?—and if they are not necessary and are yet done, is not the evidence against slavery still more damning? The South are in rebellion not for simple slavery; they are in rebellion for the right of burning human creatures alive. But we are told, by a strange misapplication of a true principle, that the South had a right to separate; that their separation ought to have been consented to the moment they showed themselves ready to fight for it; and that the North, in resisting it, are committing the same error and wrong which England committed in opposing the original separation of the thirteen colonies. This is carrying the doctrine of the sacred right of insurrection rather far. It is wonderful how easy and liberal and complying people can be in other people's concerns. Because they are willing to surrender their own past, and have no objection to join in reproba Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that the mere will to separate were in this case, or in any case, a sufficient ground for separation, I beg to be informed whose will? The will of any knot of men who, by fair means or foul, by usurpation, terrorism, or fraud, have got the reins of government into their hands? If the inmates of Parkhurst Prison were to get possession of the Isle of Wight, occupy its military positions, enlist one part of its inhabitants in their own ranks, set the remainder of them to work in chain gangs, and declare themselves independent, ought their recognition by the British Government to be an immediate consequence? Before admitting the authority of any persons, as organs of the will of the people, to dispose of the whole political existence of a country, I ask to see whether their credentials are from the whole, or only from a part. And first, it is necessary to ask, Have the slaves been con sulted? Has their will been counted as any part in the estimate of collective volition? They are a part of the population. However natural in the country itself, it is rather cool in English writers who talk so glibly of the ten millions (I believe there are only eight), to pass over the very existence of four millions who must abhor the idea of separation. Remember, we consider them to be human beings, entitled to human rights. Nor can it be doubted that the mere fact of belonging to a Union in some parts of which slavery is reprobated, is some alleviation of their condition, if only as regards future probabilities. But even of the white population, it is questionable if there was in the beginning a majority for secession any where but in South Carolina. Though the thing was predetermined, and most of the States committed by their public authorities before the people were called on to vote; though in taking the votes terrorism in many places reigned triumphant; yet even so, in several of the States, secession was carried only by narrow majorities. In some the authorities have not dared to publish the numbers; in some it is asserted that no vote has ever been taken. Further (as was pointed out in an admirable letter by Mr. Carey), the Slave States are intersected in the middle, from their northern frontier almost to the Gulf of Mexico, by a country of free labor-the mountain region of the Alleghanies and their dependencies, forming parts of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, in which, from the nature of the climate and of the agricultural and mining industry, slavery to any material extent never did, and never will, exist. This mount ain zone is peopled by ardent friends of the Union. Could the Union abandon them, without even an effort, to be dealt with at the pleasure of an exasperated slave-owning oligarchy? Could it abandon the Germans who, in Western Texas, have made so meritorious a commencement of growing cotton on the borders of the Mexican Gulf by free labor? Were the right of the slave-owners to secede ever so clear, they have no right to carry these with them; unless allegiance is a mere question of local proximity, and my next neighbor, if I am a stronger man, can be compelled to follow me in any lawless vagaries I choose to indulge. But (it is said) the North will never succeed in conquering the South; and since the separation must in the end be recognized, it is better to do at first what must be done at last; moreover, if it did conquer them, it could not govern them when conquered, consistently with free institutions. With no one of these propositions can I agree. them out, exhausting their resources, depriving them of the comforts of life, encouraging their slaves to desert, and excluding them from communication with foreign countries. All this, of course, depends on the supposition that the North does not give in first. Whether they will persevere to this point, or whether their spirit, their patience, and the sacrifices they are willing to make, will be exhausted before reaching it, I can not tell. They may, in the end, be wearied into recognizing the separation. But to those who say that because this may have to be done at last, it ought to have been done at first, I put the very serious question-On what terms? Have they ever considered what would have been the meaning of separation if it had been assented to by the Northern States when first demanded? People talk as if separation meant nothing more than the independence of the seceding States. To have accepted it under that limitation would have been, on the part of the South, to give up that which they have seceded expressly to preserve. Separation, with them, means at least half the Territories; including the Mexican border, and the consequent power of invading and overrunning Spanish America for the purpose of planting there the "peculiar institution" which even Mexican civilization has found too bad to be endured. There is no knowing to what point of degradation a country may be driven in a desperate state of its affairs; but if the North ever, unless on the brink of actual ruin, makes peace with the South, giving up the original cause of quarrel, the freedom of the Territories; if it resigns to them when out of the Union that power of evil which it would not grant to retain them in the Union-it will incur the pity and disdain of posterity. And no one can suppose that the South would have consented, or in their present temper ever will consent, to an accommodation on any other terms. It will require a succession of humiliations to bring them to that. The necessity of reconciling themselves to the confinement of slavery within its existing boundaries, with the natural consequence, immediate mitigation of slavery, and ultimate emancipation, is a lesson which they are in no mood to learn from any thing but disaster. Two or three defeats in the field, breaking their military strength, though not followed by an invasion of their territory, may possibly teach it to them. If so, there is no breach of charity in hoping that this severe schooling may promptly come. When men set themselves up, in defiance of the rest of the world, to do the devil's work, no good can come of them until the world has made them feel that this work can not be suffered to be done any longer. If this knowledge does not come to them for several years, the abolition question will by that time have settled itself. For assuredly Congress will very soon make up its mind to declare all slaves free who belong to persons in arms against the Union. When that is done, slavery, confined to a minority, will soon cure itself; and the Whether or not the Northern Americans will succeed in reconquering the South I do not affect to foresee. That they can conquer it, if their present determination holds, I have never entertained a doubt; for they are twice as numerous, and ten or twelve times as rich. Not by taking military possession of their country, or marching an army through it, but by wearing pecuniary value of the negroes belonging to loyal masters will probably not exceed the amount of compensation which the United States will be willing and able to give. | ventor of repudiation. Mississippi was the first State which repudiated. Mr. Jefferson Davis was Governor of Mississippi, and the Legislature The assumed difficulty of governing the South- of Mississippi had passed a Bill recognizing and ern States as free and equal commonwealths, in providing for the debt, which Bill Mr. Jefferson case of their return to the Union, is purely im- Davis vetoed. Unless we abandon the principles aginary. If brought back by force, and not by we have for two generations consistently provoluntary compact, they will return without the fessed and acted on, we should be at war with Territories, and without a Fugitive Slave Law. the new Confederacy within five years about the It may be assumed that, in that event, the vic- African slave-trade. An English Government torious party would make the alterations in the will hardly be base enough to recognize them, Federal Constitution which are necessary to unless they accept all the treaties by which adapt it to the new circumstances, and which America is at present bound; nor, it may be would not infringe, but strengthen, its demo- hoped, even if de facto independent, would they cratic principles. An article would have to be be admitted to the courtesies of diplomatic ininserted prohibiting the extension of slavery to tercourse unless they granted, in the most exthe Territories, or the admission into the Union plicit manner, the right of search. To allow of any new Slave State. Without any other the slave-ships of a Confederation formed for the guarantee, the rapid formation of new Free extension of slavery to come and go free and States would insure to freedom a decisive and unexamined between America and the African constantly-increasing majority in Congress. It coast, would be to renounce even the pretense of would also be right to abrogate that bad pro- attempting to protect Africa against the manvision of the Constitution (a necessary compro- stealer, and abandon that Continent to the hormise at the time of its first establishment) where- rors, on a far larger scale, which were practiced by the slaves, though reckoned as citizens in no before Granville Sharp and Clarkson were in other respect, are counted, to the extent of three-existence. But even if the right of intercepting fifths of their number, in the estimate of the pop- their slavers were acknowledged by treaty, which ulation for fixing the number of representatives it never would be, the arrogance of the Southern of each State in the Lower House of Congress. slaveholders would not long submit to its exerWhy should the masters have members in right cise. Their pride and self-conceit, swelled to an of their human chattels, any more than of their inordinate height by their successful struggle, oxen and pigs? The President, in his Message, would defy the power of England as they had has already proposed that this salutary reform already successfully defied that of their Northshould be effected in the case of Maryland, ad-ern countrymen. After our people by their cold ditional territory, detached from Virginia, being disapprobation, and our press by its invective, given to that State as an equivalent: thus clear- had combined with their own difficulties to damp ly indicating the policy which he approves, and the spirit of the Free States, and drive them to which he is probably willing to make universal. submit and make peace, we should have to fight As it is necessary to be prepared for all possi- the Slave States ourselves at far greater disadbilities, let us now contemplate another. Let vantages, when we should no longer have the us suppose the worst possible issue of this war wearied and exhausted North for an ally. The -the one apparently desired by those English time might come when the barbarous and barwriters whose moral feeling is so philosophically barizing Power, which we by our moral support indifferent between the apostles of slavery and had helped into existence, would require a genits enemies. Suppose that the North should eral crusade of civilized Europe to extinguish stoop to recognize the new Confederation on its the mischief which it had allowed, and we had own terms, leaving it half the Territories, and aided, to rise up in the midst of our civilization. that it is acknowledged by Europe, and takes its place as an admitted member of the community of nations. It will be desirable to take thought beforehand what are to be our own future relations with a new Power, professing the principles of Attila and Genghis Khan as the foundation of its Constitution. Are we to see with indifference its victorious army let loose to propagate their national faith at the rifle's mouth through Mexico and Central America? Shall we sub-ers to the point of either returning to the Union mit to see fire and sword carried over Cuba and or consenting to remain out of it with their presPorto Rico, and Hayti and Liberia conquered ent limits. But war, in a good cause, is not the and brought back to slavery? We shall soon greatest evil which a nation can suffer. War is have causes enough of quarrel on our own ac- an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the count. When we are in the act of sending an decayed and degraded state of moral and patriexpedition against Mexico to redress the wrongs otic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is of private British subjects, we should do well to worse. When a people are used as mere human reflect in time that the President of the new Re-instruments for firing cannon or thrusting baypublic, Mr. Jefferson Davis, was the original in-onets, in the service and for the selfish purposes For these reasons I can not join with those who cry Peace, peace! I can not wish that this war should not have been engaged in by the North, or that being engaged in, it should be terminated on any conditions but such as would retain the whole of the Territories as free soil. I am not blind to the possibility that it may require a long war to lower the arrogance and tame the aggressive ambition of the slave-own icans, is wholly of this exalted character-that it has arrived at the stage of being altogether a war for justice, a war of principle. But there was from the beginning, and now is, a large infusion of that element in it; and this is increasing, will increase, and, if the war lasts, will in the end predominate. Should that time come, not only will the greatest enormity which still exists among mankind as an institution receive far earlier its coup de grâce than there has ever, until now, appeared any probability of; but in effecting this the Free States will have raised themselves to that elevated position in the scale of morality and dignity which is derived from great sacrifices consciously made in a virtuous cause, and the sense of an inestimable benefit to all future ages, brought about by their own vol of a master, such war degrades a people. A THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP. CHAPTER XXXI. BY W. M. THACKERAY. NARRATES THAT FAMOUS JOKE ABOUT MISS OR once Philip found that he had offended In the confidence of female intercourse Mrs. Mugford had already, in her own artless but powerful language, confirmed her husband's statement regarding Mr. Bickerton, and declared that B. was a beast, and she was only sorry that Mr. F. had not hit him a little harder. So different are the opinions which different individuals entertain of the same event! I happen to know that Bickerton, on his side, went away averring that we were quarrelsome, under-bred people; and that a man of any refinement had best avoid that kind of society. He does really and seriously believe himself our superior, and will lecture almost any gentleman on the art of being one. This assurance is not at all uncommon with Fotout giving general offense. your parvenu. Mugford went away from our little entertainment vowing, by George, that Philip shouldn't want for a friend at the proper season; and this proper season very speedily arrived. I laughed one day, on going to the Pall Mall Gazette ofOfice, to find Philip installed in the sub-editor's room, with a provision of scissors, wafers, and paste-pots, snipping paragraphs from this paper and that, altering, condensing, giving titles, and so forth; and, in a word, in regular harness. The three-headed calves, the great prize gooseberries, the old maiden ladies of wonderful ages who at length died in country places-it was wonderful (considering his little experience) how Firmin hunted out these. He entered into all the spirit of his business. He prided himself on the clever titles which he found for his paragraphs. When his paper was completed at the week's end he surveyed it fondly-not the leading articles, or those profound and yet brilliant literary essays which appeared in the Gazettebut the births, deaths, marriages, markets, trials, and what not. As a shop-boy, having decorated his master's window, goes into the street, and, pleased, surveys his work; so the fair face of the Pall Mall Gazette rejoiced Mr. Firmin, and Mr. Bince, the printer of the paper. They looked with an honest pride upon the result of their joint labors. Nor did Firmin relish pleasantry on the subject. Did his friends allude to it, and ask if he had shot any especially fine canard that week? Mr. Philip's brow would corrugate and his cheeks redden. He did not like jokes to be made at his expense: was not his a singu. lar antipathy? In his capacity of sub-editor the good fellow had the privilege of taking and giving away countless theatre orders, and panorama and diorama tickets: the Pall Mall Gazette was not above accepting such little bribes in those days, and Mrs. Mugford's familiarity with the names of opera-singers, and splendid appearance in an opera-box, was quite remarkable. Friend Philip would bear away a heap of these cards of admission, delighted to carry off our young folks to one exhibition or another. But once at the diorama, where our young people sat in the darkness, very much frightened as usual, a voice from out the midnight gloom cried out, "Who has come in with orders from the Pall Mall Gazette?" A lady, two scared children, and Mr. Sub-editor Philip, all trembled at this dreadful summons. I think I should not dare to print the story even now, did I not know that Mr. Firmin was traveling abroad. It was a blessing the place was dark, so that none could see the poor sub-editor's blushes. Rather than cause any mortification to this lady, I am sure Philip would have submitted to rack and torture. But, indeed, her annoyance was very slight, except in seeing her friend annoyed. The humor of the scene surpassed the annoyance in the lady's mind, and caused her to laugh at the mishap; but I own our little boy (who is of an aristocratic turn, and rather too sensitive to ridicule from his school-fellows) was not at all anxious to talk upon the subject, or to let the world know that he went to a place of public amusement "with an order." As for Philip's landlady, the Little Sister, she, you know, had been familiar with the press, and press-men, and orders for the play for years past. She looked quite young and pretty, with her kind smiling face and neat tight black dress, as she came to the theatre-it was to an Easter piece-on Philip's arm, one evening. Our children saw her from their cab, as they, too, were driving to the same performance. It was "Look, mamma! There's Philip and the Little Sister!" And then came such smiles, and nods, and delighted recognitions from the cab to the two friends on foot! Of course I have forgotten what was the piece which we all saw on that Easter evening. But those children will never forget; no, though they live to be a hundred years old, and though their attention was distracted from the piece by constant observation of Philip and his companion in the public boxes opposite. childish delight: he loved to contemplate his sovereigns, as week by week the little pile accumulated. He kept a noble eye upon sales, and purchased now and again articles of furniture. In this way he brought home a piano to his lodgings, on which he could no more play than he could on the tight-rope; but he was given to understand that it was a very fine instrument; and my wife played on it one day when we went to visit him, and he sat listening, with his great hands on his knees, in ecstasies. He was thinking how one day, please Heaven, he should see other hands touching the keys-and player and instrument disappeared in a mist before his happy eyes. His purchases were not always lucky. For example, he was sadly taken in at an auction about a little pearl ornament. Some artful Hebrews at the sale conspired and ran him up, as the phrase is, to a price more than equal to the value of the trinket. "But you know who it was for, ma'am," one of Philip's apologists said. "If she would like to wear his ten fingers he would cut 'em off and send 'em to her. But he keeps 'em to write her letters and versesand most beautiful they are, too." "And the dear fellow, who was bred up in splendor and luxury, Mrs. Mugford, as you, ma'am, know too well-he won't drink no wine now. A little whisky and a glass of beer is all he takes. And his clothes-he who used to be so grand-you see how he is now, ma'am. Always the gentleman, and, indeed, a finer or grander looking gentleman never entered a room; but he is saving-you know for what, ma'am." And, indeed, Mrs. Mugford did know; and so did Mrs. Pendennis and Mrs. Brandon. And these three women worked themselves into a perfect fever, interesting themselves for Mr. Firmin. And Mugford, in his rough, funny way, used to say, "Mr. P., a certain Mr. Heff has come and put our noses out of joint. He has, as sure as my name is Hem. And I am getting quite jealous of our sub-editor, and that is the long and short of it. But it's good to see him haw-haw Bickerton if ever they meet in the office, that it is! Bickerton won't bully him any more, I promise you!" The conclaves and conspiracies of these women were endless in Philip's behalf. One day I let the Little Sister out of my house, with a handkerchief to her eyes, and in a great state of flurry and excitement, which perhaps communicates itself to the gentleman who passes her at his own door. The gentleman's wife is, on her part, not a little moved and excited. "What do you think Mrs. Brandon says? Philip is learning short-hand. He says he does not think he is clever enough to be a writer of any mark; but he can be a reporter, and with this and his place at Mr. Mugford's, he thinks he can earn Mr. Firmin's work and pay were both light, enough to Oh, he is a fine fellow!" I supand he accepted both very cheerfully. He saved pose feminine emotion stopped the completion money out of his little stipend. It was surpris- of this speech. But when Mr. Philip slouched ing how economically he could live with his lit-in to dinner that day his hostess did homage betle landlady's aid and counsel. He would come fore him: she loved him; she treated him with to us, recounting his feats of parsimony with al a tender respect and sympathy which her like VOL. XXIV.-No. 143.-XX |