The American War

There is no doubt that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Northern States believed that " ninety days" would be enough for the subjugation of the " rebels," and even those who were most opposed to war, and who as private citizens would have favoured peaceful secession, would, if they had been in office, have found it very difficult to have adopted any other course than the one which was taken by President Lincoln. He was sworn to maintain a constitution whose articles were headed with the title "perpetual," and whose last line repeated the title ; and he was armed with all the executive power of the union for the purpose of fulfilling his oath. He was advised by his law officers that there was no liberty of seces-- sion in the constitution, and any laxity on his part to use the means in his hands for the maintenance of union would have rendered him liable to impeachment. He had clearly laid down his policy on assuming the executive power; he did not mean to interfere with slavery where it existed, but his influence would be exerted to keep it out of the territories. This, therefore, was the issue between North and South, whether or not slavery should be extended to the territories. And when a meeting took place to try and arrange the differences, the prominent, if not the only question discussed was, whether or not slavery should be allowed in the territories; the principal requirement of the South was " give us the territories," and the simple reply of the North was not to allow slavery for the territories. The principal abolitionists in America, and their most intelligent sympathisers in England

declared that the war was a war against slavery; and that the South so understood it was shown by every speech and every action ; but in England some anti-slavery men denounced Mr. Lincoln for not openly declaring war against slavery, forgetting entirely the obligations of law upon the head of the executive government; whilst others accused his sympathisers of putting forward a sham plea for the war, and professing to fight for abolition, whilst the real struggle was "the South fights for liberty and the North for empire ;" and, in proof of the sham, the opinion was freely expressed during the first two years of the war that if the South had chosen to go back to union, the North would have re-- ceived them with open arms, slavery included. Both sides found their convictions strengthened by the abolition proclamation, which simply applied to the states in rebellion. The abolitionists hailed the measure with joy, as indicative of the determination of the President to use every proper means to achieve an object which was believed to be dear to him. Under the constitution he could not act against slavery where it existed, for he was bound to main-- tain that constitution, and it contained slavery, because it contained slave states; but the Southern States had by the act of war put themselves beyond the pale of the constitution ; so far as the President had any power with them it was the power of a military commander-in-chief, a dictator against opponents in arms ; and he used that power with a view to cripple the enemy, and advance the cause of abolition at the same time. His friends said that this measure sealed the doom of slavery, and would hand down his name to all generations as the great liberator ; whilst his enemies declared the proclamation to be horribly cruel and hypocritical. They said it was intended to promote a servile war, intended to in-- duce the slaves to murder innocent women and children; that being unable to subdue the Southern armies Mr. Lincoln had attempted to destroy the families of the citizen soldiers ; and in England it was thought by many people to be proof enough of the hypocrisy of the President, that the proclamation was confined to the states where he had no practical power, whilst slavery was left untouched in those which remained loyal. The number of slaves who escaped during the struggle (estimated at one-and-a-half to two millions) showed the power of the proclamation, for apart from its issue they would have remained slaves at the end of the war ; and the fact of

their escaping from, instead of killing the families of their owners, showed how groundless were the fears of a servile war. But the greatest justification of the wisdom of the proclamation is that it rendered an amendment of the constitution not only possible but necessary. The real truth probably is that Mr. Lincoln was a sincere abolitionist at heart, and that the South was well aware of that fact prior to his election. They saw also that the immense immigration into the Northern States would, in every succeeding election, put them and their peculiar institution into a continually more hopeless minority, and that slavery must either gradually die out, or they must seek an empire elsewhere. Apart from the attempt at secession, Mr. Lincoln would have confined his attention and have directed his power simply to the prevention of the spread of slavery in the territories. In the state of war it is probable that he would, at any time prior to the abolition proclamation, have received the submission of the South on the terms of the constitution, leaving slavery intact, and negotiating as to the destiny of those who had already escaped, or leaving them to be dealt with by the Supreme Court; but as the struggle grew fiercer, and the hope of early submission died away, he availed himself of his military power to deal a heavy blow at his antagonists, and to advance the cause of abolition. The proclamation took it out of the power of the law courts to deal with the escaped slaves-they could no longer be made the subjects of negotiation ; whether the South submitted or not they were free, and free they wrould remain, subject only to such municipal control as their ignorance and help-- lessness rendered necessary.