thinly spread themselves over the enormous wheat-growing districts
of the Northwest. St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, is nine
hundred miles directly north of St. Louis, the most northern point
to which slavery extends in the Western States of the Union; and
the farming lands of Minnesota stretch away again for some hundreds
of miles north and west of St. Paul. Could it be that those scanty
and far-off pioneers of agriculture--those frontier farmers, who
are nearly one-half German and nearly the other half Irish, would
desert their clearings and ruin their chances of progress in the
world for distant wars of which the causes must, as I thought, be
to them unintelligible? I had been told that distance had but lent
enchantment to the view, and that the war was even more popular in
the remote and newly-settled States than in those which have been
longer known as great political bodies. So I resolved that I would
go and see.

It may be as well to explain here that that great political Union
hitherto called the United States of America may be more properly
divided into three than into two distinct interests, In England we
have long heard of North and South as pitted against each other,
and we have always understood that the Southern politicians, or
Democrats, have prevailed over the Northern politicians, or
Republicans, because they were assisted in their views by Northern
men of mark who have held Southern principles--that is, by Northern
men who have been willing to obtain political power by joining
themselves to the Southern party. That, as far as I can
understand, has been the general idea in England, and in a broad
way it has been true, But as years have advanced, and as the States
have extended themselves westward, a third large party has been
formed, which sometimes rejoices to call itself The Great West; and
though, at the present time, the West and the North are joined
together against the South, the interests of the North and West are
not, I think, more closely interwoven than are those of the West
and South; and when the final settlement of this question shall be
made, there will doubtless be great difficulty in satisfying the
different aspirations and feelings of two great free-soil
populations. The North, I think, will ultimately perceive that it
will gain much by the secession of the South; but it will be very
difficult to make the West believe that secession will suit its
views.

I will attempt, in a rough way, to divide the States, as they seem
to divide themselves, into these three parties. As to the majority
of them, there is no difficulty in locating them; but this cannot
be done with absolute certainty as to some few that lie on the
borders.

New England consists of six States, of which all of course belong
to the North. They are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut--the six States which
should be most dear to England, and in which the political success
of the United States as a nation is to my eyes the most apparent.
But even in them there was till quite of late a strong section so
opposed to the Republican party as to give a material aid to the
South. This, I think, was particularly so in New Hampshire, from
whence President Pierce came. He had been one of the Senators from
New Hampshire; and yet to him, as President, is affixed the
disgrace--whether truly affixed or not I do not say--of having
first used his power in secretly organizing those arrangements
which led to secession and assisted at its birth. In Massachusetts
itself, also, there was a strong Democratic party, of which
Massachusetts now seems to be somewhat ashamed. Then, to make up
the North, must be added the two great States of New York and
Pennsylvania and the small State of New Jersey. The West will not
agree even to this absolutely, seeing that they claim all territory
west of the Alleghanies, and that a portion of Pennsylvania and
some part also of New York lie westward of that range; but, in
endeavoring to make these divisions ordinarily intelligible, I may
say that the North consists of the nine States above named. But
the North will also claim Maryland and Delaware, and the eastern
half of Virginia. The North will claim them, though they are
attached to the South by joint participation in the great social
institution of slavery--for Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia are
slave States--and I think that the North will ultimately make good
its claim. Maryland and Delaware lie, as it were, behind the
capital, and Eastern Virginia is close upon the capital. And these
regions are not tropical in their climate or influences. They are
and have been slave States, but will probably rid themselves of
that taint, and become a portion of the free North.

The Southern or slave States, properly so called, are easily
defined. They are Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. The
South will also claim Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia,
Delaware, and Maryland, and will endeavor to prove its right to the
claim by the fact of the social institution being the law of the
land in those States. Of Delaware, Maryland, and Eastern Virginia,
I have already spoken. Western Virginia is, I think, so little
tainted with slavery that, as she stands even at present, she
properly belongs to the West. As I now write, the struggle is
going on in Kentucky and Missouri. In Missouri the slave
population is barely more than a tenth of the whole, while in South
Carolina and Mississippi it is more than half. And, therefore, I
venture to count Missouri among the Western States, although
slavery is still the law of the land within its borders. It is
surrounded on three sides by free States of the West, and its soil,
let us hope, must become free. Kentucky I must leave as doubtful,
though I am inclined to believe that slavery will be abolished
there also. Kentucky, at any rate, will never throw in its lot
with the Southern States. As to Tennessee, it seceded heart and


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