It is, I think, only necessary to look back to the Revolution by
which the United States separated themselves from England to see
this. There is hardly to be met, here and there, an Englishman who
now regrets the loss of the revolted American colonies; who now
thinks that civilization was retarded and the world injured by that
revolt; who now conceives that England should have expended more
treasure and more lives in the hope of retaining those colonies.
It is agreed that the revolt was a good thing; that those who were
then rebels became patriots by success, and that they deserved well
of all coming ages of mankind. But not the less absolutely
necessary was it that England should endeavor to hold her own. She
was as the mother bird when the young bird will fly alone. She
suffered those pangs which Nature calls upon mothers to endure.

As was the necessity of British opposition to American
independence, so was the necessity of Northern opposition to
Southern secession. I do not say that in other respects the two
cases were parallel. The States separated from us because they
would not endure taxation without representation--in other words,
because they were old enough and big enough to go alone. The South
is seceding from the North because the two are not homogeneous.
They have different instincts, different appetites, different
morals, and a different culture. It is well for one man to say
that slavery has caused the separation, and for another to say that
slavery has not caused it. Each in so saying speaks the truth.
Slavery has caused it, seeing that slavery is the great point on
which the two have agreed to differ. But slavery has not caused
it, seeing that other points of difference are to be found in every
circumstance and feature of the two people. The North and the
South must ever be dissimilar. In the North labor will always be
honorable, and because honorable, successful. In the South labor
has ever been servile--at least in some sense--and therefore
dishonorable; and because dishonorable, has not, to itself, been
successful. In the South, I say, labor ever has been dishonorable;
and I am driven to confess that I have not hitherto seen a sign of
any change in the Creator's fiat on this matter. That labor will
be honorable all the world over as years advance and the millennium
draws nigh, I for one never doubt.

So much for English opinion about America in August last. And now
I will venture to say a word or two as to American feeling
respecting this English opinion at that period. It will of course
be remembered by all my readers that, at the beginning of the war,
Lord Russell, who was then in the lower house, declared, as Foreign
Secretary of State, that England would regard the North and South
as belligerents, and would remain neutral as to both of them. This
declaration gave violent offense to the North, and has been taken
as indicating British sympathy with the cause of the seceders. I
am not going to explain--indeed, it would be necessary that I
should first understand--the laws of nations with regard to
blockaded ports, privateering, ships and men and goods contraband
of war, and all those semi-nautical, semi-military rules and axioms
which it is necessary that all attorneys-general and such like
should, at the present moment, have at their fingers' end. But it
must be evident to the most ignorant in those matters, among which
large crowd I certainly include myself, that it was essentially
necessary that Lord John Russell should at that time declare openly
what England intended to do. It was essential that our seamen
should know where they would be protected and where not, and that
the course to be taken by England should be defined. Reticence in
the matter was not within the power of the British government. It
behooved the Foreign Secretary of State to declare openly that
England intended to side either with one party or with the other,
or else to remain neutral between them.

I had heard this matter discussed by Americans before I left
England, and I have of course heard it discussed very frequently in
America. There can be no doubt that the front of the offense given
by England to the Northern States was this declaration of Lord John
Russell's. But it has been always made evident to me that the sin
did not consist in the fact of England's neutrality--in the fact of
her regarding the two parties as belligerents--but in the open
declaration made to the world by a Secretary of State that she did
intend so to regard them. If another proof were wanting, this
would afford another proof of the immense weight attached in
America to all the proceedings and to all the feelings of England
on this matter. The very anger of the North is a compliment paid
by the North to England. But not the less is that anger
unreasonable. To those in America who understand our constitution,
it must be evident that our government cannot take official
measures without a public avowal of such measures. France can do
so. Russia can do so. The government of the United States can do
so, and could do so even before this rupture. But the government
of England cannot do so. All men connected with the government in
England have felt themselves from time to time more or less
hampered by the necessity of publicity. Our statesmen have been
forced to fight their battles with the plan of their tactics open
before their adversaries. But we in England are inclined to
believe that the general result is good, and that battles so fought
and so won will be fought with the honestest blows and won with the
surest results. Reticence in this matter was not possible; and
Lord John Russell, in making the open avowal which gave such
offense to the Northern States, only did that which, as a servant
of England, England required him to do.

"What would you in England have thought," a gentleman of much
weight in Boston said to me, "if, when you were in trouble in
India, we had openly declared that we regarded your opponents there
are as belligerents on equal terms with yourselves?" I was forced


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