E + 63 8 US THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES AN ADDRESS, ON THE AMERICAN CONFLICT, DELIVERED AT MONTREAL, ON THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER, 22, 1864. BY THE REV. JOHN ICORDNER, MANCHESTER : A. IRELAND AND CO., PRINTERS, PALL MALL COURT. 1865. PREFACE. THE following Address is reprinted for private circulation in England, with the view of showing at this juncture, when parties are endeavouring to inflame the passions of their countrymen on the subject of the supposed hostile designs of the United States upon Canada, that, in the opinion of an influential Canadian clergyman, no such danger exists, provided "Wisdom," which "is better than weapons of war. is allowed to govern our actions. The Address is calm, moderate, and logical throughout, and is commended to the careful perusal of every friend of humanity and true patriot. MANCHESTER, MARCH 21, 1865. M367548 INTRODUCTION. (From the "Daily News, March CM, 1865.^ ;f A WORD spoken in due season., how good is it!" This will be the silent thought, if nob the exclamation, of nine out of ten of the readers of a Christmas Address by a Canadian clergyman which has just reached this country. More recent events, and the aptness of the speaker s mind to appreciate them, have evidently given a growing importance to what he said at the close of the year. The address, after appearing in some of the Canadian newspapers, has been published as a pamphlet, the whole edition of which was at once cleared off, as the Canadian newspapers record, with patriotic satisfaction. In a few days more the loyal people there will be lamenting that Lord Derby and Lord Lyvedcn had not seen this address before the opening of the session ; for it is inconceivable that it would not have been an admonition to them to forbear their exasperating assumption that the Americans would make war upon us as soon as they should be at liberty to send their forces to Canada. As it is, the thought which must occur to all VI readers is, " liow good is it " when clergymen put forth their influence to foster peace between neighbouring nations, while statesmen, whose business it is to foster that peace, put forth their influence to breed war. The Rev. John Cordner, in addressing the New England Society of Montreal, tells us incidentally that he is an Irishman by birth, and a Canadian by adoption. It is to be hoped that, as an Irishman, he will be listened to by the Fenian emigrants on both sides of the frontier, and that his good sense, ample information, and healthy loyalty, which enhances his sympathy with the better part of the Americans, will so impress his Fenian brethren as to show them what is their duty, and what their best policy, as American and Canadian citizens. If they are too fanatical in their prejudices, his expositions and his warnings, and yet more his example, may show the champions of the Southern secession in England how mistaken they are in their sympathies with the aggressive party in the American war, ;.nd how those sympathies are now actually involving them in dis loyalty to British rule in our North American colonies. From his exposition they may learn what the Southern agitators have been doing in courting sympathy and obtaining aid in Europe while manoeuvring in Canada to breed a war between England and the United States. No Englishman, can read his account Vll of the proceedings of those agitators in Canada, while seeking and accepting the hospitalities of the citizens, without a feeling of shame that any of us, and especially any of our public men, should have been seduced into countenancing their cause while they were plotting to force us into war on our own account and not on theirs with their antagonists. The best use, however, of this address will probably be among the Canadian citizens, scattered over the rural districts east and west of Montreal, and along the frontier. Few of these settlers can have the opportu nity of attending public discussions in the great cities; and to those who stay at home this address will afford the most safe and righteous guidance. Mr. Cordner feels the interest which earnest clergymen should feel in the early history of the New England settle ments, consisting, as it does, of the efforts and sacrifices of religious men to obtain freedom of worship, and a civil liberty worthy of such companionship. He traces the story of the growth of the Republic, and of its evergrowing pains and penalties, and its decline in virtue under the curse of slavery. He exhibits the subtle rapacity first, and the intolerable tyranny afterwards, of the slave power, and proves, from the public acts and utterances of the Confederate leaders themselves, that their purpose in making the present war was to preserve slavery on Vlll their own soil, to incorporate it with their whole polity, and to make it supersede freedom in every state open to Southern influence. Looking nearer home than the American battlefield, he shows that there is every ground for friendship and good offices between Canada and the United States. The Southerners settled in Canada have been profuse of late in their assurances that they have no desire to harm the people among whom they are living, and no thought of injuring them ; but there is rather too much of patronage and conceit in this to please the sturdy colonists, and Mr. Cordner speaks acceptably for them when he says that his fellow-citizens ask no favours of strangers to whom they accord free hospitality. They feel able to manage their own affairs, and to protect their own interests, while free to bestow their cordiality where they list. That cordiality is due pre-eminently to their neighbours of the Free States. He says " They are our neighbours and natural friends, bound to " us, as we are to them, by the reciprocal ties of amicable corn- " mercial intercourse. With them, as with us, free labour is " respected, and the honest tiller of the soil has the status of a " man and a citizen. With them, as with us, the word liberty " has the same meaning, involving the right of poor and rich, " black and white alike, to the disposal of their own persons, of IX " their personal ambition and exertion, and of its fruits. The " traditions and policy of our mother country have been steadily " on this side of personal liberty." The topic of defence follows. He approves neither of the policy good 011 the prairie in a conflagration of kindling a fire in a new direction as an escape from the peril of the one which becomes too threatening in another ; nor of the Chinese method of averting war by noise and bluster, covering the fear of seeming afraid. He trusts the Americans will despise the one device, and the Canadians the other, and that they will see how " Wisdom is better than weapons of war: His own opinion is, that as Nature and Providence have made the neighbours friends, Wisdom may easily keep them so ; and he concludes by showing what Wisdom means in the present case a loyal support of the neutral policy of the Home Government ; a faithful discharge of treaty obligations ; fidelity to the great principles of liberty professed and dearly loved on both sides the frontier ; and a courageous good humour, which always and everywhere tells in favour of peace. This is a discourse which might well have the two nations, with all their sections and parties, for audience not an oration or a poem, but the right word, spoken in the right spirit, in the right time and place. THE AMERICAN CONFLICT. GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY, As I came down, here this evening, through the deep snow drifts, and an atmo sphere some degrees below zero, the thoughts of the hardships of the landing which this day commemorates, rose to greater distinctness in my mind. To the frozen shore of a northern wilderness, on a cold December day, two hundred and forty-four years ago, came that resolute band of Englishmen and English women who laid the foundation of the Plymouth colony of New England. Inspired "by a lofty idealism and firm faith in God, -hey were constrained, for conscience sake, to forego the comforts of their native and much-loved home, and face the perils of the .sea, and of foreign and unknown climes. Such men and women >uch faith and fidelity to conscience are eminently worthy of commemoration. FELLOW-CTTIZEXS OF MONTREAL, When, on the day before yesterday, the committee of the New England Society asked me to speak here on this evening, I at once acceded to their request. Up till a few days ago, they had hoped that Mr. George Thompson, of England, who is now visiting America, would have been able to come to Montreal for this anniver sary ; but. though much desiring to do so, Mr. Thompson found that his engagements elsewhere rendered his present coming impossible. Had he come, I should have been his grateful hearer. The name of George Thompson has been long familiar to me, as that of one of England s most active public men, whose labours in parliament and out of parliament, on behalf of the working; 1 classes, and the rights of labour, have commanded my attention and respect. I hold in my hand Mr. Thompson s letter to the President of the New England Society, expressing regret that he is compelled to postpone his visit to Montreal. Thirty years ago, in a previous visit to America, it was his privilege, so he writes, to speak at Plymouth, on the anniversary of " Forefathers Day/ and it would have given him great pleasure to appear again here at a similar anniversary, after the lapse of a generation. But as he could not come, I have consented to appear here at rather brief notice. I do not say this for any purpose of making the society responsible for the imperfection of what I may have to say. I need not have consented unless I had chosen to do so. The choice of topic, too, was altogether my own. And for any merit or demerit in what I may say, I alone am answerable. Under ordinary cir cumstances I should not have consented to speak. But the time is extraordinary. In view of the existing excitement caused by recent events, I felt that our fellow-citizens of the New England Society of Montreal ought to have their anniversary in some form or other. The events just referred to have suggested the subject of my address. I propose to speak on the American conflict. Living as we now do in the midst of an excitement resulting from the civil war in the nation across our borders, and some atrocities connected therewith having been so recently brought to our own doors in a manner to make us think of possible peril to our own peace, it seems a fitting time to review, though ever so imperfectly, the American conflict in its origin and purpose. Any review here made must needs be very brief. Nor is there anything new to be said. Still, in view of the misapprehension incident to a period of strong excitement, when various passions, prejudices and interests, are called into play, it may be useful to recall some facts connected with the origin of this disastrous strife, and direct attention to the end proposed by those who initiated the war. And here at the outset I would say, that if my observation of this matter had begun after the actual outbreak of hostilities, and had been mainly directed to the heroic qualities of the Southern people, their fertility of resource 3 in fighting against great odds, their endurance against their more powerful antagonist, their suffering on their own soil, through the devastation of war; and all this while their cry was, that they only desired to be " let alone" in the assertion of their freedom and independence as a separate nation, then it is likely that I should say as so many have said and still say, "Let them alone ; let them have their reasonable demand of freedom and independence : why prolong a war so sanguinary in itself, and so detrimental to a wide range of interests at home and abroad ?" If, in addition to this very limited observation of events forced on me by the current chronicle of the daily news papers, I had any personal or class interest in the palpable failure of a great fabric of popular government, or if, consciously or unconsciously, I yielded my judgment to the lead of those who have such interest, then I should actively sympathise with the South, which puts a ban on honest labour, holding its labourers as chattel property, and proposes to perpetuate a dominant oligarchy as the ruling class. But as my observation of events goes far beyond the outbreak of this war, and as, moreover, I have no interest at all in depreciating the capacit}^ uf the people to take care of their own affairs and govern themselves, as I can claim no connection whatever with oligarchy or aristocracy, it being my great privilege to be identified at every point with the industrial classes of society ; and as, moreover, I refuse to yield to any leading, be it ever so artfully tendered, which has for its intention or its effect the depreciation of honest and free labour all this being the case, I am compelled to other and different views and conclusions on this matter. THE MORAL ISSUE. More than twenty-one years have now elapsed since I came from the mother country to this daughter land, and took up my abode in this city ; and during all this period I have been an observer of the moral aspects ofjthe political affairs of the United States. For it has been a marked peculiarity of the lead- ing political questions of that country that these questions were inextricably interwoven with moral questions in which the whole civilised world took an interest. The marvellous expansion of commerce in the leading Southern staple gave to slave labour u greatly increased value, and thus augmented to the Southern view the importance of negro slavery as a social and political institu tion ; and this, while the tide of a more enlightened public- opinion was rising against it everywhere else in America and Europe. The conscience of the Northern States was gradm-lly aroused to the moral wrong of a system which reduced a man to a chattel, making men, women, and children things of bargaiu and sale, depriving them of the rights of marriage, and the family, thus opening a way to moral degradation on all hands. Great Britain, after a lengthened agitation, and at a great cost of money, had wiped the stain of negro slavery from her "West India colonies. And having done this, her people, comprising all classes, sent remonstrance after remonstrance across the Atlantic, urging the people of the United States to deal faith fully with this national evil, nor halt in their agitation against it until it should cease to exist. Thus stimulated from abroad. as well as at home, the anti-slavery agitation acquired formi dable proportions. The South became more and more tilarmet] for the safety of their "peculiar institution." While its impor tance to them in an economic point of view increased year bv year, the feeling against it in the Free States of the HE ion, and thoughout the world, increased year by year likewise. The pre servation of this institution, its extension and perpetuation, became the central thought of the Southern mind. All political questions were considered primarily in their relation to this us the cardinal point. It entered into all party combinations- throughout the United States, north and south, east and west. This has been patent to every observer during the past twentv years. As the grand moral issue involved became more distinctly revealed, rising every year into clearer and more definite form. it gradually disintegrated the existing combinations of party politics, based as they were on considerations of expediency or economics. A few years ago it broke up the old and influential Whig party in the United States ; and, more recently, it has utterly demolished the old and well-organised Democratic party. The thoughtful observer, looking through outward events to the moral forces which produce them, will see here a steady, upward tendency of the public mind to a higher plane of civilization. All who have studied the moral struggle in England, led by Clarkson and Wilberforce and their contemporaries, on behalf of simple justice towards a weak and oppressed race, will be able to appreciate in some measure, but not to its full extent, all that is involved in the gradually changed public opinion of the United States. In England, the influence of the West India interest was powerful against Clarkson and Wilberforce, but it bears no proper comparison with the influences so various and powerful which the Southern interest could exert on the general mind of America. In England, the movement on behalf of human free dom was jeered by an influential press, and its advocates, including the most honoured names in the land, were mobbed in English towns. But the fidelity of those honoured men to their ideas of justice led to a triumph for freedom throughout the whole mind of the nation, which now stands as one of the proudest traditions connected with the British realm and the British name. A similar trial of misconception, misrepresentation, and mob violence awaited the movement in the United States, but on a larger and more determinate scale. In America, there were poli tical obstacles in the way which did not exist in England ; and these obstacles not being rightly apprehended in England, it came to pass that English remonstrances addressed to the people of the United States on the subject of slavery frequently failed of their purpose. But the honest desire to mitigate the growing evil of slavery in the nation made hopeful progress in the national mind of the American Union. It came more and more to be regarded by the people as a blot on the fame of their great and prosperous country. It was felt to be a discredit abroad, and a fertile source of dishonest party intrigue at home. Then, on moral grounds, it was seen to be without defence. The intense anxiety of the Southern mind for its safety, now so imperilled by having the attention of the civilised world brought to bear more directly upon it, culminated in fanaticism. The moral dis cussion of the subject, so long dreaded and evaded by the South, was now faced by them in the spirit of a forlorn hope, and posi tions taken which revealed the distraction of their moral con sciousness, and the distortion of their moral convictions. " When " the slavery question was first mooted in our national councils," says the Rev. Dr. Leacock of New Orleans, in a sermon preached November, 18GO, "we dreaded the consequences, and trembled " at the bare mention of the subject ; we stood aghast before our " adversaries ; and why ? Because we were not so well informed " on the subject of slavery as we are now. Many of us doubted " whether we could religiously hold our servant." This moral doubt, he adds, made them cowardly ; but in the new light of the last few years, the doubt has been dissipated, and now they feel that they can hold their slaves ; and this new moral cer tainty which has come to them has given them a courage not felt before. The position now quite commonly taken by the South is, that slavery is a divine institution, existing there to-day by divine sanction, and for a divine purpose. It is affirmed that the providential purpose of the South is to preserve, extend, and perpetuate it. Says the Rev. Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans, in a sermon preached in that city rather more than four years ago : " The providential trust committed to the South as a people, is " to conserve and perpetuate the institution of domestic slavery, " as now existing." He avers that in standing by this trust, they are defending the cause of religion. As the providentially constituted guardians of slavery, he adds, "the South can " demand nothing less than that it should be left open to expansion, subject to no human limitations" This is the language of slaveholding fanaticism, which could obtain no hold or hearing outside of slaveholding limits, or slave- holding influences. Fanaticism is a species of madness, and, in this instance, it may be safely taken as an illustration of the adage which makes madness the presage of impending destruction. THE POLITICAL ISSUE. Here we see indication of that political issue which now became inevitable. Aiming at the territorial expansion of slavery, the South would not only not allow any further limit to be placed to its extension, but they would break down the limi tations already existing, and by law established, as a peaceful compromise of the matter so long in dispute. More than forty years ago, when Missouri a part of the Louisiana tract was admitted as a state into the Union, there was a lengthened and important debate 011 the slavery question, which was brought to a close by the adoption of a measure of compromise, known as the " Missouri Compromise." Missouri was admitted as a slave state, but a line was drawn north of Arkansas, northward of which it was solemnly agreed that slavery should not be extended. This agreement was enacted and ratified in due form, and stood as confessed law of the land for more than thirty years. But the restless and aggressive spirit of slavery became dissatisfied with this established limitation, and through various intrigues and party combinations at the North, succeeded in breaking down the Missouri Compromise. This was accomplished during the presidency of Mr. Pearce ; and thus the way was opened for the unlimited extension of negro slavery throughout all the terri tories of the American Union. This act which, however, was only one of a series of aggressive acts on the part of the Slave Power aroused the people of the Free States to a more united a ad determined resistance. The effect of this was seen in the presidential election of 1856, when Mr. Buchanan and Colonel Fremont were the rival candidates. Mr. Buchanan was the Democratic and Conservative candidate, so called, prepared to conserve slavery, and, as a general principle, to be controlled by Southern influences. Colonel Fremont was the candidate of the party which aimed to exclude slavery from the territories. The popular watchword of this party was "Free soil, free speech, free men, and Fremont." Its time for success, however, had not yet come. Fremont was defeated, and Buchanan was chosen President for the next four years. B 8 Meanwhile the Free Soil party, now known as " Republicans," as distinguished from the "Democrats," were not idle. The disastrous influence of slavery in the National Councils became more fully developed as it saw the political dangers thickening around it. The imperious self-will, which comes from the habitual exercise of irresponsible power, the impatience of restraint which such power engenders, and the ready resort to violence which springs from familiarity with the plantation whip all this was brought into the halls of Congress. A Massachusetts senator was stunned with a slaveholder s bludgeon in his seat in the Senate House at Washington. Southern communities publicly applauded the dastardly and ferocious deed. It became more clear to the mind of the Free States that there was only one course, viz., to check the encroachments of the Slave Power, and publicly pronounce Slavery a sectional, not a national institution. As another presidential election approached, the Republican party organised for the contest, attempting no interference with slavery where it already existed, thus conceding the right of the several Slave States to deal with it after their own manner, but proposing to restrict it within its present limits, and to prohibit it in future throughout territories of the Union where it did not then exist. This was the main issue presented at the presidential election of 1860. Briefly stated, the issue was this : the unlimited expan sion of slavery, as demanded by the South : or its territorial limitation. This issue went before the whole United States. Every State, North and South from Maine to Texas went into the contest. All sent their votes to Washington. And the result was, that Mr. Lincoln, the candidate of the party for the non- extension of slavery, was announced as the constitutionally elected President of the United States for the next four years. THE ACTION OF THE SOUTH. As soon as this announcement was made, the South showed unmistakable symptoms of deep dissatisfaction, and a determination to revolt. Subsequent developments show us how these first symptoms ripened into a formidable and wide spread insurrection, involving the nation in the horrors of a civil war. Before Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, and while Mr. Buchanan was still President, the national property at Charles ton, South Carolina, was seized, the national ships were fired upon in Charleston harbour, and other like acts of war waged upon the National Government. Then ordinances of secession were rapidly passed without consulting the people, a revolutionary Congress established, and an army of resistance raised. So that when Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated, and in advance of any overt act of his government in relation to the South, he found himself confronted by a formidable insurrectionary opposition. Now, had the South any just cause to initiate such civil war under the circumstances and organize an^army to carry it on as they have done to this day ? I say, No. And in taking this ground, T waive all discussion of " State rights" so-called, as beyond my province and scope. My position is simply this : The South having gone into the presidential election of 1860, in common with the North, and all States of the Union, they were bound, in common with the North and other States, to abide peacefully by the constitutional result thereof. Whatever course they might take with respect to any future election, under any assumed ri^ ht to secede, they were bound to this election, at any rate, by all constitutional and honourable obligations. And, having hastily and wilfully disregarded such obligations, we are justified in holding them responsible for the origin of the present war, and for the deplorable consequences which have followed it, and still follow it to their own nation, both North and South, and to other nations. * I have just said that I here forego the discussion of State * A remarkable letter from General Lee has jnst found its way to the public through the columns of the London Times. It was written to his sister, at the beginning of tho Southern revolt. " My dear sister," he writes, " the whole South is in a state of revolu- ;t tion, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn ; and though I recognise " no necessity for this state of things, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for ;e.lress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question " uhether I would take up arms against my native State." Here is a confession from the leading general of the Southern armies that he saw "no necessity" for the revolt into which he permitted himself to be drawn, and which has brought such disastrous conse quences to the United States and to the world during the past four year?. 10 rights. Nevertheless, I may be allowed to remind you that all the seceding States do not occupy the same historical position. Of the States now insurgent we find some as Arkansas and Louisiana, whose soil and privileges were a purchased acquisi tion, made by the original States of the Union the great bulk of whom are in and for the Union still. It was about sixty years ago that the United States purchased from the French the large territory west of the Mississippi, known as the Louisiana tract, for which they paid between eleven and twelve millions of dollars, and assumed the payment of certain claims, making in all some fifteen millions of dollars as the price paid. A portion of this purchased tract is now known as the State of Louisiana, which was admitted into the Union in 1812. Now what rightful ground can Louisiana have in saying to the bulk, of the original States, who paid their millions of solid money for her soil and the advantages of outlet to the ocean which it gives by the mouth of the Mississippi river; what rightful ground, I ask, can Louisiana have in saying to those other States: " I will secede and form an independent nation; the mouth of " the Mississippi will be no longer at the service of your nation " except on my conditions." Now, fellow-citizens, consider this matter a moment. Here we are at Montreal, at the head of the ship navigation of the St. Lawrence. Away to the eastward of us lies a large tract of Canadian territory, rich in undeveloped resources. Away to the westward lie the great lakes, and the wide -stretching tillage lands of Western Canada. Now suppose 1 the district of Quebec, including the outlet of the St. Lawrence, were in the hands of a foreign power, and that in order to secure for ourselves and our posterity an open transit to the ocean for the various produce of our mines, forests, and tillage lands, we, the people of Central and Western Canada, should purchase the district of Quebec at a cost of some millions of dollars, taken from our joint treasury, what should we the people of these regions say if the people of the Quebec district should, in a given number of years afterwards, announce that they had seceded, and that the mouth of the St. Lawrence must hence forth be considered by us as in the hands of a foreign power. I 11 think we should have a good many words with them before we consented to any such transfer of purchased privileges as seces sion involved. Arid I think, too, that if they took up the sword to fight out this question of transfer by secession we should take up the sword also, and keep it going until we found out which of the two swords was the longer and stronger. Secession, according to the precedent the South seeks to establish, means anarchy. It means anarchy not only in the United States, but throughout this whole continent. If the slave states had a right to secede because they were defeated at the polls in 1860, so likewise, had the little State of New Jersey, and the two others that were defeated in this year 1861. Now Maine, Vermont, or New York, any of the States on our own border, may be defeated at the next presidential election, four years hence. Following precedent, they raise a tumult and secede. Let the doctrine involved be practically established, and how long would it be until we should have it applied in Canada ? If, instead of national unity and political order on the other side of the frontier, we had such political disintegration ;ui(l disorder, the contagion would spread to our own side. It may be said that the political pact in Canada is different from that existing between the States of the American Union. But how long would the letter of any political compact be respected, if the public opinion became demoralised by familiarity with anarchy on the other side of the frontier. I say, then, that secession, such as the Slave States have initiated means anarchy. In logical sequence and natural consequence, it brings eventual anarchy to every political community on this continent, from the north pole to the tropic line. THE ACTION OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. When the purpose of the South became clearly revealed, the National Government was put to great disadvantage through lack of centralised power. The vacillating and feeble policy of President Buchanan, surrounded as he was in his cabinet by the active friends of the South, gave the Slave States time to gather and consolidate their strength. The cabinet influences 12 at Washington favoured them in various ways, among others by the almost wholesale transfer of the military stores of the nation from Northern to Southern arsenals. When President Lincoln was inaugurated he found the departmental bureaus at Wash ington filled with public servants on whose fidelity to their public trust he could not rely. Many were in secret, if not open, sympathy with those in revolt against his authority, and were not scrupulous in serving them, to the disadvantage of the National Government. The crisis was a new experience to the rulers at Washington. There was no ^adequate provision made for such a trial. Hence delay in action, when delay was highly detrimental and dangerous. The Southern people, more skilled in the use of arms than the people of the North, could place effective armies in the field more rapidly than the North; hence their early successes, and the corresponding Northern defeats. The National Government wished to avoid war ; and Mr. Lin coln did all that he honourably could do to remove the dissatis faction and suspicion of the South, and assure the Slave States of his just respect for their rights under the Constitution. He offered places in his cabinet to distinguished Southern men among others to Mr. Stephens, of Georgia. In explanation of this it is to be borne in mind that Mr. Stephens, though now Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, cast his vote at first against the ordinance of secession in Georgia. All efforts of Mr. Lincoln for conciliation failed, because he did not concede the one thing which the South required with respect to slavery. Mr. Lincoln could not concede this without betraying the con fidence reposed in him as chief magistrate by the free North and West. And all such efforts having failed, Mr. Lincoln put forth his power to assert his authority, as constitutionally elected chief magistrate, for preserving the Union and the integrity of the nation confided to his trust. INCIDENTAL QUESTIONS. Various incidental and complicated questions arise out of this conflict tending to confuse foreign judgment. For purposes of misleading foreign opinion they are readily available, and have been freely used. 13 THE MOTIVE TO WAR. It has been said for instance, that the maintenance of the Union was the motive to war on one side, and the desire for independence the motive on the other. Now, this is true, but it is far from the whole truth. There is enough truth in the statement, however, to satisfy any one who does not want to know anything more about the matter. Hence the confi dent clamour of superficial controversialists. There would be more truth in the statement if we should say that the North fought for the Union, although Slavery should be destroyed by the war, while the South fought for Slavery though the Union should be destroyed. Every discerning man, South and North, knows that this is the true state of the case. Mr. Spratt, of South Carolina, thus puts the matter in his letter of protest, written in February, 1861, against the decision of the Southern Congress with reference to the foreign slave trade. He regards the prohibition of this slave trade " as a great calamity," and a cowardly concession to the prevailing prejudices of the world. He avers that the slave breeding States " have no right to ask " that their slaves, or any other products shall be protected to " unnatural value in the markets of the West! " The South! he says, " is now in the formation of a Slave Republic. This, " perhaps, is not admitted generally. There are many con- " tented to believe that the South as a geographical section c< is in mere assertion of its independence . . . This, I fear, is an inadequate conception of the controversy. The contest is not between the North and South as geo- graphical sections. The real contest is between the two forms " of society which have become established, the one at the " North and the other at the South." And he alludes as follows to the prospects of an independent Slave Kepublic : " Three " years ago, in my report to the Commercial Convention at " Montgomery, I said that European States are hostile to the " Union. Perhaps they see in it a threatening rival in every " branch of art, and they see that rival armed with one of the j 4 " most potent productive institutions tlie world has ever seen ; ( they would crush India and Algeria to make an equal supply " of cotton with the North ; and, failing in this, they would " crush slavery to bring the North to a footing with them, but " to slavery without the North they have 110 repugnance : on " the contrary, if it were to stand out for itself, free from the " control of any other power, and were to offer to European " States, upon fair terms, a full supply of its commodities, it " would nut only not be warred upon, but the South would be " singularly favoured crowns would bend before her; king- " doms and empires would break a lance to win the smile of " her approval ; and, quitting her free estate, it would be in " her option to become the bride of the world, rather than " as now, the miserable mistress of the North. Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice- President of the Southern Confederacy, leaves the world in no doubt about the origin of the war, and the purposes of the South in waging it. "African Slavery as it exists among us," he says in his celebrated speech after the adoption of the new Southern Constitution, " was the l< immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. " . . . The prevailing ideas entertained by most of the " leading statesmen at the formation of the old constitution were " that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the " laws of nature ; that it was wrong in principle, morally, u socially, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that " day was that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, c< the institution would be evanescent, and pass away. This* " idea, though not incorporated in the Constitution, was the " prevailing idea, at the time. The Constitution, it is true, " secured every essential guarantee to their institution while it " should last ; and hence no argument can be justly used against " the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the " common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were u fundamentally wrong. . . Our new government is " founded upon exactly opposite ideas. Its foundations are 15 " laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that Slavery, " subordination to the superior race, is the natural and moral " condition of the negro. This our new government is the "first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, " philosophical, and moral truth" Yes, Mr. Stephens, it is the first, indeed, and I think it will be the last ! So thoroughly was it understood throughout the South by the leaders of the war movement, that the preservation and extension of slavery was the purpose of the war, that we find suspicion cast upon the fidelity of those parts of the South which had not a vital interest in slavery. Thus a writer in the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle says, "Disguise it as we may, the " greatest danger to our new Confederacy arises, not from " without, not from the North, but from our own people. . The indications are, that organised, if not avowed, iv opposition to the new order of things may arise in States or " parts of Southern States not vitally interested in the slavery question." SUSPENSION OF CONSTITUTIONAL EIGHTS. It has been said, too, that Mr. Lincoln s rule was despotic that constitutional liberty was restricted by suspension of habeas corpus in some cases, and strict dealing with the press. But a state of civil war puts constitutional rights in abeyance if this be found necessary to the public safety. Can any one doubt that, if the British Government found itself seriously confronted with armed, insurrectionary opposition anywhere within the limits of the United Kingdom, it would hesitate to suspend con stitutional rights and interfere with personal liberty to any extent demanded by consideration of public safety and by the exigencies of the occasion. Of course such suspension should only be had in the last resort, but of the last resort the government itself must be the judge. I shall not refer here to the notions of liberty held in the South. In the Slave States during their most peaceful times, there never was freedom of speech or of the press. 16 THE WAR TEDIOUS. It has been further said that the war is an atrocious one in its methods, and that, moreover, it is tedious in its operations and long in coming to a conclusion. Now I say that all war is atrocious. The deliberate killing of men is atrocious work. John Wesley made a famous aphorism concerning slavery, affirming it the " sum of all villanies," and it was Robert Hall, I think, who made the aphorism concerning war that it was " hell let loose." Yes, all war is atrocious. And the nearer we are to it in time and space, the more atrocious it appears. Then, as to the war being tedious, certainly it is so, but all wars, where the opposing forces bear any due proportion to each other, are likely to be tedious. It is much easier to begin a war than to close one. If the South had duly considered this before firing her first round shot, it would have spared the world a great deal of anxiety and sorrow. Look at the history of the more recent wars of the world. Take the Avar for the occupation of the Crimea, a territory about the size of one of the smaller States of the Union. It took four nations of Europe combined, including Great Britain and France it required the combined power of these four European nations steadily exercised for about two years before they dislodged the Russians. Take the European peninsular war in the earlier part of this century. Was it not in 1808 that the French took Madrid, and was it not 1814 before even the genius of Wellington, supported by the allied armies, was able to drive them out of Spain ? Thus it took the allies under Wellington some six years to expel the French from a kingdom not much larger than the single State of Virginia. War, indeed, is a tedious business, and especially does it appear so when it presses immediately on any of our own interests. IS POPULAR GOVERNMENT A FAILURE ? Then, again, it is said by some that this civil war decides the question as to the permanency of the popular form of 17 government adopted in the United States a government of the people by the people administered according to republican forms. " The bubble has burst/ exclaims an honest Tory gentleman in one of the houses of the British Parliament. And so say a great many others, who had better hopes of the result of the great governmental experiment in the American Union. Now if we judge too hastily in this matter we may judge foolishly. If we cannot exactly look at the exciting events of our own day in the dry light of past history, let us at least pause and collate the past. Look at the history of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. View it in connection with the English monarchy, going back to the Norman Conquest. This brings us to the eleventh century. From that time to the present counts eight centuries. Now within these eight centuries of British history we may find an average of five intestine wars to each century. And if we reckon from the end of the fourteenth century to the end of the eighteenth, we shall find each century showing an average of seven. Some of these were closed in a year, others not for ten years. Yet the British monarchy has not proved a failure, notwithstanding all these intestine troubles, but has shown itself a great and visible success. As compared with the maturity of Britain, the American Union is still in nonage. It is not a hundred years old. A century in the life of a nation is as a decade in the life of an individual. A giant youth in lusty life is prone to say and do many things which the staid decorum of mature age will be likely to condemn. But we must not judge finally of the character of the man until the further development of the youth. I say, therefore, let us wait until the completion of the first century of the American Union before we pronounce definitely upon its failure. POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN DIVERS FORMS. Let us not talk rashly in this matter lest we should be found talking against ourselves, and bearing witness against our own best hopes and interests. Our fathers in the "old country" suffered much and struggled long against established aristocratic 18 pretension, to obtain for us, their descendants, our just share of influence in the national councils. Popular government I define as a government of the people by the people. Now this is what we have in Canada. With us, however, it is adminis tered under the form of limited monarchy. But the difference here, as compared with the government of the United States, is formal rather than substantial. Between a limited or constitu tional monarchy, and an unlimited or absolute monarchy, the difference is not only formal but essential. In the case of absolute monarchy the rule is arbitrary, as by the will of the sovereign. In the case of limited monarchy the rule is consti tutional, as prescribed by the law of the land. As between an absolute and a limited monarchy, therefore, the difference is seen to be essential. But as between popular government administered under republican and under limited monarchical form the differ ence is mainly formal. In both cases the people at large hold a controlling power in the government a power, I mean, sufficient to control the executive, whether crowned or uncrowned. In Great Britain the representatives of the people hold the purso of the nation, and the crowned sovereign has to ask them fur the money needed to defray the expenses of the state; and this they may give or withhold as they deem best. To withhold the supplies, which they have the constitutional power to do, is to render the monarch powerless. Within the limits of the British Isles, as represented at Westminster, the territorial nobles exert a commanding, but still a restricted influence in the government. The history of the present century, however, shows the steadily increasing influence of the popular element in the government, and a corresponding decrease in the influence of the territorial aristocracy. This change is going on peacefully, and in virtue of a law of social progress, which, under the well-balanced institutions of Britain, has scope for that gradual expansion and adjustment to actual social necessities which gives stability to every step. But in these British American provinces, where this class of territorial nobles does not exist and cannot exist, the influence of the people is more immediate and direct on our governmental working. With this modification of our institu- 19 tions, resulting from the fixed necessity of our position, our government becomes substantially similar to the government of the United States, though formally different therefrom. If, therefore, we rashly join in depreciation of popular government, or follow the interested lead of those who cry against the fitness of the /people to govern themselves, we may come to find that we have been speaking against ourselves, and against the best interests and privileges of our posterity. In all popular forms of government, indeed, whether administered under monarchy or republic, there will be found much to deplore through the ignorance of multitudes who exercise an influence at the polls. Bat this evil the more intelligent classes must strive to diminish by elevating the intelligence of the masses. This involves a faithful and persistent attention to the cause of popular educa tion, without which no form of popular government can exist with advantage or safety. BRITISH MONARCHY STABLE, BECAUSE POPULAR. I have said that the British monarchy is no failure, but a success, notwithstanding its many intestine wars. But it would have been a failure if it had resisted the just claims of the great body of the people your fathers and mine to their fair measure of influence in the national councils. It would have been a failure if its settled purpose had been to restrict human freedom, instead of enlarging it. The strength, stability, and permanent success of the British monarchy are mainly due to the popular element by which it is sustained, and to the confi dence with which it is regarded by the great body of the people. And with respect to the civil wars which have distracted the British realm, some of them were much longer in duration than the American, civil war up to this time, and quite as fierce. That which was inaugurated in Ireland by More and O Neil, in 1G41, lasted ten years. Meanwhile England and Scotland had their civil wars also. The active strifes of the English Round heads and Cavaliers of that period were of a more sanguinary sort than those of the present Republicans and Eemocrats of 20 the free States of the American Union. And as compared with the pitched battles and bloody fields of those English contesting parties, the peaceful contest at the ballot-box last month between the two political parties throughout the free States of the American Union stands in sublime and instructive contrast. That contest on the 8th of November last, when millions of free men, under pressure of a most exciting issue, cast their votes at the polls as peacefully as quiet villagers on a holiday, presents a spectacle for the world to admire, and bears more emphatic witness for the stability of popular government than all the victories of Grant and Sherman. HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS. It is to bo borne in mind that, notwithstanding the internal strife in England, the insurrection in Ireland was not lost sight of. but quelled by the strong arm. Then came confiscation of estates, to the great grief of old Irish families. Now if the Free States, through the national government of the American Union, should persist for ten years toward the suppression of the insur rection of the Slave States, and should in the end confiscate the plantations, it will be seen that they have historical precedents bequeathed to them from the joint English ancestry of North and South. And I am sure that under a changed system of labour, where the tiller of the soil should work under the stimulus of the paymaster s purse instead of the overseer s lash, the labourer would have nothing to deplore. PRESIDENT LINCOLN. Let us hope, however, that the war will not be of much longer continuance. The re-election of Mr. Lincoln, by revealing the settled purpose of the Free States to put forth their com bined power, may hasten its close. Mr. Lincoln has had the honour to receive a large measure of abuse from the enemies of popular government and the foes of free labour. And others, not exactly of this class, have joined in the storm against him, 21 being swept into it by the current. For myself, I am glad of his re-election. I regard him as an able and honest magistrate, doing his duty faithfully under circumstances of various difficulty, such as few of us who live more at ease can adequately under stand. Mr. Lincoln began life as a man of hard-handed toil, and he is still a toiling man, though his hard work is now of the head. There are territorial nobles in England, and large planters of the South, whose early leisure for study, and more careful training in statesmanship, might have qualified them more eminently for such a chair as that -which Mr. Lincoln occupies. But for one man of these classes who would have discharged his great trust better, and brought more sagacity and integrity to the high task, I think it likely there would have been two, or perhaps ten, who would have performed the presidential duties a great deal worse. What if he did, in early life, earn his living by handicraft ? Shall I respect him the less for this ? Nay, but more. The main question for me is : Was he honest in his handicraft work ? And I am sure he was. I have never seen Mr. Lincoln ; but what if his hands are hardened with honest toil ? Should I approach him as President of the United States with less respect on this account ? Certainly not. I should approach him. with as much respect as if he had the blood of the Courteneys and Montmorencys and Howards all flowing in bis veins. And I should certainly approach him with much more respect than if he were the owner of the largest plantation in Virginia or Louisiana, where a thousand unpaid slaves toiled perforce for his benefit, and whom, by his word or sign manual, he could send to the auction block to-morrow. All honour, then, to honest Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, and President-elect of the Free United States of America. [Here the speaker was interrupted by prolonged applause.] I hope the war will be brought to a close long before the end of his second term. Would that it could be closed before the end of the first six months thereof. Would that South and North should put foot to foot on the neck of Slavery, the cause of their strife, and rejoin hand and hand together in a common interest and a common hope, and that peace might be thus restored. 22 No one desires peace more strongly than myself. But if this cannot be done, I see no immediate way to the much desired peace except the party who first took up the sword shall be the first to lay it down. DUTY OF CANADA. And now I approach a matter which directly touches our own territory, interest, and honour. It is to be kept in rnind, fellow- citizens, that the declared policy of the Queen s Imperial Government in reference to the disastrous civil war in America, is neutrality and non-intervention. It remains for Canadians, as good subjects, not to compromise this policy, or embroil Great Britain for the benefit of the slave institutions of the South. According to present appearances, a continued policy of non-intervention on the part of foreign powers will ensure the speedy and irretrievable downfall of slavery on this continent. THE RAID ON ST. ALBANS. You know how much our community has been excited, and is still excited, by the marauding and man-slaying at a peaceful village on our borders, and the unexpected and unfortunate result of the judicial investigation relating to the arrested parties. That result is felt to be very humiliating to us as a people. When the intelligence of the robbery first reached this city, there was only one opinion as to its atrocious character. This was subsequently modified with a portion of the community through the plea set up in defence of the prisoners. The simple facts of the case may be thus stated. A band of twenty or thirty men entered the village of St. Albans, Vermont a quiet, unarmed, unsuspecting village five or six hundred miles from the nearest seat of actual war. These men came into the village separately, in the character of ordinary travellers, taking lodging in several hotels, and registering false names there. At a certain hour on a given day, they went in companies of three or four each, into the village banks, as for an ordinary commercial 23 purpose. They inquired the price of gold, as if they had some money changing business to transact. Then watching their opportunity they raised pistols, after the Turpin fashion, to the head of the clerk or cashier, and rifled the bank vaults. Mean while, other persons of the same band were putting pistols to the heads of hostler boys in the livery stables, and stealing horses. Swinging themselves and their booty rapidly on these stolen horses, the whole band started away at a gallop, firing pistols on every side. One man passing quietly along the village street was killed by the shooting, others wounded, and a little girl by the rural wayside struck by their bullets. In this fashion they galloped a few miles, across the border of our neutral territory, where a portion of the gang was arrested, and made disgorge their booty. And thus arrested, when brought before the magistrate, they have the face to plead, through counsel, that in the eye of the law they are to be regarded as a retreating army ! For such in substance is their plea. A retreating army indeed ! Why if the worst enemies of the South wished to caricature their warfare, they could not do so more effectually than by this plea. LAWFUL AND UNLAWFUL USE OF STATUTE LAW. I will make no imputation against the two functionaries through whose precipitancy of action these marauders have been allowed, on a technical point, to escape with their booty. But this I will say, that statute law is of no avail for good to any community, if such law be not used lawfully. For there is a lawful and an unlawful use of law. I should not think of citing the Apostle Paul as legal authority, but I have no hesitation in referring to him as moral authority. He writes that " the law is good if used lawfully," thus indicating that there is a lawful and unlawful use of law. All statute law is a standing token of the imperfection of human society. If human society were perfect we should have no need of statute law. But statute law is useless, and may be worse than useless it may be made instrumental in preventing rather than in promoting justice if the interpreta- c 4 tion thereof be not controlled and directed by thorough respect for moral law. The interpretation and administration of statute law, lacking this, degenerate into mere intellectual dexterity ; which, again, through pressure of low motives, may descend into a base game of trick. In all matters of statute law, municipal; or national, and of international treaty stipulations, it is safe to say generally, that "that which is best administered is best." An honest purpose in the interpreter and administrator, is an absolutely requisite guide to a just decision, and an honourable administration of the law. TRANSFER OF THE SEAT OF WAR. In the western prairies, when the fire lights up the tall grass ; and the wind sweeps it along in swift and terrible destruction, the settler finds his safety in lighting up another fire in another part to be carried along by the same wind. In the field of inter national politics, the process may not be precisely the same, but results may be produced substantially alike. There is a great war raging in the South, and it would undoubtedly suit the interest of some, if the fires of war could be lighted up here in the North, so that the destroying armies operating there should be drawn elsewhere. If, through any well-concerted intrigue into which any portion of our community, be it ever so small, or influential, could be drawn consciously to participate if, through any such intrigue, a combination of circumstances should be produced which would light the fires of war in the North, it is easy to see how well this would suit the present exigencies of the South. If General Sheridan, who I am told, is a fellow-countryman of mine, could be transferred with his army from the Shenandoah valley to the valley of the St. Lawrence, it would be a sensible relief to the people of Virginia But though I should gladly welcome able Irishmen coming into Canada, I wish to see them come with peaceful intent. The Irish can dig well as well as fight well, and I desire to see them come to dig our mines, fell our forests and till our soil. Here they can have farms of a hundred acres or a thousand acres. 23 with no landlord to grind or harass them. Here every capable and industrious man may be his own landlord. There is plenty of room for all such who come, and a great deal to spare besides. Or, if General Sherman, who has just marched a flying column of forty or fifty thousand men some three hundred miles through the heart of Georgia, should, as the result of any intrigue or combination of circumstances, have his face turned northward, and his flying column carried into the heart of Canada, it would be a great relief to Georgia just now, and to the two Carolinas. If this, or any such movement, could be ensured, then other moves might be expected to follow. The British West India squadron, or some other British squadron would move on New \ r ork or Boston. Then Farragut, Dahlgren, or Porter, would move on the British squadron. This would uncover the Southern seaboard, and open the ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Wil mington. Then might Mr. Davis and the men at Richmond rejoice. They had transferred their game of war into other hands, to be played out upon another board. Now they would be more likely to be " let alone " in the accomplishment of their purposes. Now they might look after their lost slaves, and gather up the million fetters broken during the war in the South. Now every round shot booming from a British gun against the Free States, would be as the stroke of a heavy hammer rivetting anew the manacles on the African, through out all the wide territory, from Mason and Dixon s line to the Mexican borders. And who should have to pay and to suffer by such transfer of the war from South to North ? You and I fellow-citizens, all the people of Canada, and our relatives and friends besides, our fellow-subjects in the mother country. The bank robbery at St. Albans, and the Southern plots on our upper lakes, have already, it is said, involved Canada in an expense of nearly half a million of dollars. This you and I and all Canadians will have to pay. But this will not compare as a drop to the bucket, to what we shall have to pay if an inter national war should be inaugurated through Southern intrigue. In such case, what woidd Canadian banks be worth ? or Cana dian shipping, or property of any kind ? Our relatives on the 26 other side of the Atlantic are already taxed enough, without having to pay any more to equip naval armaments to operate against the Free United States for behoof of the Slave Confede racy. And whatever certain classes of society there may desire those I mean who desire to see a case made out against the cause of popular government, or W 7 ho, possessing millions of money, have through the misleading reports of " Times " corre spondents, invested some of their millions in Confederate stocks whatever such classes may desire, I am sure the great masses of the people in the British islands desire no such war for any such purpose. " Behold how great a matter a little fire kincl- leth." Jail junketting in Montreal with bank plunderers, and Southern sympathies stimulated by more elegant private hospi talities these social processes may be freely used for political ends, and one may see the fruit thereof in the expression of public opinion. A portion of our press may do the work of Slave States by blowing hot and cold at a moment when a blast of unqualified indignation alone should be given, or by a continued course of irritating insult towards the Free States. Edge tools in the hands of wise and skilful men are useful. But edge tools in the hands of fools or children, or those who do not know, or do not care what mischief they work, are not useful, but very dangerous. In such hands, the glittering playthings may be made to inflict wounds deep and disastrous and very hard to be 1 healed. SOUTHERN AGENTS IN CANADA. We are told through a portion of our press in the interest and confidence of the Slave Kepublic, that influential Southern gentlemen residing among us give their assurance that our territory shall not be insulted, nor our peace put in peril. This assurance is gracious, and ought to be gratifying. But for my part, I do not want to hear any such assurance. Southern gentlemen who are here, are here on a neutral territory, whose laws they are bound to respect, and must be made to respect, if they will not be bound by the obligations of honour. The flag which symbolises the British nationality is never without suffi cient authority to effect this. We offer asylujji. in. jGa.Tifl.fLa ta . poor and rich alike, to the slave and the master, recognising the freedom of one as well as the other, within the limits of our law. And if agents of the Slave Confederacy frequent our cities and traverse our highways of travel in pursuance of their mission, and promoting plots to " make European civilisation shudder,"* they must, and I think will be looked after. The Canadian people have no desire that the British Empire should be drawn into a w T ar which must be fought on their northern soil for the benefit and relief of the slaveholding interests of the South.* If this dreadful strife must go on, let it be kept outside of our borders. Such I hold to be the view of the Canadian people, and their Provincial Government" ~T have confidence in the fixed purpose and good faith of our Canadian Government in tliis grave matt.er.~p THE FREE STATES OUR NEIGHBOURS AND NATURAL FRIENDS. We have no desire to quarrel with the Free States of the North. They are our neighbours and natural friends, bound to * Mr. Sala, in a letter to the London Telegraph, speaks of a Confederate agent whom he met on the railroad a few miles from Montreal. He told me, writes Mr. S., " that the St. Albans raid was only the first of a series of similar enterprises which were already cut and dried, and which were to be brought to maturity in the event of Mr. Lincoln s re-election during the winter months. He said that he could communicate by means of an impenetrable cipher with every city in the North, and that he had means at his command for causing the outbreak of incendiary fires in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and for forcing gold up to four hundred before the 1st of January next, In fact, sir, he concluded, we shall do such deeds within the next three months, as shall make European civilization shudder. Thus far the Confederate agent. I violate no seal of confidence in repeating this conversation, which took place in a railway car, on the way to St. John s, Canada, where the preliminary examination of the raiders was to take place before the British authorities." f Several of the liberated raiders have been re-arre?tet!, including the leader, who was taken by the government police about three hundred miles from Montreal, on the way to New Brunswick. While these sheets are going through the press, an investigation of this case is going on before one of the judges of the Superior Court, which, doubtless, will lead to a decision on the merits. 28 as, as we are to them, by the reciprocal ties of amicable commercial intercourse. With them, as with us, free labour is respected, and the honest tiller of the soil has the status of a man and a citizen. With them, and with us, the word liberty has the same meaning, involving the right of poor and rich, black and white alike, to the disposal of their own persons, of their personal ability and exertion, and of the fruits thereof. In the vocabulary of the Slave States, when they cry for liberty and independence, we know that they mean only license to hold the poor in bondage, and rob the tiller of their soil of his first rights as a man. The traditions and policy of our mother country have been steadily on the side of personal liberty. And this, which is one of her most glorious distinctions, has been a cause of constant hostility towards her by statesmen and people -of the Slave States. Was it not the senator from Mississippi who cracked his grim jokes at the " crocodile tears" of English investors who honestly bought and paid for those Mississippi bonds which were dishonestly repudiated was it not Mr. Jefferson Davis who did this thing, the man who is, and has been from its beginning, the President of the Southern Confederacy ? There was another Southern senator, who, to irritate Old England, said her ships should be swept from the seas ; and to irritate New England, said he should call the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill, and the man who said these things, was made the first Secretary of State in the Southern Confederacy. And when the heir to the British crown visited the United States, a few years since, and received ovations of welcome in the leading cities, worthy alike of guest and host, it was reserved for one city in the Union to insult him, to hustle his suite in the public streets, and put contempt upon his Royal Mother s name, and that city was Rich mond, Virginia, now the capital of the Southern Confederacy. The Free States and not the Slave Confederacy, are the natural allies of our mother country, the Free United Kingdom, where free labour is established and encour aged, and where the forced and unpaid toil of slaves is .abominated. OUR MEANS OF DEFENCE. Allow me to refer to one thing more before I sit down. Our people have been talking a good deal of late about our means of defence, as against our neighbours on the other side of our long frontier. Fellow-citizens, our best defence is very close at hand. The Chinese method is a poor shift at best. It is said they blow horns, drum up all sort of discordant noises, and yell defiance at their approaching enemies, in order to inspire them with terror. This is not a very rational or dignified method. and we soon discover that it is only a puerile way of trying to conceal weakness, and hide their fear of being considered afraid. It is the poor device of a poor form of cowardice. We Canadians do not use Chinese blowing horns, but if our mind is of the oriental type we may set up our clatter and howl our defiance through the trumpets of our daily newspapers. Our true defence, as I have just said, is very close at hand. I hope we all read the Bible. It is a wonderful storehouse of wisdom for all emergencies. There is a saying there by the Hebrew sage and preacher, and it is this : "Wisdom is better than fi weapons of war." We read there of a little city against which a mighty force came up to besiege it, and a poor man delivered, the city by his wisdom. Therefore, saith the Bible sage. " Wisdom is better than strength ;" " Wisdom is better than 1 weapons of war." And this wisdom may be shown in the manifestation of a peaceful spirit, and of an honourable purpose to fulfil, in all good faith, our treaty stipulations with our neigh bours. It may be shown by our observance, as dutiful subjects, of our Queen s proclamation of neutrality, and by refusing to sanction, directly or indirectly, any overt act or implied purpose which would embarrass our Queen s government, or embroil in war the great industrious, peaceful, and prosperous empire with which it is our privilege to be connected. It may be shown by our fidelity to the noblest traditions of that empire which forbids us to aid or abet, by word or deed, the iniquity of slavery, or prop its falling fortunes on this continent. It may be shown by 30 our love of human freedom, in our cherishing the spirit thereof, and in our living "desire that all men should be free. It may be shown through our respect for honest and honourable toil, and our pronounced desire that the honest toilers in all lands, whether they be black or white, shall receive an honest wage for their toil, and enjoy, as their indefeasible right, all the privileges of Christian men. "Wisdom is better than weapons of war ;" and such wisdom as this I hold to be the bounden duty of Canada, and her people to cherish and manifest at the present juncture of our affairs. A. IEELAKD AND CO., PJRINTER8, PALL MALL COURT, MANCHESTER. GAYLAMOUNT PAMPHLET BINDER -^K Manufactured by GAYLORD BROS. ln. Syracuse, N. Y. Stockton, Calif. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO"i^ 202 Main Library 642-3403 LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation De Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW IBdCIt MZZTi (MAP i i0fl FORM NO. DD 6, 40m, 6 76 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELE BERKELEY, CA 94720 d