convulsions of the most formidable character. But as is now patent to everybody, the abolition movement was a mere cloak to reduce the South to political insignificance. For such reasons my sympathies, in spite of many a prejudice, have been enlisted on the side of the Southern people. I look upon them as men contending for their constitutionally accorded rights; and were I to blame them, I must blame those whom I revere, and who, on much subtler grounds, and after infinitely less preliminary exasperation, worked in field and cabinet to break off their connection with that mother-country to which they were warmly and honestly attached. Respect alone for their memory and example would require that I should wish success to the Southern cause, enthusiastically cheer its triumph, or deeply lament over its defeat. But that defeat I do not apprehend. Were it possible for the words of wisdom to steady the whirl of the Northern brain, the language of Burke when endeavouring in vain to preserve America to England, applicable word for word to this mad attempt to coerce the South into submission, might recall it to composure and common sense. You may subdue for a moment,' says the eloquent statesman, 'but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, that is perpetually to be conquered.' A Union based on enforced concord is a contradiction in terms.
N.B. For the occasional notes in brackets the translator is entirely responsible.