I have seen various essays purporting² to describe the causes of this civil war between the North and South; but they have generally been written with the view of vindicating³ either one side or the other, and have spoken rather of causes which should, according to the ideas of their writers, have produced peace, than of those which did, in the course of events, actually produce war. This has been essentially⁵ the case with Mr. Everett, who in his lecture at New York, on the 4th of July, 1860, recapitulated⁶ all the good things which the North has done for the South, and who proved — if he has proved anything — that the South should have cherished the North instead of hating it. And this was very much the case also with Mr. Motley in his letter to the London Times. That letter is good in its way, as is everything that comes from Mr. Motley, but it does not tell us why the war has existed. Why is it that eight millions of people have desired to separate themselves from a rich and mighty⁷ empire — from an empire which was apparently⁸ on its road to unprecedented⁹ success, and which had already achieved wealth, consideration, power, and internal well-being¹⁰?

One would be glad to imagine, from the essays of Mr. Everett and of Mr. Motley, that slavery has had little or nothing to do with it. I must acknowledge it to be my opinion that slavery in its various bearings has been the single and necessary cause of the war; that slavery being there in the South, this war was only to be avoided by a voluntary division — secession voluntary both on the part of North and South; that in the event of such voluntary secession being not asked for, or if asked for not conceded, revolution and civil war became necessary — were not to be avoided by any wisdom or care on the part of the North.

分享到：