North America, vol 1 | Page 9

such circumstances arisen as those conjectured, and had
America spoken such a word, England would not have felt herself
called upon to resent it.
But the fairer analogy lies between Ireland and the Southern States. The
monster meetings and O'Connell's triumphs are not so long gone by but
that many of us can remember the first demand for secession made by
Ireland, and the line which was then taken by American sympathies. It
is not too much to say that America then believed that Ireland would
secure secession, and that the great trust of the Irish repealers was in
the moral aid which she did and would receive from America. "But our
government proclaimed no sympathy with Ireland," said my friend. No.
The American government is not called on to make such proclamations,
nor had Ireland ever taken upon herself the nature and labors of a
belligerent.
That this anger on the part of the North is unreasonable, I cannot doubt.
That it is unfortunate, grievous, and very bitter, I am quite sure. But I
do not think that it is in any degree surprising. I am inclined to think
that, did I belong to Boston as I do belong to London, I should share in
the feeling, and rave as loudly as all men there have raved against the
coldness of England. When men have on hand such a job of work as the
North has now undertaken, they are always guided by their feelings
rather than their reason. What two men ever had a quarrel in which
each did not think that all the world, if just, would espouse his own side
of the dispute? The North feels that it has been more than loyal to the
South, and that the South has taken advantage of that over- loyalty to
betray the North. "We have worked for them, and fought for them, and
paid for them," says the North. "By our labor we have raised their
indolence to a par with our energy. While we have worked like men,
we have allowed them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our
bosom, and now they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that
this is so. England, above all, must see it, and, seeing it, should speak
out her true opinion." The North is hot with such thoughts as these; and
one cannot wonder that she should be angry with her friend when her
friend, with an expression of certain easy good wishes, bids her fight
out her own battles. The North has been unreasonable with England;
but I believe that every reader of this page would have been as

unreasonable had that reader been born in Massachusetts.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones are the dearly-beloved friends of my family. My
wife and I have lived with Mrs. Jones on terms of intimacy which have
been quite endearing. Jones has had the run of my house with perfect
freedom; and in Mrs. Jones's drawing-room I have always had my own
arm-chair, and have been regaled with large breakfast-cups of tea, quite
as though I were at home. But of a sudden Jones and his wife have
fallen out, and there is for awhile in Jones Hall a cat-and-dog life that
may end--in one hardly dare to surmise what calamity. Mrs. Jones begs
that I will interfere with her husband, and Jones entreats the good
offices of my wife in moderating the hot temper of his own. But we
know better than that. If we interfere, the chances are that my dear
friends will make it up and turn upon us. I grieve beyond measure in a
general way at the temporary break up of the Jones-Hall happiness. I
express general wishes that it may be temporary. But as for saying
which is right or which is wrong--as to expressing special sympathy on
either side in such a quarrel--it is out of the question. "My dear Jones,
you must excuse me. Any news in the city to-day? Sugars have fallen;
how are teas?" Of course Jones thinks that I'm a brute; but what can I
do?
I have been somewhat surprised to find the trouble that has been taken
by American orators, statesmen, and logicians to prove that this
secession on the part of the South has been revolutionary-- that is to say,
that it has been undertaken and carried on not in compliance with the
Constitution of the United States, but in defiance of it. This has been
done over and over again by some of the greatest men of the North, and
has been done most successfully. But what then? Of course the
movement has been revolutionary and anti-constitutional. Nobody, no
single Southerner, can really believe that the Constitution of the United
States as framed