of the middle classes of England, have not been wrong upon this great
question. As for you,--men labouring from morn till night that you may
honourably and honestly maintain your families, and the independence of
your households,--you are too slowly emerging from a condition of things
far from independent--far from free--for you to have sympathy with this
fearful crime which I have been describing. You come, as it were, from
bonds yourselves, and you can sympathize with them who are still in
bondage.
See that meeting that was held in Manchester a month ago, in the Free
Trade Hall, of five or six thousand men. See the address which they
there carried unanimously to the President of the United States. See
that meeting held the other night in Exeter Hall, in London; that vast
room, the greatest room, I suppose, in the Metropolis, filled so much
that its overflowings filled another large room in the same building,
and when that was full, the further overflowings filled the street; and
in both rooms, and in the street, speeches were made on this great
question. But what is said by the writers in this infamous Southern
press in this country with regard to that meeting? Who was there? 'A
gentleman who had written a novel, and two or three Dissenting
ministers,' I shall not attempt any defence of those gentlemen. What
they do, they do openly, in the face of day; and if they utter
sentiments on this question, it is from a public platform, with
thousands of their countrymen gazing into their faces. These men who
slander them write behind a mask,--and, what is more, they dare not tell
in the open day that which they write in the columns of their journal.
But if it be true that there is nothing in the writer of a successful
novel, or in two or three pious and noble-minded Dissenting ministers,
to collect a great audience, what does it prove if there was a great
audience? It only proves that they were not collected by the reputation
of any orator who was expected to address them, but by their cordial and
ardent sympathy for the great cause which was pleaded before them.
Everybody now that I meet says to me, 'Public opinion seems to have
undergone a considerable change.' The fact is, people do not know very
much about America. They are learning more every day. They have been
greatly misled by what are called 'the best public instructors.'
Jefferson, who was one of the greatest men that the United States have
produced, said that newspapers should be divided into four compartments:
in one of them they should print the true; in the next, the probable; in
the third, the possible; and in the fourth, the lies. With regard to
some of these newspapers, I incline to think, as far as their leading
columns go, that an equal division of space would be found very
inconvenient, and that the last-named compartment, when dealing with
American questions, would have to be at least four times as large as the
first.
Coming back to the question of this war; I admit, of course--everybody
must admit--that we are not responsible for it, for its commencement, or
for the manner in which it is conducted; nor can we be responsible for
its result. But there is one thing which we are responsible for, and
that is for our sympathies, for the manner in which we regard it, and
for the tone in which we discuss it. What shall we say, then, with
regard to it? On which side shall we stand? I do not believe it is
possible to be strictly, coldly neutral. The question at issue is too
great, the contest is too grand in the eye of the world. It is
impossible for any man, who can have an opinion worth anything on any
question, not to have some kind of an opinion on the question of this
war. I am not ashamed of my opinion, or of the sympathy which I feel,
and have over and over again expressed, on the side of the free North. I
cannot understand how any man witnessing what is enacting on the
American continent can indulge in small cavils against the free people
of the North, and close his eye entirely to the enormity of the purposes
of the South. I cannot understand how any Englishman, who in past years
has been accustomed to say that 'there was one foul blot upon the fair
fame of the American Republic,' can now express any sympathy for those
who would perpetuate and extend that blot. And, more, if we profess to
be, though it be with imperfect and faltering steps, the followers of
Him who declared it to be His Divine mission 'to heal the broken-
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,' must we not
reject with indignation and scorn the proffered alliance and friendship
with a power based on human bondage, and which contemplates the
overthrow and the extinction of the dearest rights of the most helpless
of mankind?
If we are the friends of freedom, personal and political,--and we all
profess to be so, and most of us, more or less, are striving after it
more completely for our own country,--how can we withhold our sympathy
from a Government and a people amongst whom white men have always been
free, and who are now offering an equal freedom to the black? I advise
you not to believe in the 'destruction' of the American nation. If facts
should happen by any chance to force you to believe it, do not commit
the crime of wishing it. I do not blame men who draw different
conclusions from mine from the facts, and who believe that the
restoration of the Union is impossible. As the facts lie before our
senses, so must we form a judgment on them. But I blame those men that
wish for such a catastrophe. For myself, I have never despaired, and I
will not despair. In the language of one of our old poets, who wrote, I
think, more than three hundred years ago, I will not despair,--
'For I have seen a ship in haven fall,
After the storm had broke both mast and shroud.'
From the very outburst of this great convulsion, I have had but one hope
and one faith, and it is this--that the result of this stupendous strife
may be to make freedom the heritage for ever of a whole continent, and
that the grandeur and the prosperity of the American Union may never be
impaired.
* * * * *
AMERICA.
IV.
THE STRUGGLE IN AMERICA.
ST. JAMES'S HALL, MARCH 26, 1863.
[The meeting at which this speech was delivered was convened by the
Trades' Unions of London to enable the working men to express their
sentiments on the war in the United States. Mr. Bright was Chairman of
the meeting.]
When the Committee did me the honour to ask me to attend this meeting
to-night and to take the Chair, I felt that I was not at liberty to
refuse, for I considered that there was something remarkable in the
character of this meeting; and I need not tell you that the cause which
we are assembled to discuss is one which excites my warmest sympathies.
This meeting is remarkable, inasmuch as it is not what is commonly
called a public meeting, but it is a meeting, as you have seen from the
announcements and advertisements by which it has been called--it is a
meeting of members of Trades' Unions and Trades' Societies in London.
The members of these Societies have not usually stepped out from their
ordinary business to take part in meetings of this kind on public
questions.
The subject which we have met to discuss is one of surpassing interest--
which excites at this moment, and has excited for two years past, the
attention and the astonishment of the civilized world. We see a country
which for many years--during the lifetime of the oldest amongst us--has
been the most peaceful, and prosperous, and the most free amongst the
great nations of the earth--we see it plunged at once into the midst of
a sanguinary revolution, whose proportions are so gigantic as to dwarf
all other revolutionary records and events of which we have any
knowledge. But I do not wonder at this revolution. No man can read the
history of the United States from the time when they ceased to be
dependent colonies of England, without discovering that at the birth of
that great Republic there was sown the seed, if not of its dissolution,
at least of its extreme peril; and the infant giant in its cradle may be
said to have been rocked under the shadow of the cypress, which is the
symbol of mortality and of the tomb.
Colonial weakness, when face to face with British strength, made it
impossible to put an end to slavery, or to establish a republic free
from slavery. To meet England, it was necessary to be united, and to be
united it was necessary to tolerate slavery; and from that hour to this--
at least, to a period within the last two or three years--the love of
the Union and the patriotism of the American people have induced them
constantly to make concessions to slavery, because they knew that when
they ceased to make concessions they ran the peril of that disruption
which has now arrived; and they dreaded the destruction of their country
even more than they hated the evil of slavery. But these concessions
failed, as I believe concessions to evil always do fail. These
concessions failed to secure safety in that Union. There were principles
at war which were wholly irreconcilable. The South, as you know, has
been engaged for fifty years in building fresh ramparts by which it may
defend its institutions. The North has been growing yearly greater in
freedom; and though the conflict might be postponed, it was obviously
inevitable.
In our day, then, that which the statesmen of America have hoped
permanently to postpone has arrived. The great trial is now going on in
the sight of the world, and the verdict upon this great question must at
last be rendered. But how much is at stake? Some men of this country,
some writers, treat it as if, after all, it was no great matter that had
caused this contest in the United States. I say that a whole continent
is at stake. It is not a question of boundary; it is not a question of
tariff; it is not a question of supremacy of party, or even of the
condition of four millions of negroes. It is more than that. It is a
question of a whole continent, with its teeming millions, and what shall
be their present and their future fate. It is for these millions freedom
or slavery, education or ignorance, light or darkness, Christian
morality ever widening and all-blessing in its influence, or an
overshadowing and all-blasting guilt.
There are men, good men, who say that we in England, who are opposed to
war, should take no public part in this great question. Only yesterday I
received from a friend of mine, whose fidelity I honour, a letter, in
which he asked me whether I thought, with the views which he supposed I
entertain on the question of war, it was fitting that I should appear at
such a meeting as this. It is not our war; we did not make it. We deeply
lament it. It is not in our power to bring it to a close; but I know not
that we are called upon to shut our eyes and to close our hearts to the
great issues which are depending upon it. Now we are met here, let us
ask each other some questions. Has England any opinion with regard to
this American question? Has England any sympathy, on one side or the
other, with either party in this great struggle? But, to come nearer, I
would ask whether this meeting has any opinion upon it, and whether our
sympathies have been stirred in relation to it? It is true, to this
meeting not many rich, not many noble, have been called. It is a meeting
composed of artisans and working men of the city of London,--men whose
labour, in combination with capital and directing skill, has built this
great city, and has made England great. I address myself to these men. I
ask them--I ask you--have you any special interest in this contest?
Privilege thinks it has a great interest in it, and every morning, with
blatant voice, it comes into your streets and curses the American
Republic. Privilege has beheld an afflicting spectacle for many years
past. It has beheld thirty millions of men, happy and prosperous,
without emperor, without king, without the surroundings of a court,
without nobles, except such as are made by eminence in intellect and
virtue, without State bishops and State priests,--
'Sole venders of the lore which works salvation,'--
without great armies and great navies, without great debt and without
great taxes. Privilege has shuddered at what might happen to old Europe
if this grand experiment should succeed. But you, the workers,--you,
striving after a better time,--you, struggling upwards towards the
light, with slow and painful steps,--you have no cause to look with
jealousy upon a country which, amongst all the great nations of the
globe, is that one where labour has met with the highest honour, and
where it has reaped its greatest reward. Are you aware of the fact, that
in fifteen years, which is but as yesterday when it is past, two and a
half millions of your countrymen have found a home in the United
States,--that a population equal nearly, if not quite, to the population
of this great city--itself equal to no mean kingdom--has emigrated from
these shores? In the United States there has been, as you know, an open
door for every man,--and millions have entered into it, and have found
rest.
Now, take the two sections of the country which are engaged in this
fearful struggle. In the one, labour is honoured more than elsewhere in
the world; there, more than in any other country, men rise to competence
and independence; a career is open; the pursuit of happiness is not
hopelessly thwarted by the law. In the other section of that country,
labour is not only not honoured, but it is degraded. The labourer is
made a chattel. He is no more his own than the horse that drags a
carriage through the next street; nor is his wife, nor is his child, nor
is anything that is his, his own. And if you have not heard the
astounding statement, it may be as well for a moment to refer to it,--
that it is not black men only who should be slaves. Only to-day I read
from one of the Southern papers a statement that--
'Slavery in the Jewish times was not the slavery of negroes; and
therefore, if you confine slavery to negroes, you lose your sheet
anchor, which is the Bible-argument in favour of slavery.'
I think nothing can be more fitting for the discussion of the members of
the Trade Societies of London. You in your Trade Societies help each
other when you are sick, or if you meet with accidents. You do many kind
acts amongst each other. You have other business also; you have to
maintain what you believe to be the just rights of industry and of your
separate trades; and sometimes, as you know, you do things which many
people do not approve, and which, probably, when you come to think more
coolly of them, you may even doubt the wisdom of yourselves. That is
only saying that you are not immaculate, and that your wisdom, like the
wisdom of other classes, is not absolutely perfect. But they have in the
Southern States a specific for all the differences between capital and
labour. They say,--
'Make the labourer capital; the free system in Europe is a rotten
system; let us get rid of that, and make all the labourers as
much capital and as much the property of the capitalist and
employer as the capitalist's cattle and horses are property, and
then the whole system will move with that perfect ease and
harmony which the world admires so much in the Southern States of
America.'
I believe there never was a question submitted to the public opinion of
the world which it was more becoming the working men and members of
Trades' Unions and Trade Societies of every kind in this country fully
to consider, than this great question.
But there may be some in this room, and there are some who say to me,
'But what is to become of our trade, what is to become of the capitalist
and the labourer of Lancashire?' I am not sure that much of the capital
of Lancashire will not be ruined. I am not sure that very large numbers
of its population will not have to remove to seek other employment,
either in this or some other country. I am not one of those who
underrate this great calamity. On the contrary, I have scarcely met with
any man,--not more than half a dozen,--since this distress in our county
began, who has been willing to measure the magnitude of this calamity
according to the scale with which I have viewed it.
But let us examine this question. The distress of Lancashire comes from
a failure of the supply of cotton. The failure of the supply of cotton
comes from the war in the United States. The war in the United States
has originated in the effort of the slaveholders of that country to
break up what they themselves admit to be the freest and best government
that ever existed, for the sole purpose of making perpetual the
institution of slavery. But if the South began the war, and created all
the mischief, does it look reasonable that we should pat them on the
back, and be their friends? If they have destroyed cotton, or withheld
it, shall we therefore take them to our bosoms?
I have a letter written by an agent in the city of Nashville, who had
been accustomed to buy cotton there before the war, and who returned
there immediately after that city came into the possession of the
Northern forces. He began his trade, and cotton came in. Not Union
planters only, but Secession planters, began to bring in the produce of
their plantations, and he had a fair chance of re-establishing his
business; but the moment this was discovered by the commanders of the
Southern forces at some distance from the city, they issued the most
peremptory orders that every boat-load of cotton on the rivers, every
waggon-load upon the roads, and every car-load upon the railroads, that
was leaving any plantations for the purposes of sale, should be
immediately destroyed. The result was, that the cotton trade was at once
again put an end to, and I believe only to a very small extent has it
been reopened, even to this hour.
Then take the State of New Orleans, which, as you know, has been now for
many months in the possession of the Northern forces. The Northern
commanders there had issued announcements that any cotton sent down to
New Orleans for exportation, even though it came from the most resolved
friends of secession in the district, should still be safe. It might be
purchased to ship to Europe, and the proceeds of that cotton might be
returned, and the trade be re-opened. But you have not found cotton come
down to New Orleans, although its coming there under those terms would
be of no particular advantage to the North. It has been withheld with
this single object, to create in the manufacturing districts of France
and England a state of suffering that might at last become unbearable,
and thus might compel the Governments of those countries, in spite of
all that international law may teach, in spite of all that morality may
enjoin upon them, to take sides with the South, and go to war with the
North for the sake of liberating whatever cotton there is now in the
plantations of the Secession States.
At this moment, such of you as read the City articles of the daily
papers will see that a loan has been contracted for in the City, to the
amount of three millions sterling, on behalf of the Southern
Confederacy. It is not brought into the market by any firm with an
English name; but I am sorry to be obliged to believe that many
Englishmen have taken portions of that loan. Now the one great object of
that loan is this, to pay in this country for vessels which are being
built--_Alabamas_--from which it is hoped that so much irritation
will arise in the minds of the people of the Northern States, that
England may be dragged into war to take sides with the South and with
slavery. The South was naturally hostile to England, because England was
hostile to slavery. Now the great hope of the insurrection has been from
the beginning, that Englishmen would not have fortitude to bear the
calamities which it has brought upon us; but by some trick or by some
accident we might be brought into a war with the North, and thereby give
strength to the South.
I should hope that this question is now so plain that most Englishmen
must understand it; and least of all do I expect that the six millions
of men in the United Kingdom who are not enfranchised can have any doubt
upon it. Their instincts are always right in the main, and if they get
the facts and information, I can rely on their influence being thrown
into the right scale. I wish I could state what would be as satisfactory
to myself with regard to some others. There may be men outside, there
are men sitting amongst your legislators, who will build and equip
corsair ships to prey upon the commerce of a friendly power,--who will
disregard the laws and the honour of their country,--who will trample on
the Proclamation of their sovereign,--and who, for the sake of the
glittering profit which sometimes waits on crime, are content to cover
themselves with everlasting infamy. There may be men, too--rich men--in
this city of London, who will buy in the slaveowners' loan, and who, for
the chance of more gain than honest dealing will afford them, will help
a conspiracy whose fundamental institution, whose corner-stone, is
declared to be felony, and infamous by the statutes of their country.
I speak not to these men--I leave them to their conscience in that hour
which comes to all of us, when conscience speaks and the soul is no
longer deaf to her voice. I speak rather to you, the working men of
London, the representatives, as you are here to-night, of the feelings
and the interests of the millions who cannot hear my voice. I wish you
to be true to yourselves. Dynasties may fall, aristocracies may perish,
privilege will vanish into the dim past; but you, your children, and
your children's children, will remain, and from you the English people
will be continued to succeeding generations.
You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves. You
strive for it in many ways. Do not then give the hand of fellowship to
the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen, and do not, I
beseech you, bring down a curse upon your cause which no after-penitence
can ever lift from it. You will not do this. I have faith in you.
Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or
coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your
press--which ought to have instructed and defended--was mainly written
to betray, the fate of a continent and of its vast population being in
peril, you clung to freedom with an unfaltering trust that God in His
infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children.
* * * * *
AMERICA.
V.
LONDON, JUNE 16, 1863.
[On June 16, 1863, a public meeting was held at the London Tavern, at
the instance of the Union and Emancipation Society, in order to hear an
address from Mr. M. D. Conway, of Eastern Virginia. Mr. Bright was in
the Chair.]
If we look back a little over two years--two years and a half--when the
question of secession was first raised in a practical shape, I think we
shall be able to remember that, when the news first arrived in England,
there was but one opinion with regard to it--that every man condemned
the folly and the wickedness of the South, and protested against their
plea that they had any grievance which justified them in revolt--and
every man hoped that some mode might be discovered by which the terrible
calamity of war might be avoided.