because I will say this in justice to the French Emperor, that there has
never come from him in public, nor from any one of his Ministers, nor is
there anything to be found in what they have written, that is tinctured
in the smallest degree with that bitter hostility which the hon. and
learned Gentleman has constantly exhibited to the United States of
America and their people. France, if not wise in this matter, is at
least not unfriendly. The hon. and learned Member, in my opinion--indeed
I am sure--is not friendly, and I believe he is not wise.
But now, on this subject, without speaking disrespectfully of the great
potentate who has taken the hon. and learned Gentleman into his
confidence, I must say that the Emperor runs the risk of being far too
much represented in this House. We have now two--I will not call them
envoys extraordinary, but most extraordinary. And, if report speaks
true, even they are not all. The hon. Member for King's County (Mr.
Hennessy)--I do not see him in his place--came back the other day from
Paris, and there were whispers that he had seen the great ruler of
France, and that he could tell everybody in the most confidential manner
that the Emperor was ready to make a spring at Russia for the sake of
delivering Poland, and that he only waited for a word from the Prime
Minister of England.
I do not understand the policy of the Emperor if these new Ministers of
his tell the truth. For, Sir, if one Gentleman says that he is about to
make war with Russia, and another that he is about to make war with
America, I am disposed to look at what he is already doing. I find that
he is holding Rome against the opinion of all Italy. He is conquering
Mexico by painful steps, every footstep marked by devastation and blood.
He is warring, in some desultory manner, in China, and for aught I know
he may be about to do it in Japan. I say that, if he is to engage, at
the same time, in dismembering the greatest Eastern Empire and the great
Western Republic, he has a greater ambition than Louis XIV, a greater
daring than the first of his name; and that, if he endeavours to grasp
these great transactions, his dynasty may fall and be buried in the
ruins of his own ambition.
I can say only one sentence upon the question to which the noble Lord
has directed so much attention. I understand that we have not heard all
the story from Paris, and further, that it is not at all remarkable,
seeing that the secret has been confided to two persons, that we have
not heard it correctly. I saw my hon. Friend, the Member for Sunderland,
near me, and his face underwent remarkable contortions during the speech
of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and I felt perfectly satisfied that
he did not agree with what his colleague was saying. I am told there is
in existence a little memorandum which contains an account of what was
said and done at that interview in Paris; and before the discussion
closes we shall no doubt have that memorandum produced, and from it know
how far these two gentlemen are agreed.
I now come to the proposition which the hon. and learned Gentleman has
submitted to the House, and which he has already submitted to a meeting
of his constituents at Sheffield. At that meeting, on the 27th of May,
the hon. and learned Gentleman used these words: 'What I have to
consider is, what are the interests of England: what is for her
interests I believe to be for the interests of the world.' Now, leaving
out of consideration the latter part of that statement, if the hon. and
learned Gentleman will keep to the first part of it, then what we have
now to consider in this question is, what is for the interest of
England. But the hon. and learned Gentleman has put it to-night in
almost as offensive a way as he did before at Sheffield, and has said
that the United States would not bully the world if they were divided
and subdivided; for he went so far as to contemplate division into more
than two independent sections. I say that the whole of his ease rests
upon a miserable jealousy of the United States, or on what I may term a
base fear. It is a fear which appears to me just as groundless as any of
those panics by which the hon. and learned Gentleman has attempted to
frighten the country.
There never was a State in the world which was less capable of
aggression with regard to Europe than the United States of America. I
speak of its government, of its confederation, of the peculiarities of
its organization; for the House will agree with me, that nothing is more
peculiar than the fact of the great power which the separate States,
both of the North and South, exercise upon the policy and course of the
country. I will undertake to say, that, unless in a question of
overwhelming magnitude, which would be able to unite any people, it
would be utterly hopeless to expect that all the States of the American
Union would join together to support the central Government in any plan
of aggression on England or any other country of Europe.
Besides, nothing can be more certain than this, that the Government
which is now in power, and the party which have elected Mr. Lincoln to
office, is a moral and peaceable party, which has been above all things
anxious to cultivate the best possible state of feeling with regard to
England. The hon. and learned Gentleman, of all men, ought not to
entertain this fear of United States aggression, for he is always
boasting of his readiness to come into the field himself. I grant that
it would be a great necessity indeed which would justify a conscription
in calling out the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I say he ought to
consider well before he spreads these alarms among the people. For the
sake of this miserable jealousy, and that he may help to break up a
friendly nation, he would depart from the usages of nations, and create
an everlasting breach between the people of England and the people of
the United States of America. He would do more; and, notwithstanding
what he has said tonight, I may put this as my strongest argument
against his case--he would throw the weight of England into the scale in
favour of the cause of slavery.
I want to show the hon. and learned Gentleman that England is not
interested in the course he proposes we should take; and when I speak of
interests, I mean the commercial interests, the political interests, and
the moral interests of the country. And first, with regard to the supply
of cotton, in which the noble Lord the Member for Stamford takes such a
prodigious interest. I must explain to the noble Lord that I know a
little about cotton. I happen to have been engaged in that business,--
not all my life, for the noble Lord has seen me here for twenty years,--
but my interests have been in it; and at this moment the firm of which I
am a member have no less than six mills, which have been at a stand for
nearly a year, owing to the impossibility of working under the present
conditions of the supply of cotton. I live among a people who live by
this trade; and there is no man in England who has a more direct
interest in it than I have. Before the war, the supply of cotton was
little and costly, and every year it was becoming more costly, for the
supply did not keep pace with the demand.
The point that I am about to argue is this: I believe that the war which
is now raging in America is more likely to abolish slavery than not, and
more likely to abolish it than any other thing that can be proposed in
the world. I regret very much that the pride and passion of men are such
as to justify me in making this statement. The supply of cotton under
slavery must always be insecure. The House felt so in past years; for at
my recommendation they appointed a committee, and but for the folly of a
foolish Minister they would have appointed a special commission to India
at my request. Is there any gentleman in this House who will not agree
with me in this,--that it would be far better for our great Lancashire
industry that our supply of cotton should be grown by free labour than
by slave labour?
Before the war, the whole number of negroes engaged in the production of
cotton was about one million,--that is, about a fourth of the whole of
the negroes in the Slave States. The annual increase in the number of
negroes growing cotton was about twenty-five thousand,--only two and a-
half per cent. It was impossible for the Southern States to keep up
their growth of sugar, rice, tobacco, and their ordinary slave
productions, and at the same time to increase the growth of cotton more
than at a rate corresponding with the annual increase of negroes.
Therefore you will find that the quantity of cotton grown, taking ten
years together, increased only at the rate of about one hundred thousand
bales a-year. But that was nothing like the quantity which we required.
That supply could not be increased, because the South did not cultivate
more than probably one and a-half per cent of the land which was capable
of cultivation for cotton.
The great bulk of the land in the Southern States is uncultivated. Ten
thousand square miles are appropriated to the cultivation of cotton; but
there are six hundred thousand square miles, or sixty times as much
land, which is capable of being cultivated for cotton. It was, however,
impossible that the land should be so cultivated, because, although you
had climate and sun, you had no labour. The institution of slavery
forbade free-labour men in the North to come to the South; and every
emigrant that landed in New York from Europe knew that the Slave States
were no States for him, and therefore he went North or West. The laws of
the United States, the sentiments of Europe and of the world, being
against any opening of the slave-trade, the planters of the South were
shut up, and the annual increase in the supply of cotton could increase
only in the same proportion as the annual increase in the number of
their negroes.
There is only one other point with regard to that matter which is worth
mentioning. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Sheffield will
understand it, although on some points he seems to be peculiarly dark.
If a planter in the Southern States wanted to grow one thousand bales of
cotton a-year, he would require about two hundred negroes. Taking them
at five hundred dollars, or one hundred pounds each, which is not more
than half the price of a first-class hand, the cost of the two hundred
would be twenty thousand pounds. To grow one thousand bales of cotton a-
year you require not only to possess an estate, machinery, tools, and
other things necessary to carry on the cotton-growing business, but you
must find a capital of twenty thousand pounds to buy the actual
labourers by whom the plantation is to be worked; and therefore, as
every gentleman will see at once, this great trade, to a large extent,
was shut up in the hands of men who were required to be richer than
would be necessary if slavery did not exist.
Thus the plantation business to a large extent became a monopoly, and
therefore even on that account the production of cotton was constantly
limited and controlled. I was speaking to a gentleman the other day from
Mississippi. I believe no man in America or in England is more
acquainted with the facts of this case. He has been for many years a
Senator from the State of Mississippi. He told me that every one of
these facts were true, and said, 'I have no doubt whatever that in ten
years after freedom in the South, or after freedom in conjunction with
the North, the production of cotton will be doubled, and cotton will be
forwarded to the consumers of the world at a much less price than we
have had it for many years past.'
I shall turn for a moment to the political interest, to which the hon.
and learned Gentleman paid much more attention than to the commercial.
The more I consider the course of this war, the more I come to the
conclusion that it is improbable in future that the United States will
be broken into separate republics. I do not come to the conclusion that
the North will conquer the South. But I think the conclusion to which I
am more disposed to come now than at any time since the breaking out of
the war is this,--that, if a separation should occur for a time, still
the interest, the sympathies, the sentiments, the necessities of the
whole continent, and its ambition also, which, as hon. Gentlemen have
mentioned, seems to some people to be a necessity, render it highly
probable that the continent would still be united under one central
Government. I may be quite mistaken. I do not express that opinion with
any more confidence than hon. Gentlemen have expressed theirs in favour
of a permanent dissolution; but now is not this possible,--that the
Union may be again formed on the basis of the South? There are persons
who think that possible. I hope it is not, but we cannot say that it is
absolutely impossible.
Is it not possible that the Northern Government may be baffled in their
military operations? Is it not possible that, by their own incapacity,
they may be humiliated before their own people? And is it not even
possible that the party which you please to call the Peace party in the
North, but which is in no sense a peace party, should unite with the
South, and that the Union should be reconstituted on the basis of
Southern opinions and of the Southern social system? Is it not possible,
for example, that the Southern people, and those in their favour, should
appeal to the Irish population of America against the negroes, between
whom there has been little sympathy and little respect; and is it not
possible they should appeal to the commercial classes of the North--and
the rich commercial classes in all countries, who, from the uncertainty
of their possessions and the fluctuation of their interests, are
rendered always timid and very often corrupt--is it not possible, I say,
that they might prefer the union of their whole country upon the basis
of the South, rather than that union which many Members of this House
look upon with so much apprehension?
If that should ever take place--but I believe, with my hon. Friend below
me (Mr. Forster), in the moral government of the world, and therefore I
cannot believe that it will take place; but if it were to take place,
with their great armies, and with their great navy, and their almost
unlimited power, they might seek to drive England out of Canada, France
out of Mexico, and whatever nations are interested in them out of the
islands of the West Indies; and you might then have a great State built
upon slavery and war, instead of that free State to which I look, built
up upon an educated people, upon general freedom, and upon morality in
government.
Now there is one more point to which the hon. and learned Gentleman will
forgive me if I allude--he does not appear to me to think it of great
importance--and that is, the morality of this question. The right hon.
Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the hon. Gentleman who
spoke from the bench behind--and I think the noble Lord, if I am not
mistaken--referred to the carnage which is occasioned by this lamentable
strife. Well, carnage, I presume, is the accompaniment of all war. Two
years ago the press of London ridiculed very much the battles of the
United States, in which nobody was killed and few were hurt. There was a
time when I stood up in this House, and pointed out the dreadful horrors
of war. There was a war waged by this country in the Crimea; and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, with an uneasy conscience, is constantly
striving to defend that struggle. That war--for it lasted about the same
time that the American war has lasted--at least destroyed as many lives
as are estimated to have been destroyed in the United States.
My hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, who, I think, is not in the
House, made a speech in Scotland some time last year, in which he gave
the numbers which were lost by Russia in that war. An hon. Friend near
me observes, that some people do not reckon the Russians for anything. I
say, if you will add the Russians to the English, and the two to the
French, and the three to the Sardinians, and the four to the Turks, that
more lives were lost in the invasion of the Crimea, in the two years
that it lasted, than have been lost hitherto in the American war. That
is no defence of the carnage of the American war; but let hon. Gentlemen
bear in mind that, when I protested against the carnage in the Crimea--
for an object which few could comprehend and nobody can fairly explain--
I was told that I was actuated by a morbid sentimentality. Well, if I am
converted, if I view the mortality in war with less horror than I did
then, it must be attributed to the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite
and on the Treasury bench; but the fact is, I view this carnage just as
I viewed that, with only this difference, that while our soldiers
perished three thousand miles from home in a worthless and indefensible
cause, these men were on their own soil, and every man of them knew for
what he enlisted and for what purpose he was to fight.
Now, I will ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and those who are of opinion with him on this question of
slaughter in the American war--a slaughter which I hope there is no hon.
Member here, and no person out of this House, that does not in his calm
moments look upon with grief and horror--to consider what was the state
of things before the war. It was this: that every year in the Slave
States of America there were one hundred and fifty thousand children
born into the world--born with the badge and the doom of slavery--born
to the liability by law, and by custom, and by the devilish cupidity of
man--to the lash and to the chain and to the branding-iron, and to be
taken from their families and carried they know not where.
I want to know whether you feel as I feel upon this question. When I can
get down to my home from this House, I find half a dozen little children
playing upon my hearth. How many Members are there who can say with me,
that the most innocent, the most pure, the most holy joy which in their
past years they have felt, or in their future years they have hoped for,
has not arisen from contact and association with our precious children?
Well, then, if that be so--if, when the hand of Death takes one of those
flowers from our dwelling, our heart is overwhelmed with sorrow and our
household is covered with gloom; what would it be if our children were
brought up to this infernal system--one hundred and fifty thousand of
them every year brought into the world in these Slave States, amongst
these 'gentlemen,' amongst this 'chivalry,' amongst these men that we
can make our friends?
Do you forget the thousand-fold griefs and the countless agonies which
belonged to the silent conflict of slavery before the war began? It is
all very well for the hon. and learned Gentleman to tell me, to tell
this House--he will not tell the country with any satisfaction to it--
that slavery, after all, is not so bad a thing. The brother of my hon.
Friend the Member for South Durham told me that in North Carolina he
himself saw a woman whose every child, ten in number, had been sold when
they grew up to the age at which they would fetch a price to their
master.
I have not heard a word to-night of another matter--the Proclamation of
the President of the United States. The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke
somewhere in the country, and he had not the magnanimity to abstain from
a statement which I was going to say he must have known had no real
foundation. I can make all allowance for the passion--and I was going to
say the malice--but I will say the ill-will of the hon. and learned
Gentleman; but I make no allowance for his ignorance. I make no
allowance for that, because if he is ignorant it is his own fault, for
God has given him an intellect which ought to keep him from ignorance on
a question of this magnitude. I now take that Proclamation. What do you
propose to do? You propose by your resolution to help the South, if
possible, to gain and sustain its independence. Nobody doubts that. The
hon. and learned Gentleman will not deny it. But what becomes of the
Proclamation? I should like to ask any lawyer in what light we stand as
regards that Proclamation? To us there is only one country in what was
called the United States; there is only one President, there is only one
general Legislature, there is only one law; and if that Proclamation be
lawful anywhere, we are not in a condition to deny its legality, because
at present we know no President Davis, nor do we know the men who are
about him. We have our Consuls in the South, but recognizing only one
Legislature, one President, one law. So far as we are concerned, that
Proclamation is a legal and effective document.
I want to know, to ask you, the House of Commons, whether you have
turned back to your own proceedings in 1834, and traced the praises
which have been lavished upon you for thirty years by the great and good
men of other countries,--and whether, after what you did at that time,
you believe that you will meet the views of the thoughtful, moral, and
religious people of England, when you propose to remit to slavery three
millions of negroes in the Southern States, who in our views, and
regarding the Proclamation of the only President of the United States as
a legal document, are certainly and to all intents and purposes free?
['Oh!'] The hon. and learned Gentleman may say 'Oh!' and shake his head
lightly, and be scornful at this. He has managed to get rid of all those
feelings under which all men, black and white, like to be free. He has
talked of the cant and hypocrisy of these men. Was Wilberforce, was
Clarkson, was Buxton,--I might run over the whole list,--were these men
hypocrites, and had they nothing about them but cant?
I could state something about the family of my hon. Friend below me (Mr.
Forster), which I almost fear to state in his presence; but his revered
father--a man unsurpassed in character, not equalled by many in
intellect, and approached by few in service--laid down his life in a
Slave State in America, while carrying to the governors and legislatures
of every Slave State the protest of himself and his sect against the
enormity of that odious system.
In conclusion, Sir, I have only this to say,--that I wish to take a
generous view of this question,--a view, I say, generous with regard to
the people with whom we are in amity, whose Minister we receive here,
and who receive our Minister in Washington. We see that the Government
of the United States has for two years past been contending for its
life, and we know that it is contending necessarily for human freedom.
That Government affords the remarkable example--offered for the first
time in the history of the world--of a great Government coming forward
as the organized defender of law, freedom, and equality.
Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot be so ill-informed as to say that
the revolt of the Southern States is in favour of freedom and equality.
In Europe often, and in some parts of America, when there has been
insurrection, it has generally been of the suffering against the
oppressor, and rarely has it been found, and not more commonly in our
history than in the history of any other country, that the Government
has stepped forward as the organized defender of freedom--of the wide
and general freedom of those under its rule. With such a Government, in
such a contest, with such a foe, the hon. and learned Gentleman the
Member for Sheffield, who professes to be more an Englishman than most
Englishmen, asks us to throw into the scale against it the weight of the
hostility of England.