From The Spectator. MR. RUSSELL'S DIARY NORTH AND SOUTH.* MR. RUSSELL'S Diary is the heaviest blow yet administered to English sympathy with the South. He went out as the Times correspondent in the very beginning of the war, with his mind on the whole slightly biassed in favor of the South. He says it was a tabula rasa, but that is a phrase; for no correspondent, however impartial, is ever unconscious of a wish to find the opinion of the journal he represents, in essentials correct. To the last hour of his stay, he never imbibed any prejudice in favor of the Federal side. He disliked all Yankee peculiarities, disbelieved in all Yankee bombast; saw the worst side of Yankee officials, and satirizes mercilessly the ignorance, incompetence, and vanity of Yankee statesmen. But Mr. Russell, whatever his personal bias, possesses one faculty in a degree not granted to any other litterateur, and we suspect in great measure beyond his control. His mind is a photographic plate, which cannot pervert the outlines of any scenes visible through the lens. Much of this may be, and we believe is, due to a high sense of personal honor. It would have been much pleasanter for him not to have explained the condition of the army in the Crimea, infinitely easier to have remained silent on the shortcomings of English officers in India towards the natives. In both cases he braved the obloquy and the attacks of men who were for the time being his own comrades, and in the second instance without the faintest inducement beyond his own sense of right. The poor camp followers whom his descriptions protected, had neither thanks nor rewards to offer, never heard of his letters, and would probably have despised him for his philanthropy. People at home were not by any means thankful to have all that dirty linen washed in public, and people in India became as savagely critical as it is in the nature of the habitually apathetic Anglo-Indian to be. Still he persevered, with this at least for reward, that the educated classes in England, often criticising his style, and always doubtful as to his opinions, rely on him implicitly for any statement of facts. That reliance will, in this instance, tell heavily against the South. * My Diary North and South. By W. H. Russell. Two Vois. Bradbury and Evans. Mr. Russell has repeated no libels against the slaveholding interest. He does full justice or more than justice to their chiefs, and is eager to specify the high qualities which slavery throws into such terrible relief. He sketches no Legrees, draws no pictures in sepia, tells us as little about the slaves as in a slaveholding state is consistent with fidelity. Yet no account of Southern life, not even Mr. Olmsted's, has ever demonstrated so conclusively that slavery and modern civilization cannot be made to co-exist. Order may be established, but it must be the order of a camp, enforced by terrible penalties, and allowing no scope or opportunity for even the theory of freedom. That order has not yet been instituted, and throughout the South slavery has, according to Mr. Russell, produced its natural consequence, contempt for human life. The system culminates on the Mississippi, where, if anywhere, we might expect to see the domestic institution in its perfection Louisiana is full of great planters, French and English, has two great staples, and is controlled by an aristocracy better educated and better born than the majority of whites out of Virginia and Maryland. Yet New Orleans was described by its sheriff as "a hell upon earth," which nothing would ever cleanse except a law making it penal to carry arms. The prisons are as bad as those which John Howard visited and reformed, prisoners under capital sentence being confined in full view of the female maniacs, and the elections openly influenced by men who argue with the revolver. "The other night, as I sat in the club-house, I heard a discussion in reference to the operations of the Thugs in this city, a band of native-born Americans, who at election times were wont deliberately to shoot down Irish and German voters occupying positions as leaders of their mobs. These Thugs were only suppressed by an armed vigilance committec, of which a physician who sat at table was one of the members." In Jackson, again (Mississippi), the "average is a murder a month," and the conversation left on Mr. Russell the impres sion that "the very air seemed to become purple as he spoke, the land around a veritable Aceldama.' There may, indeed, be se curity for property, but there is none for the life of its owner in difficulties, who may be shot by a stray bullet from a pistol as he -- walks up the street." Mr. Russell was some notion of the expression I mean. It warned that the bullets of his revolver was flashing, fierce, yet calm with a well should be large, for otherwise a man, even of fire burning behind and spouting through if wounded, might rip him up. Many il-it, an eye pitiless in anger, which now and then sought to conceal its expression beneath half-closed lids, and then burst out with an angry glare, as if disdaining concealment.” lustrations, too, were given of the value of practical lessons of this sort. One particularly struck me. If a gentleman with whom Imagine being such a man's slave! All you are engaged in altercation moves his hand towards his breeches pocket, or behind alike expressed a bitter hatred and contempt his back, you must smash him or shoot him for Yankees, a free press, and republican inat once, for he is either going to draw his stitutions, and were full of a vain-glorious six-shooter, to pull out a bowie knife, or to confidence that the South would thrash the shoot you through the lining of his pocket. North in every engagement, and control The latter practice is considered rather un- England and Europe through the monopoly gentlemanly, but it has been somewhat more of cotton. Even Mr. Benjamin, the Jewish honored lately in the observance than in the Attorney-General of the new Government, an breach. In fact, the savage practice of walk-able and unusually frank speaker, could not ing about with pistols, knives, and poinards, in bar-rooms and gambling-saloons, with passions ungoverned, because there is no law to punish the deeds to which they lead, affords facilities for crime which an uncivilized condition of society leaves too often without punishment, but which must be put down, or the country in which it is tolerated will become as barbarous as a jungle inhabited by wild beasts." The great planters, the real governing men of the South, dislike this state of affairs as much as Englishmen could do. They want order on the French system, but they admit the impossibility of getting rid as yet of the rowdy element through which, in fact, they govern. They themselves, moreover, act on a ferocious idea of the necessity of the duel; and Mr. Russell met one man, a senator, who had killed five men; and heard a frightful story of another who, after what seems to Englishmen a deliberate murder, has been appointed to a high office under the Confederate Government. Of the former gentleman Mr. Russell draws the following extraordinary pic ture: "His face was one not to be forgotten-a straight, broad brow, from which the hair rose up like the vegetation on a river bank, beetling black eyebrows-a mouth coarse and grim, yet full of power, a square jaw-a thick argumentative nose-a new growth of scrubby beard and moustache-these were relieved by eyes of wonderful depth and light, such as I never saw before but in the head of a wild beast. If you look some day when the sun is not too bright into the eye of the Bengal tiger, in the Regent's Park, as the keeper is coming round, you will form conceive that England could survive the fail- crime. perhaps, to elf negroes The sketches of the north in the Diary are valuable chiefly for a number of kit-cat sketches of prominent individuals touched stitutional questions involved, but simply with exceeding skill. President Lincoln is paints what he saw, without malice, but too well known to need repetition, but we with exceedingly little extenuation. His must quote the portrait of General M'Clel-Diary is consequently as pleasant and as inlan, till the last few weeks the idol of the telligible as a gossipy letter from an old North, and still the hope of the Democratic friend, recalling scenes and people with party. which and whom the reader has passed a life. To the Editor of the North American and U. S. 66 Gazette. "He is a very squarely built, thickthroated, broad-chested man, under the middle height, with slightly bowed legs a tendency to embonpoint. His head covered with a closely cut crop of dark auburn hair, is well set on his shoulders. His features the London Times, of precisely two years I HAPPEN to have preserved a leader of are regular and prepossessing-the brow ago, which I venture to ask you to reprint. small, contracted, and furrowed; the eyes It is an admirable history of the course of deep and anxious-looking. A short, thick, the South in regard to slavery, showing how reddish moustache conceals his mouth; the exact the knowledge of the writers for that rest of his face is clean shaven. He has journal was of the political contests in this made his father-in-law, Major Marcy, chief country before the war broke out. One of his staff, and is a good deal influenced by would think that Englishmen who have sufhis opinions, which are entitled to some fered themselves to be led by this same weight, as Major Marcy is a soldier, and has journal to the support of the slaveholders' seen frontier wars, and is a great traveller. rebellion, would be covered with confusion The task of licking this army into shape is on looking back to this summary of the of herculean magnitude. Every one how-facts of the controversy thus given by the ever, is willing to do as he bids: the Presi- Times itself. The cause of the quarrel is dent confides in him, and Georges' him; here stated precisely as our own Northern the press fawn upon him, the people trust writers have always stated it: "The North him; he is the little corporal' of unfought is for freedom, the South is for slavery." fields-omnis ignotus pro mirifico, here. He "The North is for freedom of discussion, looks like a stout little captain of dragoons, the South represses freedom of discussion but for his American seat and saddle. The with the tar-brush and the pine fagot." latter is adapted to a man who cannot ride; The South has become enamored of her if a squadron so mounted were to attempt a shame." fence or ditch half of them would be rup-moderation of former times had erected to "Every compromise which the tured or spilled." stem the course of this monster evil has Mr. Russell's account of Mr. Seward conbeen swept away, and that not by the enfirms the impression left by the Secretary of sive ambition of the South." And then folcroachments of the North, but by the aggresState's despatches. He is a man of some lows an enumeration of these Southern agability, and more shrewdness, in whom pat-gressions, which your readers will perceive riotisin has taken a form which can only is, as far as it goes, correct. The list could be described as self-conceit. He would die have been most readily extended. for his country very likely, but he firmly be- What a contrast does this vigorous and lieves that the Union "could whip the uni- truthful statement present to the language verse," and the more severe the reverses of of the leading journal of England from the the North, the greater becomes Mr. Sew-the point of actually beginning war upon the moment the South pushed its aggressions to ard's acerbity towards the rest of the world. We have left ourselves no space for further extracts, but we cannot part from Mr. Russell without a cordial recommendation of his Diary, to hich, as a readable book, our review of necesity does injustice. The two volumes are perfect mines of anecdote, all characteristic, all excellently told, and all pervaded by a spirit of tolerance and simplicity, which is of itself sufficient guarantee for their truth. Mr. Russell has ventured on no opinion as to the result of the war; does not bore us with the history of the con North! Surely, a line of conduct more unprincipled and unscrupulous has not been taken by any newspaper of our time. Let your readers judge. Philadelphia, Jan. 7, 1863. E. Y. "The State of South Carolina has seceded from the Union by an unanimous vote of her Legislature, and it now remains to be seen whether any of the other Southern States Federal authorities will pursue under the will follow her example, and what course the circumstances. While we wait for further information on these points, it may be well to consider once again the cause of quarrel which has thus begun to rend asunder the matter is, that during the seventy years for mightiest confederation which the world has which the American confederacy has existed, yet beheld. One of the prevalent delusions the whole tone of sentiment with regard to of the age in which we live is to regard de-slavery has, in the Southern States, at least, mocracy as equivalent to liberty, and the at- undergone a remarkable change. Slavery tribution of power to the poorest and worst- used to be treated as a thoroughly exceptional educated citizens of the State as a certain institution-as the evil legacy of evil times way to promote the purest liberality of as a disgrace to a constitution founded on thought and the most beneficial course of the natural freedom and independence of action. Let those who hold this opinion mankind. There was hardly a political examine the quarrel at present raging in the leader of any note who had not some plan United States, and they will be aware that for its abolition. Jefferson himself, the democracy, like other forms of government, greatest chief of the democracy, had in the may co-exist with any course of action or any early part of this century speculated deeply set of principles. Between North and South on the subject; but the United States bethere is at this moment raging a controversy came possessed of Louisiana and Florida, which goes as deep as any controversy can they have conquered Texas, they have made into the elementary principles of human na- Arkansas and Missouri into States, and these ture and the sympathies and antipathies successive acquisitions have altered entirely which in so many men supply the place of the view with which slavery is regarded. reason and reflection. The North is for Perhaps as much as anything, from the long freedom, the South is for slavery. The license enjoyed by the editors of the South North is for freedom of discussion, the South of writing what they pleased in favor of represses freedom of discussion with the slavery, with the absolute certainty that no tar-brush and the pine fagot. Yet North one would be found bold enough to write and South are both democracies-nay, pos- anything on the other side, and thus make sess almost exactly similar institutions, with himself a mark for popular vengeance, the this enormous divergence in theory and subject has come to be written on in a tone practice. It is not democracy that has made of ferocious and cynical extravagance which the North the advocate of freedom, or the is to an European eye absolutely appalling. South the advocate of slavery. Democracy The South has become enamored of her is a quality which appears on both sides, shame. Free labor is denounced as degradand may, therefore, be rejected as having ing and disgraceful; the honest triumphs of no influence over the result. From the the poor man who works his way to indesketch of the history of slavery which was pendence are treated with scorn and confurnished us by our correspondent in New tempt. It is asserted that what we are in York last week, we learn that at the time of the habit of regarding as the honorable purthe American Revolution slavery existed in suits of industry incapacitate a nation for every State of the Union except in Massa-civilization and refinement, and that no inchusetts; but we also learn that the great stitutions can be really free and democratic men who directed that Revolution-Wash- which do not rest, like those of Athens and ington, Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry, of Rome, on a broad substratum of slavery. and Hamilton-were unanimous in execrat- So far from treating slavery as an exceping the practice of slavery, and looked for- tional institution, it is regarded by these ward to the time when it would cease to democratic philosophers as the natural state contaminate the soil of free America. The of a great portion of the human race; and, abolition of the slave trade, which subse- so far from admitting that America ought to quently followed, was regarded by its warm-look forward to its extinction, it is contended est advocates as not only beneficial in itself, that the property in human creatures ought but as a long step towards the extinction of to be as universal as the property in land or slavery altogether. It was not foreseen that in tame animals. certain free and democratic communities "Nor have these principles been merely would arise which would apply themselves inert or speculative. For the last ten or to the honorable office of breeding slaves, to twelve years slavery has altered her tactics, be consumed on the free and democratic and from a defensive she has become an ag plantations of the South, and of thus replac-gressive power. Every compromise which ing the African slave trade by an internal the moderation of former times had erected traffic in human flesh, carried on under cir- to stem the course of this monster evil has cumstances of almost equal atrocity through been swept away, and that not by the enthe heart of a free and democratic nation. Democracy has verily a strong digestion, and one not to be interfered with by trifles. "But the most melancholy part of the croachments of the North, but by the aggres sive ambition of the South. With a majority in Congress and in the Supreme Court of the United States, the advocates of slavery have entered on a career the object of which to receive from Washington when Pro-Slavwould seem to be to make their favorite in-ery Cabinets were in the ascendant. Presistitution conterminous with the limits of the dent Lincoln speaks of the attitude assumed Republic. They have swept away the Mis- towards the United States by European souri Compromise, which limited slavery to Governments without irritation, strong in the tract south of thirty-six degrees of north the justice of the cause he represents, and latitude. They have forced upon the North, in the power of the great people over whom in the Fugitive Slave Bill, a measure which he rules. He speaks without acerbity even compels them to lend their assistance to the of the rebels who have done so much to South in the recovery of their escaped bond- bring calamity upon the country; and we men. In the case of Kansas they have believe, were the miscreants of the Confedsought by force of arms to assert the right eracy at his feet to-morrow, Mr. Lincoln of bringing slaves into a free territory, and would merely bid them depart and try for in the Dred Scott case they obtained an ex- the future to be wiser and better men. When trajudicial opinion from the Supreme Court we recollect the rancorous hate entertained which would have placed all the territories in this country toward the Indian rebels, we at their disposal. All this while the North feel humiliated that this "village attorney," has been resisting, feebly and ineffectually, this "rail-splitter from Illinois," should have this succession of Southern aggressions. All shown himself so superior to the mass of that was desired was peace, and that peace monarchical statesmen. If some Confederate could not be obtained. While these things Gorgei should be found to lay down his arms were done the South continued violently to and yield up the cause of the rebels, in place upbraid the Abolitionists of the North as the of the massacres of Arad, we should have a cause of all their troubles, and the ladies of feast of brotherly kindness, Mr. Lincoln adSouth Carolina showered presents and ca- dressing the rebels as wayward children. He resses on the brutal assailant of Mr. Sum-truly acts and speaks as the father of his ner. In 1856 the North endeavored to elect country; and yet this man, so kind and mera President who, though fully recognizing ciful-lenient even to a fault is made the the right of the South to its slave property, sport and butt of all the idle literary buffoons was opposed to its extension in the territories. of Britain. The day will come when the The North were defeated, and submitted character and career of Abraham Lincoln almost without a murmur to the result. On will get justice in this country, and when the present occasion the South has submitted probably even his causeless assailants will to the same ordeal, but not with the same blush for the share they took in lampooning success. They have taken their chance of a noble, brave man, who in a fearful crisis electing a President of their own views, but possessed his soul in patience, trusting in they have failed. Mr. Lincoln, like Colonel God, and "that in His own good time and Fremont, fully recognizes the right of the wise way all will be well." Too truly does South to the institution of slavery, but, like he say that "the fiery trial through which him, he is opposed to its extension. This we pass will light us down in honor or discannot be endured. With a majority in both honor to the latest generation." There can Houses of Congress and in the Supreme be little doubt what the verdict of future Court of the United States, the South cannot generations will be if President Lincoln prosubmit to a President who is not their de-ceeds to the end of his career as he has bevoted servant. Unless every power in the gun. Before two years of his administration Constitution is to be strained in order to has been completed, he has reversed the promote the progress of slavery, they will whole constitutional action of America on not remain in the Union; they will not wait the subject of slavery. He has saved the to see whether they are injured, but resent | the first check to their onward progress as an intolerable injury. This, then, is the result of the history of slavery. It began as a tolerated, it has ended as an aggressive institution, and, if it now threatens to dissolve the Union, it is not because it has anything to fear for that which it possesses already, but because it has received a check to its hopes of future acquisition." territories from the unhallowed grasp of the Slave Power; he has purged the accursed institution from the Congressional District; he has hung a slave-trader in New York, the nest of slave pirates; he has held out the right hand of fellowship to the negro Republics of Liberia and Hayti; and he has joined Great Britain in endeavoring to sweep the slave-trade from the coast of Africal There can be no doubt of the verdict of posterity on such acts as these. Within the light of the fiery trial of which the President THE more the text of the President's Mes- speaks another light has shone clear and resage is considered, the higher must be our fulgent - the torch of Freedom-to which appreciation of its calm thoughtfulness, so millions of poor slaves now look with eager different from the rowdyism we were wont hope.-Caledonian Mercury. |