examining the great cotton business, and the perils created by the present crisis.  I do not know that among these manufacturers, knowing that their interests were menaced, that among these workmen, knowing that their means of livelihood were at stake, that from the heart of this country, knowing that want, famine, and insurrections might come to her door, there arose a voice, a single one, to address a word of sympathy to the Southern States, and to promise them the slightest support.  It was because there was something transcending manufacturing supplies, and even the bread of families:  the need, I am glad to state, of protesting against certain crimes.  Instead of extending a hand to the secessionists of Charleston, the English manufacturers resolutely laid the foundation of a vast society, destined to develop on the spot the production of cotton by free labor in India, the Antilles, and Africa.  Such was their answer; and if you knew their most secret thoughts, you would have no difficulty in discovering that the ambition of the South, its turbulent policy, and its aggressions without pretext, are far from exciting the gratitude of English commerce, or of inspiring its confidence.

Every one in England comprehends that, from the standpoint of interest, the separation of the South is a mortal blow dealt to the cotton production, which will henceforth have the aid neither of credit nor entrepots, and which is advancing towards catastrophes which may involve a conflict of arms.  From another and higher standpoint, the public opinion of England has not made us wait for its verdict:  already its abolition societies have regained life and begun their movements; already, under the pressure of the universal feeling, the Court of Queen’s Bench has revised the affair of the negro Anderson, to deliver into the strong hands of the metropolis a question before which the judicial authority of Canada hesitated, and to pronounce at length a verdict of acquittal.

The South has taken account in its calculations neither of man nor God.  God especially seems to have been forgotten, though it placed itself formally under his protection.  Who does not shudder at the enunciation of these unheard-of plans:  we will do this, then we will do that; we will hold England through cotton, we will entice France through influence—­we will have many negroes, much produce, and much money!  And what will God think of it?  Everywhere else but in South Carolina, this question would appear formidable beyond expression.

If the South has taken its wishes for realities in Europe, it has committed the same error in America.  Its secession has some chance (and what a chance!) only on condition of drawing in all the glare States without exception; now it seems by no means probable that such a unanimity, supposing it to be gained by surprise, could ever be maintained successfully.  The negro-raising States could not possibly regard the future in the same light as the consuming States.