the question is not one of slavery at all. The North, it seems, have
no more objection to slavery than the South have. Their leaders never
say one word implying disapprobation of it. They are ready, on the
contrary, to give it new guarantees; to renounce all that they have
been contending for; to win back, if opportunity offers, the South to
the Union by surrendering the whole point.

If this be the true state of the case, what are the Southern chiefs
fighting about? Their apologists in England say that it is about
tariffs, and similar trumpery. _They_ say nothing of the kind. They
tell the world, and they told their own citizens when they wanted
their votes, that the object of the fight was slavery. Many years ago,
when General Jackson was President, South Carolina did nearly rebel
(she never was near separating) about a tariff; but no other State
abetted her, and a strong adverse demonstration from Virginia brought
the matter to a close. Yet the tariff of that day was rigidly
protective. Compared with that, the one in force at the time of the
secession was a free-trade tariff: This latter was the result of
several successive modifications in the direction of freedom; and its
principle was not protection for protection, but as much of it only as
might incidentally result from duties imposed for revenue. Even the
Morrill tariff (which never could have been passed but for the
Southern secession) is stated by the high authority of Mr. H. C. Carey
to be considerably more liberal than the reformed French tariff under
Mr. Cobden's treaty; insomuch that he, a Protectionist, would be glad
to exchange his own protective tariff for Louis Napoleon's free-trade
one. But why discuss, on probable evidence, notorious facts? The world
knows what the question between the North and South has been for many
years, and still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of.
Slavery was battled for and against, on the floor of Congress and in