days of violence at home as well as abroad. They produced abroad the Ostend manifesto, at home that worst of democratic excesses—the destruction of judicial independence by the institution of elective judges. Besides the slave-owners and the Irish, the party embraced a number of rich men at the North who sympathised socially with the slave-owner, and a body of hereditary partisans, with place-hunters not a few. The slave-owners were the leaders of the whole; they fought for a principle, and could afford to throw the pelf of office to their meaner allies. Never has a name been so abused as that of democratic when applied to this confederation. Yet that name stood the leaders in good stead. It drew to them, among other reinforcements, a number of exiles from European tyrannies for whom anything democratic had a charm. The ends of the party were well defined. Its discipline was perfect. It was led, like the Confederate armies in the beginning of the war, by men accustomed to command. It obtained complete possession of power, and established a political reign of terror. Many things conspired in its favour. The rapid growth of wealth was engendering a disregard of principle; for after all it is really hard, as the history of many a base surrender and betrayal has proved, for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The interests of Slavery were supposed to be inextricably entwined with those of national wealth; the country was full of its commercial partners and its creditors. Its enemies became the enemies of the rich. From other causes faith was decaying, and the power of moral resistance which faith alone can sustain in extremity was growing weak. Good society was all on the same side. The Churches of the wealthier class, thinking no doubt that so long as
Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/49
THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.
43
