onfirmed High-Churchmen. Even an American resident,
if he was wealthy, and liked the Church of England, and had settled down
into a British country-seat with British ways of living, would be sure
to misrepresent the North, to be pleased at its defeats and annoyed by
its successes, partly from commercial and partly from pro-slavery
considerations. The America which he remembered, and regretted that he
could not still be proud of, was the America where Pierce and Buchanan
were Presidents, where Jefferson Davis and John B. Floyd were
Secretaries of War. He had, in short, become a Tory; for Toryism is
regard for usages at the expense of men. He and the English Tory desired
the triumph of Slavery, because it was the best thing for the negro, and
the quietest thing for trade and government. The only difference between
them is, that he would own slaves, if he had an opportunity, while the
Englishman would not, partly because his own servants are so excellent.
But both of them would subscribe to the Boston "Courier." The English
Tory hates to have the poor classes of London use the railways on the
Lord's Day, to go and find God's beauty in the Crystal Palace and the
daisy-haunted fields. One of the most striking spectacles in London is
found on Sunday, by standing on some bridge that spans the Thames, to
watch the little river-steamers, black with human beings, that shoot
like big water-bugs from the piers every five minutes, and fussily elbow
their way down-stream to various places of resort. On that day people
cluster like bees all over the omnibuses, till the vehicle looks like a
mere ball of humanity stuck together, rolling down to some
excursion-train. This is a bitter sight to an old-fashioned
Churchman.[A] The American Tory will hate _any_ day that releases the
poor and the oppressed into God's glorious liberty. One of the most
worthy and offensive men you can meet in London is the American Tory of
this description: worthy, because honest and clean and free from vice;
offensive, because totally destitute of republican principle. If
stripped of his wealth, he might become a rich man's invaluable flunky,
and carry the decorous prayer-book to church, bringing up the rear of
the family with formalism. Toryism has a profound respect for external
godliness, and remembers that the Southerner sympathizes with bishops,
who, like Meade of Virginia, preach from the text, "Servants, obey your
masters," and, like Polk of Louisiana, con