their designs and war, all aristocratic as we are, we
should have chosen war. Every Englishman who takes the Southern side is
compelled by public opinion to preface his advocacy with a disclaimer of
all sympathy with Slavery. The agent of the slave-owners in England, Mr.
Spence, pleads their cause to the English people on the ground of
gradual emancipation. Once the "Times" ventured to speak in defence of
Slavery, and the attempt was never made again. The principle, I say,
holds firm among the mass of the people; but on this, as on other moral
questions, we are not in our noblest mood.

In justice to my country, however, let me remind you that you did
not--perhaps you could not--set the issue between Freedom and Slavery
plainly before us at the outset; you did not--perhaps you could
not--set it plainly before yourselves. With the progress of the struggle
your convictions have been strengthened, and the fetters of legal
restriction have been smitten off by the hammer of war. But your rulers
began with disclaimers of Anti-Slavery designs. You cannot be surprised,
if our people took your rulers at their word, or if, notwithstanding
your change,--a change which they imagined to be wrought merely by
expediency,--they retained their first impression as to the object of
the war, an impression which the advocates of the South used every art
to perpetuate in their minds. That the opponents of Slavery in England
should desire the restoration of the Union with Slavery, and with
Slavery strengthened, as they expected it would be, by new concessions,
was what you could not reasonably expect. And remember--I say it not
with any desire to trench on American politics or to pass judgment on
American parties--that the restoration of the Union with Slavery is what
a large section of your people, and one of the candidates for your
Presidency, are in fact ready to embrace now.

Had you been able to say plainly at the outset that you were fighting
against Slavery, the English people would scarcely have given ear to the
cunning fiction of Mr. Spence. It would scarcely have been brought to
believe that this great contest was only about a Tariff. It would have
seen that the Southern planter, if he was a Free-Trader, was a
Free-Trader not from enlightenment, but because from the degradation of
labor in his dominions he had no manufactures to support; and that he
was in fact a protectionist of his only home production which feared
competition,--