e impracticable frame of mind, who could see
the right, absolute or potential, of any despotic or constitutional
monarchy, or any conquering power, to suppress secession and revolt, but
could not conceive that any similar right pertained to the central
government of a federative republic. To hear them, the will of a
national majority was of no account in a national issue, provided the
majority of any particular State of the federation took the contrary
side. The national majority had no rights such as the strong arm of the
law, or the armed force, ought to impose upon gainsayers; it was only
the national minority which had such rights. The latter might break up
the nation; the former must not enforce any veto upon the disruption.
Why elect a President as your governmental chief, if you mean that
government should be a reality? Why not be respectable, like us
Europeans, and have a King at once? Such, briefly interpreted, appears
to have been the quintessence of the wisdom of these political sages.

The writer has now done with the exposition of his own views,--of no
consequence assuredly to his American readers, save for the clearer
understanding of what he has to say concerning the views entertained by
his British countryman at large. He has also done with the few specimens
which it fell in his way to cite of objections urged against his
colleagues in opinion, and which he was obtuse enough to imagine to be
no objections at all. He proceeds to his main subject,--the varieties of
English opinion on the American War.

These varieties may perhaps, with some approach to completeness, be
defined under the following seven heads.

1st. The party which believed in the sincerity, the right, and the
probable eventual success of the North.

2d. That which believed in the right of the North, but which doubted or
disbelieved its sincerity, especially on the question of Slavery, or its
eventual success, or both.

3d. That which cared only for the anti-slavery aspect of the contest.

4th. That which believed in the right and the probable eventual success
of the South.

5th. That which believed in the right of the South, but which doubted or
disbelieved its eventual success.

6th. That which, contrariwise, believed in the eventual success of the
South, but doubted or disbelieved its right.

7th. That which covertly or avowedly justified slavery.

To each of these parties a few words of comment must be given.

1st. The part