The Edinburg Review on the American Civil War (1862)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: July 19, 1862.

In an article upon "Belligerents and Neutrals," relative to the Trent affair, the above Review says:

The Americans of the Northern States seem from the commencement of this contest unable to perceive or unwilling to admit its essentially revolutionary character-revolutionary, not only as regards the States which had quitted the Union but as regards those also which remained united. For by the removal of so imp[ortant a portion of the former Confederation, the relations of all that still adhere to it are entirely changed. It can no more stand erect than an arch after one half of it has been swept away. The Federal tie being thus broken, the law which was the basis of the national existence of the United States lost its authority-if based on agreement, the agreement was dissolved: if based on authority, the authority was disarmed. Hence, in place of a definite Constitution and a positive Law, a state of things has succeeded which can only be described as revolutionary. The Federal Government has assumed, under the plea of necessity, powers which were certainly never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution-it has suspended at pleasure personal freedom and the liberty of the press, it has confiscated property, it has crushed the State of Maryland by an armed occupation, and suspended in some cases the independence of the judges. The Congress now sitting in Washington is in fact a Rump Parliament, inasmuch as it represents but one section of the country, though it claims to legislate for the whole. Yet such is the state of anarchy into which men's minds have fallen, that with all their hereditary jealousy of illegality, the Americans not only submit to this intolerable state of things but defend it.

Unhappily, this revolutionary condition of the American people is not of very recent origin, though it has only recently overthrown their political union. But the history of the United States for the last twenty-five years is full of examples to show that the respect of the people for the law was rapidly declining, and that the law itself was undermined by the action of the democratic current. 'It would appear,' says Mr. Spence in his Essay on the American Union, 'that the real object of popular respect in the United States, is not law but force. Uncontrollable force in the people-despotic force in party-unlicensed force in Lynch law-indignant force in vigilance committees-daring force in individual outrage-vigorous force, however employed, at once awakens latent sympathy and commands intuitive respect.' That is precisely the description of a revolutionary state of society. What was the repudiation of public debts but a breech of the law sanctioning public engagements? What were the filibustering expeditions which prepared the annexation of Texas, plunged the nation into the Mexican war, threatened Cuba, and instigated Walker, but breaches of the law against neighboring states? What are the numerous affronts and injuries we ourselves have till now condescended to endure-the sympathizers on the Canadian frontier, the suppression of the original maps of the north-east frontier, the protection afforded by the American flag to the slave-trade, the lawless seizure of a portion of the Island of San Juan, the discourteous exclusion of a British Minister and British Consuls, and lastly this outrage on the Trent-what are they all but proofs that the rulers of the American people have established their popularity and power on revolutionary appeals to the passions of the populace, rather than on the restraints and obligations of law and reason? Can any one wonder at these injuries to foreign nations, when, in the very Senate of the United States, a man like Mr. Sumner, illustrious by his talents and his virtues, was struck down by a ruffian, who in his turn received the thanks of his fellow citizens; and when another man, a red-handed assassin like Mr. Sickles, is acquitted by an American jury, and now commands a brigade in the army of the United States? When such things as these happen, and happen unavenged, they betoken the approach of a great convulsion, perhaps of the dissolution of society itself. Indeed, the very same remark was made many years ago by Dr. Channing in a letter to the late Mr. Clay: 'Among us,' said that eminent man, 'a spirit of lawlessness pervades the community, which if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. The invasions of the right of speech and of the press by lawless force, oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first principles of liberty. It is an undeniable fact that in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men in our free institutions is very much impaired. Some repair. That main pillar of public liberty, mutual trust among citizens, is shaken. That we must seek security for property and life in a stronger government is a spreading conviction. Men who in public talk of the stability of our institutions, whisper their doubts-perhaps their scorn-in private.' If this was the language of this great and virtuous man in 1837, what would he say in 1862?