Mar. Jerrerson Davis, the only President of the Confederate States of America, as published a book which is intended to vindicate the right of secession and give the true history of the rise and fall of the Confederation. Since the close of the American civil war or the Rebellion,—as, having boon unsuccessful it is justly called, most of the histories of the conflict published have been written by the victorious side, and it will be interesting after so many reports by the man, to see what the lion has to say of the conflict. The majority of English people now confess that the Liberals of their day were right in opposing the coercion of the American colonists, and that both England and the United States have gained rather than lost by the securing of American independence a century ago. In the name way, many of the most intelligent of those who fought for secession now own that it is a good thing for both North and South that the Lost Cause did not succeed; that neither North nor South would have been as great and prosperous apart as the two are combined in one great Union. The tendency of the times is to agglomera. tion rather than separation. Confedera. tion has been effected in British North America, and will probably soon succeed at the Cape and in Australia, Italy has become a kingdom instead of a geographical expression in our own day. Prussia has consolidated into one great Empire the numerous kingdoms of Germany; Spain and Portugal are likely cast in its lot with the United States; the absorption of Mexico by its powerful neigh-hour will probably follow the settlement. of the southern territories, and the whole of North America will own the Stars and Stripes as its un tional ting. But no considerations of this kind touch Mr. Davis. Events have made no impression on his conservatism, and he is as strong an advocate for State Rights as he was twenty years ago. Bat his argument is too tech It is founded too closely on history and does not acknowledge how abstract rights have to bend to cirenmstances, When the thirteen original States, ho says, conquered their independence from Great Britain, they were careful to preserve their individual sovereignty; they declared themselves free and independent States: they agreed for convenience on a general Government, but they were th creators not the creatures of that Government; it was a voluntary compact from which they maintained the right to withdraw if they desired it. This is partially trae, but Mr. Di forgets that what is good for small settlements with scanty communications and few or no outer relations is impracticable when railways and telegraphs have knitted a continent. together; that, to use a homely metaphor, the clothes which fit the child are useless for the grown-up man, In eighty years the United States had ceased to be an aggregation of villages ud had become a nation, and as a nation it would have incurred the promises and agreements have to give way, and the wise statesman is he who foresees the necessity and prepares his people for its advent.
When secession was once determined on, and the delegates of the Southern States bad met and framed a Constitation, we cannot wonder. that the majority of the ivbabitante followed their leaders in rebellion. Thechivalrous feeling that exists more or less in all of us prompts us to stand by our lenders oven if we doubt whether what they are doing is the best thing that could be done; this chivalrous feeling which, whether we call it clannishness, esprit de corps, or patriotism, will alway find defenders and admirers. It has always flourished in the South; the very fact that they were constantly being attacked and n richer and more cull their peculiar institution bound them closer together in its defence. It did not go far enough according to: Mr. Davis, A large portion of the American navy was manned by Southern officers. On the ontbrenk of secession they brought their ships safely into Northern harbours, and then went personally over to their native States, This is a Quixotism that the ex-President finds hilter fault with; Lhe officers, according to him, should have argued that a certain portion of the navy was paid for by Southern money, and those Southerners who had the opportunity should have brought their ships over as a matter of duty to the Southern side. After euch an argument as that we need go no farther in combating Mr. Davis's defence. charge of cowardice as much by consent to dismemberment from within as from without.
Mr. Davis faces boldly the statement that slavery was at the bottom of the conflict between North and South. It bad been agreed that the Southern States should be allowed to keep slaves south of a certain parallel of latitude from this he holds that it follows that @utyorts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.