Those who have read, even
cursorily, the most valuable testimony to which the English public
have access, concerning the real state of affairs in America--the
letters of the _Times'_ correspondent, Mr. Russell--must have observed
how early and rapidly he arrived at the same conclusion, and with what
increasing emphasis he now continually reiterates it. In one of his
recent letters he names the end of next summer as the period by which,
if the war has not sooner terminated, it will have assumed a complete
anti-slavery character. So early a term exceeds, I confess, my most
sanguine hopes; but if Mr. Russell be right, Heaven forbid that the
war should cease sooner; for if it lasts till then, it is quite
possible that it will regenerate the American people.
If, however, the purposes of the North may be doubted or
misunderstood, there is at least no question as to those of the South.
They make no concealment of _their_ principles. As long as they were
allowed to direct all the policy of the Union; to break through
compromise after compromise, encroach step after step, until they
reached the pitch of claiming a right to carry slave property into the
Free States, and, in opposition to the laws of those States, hold it
as property there; so long, they were willing to remain in the Union.
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