I have not said a word with regard to what may happen to England if we go into war with the United States. It will be a war upon the ocean,-- every ship that belongs to the two nations will, as far as possible, be swept from the seas. But when the troubles in America are over,--be they ended by the restoration of the Union, or by separation,--that great and free people, the most instructed in the world,--there is not an American to be found in the New England States who cannot read and write, and there are not three men in one hundred in the whole Northern States who cannot read and write,--and those who cannot read and write are those who have recently come from Europe,--I say the most instructed people in the world, and the most wealthy,--if you take the distribution of wealth among the whole people,--will have a wound in their hearts by your act which a century may not heal; and the posterity of some of those who now hear my voice may look back with amazement, and I will say with lamentation, at the course which was taken by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and by such hon. Members as may choose to follow his leading. ['No! No!'] I suppose the hon. Gentlemen who cry 'No!' will admit that we sometimes suffer from the errors of our ancestors. There are few persons who will not admit that, if their fathers had been wiser, their children would have been happier. We know the cause of this revolt, its purposes, and its aims. Those who made it have not left us in darkness respecting their intentions, but what they are to accomplish is still hidden from our sight; and I will abstain now, as I have always abstained with regard to it, from predicting what is to come. I know what I hope for,--and what I shall rejoice in,--but I know nothing of future facts that will enable me to express a confident opinion. Whether it will give freedom to the race which white men have trampled in the dust, and whether the issue will purify a nation steeped in crimes committed against that race, is known only to the Supreme. In His hands are alike the breath of man and the life of States. I am willing to commit to Him the issue of this dreaded contest; but I implore of Him, and I beseech this House, that my country may lift nor hand nor voice in aid of the most stupendous act of guilt that history has recorded in the annals of mankind. * * * * * AMERICA. VII. LONDON, JUNE 29, 1867. [The following speech was made at a public breakfast given to William Lloyd Garrison, in St. James's Hall, at which Mr. Bright occupied the Chair.]