What were the merits of this particular case? The constitutional majority of the whole nation had elected a President whose election was held by both parties to be tantamount to the policy of non-extension of slavery into the Territories of the Republic, and into all States to be thereafter constructed; and before the President elect had entered upon his functions, before a single subsisting legal right (which might or might not be a moral wrong) had been interfered with, while there was yet no ground for affirming that any such right would ever be interfered with, the Southern States declared that their minority was of more weight than the nation's majority, that they would break up the nation rather than abide by its award, and would themselves constitute a new nation, founded on the maintenance of slavery within their own borders, and its extension and propagation as opportunity might offer. This, and not the mere fact that they were secessionists, insurgents, rebels, or whatever harder term may be forthcoming, is the reason why the writer disliked the revolt of the Southern States, and wished it to come to nought; and corresponding facts regarding the Northern States,--that they were simply upholding a constitutional act performed by the nation at large, were contending for the majestic present and the magnificent future of a great and free republic, were arrayed against the extension of slavery, and might, by the force of circumstances and the growth of ideas, find themselves called up even to exterminate the existing slave-system,--these were the facts which commanded his homage to the Northern cause,--not merely that they were the assertors of authority against innovation. The case, as the writer understands it, amounts simply to this: that the South seceded before it had been in any degree damnified, and to maintain a system the scotching or killing of which, though not in fact then contemplated by the North to any extent contrary to existing laws, would have been a benefit to mankind and an atonement to human conscience. It may perhaps seem superfluous or impertinent to have given so many words to the statement of opinions so simple and obvious. But the English Liberal adherents of the Northern States were continually twitted with their assumed inconsistency in censuring the insurrection of the South, while they approved of (for instance) the insurrection of Lombardy against the Austrians; and it seemed impossible to get the objectors to understand, or at any rate to acknowledge, that motives, aims, and consequences have some bearing upon revolts, as upon other transactions, and that one may consistently abhor a revolt the motive and aim of which he believes to be bad, while he sympathizes with another the motive and aim of which he believes to be good. Of course, too, there were other objectors who denied, and will to this day not blush to deny, that the question of Slavery was the real substantial