The Contest in America — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Contest in America
John Stuart Mill · en
As it is necessary to be prepared for all possibilities, let us now
contemplate another. Let us suppose the worst possible issue of this
war--the one apparently desired by those English writers whose moral
feeling is so philosophically indifferent between the apostles of
slavery and its enemies. Suppose that the North should stoop to
recognize the new Confederation on its own terms, leaving it half the
Territories, and that it is acknowledged by Europe, and takes its
place as an admitted member of the community of nations. It will be
desirable to take thought beforehand what are to be our own future
relations with a new Power, professing the principles of Attila and
Genghis Khan as the foundation of its Constitution. Are we to see with
indifference its victorious army let loose to propagate their national
faith at the rifle's mouth through Mexico and Central America? Shall
we submit to see fire and sword carried over Cuba and Porto Rico, and
Hayti and Liberia conquered and brought back to slavery? We shall soon
have causes enough of quarrel on our own account. When we are in the
act of sending an expedition against Mexico to redress the wrongs of
private British subjects, we should do well to reflect in time that
the President of the new Republic, Mr. Jefferson Davis, was the
original inventor of repudiation. Mississippi was the first State
which repudiated, Mr. Jefferson Davis was Governor of Mississippi, and
the Legislature of Mississippi had passed a Bill recognizing and
providing for the debt, which Bill Mr. Jefferson Davis vetoed. Unless
we abandon the principles we have for two generations consistently
professed and acted on, we should be at war with the new Confederacy
within five years about the African slave-trade. An English Government
will hardly be base enough to recognize them, unless they accept all
the treaties by which America is at present bound; nor, it may be
hoped, even if _de facto_ independent, would they be admitted to the
courtesies of diplomatic intercourse, unless they granted in the most
explicit manner the right of search. To allow the slave-ships of a
Confederation formed for the extension of slavery to come and go free,
and unexamined, between America and the African coast, would be to
renounce even the pretence of attempting to protect Africa against the
man-stealer, and abandon that Continent to the horrors, on a far
larger scale, which were practised before Granville Sharp and Clarkson
were in existence. But even if the right of intercepting their slavers
were acknowledged by treaty, which it never would be, the arrogance of
the Southern slave-holders would not long submit to its exercise.
Their pride and self-conceit, swelled to an inordinate height by their
successful struggle, would defy the power of England as they had
already successfully defied that of their Northern countrymen. After
our people by their cold disapprobation, and our press by its