IS THE AMERICAN UNION IN DANGER?
London, 24th September 1856.
Stn—I find from your article on "the Last Vote in the American Con- gress " that you take a very different view of the present state of affairs on the other side of the Atlantic from that of your contemporaries. You say that, on the whole, you are " justified in regarding the late vote of the House of Representatives as the assertion of a moderate policy, in contradistinction to the extreme policies which have brought the Union to the verge of civil war." Now I must confess that I cannot find any evidence of this in the files of American papers received by the two last mails. The aggressive policy inaugurated by Judge Douglas, the "friend of the Emperor Nicholas " as you rightly characterize him, has been steadily pursued, either openly by the Executive Government, with great professions of obedience to law, or by the Vigilance Committees of Missouri, headed by the late President of the Senate, in open violation of either law or order.
At present the case stands thus. In spite of the report from the Kansas Investigating Committee appointed by the House of Representatives, which confirmed the worst statements regarding the invasion of Kansas by armed bands of men from Missouri, who elected the Legislature for that Territory, and who have ever since continued to rule it by a system of terrorism, the President backs the Territorial Legislature, thus elected, with the forces of the Union, and calls out the militia of two neighbouring States to back the regular army. Instead of the Union being merely "on the verge of civil war," as you describe it, the civil war is now several months old. Mr. Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, in a late despatch to the Governors of Kentucky and Illinois, ordering them to call out the militia, plainly states that it is for the purpose of assisting Major-General Smith "to suppress in- surrectionary combinations,"—meaning thereby the organized resistance of the Free settlers to the lawless bands from Missouri and other States who have declared their determination to enforce the sanguinary laws enacted by the Territorial Legislature of Kansas. In that despatch, dated 3d September, several days after " the last vote in Congress," Mr. Jefferson Davis, who is one of the men who have sworn to force slavery upon Kansas, designates the conduct of the Free settlers as " open rebellion against the laws and constitutional authorities." There can be no doubt as to what the immediate result will be. The " re- bellion " in Kansas will be crushed for the moment, only to break out with tenfold virulence, under one form or other, in every Free State in the Union. The last movement of the American Executive shows beyond all question that the most dangerous advisers of President Pierce have obtained full command in the Cabinet, and that they are about to fight the battle of Slavery by means of whatever power they now possess or can usurp. Last year the regular army was increased by several thousand men ; and that in- creased force is now virtually at the command of Mr. Judge Douglas, Mr. Jefferson Davis, and Company. A few weeks will.show how they intend to use it. Meanwhile, I look in vain for any prospect of a compromise ; which is in my opinion, much more hopeless than such an arrangement would have been at almost any period of the first years of the War of Independence.
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