Various

This article, published in our August issue, has awakened so wide an interest in the community, that the Editor of The Continental deems it expedient to place before its readers the additional matter contained in a later edition published in England, where it has circulated by thousands. We regret that this edition did not arrive in time to appear at large in our August number; but as it did not, we herewith offer the additional matter so arranged that our readers will have but little difficulty in fitting it in its appropriate place.

Addition 1st.—August Continental, page 219, after line 23 from the top, viz.: 'and the countrywomen of the Mother of the Lord,' read:

Mississippi was the first repudiating State; A.G. McNutt, the first repudiating Governor; and Jefferson Davis, the first repudiating Senator. As another evidence of the incredible extent to which the public sentiment of that day was debased, I quote the following passage from Governor McNutt's message of 1840, proposing to repeal the bank charters, and to legalize the forgery of their notes—'The issuing of paper money, in contravention of the repealing act, could be effectually checked by the abrogation of all laws making it penal to forge such paper.' (Sen. Jour. p. 53.) Surely, nothing, but the fell spirit of slavery, could have dictated such a sentiment.

The supplemental act, we have seen, was not, in the language of the Constitution, a law 'to raise a loan of money on the credit of the State;' that act had already passed two successive Legislatures, and was unchanged by the supplemental, which merely modified some of the details of the bank charter; such was the fact, and such the decree of the inferior court, such was the unanimous decision of the highest judicial tribunal of the State, to which the final adjudication had been assigned, by a mandatory provision of the Constitution.

Surely this decision should have settled the question. But it did not. Jefferson Davis, notwithstanding his professed desire to submit this question to the final decree of the courts of the State, persisted, as we have seen, in 1849, in repudiating these bonds, at a period more than seven years after this decision of 1842, and still persevered, after the second similar adjudication of 1853.

Who conspired to assassinate the American President on his way to Washington? Who murdered in Baltimore the men of Massachusetts on their way to the defence of the capitol of the Union? Who commenced the conflict by firing upon the starving garrison of Sumter, and striking down the banner of the Union which floated over its walls? Who, immediately thereafter, announced their resolution to capture Washington, seized the national arms, and forts, and dockyards, and vessels, and arsenals, and mints, and treasure, and opened the war upon the Federal Government?

But, let me resume the debate. When the ministry had closed, the earnest opponents of slavery, and true friends of England and America, discussed the question. Seldom have such great speeches been heard on any occasion, and the impression was most profound.

What is it England is asked to recognize? It is a confederacy, claiming to be a league of sovereign and independent States, like the old American Confederacy of 1778, abandoned when we formed a nation in 1787. When England, in 1783, recognized the old Confederacy, the recognition was of each of the several States by name, as sovereign and independent. Now, applying those principles on the present occasion, to the several seceded States by name, Is Virginia independent? Why, all her coasts and seaports are held by us, so is Norfolk, her commercial capital, more than half her area and white population, and nearly half her territory has been organized as a new State of the Union, and, by the almost unanimous vote of her people, has abolished slavery. Are North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Texas independent? Why, their whole coast and large portions of the interior are held by our army and navy. Is Tennessee independent? Two thirds of her territory, as well as her political and commercial capitals, Nashville and Memphis, are held by us. The same thing is true, to a great extent, as to Arkansas. As to Mississippi—her whole sea coast, and her whole river coast, for 500 miles, with the exception of a single point, are held by us, and more than half her territory. As to Louisiana, we hold three fourths of her territory, all her sea coast, all her river front on both banks of the Mississippi, except one point, and her great city, New Orleans, the commercial capital of the State and of the South, with four times the population of any other Southern city, and with nearly half the free population of the State. More than three fourths of the population as well as area of Louisiana is held by us, with her political and commercial capital, and yet it is proposed to acknowledge Louisiana as one of these sovereign and independent States. How can the so-called Confederacy, claiming to be a league of sovereign and independent States, be recognized as independent, when the States composing that league are not independent? How is Richmond to be reached by an English envoy, or is the blockade to be broken, which is war? How as to slavery! The 331,000 slaves of Louisiana, the three millions of slaves of the seceded States, are emancipated by the proclamation of the President, under the war power uniformly recognized as constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. If these are States of our Union, or are retained by us, slavery has ceased, and the three millions of slaves are free. But, if you acknowledge the confederate independence, then, these three millions of slaves, so far as England is concerned, are slaves still, and will remain so forever. To refuse recognition, is to admit the freedom of these slaves—to recognize, is to remand them to bondage, so far as England can accomplish that purpose. Nor is this all—it is to spread slavery over an almost boundless territory, claimed by the South. It is impossible then to escape the conclusion, that, in recognizing this confederacy, England ranges herself on the side of slavery, and does all she can to maintain and perpetuate it in America. Nor is this all. She violates a great moral rule, and a well settled principle of international law, to maintain and perpetuate slavery in the South. By the law of nations, the recognition of national independence is the acknowledgment of the fact of independence. But, we have seen, that the States composing this so-called league, are not independent, but are held, to a vast extent, by our army and navy, including two thirds of their area. Never was independence acknowledged under such circumstances, except as an act of war. The acknowledgment then of the confederate independence, in the present posture of affairs, is, in fact, a declaration of war by England against the United States, without cause or justification. It would be so universally regarded in the United States, and would instantly close all dissensions in the North. If any suppose that England, without any just cause, should thus strike us with the iron-gauntleted hand, and that we will not resist, let the history of the past answer the question. Nor would the union of France, in such an act, change the result, except that nearly all the loss and sacrifice would fall upon England. Including the slaves and free blacks, there is not a single seceded State, in which an overwhelming majority of the people are not for the Union. Now, by the Federal Constitution, slaves are mentioned only three times, and then not as slaves, but as 'persons,' and the Supreme Court of the United States have expressly decided that slaves, so far as regards the United States, are persons, and not property. (Groves vs. Slaughter, 15 Peters, 392.) All persons, in every State, owe a paramount allegiance to the United States, the rebel masters, as well as their slaves—the Government has a right to their services to suppress the rebellion; and to acknowledge the independence of the South, is to ignore the existence of the slaves, or to treat them, as the South do, as chattels, and not persons. In acknowledging, then, Southern independence, the independence of the masters, England expressly recognizes the doctrine of property in man. Such a war, proclaimed by England and France against the United States on such grounds, would be a war of their Governments—not of their peoples, and could have but one termination. As to our recognition of the independence of Texas, it was long after the decisive battle of San Jacinto,—when the Mexican army was destroyed or captured, together with the President, when he acknowledged their independence, the Mexican Government, by accepting the advantages stipulated by him, in fact, and in law, ratified the recognition. It was after all this, when the contest was over, not a Mexican vessel on the coast of Texas, nor a Mexican soldier upon her soil, that we recognized the independence of Texas. The case, therefore, is widely different from the present. Let it be remembered, that we hold, not only the mouth of the Mississippi, its great city, the whole of the west bank of that imperial river, but all the east bank, except two points, thus dissevering Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas from the rest of the South. Now the area of these three States is 373,000 square miles, and that of all the remaining seceded States, 396,000 square miles. In holding then the west bank of the Mississippi, we have severed the great artery of the South, which is death.