3. CHAPTER III.
But the chaotic vortex of civil war approached,
and fell destruction, often procrastinated, brooded in
storm.[2]
As the English people may like to know
what was really the origin of the rebellion, I have no
hesitation in giving them the true and only cause.
Slavery had nothing to do with it, although the violation
of the Declaration of Independence, in the disregard
by the North of the Fugitive Slave Law,[3]
might have provoked a less fiery people than the
Southrons. At the inception of the struggle a large
amount of Southern indebtedness was held by the people
of the North. To force payment from the generous
but insolvent debtor—to obtain liquidation
from the Southern planter—was really the soulless
and mercenary object of the craven Northerners. Let
the common people of England look to this. Let
the improvident literary hack; the starved impecunious
Grub Street debtor; the newspaper frequenter
of sponging-houses, remember this in their criticisms
of the vile and slavish Yankee.
