themselves infallible, but either because they are self-willed and angry with their opponents, or because they believe it necessary to protect society against the desolating effects of error. The greatest declaimers against human infallibility, and the most devout preachers of the uncertainty of opinions, have, in fact, been among the fiercest and most bloody of persecutors. All history is replete with illustrations of the truth of this remark; especially the history of Old England, and the history of New England. But we need not appeal to history for proofs or illustrations. Mr. Mill himself is just as striking an illustration of the truth in question, as any to be found among the Puritanical persecutors of New England. No man ever more fiercely or more bitterly denounced the opinion, that secession was a constitutional right, than Mr. John Stuart Mill; or was more willing to see that 'heresy extinguished in the blood of its adherents.' He entirely forgot that he is a fallible being; or, if he remembered the fact, he deemed it of no importance in such a case. His passions were up, and he just gave all his fine philosophy to the winds. It was but a 'straw to the fire i' the blood.' Hence, when Mr. Mill says so many fine things about toleration, he should be understood to speak of religion, or some other small matter, in regard to which he is comparatively indifferent, and is in the minority, which has no power to persecute. 'So natural to mankind,' if we may presume to apply Mr. Mill's language to himself, 'is intolerance in whatever they really care about.' (p. 3.)

The expression, 'the immorality and impiety of an opinion,' is utterly condemned by Mr. Mill (p. 14), who, with Gibbon and other infidel writers, rest the cause of toleration on the false and shallow ground of the innocence of error.'* But, as this subject is too great to be touched in a cursory manner, we must resist the temptation to expose the infidel doctrine in question, and pass on to the topics immediately before us.

2. We have anticipated our second point, that Mr. Mill is grossly inconsistent with himself, both in theory and

Decline and Fall.

practice, in regard to toleration.' The truth of this assertion appears on every page of his paper on 'The Contest. in America.' Mr. Mill enters into this contest with all his soul, and, strange to say, finds himself at war with demons. Secession is a demon, even the gigantic demon of discord, and, if possible, slavery is a still more terrible demon. We need not suppose that Mr. Mill has ever examined either of these subjects; it is certain that they have enlisted his passions and subjugated his reason. If England had only saved the South from destruction, says he, 'Every reader of a newspaper, to the farthest ends of the earth, would have believed and remembered one thing only-that at the critical juncture which was to decide whether slavery should blaze up afresh with increased vigor or trodden out at the moment of conflict between the good and the evil spirit at the dawn of a hope that the demon might now at least be chained and cast into the pit, England stepped in, and, for the sake of cotton, made Satan victorious.' (p. 5.) It was the argument of this tract, or rather the explosion of this missile, which induced the Saturday Review to say, that 'Mr. Mill had written a great book on Logic,' and then reasoned about the American Question like an angry old woman.' To which we may add, that having just published his glorious evangel of the nineteenth century, and established for ever the great cause of toleration, he proceeded to denounce, with fanatical and furious hate, the maturely formed and long-cherished opinions of the South as damnable heresies.

3. The same gross inconsistency attaches to the whole school of which Mr. Mill is a member. Those who, like Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Mill, had been foremost in advocating the right of self-government, united in a relentless war to extinguish that right for the South. Those who, with John Bright and other Quakers, had disapproved of all wars as unchristian, rushed into that against the South, or else urged its prosecution, with even greater zeal than those who had never made any such professions of universal peace and good will to man. Such wide-spread and

sudden defection from principle is, indeed, one of the most astounding facts of the 19th century, one of the most wonderful phenomena of the modern world. As if to display the utter hollowness, the infinite sham of radical republicanism; the very men who had been the loudest and the fiercest in proclaiming its principles, not only deserted those principles in the first moment of trial, but also waged a ruthless war to exterminate them. That Mr. John Stuart Mill should have been so conspicuous among the traitors to the great principles, which they had so long and so loudly professed, serves to prove that he was the slave of passion, not 'the King of thinkers.'

4. Mr. Mill indulges in statements respecting facts, in this country, which shows a fanatical and reckless disregard of the claims of truth.' When,' says he, '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.' Now, without the least shadow of authority, and in direct opposition to well-known facts, this unblushing calumny is boldly uttered by Mr. Mill. If he had known any thing about the repudiation of Mississippi,' as it is called, or if he had cared to know the truth about it, he would have been aware, that it was an established fact before Mr. Davis had made his appearance in public life, or taken any part in the affairs of his State. But this falsehood, that Mr. Jefferson Davis was the original inventor of repudiation,' was admirably adapted to prejudice the people of Britain against the President of the new Republic'; and this seems to have been a sufficient warrant for its utterance by Mr. Mill, the great champion of truth and toleration. And this base calumny is followed by the following string of falsehoods: Mississippi,' says Mr. Mill, '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.' (p. 29.) Every statement of which is an unmitigated misrepresentation.

Mississippi was not the first State which repudiated. Pennsylvania repudiated before Mississippi. Mr. Jefferson Davis was never Governor of Mississippi, and, consequently, could never have vetoed any Bill passed by its Legislature. Whether Mr. Mill was the original inventor' of these calumnies, or was merely the facile tool of some lying emissary of the Northern faction, it makes but little difference to the reputation of Mr. Jefferson Davis. In either case, he blackened the character of a great man, and his words have been reprinted and widely circulated in this country, as well as in England, as the testimony of John Stuart Mill, the King of thinkers.' If, on the contrary, he had been the prince of liars,' he could not have aimed a more deadly blow, or forged a more venomous falsehood, for the destruction of his prejudged victim.

In fact, the term repudiation, in its ordinary acceptation, is not applicable to the conduct of Mississippi. If she had recognized a debt, and, at the same time, refused to pay it; this would have been repudiation, and would have deserved all the condemnation which Mr. Mill, or other passionate declaimers, have heaped upon it. No man living would have been further from approving such an act, or repudiation, than Mr. Jefferson Davis. But Mississippi contended that she did not owe the debt, which she is said to have repudiated; and, whether she did or not, is a question of law, which it becomes every just man to examine before he proceeds to pronounce sentence, and hurl odious epithets or anathemas. In a life of Jefferson Davis, written by a Northern man and political opponent, and published in London, the above consideration, or difference between repudiation and the conduct of Mississippi, is clearly explained and candidly admitted. But Mr. Mill, either from ignorance of American constitutional law or from passion, is quite incapable of such candour, or justice. The term repudiation, blindly applied, answers his purpose of defamation far better than either truth or justice.

5. The principles advocated by Mr. Mill in his "Contest in America," are at war with the teaching of all former ages.' Mr. Mill advocates the destruction of slavery by

military force, by civil war; a scheme utterly at variance with the wisdom of all former ages. There have been abolitionists in all ages; but never, till the wild fanaticism of the present century was let loose to curse the world, has any generation advocated the forcible and sudden termination of slavery, It has, hitherto, been universally conceded, that such a termination of the practice would be far worse than its continuance; especially for the slave.* We might, if necessary, establish this position, by an appeal to history, or to the great writers of all former periods. But, from the want of space, we shall, at present, confine ourselves to one or two instances only, which shine out amid the great cloud of witnesses.

John Adams, the second President of the United States, is our first witness; and he will, perhaps, be deemed the more unexceptionable, because he was an avowed enemy to the institution of slavery. The abolition of slavery,' says he, 'must be gradual, and accomplished with much caution and circumspection. Violent means and measures would produce greater violations of justice and humanity than the continuance of the practice. Neither Mr. Mifflin, nor yourself, (English abolitionists,) I presume, would be willing to venture on exertions which would probably excite insurrection among the blacks to rise against their masters, and imbue their hands in innocent blood.' Such was the wisdom, the moderation, and the humanity of John Adams, and of the whole age in which he lived; not even excepting the most violent abolitionists of the day. But how completely has it been swept away by overwhelming floods of fanaticism! The idea that there was any 'innocent blood' in the masters, or at the South, vanished; and to excite a servile insurrection came to be regarded as a noble, heroic, and glorious deed. Such an act was deemed worthy of a demon only in 1801; it was regarded as the sublime work of an angel of deliverance in 1863.

Slavery was not deemed, by President Adams, the greatest evil under the sun. 'There are many other evils,' said

See Balmes' Protestantism and Catholicity. Chapters XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, and XIX.