LORD BROUGHAM OX THE AMERICAN WAR.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 166, 18 March 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

LORD BROUGHAM OX THE AMERICAN WAR.

Loud Buouo-kam, though now between 80 and 90 years of age, and having the appearance, as has been aptly said, of an “animated mummy,” read his address to the National Social Science Association, held at Edinburgh, in a voice wonderfully firm and clear. After enumerating a few of the names of the illustrious men who had made the University of Edinburgh famous through the world, he glanced at the changes which had occurred throughout the world, for better or for worse, since the last meeting of the association. On the Americans he was very severe, attributing the war not a desire on the part of the North to emancipate the slaves, but to inordinate national vanity—“ magnifying itself,” he said, “ beyond all measure, and despising the rest of mankind, blinded and intoxicated with self-satisfaction. Persuaded that their crimes are proofs of greatness, and believing that they are both admired and envied, the Americans have not been content with the destruction of half-a-million, but are even vain of the slaughter, while the submission to every caprice of tyranny has been universal and habitual, and never interrupted by a single act of resistance to the most flagrant infractions of personal freedom.” Speaking of the manner in which they delude themselves, and the little toleration which they extend to those who think otherwise than with the mob, he quoted Cowper’s lines from Progress of Error ; — Hear the just law, the Judgment of the skies, They that hate truth shall bo the dupes of lies; Aud if they will he cheated to the last, Delusions strong as hell shall bind them fast. As may be supposed, so strong an opinion expressed by one who had taken so distinguished a part in the emancipation of slaves, caused no little surprise, and an attempt was made by the friends of the North to get up a demonstration in opposition to Lord Brougham’s views, but the plan that they pursued was little calculated to promote their object. A remonstrance was privacy handed round to the members of the Social Science Association for signature, but it met with oo little encouragement that nothing came of it. Lord Brougham having heard of it and of the charge that he had forsaken the cause of the slave adverted to it and mentioned that, at the time that the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery was introduced a gentleman wrote to him offering to make him a present of an estate in Barbadoes, and to leave him an estate in the county of Durham, if he would withdraw’ the Bill. He refused and so lost the estates. Was it likely that one who had made such a sacrifice for the liberty of the slave would now be indifferent to it ? He was of the same opinion as the Bishop of Oxford, who said “ the authors of the emancipation proclamation of the North cared as little for the black’s freedom as the white’s; and now they call for the extermination of the one to liberate the other.”