Professor Cairnes, in opposition to the Southern doctrine proclaimed at home and abroad, views the present rebellion as unconstitutional, and as therefore amenable to the usual tests by which a revolutionary movement is justified or condemned. He refers to the manner in which the English people allowed their sympathies "to be carried, under the skilful management of Southern agency acting through the press, round to the Southern side"; and while he admires the spectacle of a people rising "for no selfish object, but to maintain the integrity of their common country, and to chastise a band of conspirators, who, in the wantonness of their audacity, had dared to attack it," he attributes the "cold criticism and derision" of the English public to a shallow, but natural, misconception of the real issue. So far as in him lies, he does not intend that the case shall be so misconceived any longer. Without declaring himself an advocate or apologist of American democracy, he warmly pleads that democracy ought not to bear the burdens of oligarchy,--that the faults and mistakes in the policy of this country ought not all to be laid at the door of the present National Government, and thus redound to the benefit of its Southern foes, when so many of those faults and mistakes were committed under the sway of the very class in whose behalf they are now quoted. Our sensitive countrymen, who have so keenly smarted under English indifference or hostility, may console themselves with the thought that there is one Englishman of undoubted ability and sincerity who calls the Southern Confederation "the opprobrium of the age."
Near the close of the volume the author strives to penetrate the darkness which hangs over the present conflict. He does not think "that the North is well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union in its original proportions." He would have the North supported in striving for "a degree of success which shall compel the South to accept terms of separation, such as the progress of civilization in America and the advancement of human interests throughout the world imperatively require." The terms of his proposed settlement we have not room here to consider.
With this hasty notice, and without any attempt at criticism, we dismiss a thoughtful and interesting book, which, however in some particulars it may fail to meet the entire acceptance of all American readers, is well worthy of their calm and deliberate perusal.