The causes of the American civil war.: A letter to the London Times./ By John Lothrop Motley.

THE CAUSES OF THE
Yet it is often asked, Why have the Americans taken
up arms? Why has the United States government
plunged into what is sometimes called "this wicked
war?," Especially it is thought amazing in England
that the President should have recently called for a
great army of volunteers and regulars, and that the inhabitants of the free states should have sprung forward
as one man at his call, like men suddenly relieved from
a spell. It would have beenil amazing had the call been
longer delayed. The national flag, insulted and defied
for many months, had at last been lowered, after the
most astonishing kind of siege recorded in history, to
an armed and organized rebellion; and a prominent
personage in the government of the Southern " Confederacy" is reported to have proclaimed amid the exultations of victorv that before the first of May the same
cherished emblem of our nationality should be struck
from the Capitol at Washington. An advance of the
" Confederate troops" upon the city; the flight or captivity of the President and his Cabinet; the seizure of
the national archives, the national title deeds, and the
whole national machinery of foreign intercourse and
internal administration by the Confederates; and the
proclamation from the American palladium itself of the
Montgomery Constitution in place of the one devised
by Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay-a Constitution in which slavery should be the universal law
of the land, the corner-stone of the political edifice were events which seemed for a few days of intense
anxiety almost probable.
Hiad this really been the result without a blow struck
in defence of the national government and the old con
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