The Sun.
London, England, 1861-01-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28, 1861

society is safety or security, for which, if need be,
they will, and they must sacrifice every other.
Foreign wars come from either violations of treaties
or domestic violence. The Union has, thus far,
proved itself an almost perfect shield against such
wars. The United States, continually enlarging
their diplomatic acquaintance, have now treaties
with France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Swe-
den, Prussia, Spain, Russia, &e. If the Union
should be divided into only two confederacies, each
of them would need to make as many treaties as we
have now; and, of course, would be liable to give
as many causes of war as we now do. I will not
descend so low as to ask whether new confederacies
would be able or willing to bear the grievous
expense of maintaining the diplomatic relations
which cannot be dispensed with except by with-
drawing from foreign commerce. Our Federal
Government is better able to avoid giving just
causes of war than several confederacies, because
it can conform the action of all the States to
compacts. The United States, being a great and
formidable power, can always secure favourable and
satisfactory treaties. Indeed, every treaty we have
was voluntarily made. Small confederacies or
states must take such treaties as they can get, and
give whatever treaties are exacted. A humiliating
or even an unsatisfactory treaty is a chronic cause
of foreign war. The chapter of wars resulting
from unjustifiable causes would, in case of a divi-
sion, amplify itself in proportion to the number of
new confederacies and their irritability. This
Government not only gives fewer causes of war,
whether just or unjust, than smaller confederacies
would, but it always has a greater ability to accom-
modate them by the exercise of more coolness and
courage, the use of more various and more liberal
means, and the display, if need be, of greater force.
Mr. President, no one will dispute our forefathers'
maxim, that the common safety of all is the safety
of each of the States. In addition to the many
treaties which each must make with foreign Powers,
and the causes of war which they would give by
violating them, each of the confederacies must also
maintain treaties with all the others, and so be
liable to give them frequent offence. If, indeed, it
were necessary that the Union should be broken up,
it would be in the last degree important that the
new confederacies to be formed should be nearly as
possible equal in strength and power, that mutual
fear and mutual respect might inspire them with
caution against mutual offence. But such equality
could not long be maintained; one confederacy
would rise in the scale of political importance, and
the others would view it thenceforward with envy
and apprehension. Jealousies would bring on fre-
quent and retaliatory wars. If, however, we grant to
the new confederacies an exemption from compli-
cations among each other and with foreign States,
still there is too much reason to believe that not
one of them could long maintain a Republican
form of government. Universal suffrage and
the absence of a standing army are essential to the
republican system. The world has yet to see a
single self-sustaining state of that kind, or even any
confederation of such states, except our own. The
disunion movement arises partly cut of a dispute
over the common domain of the United States.
Hitherto the Union has confided this controversy
within the bounds of political debate by referring it,
with all other national ones, to the arbitrament of
the ballot-box. Does any one suppose that dis-
union would transfer the whole domain to either
party, or that any other umpire than war would,
after dissolution, be invoked ? This movement
arises, in another view, out of the relation of
African slaves to the domestic population of the
country. Freedom is to them, as to all mankind,
the chief object of desire. Hitherto under the
operation of the Union, they have practically
remained ignorant of the controversy, especially of
its bearing on themselves. Can we hope that
flagrant civil war shall rage among ourselves in
their very presence, and yet that they will remain
stupid and idle spectators? The opinions of man-
kind change, and with them the policies of nations.
One hundred years ago all the commercial European
States were engaged in transferring negro slaves
from Africa to this hemisphere. 2'o-day all those
States are firmly set in hostility to the extension
and even to the practice of slavery. If dissolution
prevail what guarantee shall there be against the
full development here of the fearful and uncompro-
mising hostility to slavery which elsewhere pervades
the world, and of which the recent invasion of
Virginia was an illustration ! I have designedly
dwelt so long on the probable effects of disunion
upon the safety of the American people as to leave
me little time to consider the other evils which
must follow in its train. But, practically,
the loss of safety involves every other form of
public calamity. When once the guardian
angel has taken flight, everything is lost. Dis-
solution would not only arrest, but extinguish the
greatness of our country. Even if separate confe-
deracies could exist and endure, they could seve-
rally preserve no share of the common prestige of
the Union. No petty confederacy that shall follow
the United States can prolong, or even renew, the
majestic drama of national progress. Perhaps it is
to be arrested because its sublimity is incapable of
continuance. Let it be so, if we have indeed become
degenerate. After Washington and the inflexible
Adams, Henry and the peerless Hamilton, Jefferson
and the majestic Clay, Webster and the acute Cal-
houn, Jackson, the modest Taylor, and Scott, who
rises in greatness under the burden of years, and
Franklin, and Fulton, and Whitney, and Morse,
have all performed their parts, let the curtain fall!
While listening to these debates I have sometimes
forgotten myself in marking their contrasted effects
upon the page who customarily stands on the dais
before me, and the venerable secretary who sits be-
hind him. The youth exhibits intense but pleased
emotion in the excitement, while at every irreverent
word that is uttered against the Union the eyes of
the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him
weep no more. Rather rejoice, for yours has been a
lot of rare felicity. You have seen and been a part
of all the greatness of your country, the towering
national greatness of all the world. Weep only you
and weep with all the bitterness of anguish, who
are just stepping on the threshold of life, for that
greatness perishes prematurely and exists not for
you, nor for me, nor for any that shall come after
us. The public prosperity! how could it survive the
storm ? Its elements are industry in the culture of
every fruit; mining of all the metals; commerce at
home and on every sea ; material improvement that
knows no obstacle and has no end; invention that
ranges throughout the domain of nature ; increase
of knowledge as broad as the human mind can ex-
plore; perfection of art as high as human
genius can reach, and social refinement working
for the renovation of the world. How could our
successors prosecute these noble objects in the midst
of brutalising civil conflict ? What guarantees will
capital invested for such purposes have that will
outweigh the premium offered by political and
military ambition ? What leisure will the citizen
find for study, or invention, or art, under the reign
of conscription—nay, what interest in them will
society feel when fear and hate shall have taken
possession of the national naiad ? Let the miner in
California take heed, for its golden wealth will be-
come the prize of the nation that can comtnaad the
most iron. Let the borderer take care, for the
Indian will again lurk around his dwelling. Let
the pioneer come back into our denser settlements,
for the railroad, the post road, and the telegraph
advance not one furlong further into the wilderness.
With standing armies consuming the substance of
our people on the land, and our navy and our postal
steamers withdrawn from the ocean, who will pro-
tect or respect, or who will even know by name our
party confederacies ? The American man-of-war is
a noble spectacle. I have seen it enter an ancient
port in the Mediterranean. All the world wondered
at it, and talked of it. Salvos of artillery from forts
and shipping in the harbour saluted its flag. Princes
and princesses and merchants paid it homage, and
all people blessed it as a harbinger of hope for their
own ultimate freedom. I imagine now the same
noble vessel again entering the same haven. The
flag of 33 stars and 13 stripes has been hauled
down, and in its place a signal is run up which
flaunts the device of a lone star or a palmetto tree.
Men ask, " Who is the stranger that thus steals into
our water ?" The answer contemptuously given