The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-03-09
From the Philadelphia Bulletin, March 4h.
The Federal Union.

''The Union-it must be preserved"
[President Jackson.
The motto which We have placed at the head of
this article should be the sentiment of every true
American in the present important crisis. Our
prosperity and that of children depends on the
preservation Of the Union. What these States would
be without Federal Constitution may be easily
understood by recurring to the history of that an
archical period, Immediately following the peace
of17s3, before the present Union formed. A
mutual distrust between the commonwealths; an
almost total stoppage of INSTRUMENTATION be-
tween the States, in consequence of the impossible
ty of making proper regulations; conflicting laws;
sectional jealousies; general want of credit the
stagnaton Of trade, and, a result, the decline of
agriculture; these some Of the characteristics
of that disastrous time.
Should separation Of the Union ever take place
all these evils would come back, but in an aggra-
waited state. The southern trader would no longer
buy goods in Philadelphia, because there would be
a tariff TO be paid on them when they reached his
frontier; would the northern manufacturer ad-
venture, as now, to extend credit TO merchants in
Mississippi, because then his debtors would be citi-
zens Of another nation, and, in the event Of war,
there might be total loss of the claim The pro-
duce Of the western farmer, seeking its market
would be stopped on the borders of the louisiana
TO pay transit duty down the Mississippi All
the evils which consume Germany under its
different and conflicting governments, would then
dcvour this prosperous republic. Passengers
voyaging 10 and fro between Charleston and New
York, would be subject 10 vexatious custom house
inspections at either port In word, where all is
now harmony, would then be discord; jeaousies
would arise, certain precursors Of long feuds and
bloody wars; and business, as VIC now witness II
at least, between the different sections of the Union
would be paralyzed, II not utterly destroyed.
But IL is not the selfish interests only which
should be appealed 10, in crisis like this. Higher
and nober results, than failure in trade,
depend on the preservation Of the Union. In the
sixty years that have elapsed since the foundation
Of the Federal Government, the people Of these
United States have made greater physical, intel
lectual and moral advances than any nation Of
which we know, in the same space Of time, since
the beginning Of the world. More has been done
practically TO elevate mankind, by the peace and
prosperity the Union has conferred, in half cen
fury here, than in twenty centuries in Europe.
Shall this progress be checked Shall the balance
wheel that regulates all, and which is now working
efficiently, be suddenly cast down, the looscned
power be left to riot, carrying ruin and dismay
around Heaven forbid The very recollectons
Of the price at which the Union purchased, the
remembrance Of the common blood shed in the war
Of Independence, should prcvent the sacrlegious
thought There is not battlefield Of the revolution
but that, If IL could speak, would exclaim against
disunion as treason 10 itself One would almost
imagine that, at the bare suggestion, there would
rise up from Lexington and Yorktown, from Bun
ker Hill and Trenton, from Valley Forge and
Princeton, from Saratoga and Eutaw, the bones Of
the martyrs who persisted on those plains and that
from every fcshless skeleton would issue voice,
cursing the utterer Of the impious suggestion OH
we are not enemies, but brothers, in these United
States. May the Almighty avert disunion and its
consequences, a fratricidal war