The national Republican., 1860-12-28


property in this country have found their best
and, as believe, their ouly security, from those
clauses in the Constitution of the Union, which
prohibit the States from making laws er post
fdcto, or in violation Of contracts, from emitting
bills of credit, and from making anything but
gold and silver tender in payment of debts.
1t is the fashion Of degenerate times to laud the
sovereignty Of the States, upon which our
fathers fresh from bitter experience, imposed
vigorous curbs. We are ourselves destined to
this experience, if we open up that chapter Of
factous violence, of partisan confscations, and
Of robberies by the contrivances of paper money,
which will follow the ascendency of temporary
majorities in the States unreStrained by ma.
tonal authority, which represents the deliberate
sense of the people.
The country will not yield in a moment, or
without a struggle, what they know to be the
hulwark Of their security, the handspring of
their prosperity, and the palladium Of their
rights.
Observe that this quest on is to be adjudged
by the country, not in the condition in which
it was sixty days ago, but in the condition in
which it will be sixty days hence, or six months
hence, if events proceed in their present course.
Men in the full tide of material prosperity are
inclined to see wisdom only in pacific measures;
but when credit is utterly destroyed, when
prices of property have touched bottom, and
when nothing more is at hazard, it is energy,
and not timdty, which will assert itself in the
public councils. 1t was in the depths of its
misery, that the old French Republic threw
down the challenge of defiance to all Europe,
and made the challenge good by armies irwin.
chile with want and despair. Desperate men
are dangerous men; and how long is it to be
before the thousands who are beggared in for.
tune, and the tens Of thousands who are thrown
n,t &C MI hv thrna cd troa pn will
demand and help to execute vengeance on the
traitors?
Observe, farther, that it is precisely from the
classes and the localities, whence now proceeds
the language oftmidity, that will come at last the
bOldest notes of decision and energy. 1t is com.
merce and manufactures which suffer the quick.
est, in this emeute against the Union, and which
are casting about for patchwork remedies for an
evil the nature Of which is not mprehended in
the first moment Of alarm but as it is commerce
and manufactures which have suffered the
quickest, so it is commerce and manufactures
which will suffer most lastingly by the over.
throw of the Union, and which will be foremost
to resist that overthrow by force, if at last force
proves to be the only remedy which is left. 1t
is the cities, controlled by interest," and ready
to Yield principles to save the Union, which, in
the end, will fight for it with all the desperation
of towards driven to the wall. 1t is Manhattan
Island, which will be most ready for arms, if it
sees at its imperial supremacy in commerce
is only to be maintained by arms. Cupdity
will take a new direction, and the owners of
hundreds of millions of real estate in cities
threatened with ruin from political disruption,
will resist with the bayonet, what hitherto they
have vainly endeavored to stave off by conces.
sion.
The Republic, one and indivisible That
was settled by our fathers in the consultation
at Albany, before the Revolution, maintained
during that seven years struggle and consum.
mated at Philadelphia in 1887. 1t was settled
| by us, and for our time, by that magnificent act
OF craftsmanship, Of patriotism, and Of Amer.
lean nationality, the annexation Of Texas
1t is said that we cannot live together under
the same Government, because we hate each
other. The fact is no fact, but the delusion
of angry men, who mistake their own passions
for the sentiments of communities. But if the
fact is true, the inference will better commend
itself to boarding school misses, who believe
tn.t the world rests upon love, and poetry and
bouquets, than to statesmen, who understand
the real basis of the social state. Hateful, and
hating one another, is an old and scripture de-
scription of mankind. If men loved each other
there would be no need Of government and it
is precisely because the natural state of man is
that of war, as the wise old philosopher Hobbies
said it was, and precisely because it is neces
sary to throw the restraints OF the social forces
upon the malignant passions, that Governments
are instituted. II we don't love each other, so
much the worse, but so much the greater rea.
son for maintaining Union, which keeps angry
passions from breaking out into bloodshed. 1t
is upon interest, and not upon love, that the
unity orindividual States depends How much
love or congeniality is there, pray, between
Eastern aud v estern Virginia; between Staten
Island and the New York counties west of
Cnyuga bridge; or between Egypt and North.
ern Illinois? What state in the Union is free,
or ever has been free, from the contention of
sections, or the ieuds of individuals?
The Protestant and Catholic Cantons of
Switzerland never think of separating because
they are always in quarrel; and as to England
and Scotland, they were induced to the act of
Union, century and half ago, not by love,
bat by long experience of such mortal
hared as made separation a condition of al
most perpetual war
This American Union was not founded upon
love, but upon interest, Our fathers, who es-
tablished it, were not pulling sentimentalists,
but men of vigor and courage, and virie
sense. They left us strong Union, and we
have made it stronger by uniting the right to
the left bank of the Mississippi, and by carry.
ing our dominion to the Gulf of Mexico and
the Straits of Florida, the true mouth of the
Mississippi. Whether we love each other, or
hate each other, we will maintain boundaries
which nature has herself unmistakably indica
ted. When the American General, who first
took possession of the left bank of the Rio
Grande, found himself, from the want of inter
prefers, at loss to explain how long his Gov
erument intended to hold what it had taken
he ended the difficulty by debating the word
eternidad. That is the word to be inscribed
upon the fortress upon the Dry Tortugas. We
hold our line Of coast upon the sea which that
fortress commands, by honest purchases from