Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1861-01-25


tereourse, makes peace the habit of the Amer
lean people.
viii not descend so low as to ask whether
new Confederacies would be able or willing t.
bear the grievous expense of maintaining tht
diplomatic relations which cannot be dispens
ed with except by Withdrawing from foreign
commerce.
Our Federal Government is better able tc
avoid giving just causes of war than severa
Confederacies, because It can conform the &C
tions of all the States to compacts. 1t car
have only one construction, and one tribuna
to pronounce that construction, of every
treaty. Local and temporary interests ant
passions, Or personal cupidity and ambition
can drive small Confcderacies or States more
easily than great Republic into indiscreet
violations of treaties.
The United States being great and forni
dab!e power, can always secure favorable and
satisfactory treaties. Indeed every treaty We
have was voluntarily made. Small confedera
cies OF States must take such treaties as they
can get, and give whatever treaties are exact
ed. A humiiating or even an unsatisfactory
treaty is a chronic cause of foreign war
The chapter of wars resulting from unjusti
fable causes would, in case of divisinn, ampli
fly itself in proportion to the number of new
confederacies and their irritability. Our dis
putes with Great Britain about Oregon, tht
boundary of Maine, the Patriot insurreetior
in Canada, and the Island of San Juan tht
border strifes between Texas and Mexico, the
incnrsions of the late William Walker into
Mexico and Central America all these werC
cases in which war was prevented only by the
impertubability of the Federal Government
This Government not only gives feWel
causes Of war, whether just or unjust, thar
smaller confederacies would, but it always hai
greater ability to accommodate them by tht
exercise of more GOODNESS and courage, tht
use of more various and more liberal means
and the display, if need be, Of greater force
Every one knows how placable we ourselve
are in controversies with Great Britain
France and Spain; and yet how exacLing VIZ
have been in our intercourse with New Gren
ada. Paraguay and San Juan de Nicaragua
Mr. President, no one will dispute our fore
fathers maxim, tnat the common safety of all
is the safety of each of the States. While
they remlin united, the Federal Gouernmant
combines all the materials and alI other forces
Of the several States organizes their delence'
on one general principle harm nizes and as
similates them with one system: watches for
them with single eye, which it turns in al
directions, and moves all agents under the
consrol of one executive head. A nation SC
Constituted is safe agaidst assaults or even
insult.
War produces a speedy exhaustion Ofmoney
and severe strain upon credit. The treas
uries and credits of small Confederacies would
often prove inadequate. Those Of the Union
are always ample.
| have thus fur kept Out of view the rela-
tions which must rise between the C0nltra-
cies themselves. They would be small and
inconsider;lble nations bordering on each 9th
er, and therefore according to all political
philosophy, natural enemies. In addition to
the many treaties which each must make with
foreign Powers. and the causes of war which
they would give ~ violating them, each OF
these Confetlcracies must also maintain trea-
ties with all the cthers and so be liable to
give them frequent offence. They would ne
&C ssa ily have different interests resulting
from their establishment of different policies
of emigration and perhaps the slave trade
Each would stipulate with foreign nations for
advantages peculiar to itself and injurious to
its rivals.
If indeed, it were necessary that the Union
should be broken up it would b. in the last
degree important that the new conederacies
to be form ID should be as nearly as possible
equal in strength and power, that mutual faal
and mutual respect might inspire them will
caution against mutual offence. But such
equality could not long be maintained one
Confederacy would rise in the scale Of polit
icaI importance, and the others would view il
thencelorward with envy and apprehension.
Jealouses would bring on frequent retaliato
ry wars and all these wars, from the pecuiiul
circumsta noes of the Confederacies. would
have the nature and the character of civi
war Dissolution, therefore, is, for the people
of this country, perpetual civil war. To NIT
igate it, and obtain occasional rest, what elsc
could they accept but the system of adjusting
the balance Of power which has obtained in
Europe, in which the few strong nations die
tate the very terms on which the others shall
be content to live When this hateful sys
tenn should fail at last, foreign nations woult
intervene now in favor of one and then in aiC
of another, and Powers from the continent
would relapse into an aggregated form of il
colonial experience and, like Italy. Turkey
/ India and China, become the theatre Of trans
atlantic Intervention and rapaeity.
If, however, we grant to the new confeder
acies an exemption from complications anon;
each other and with foreign States, still ther
is too much reason to believe that not one o
them could !ong maintain a republican form
of government. Universal suffrage and tn
absence of standing army are essential to-
republican system. The world has yet to Sc
a single selEsustaining state of that kind, o
even any confederation of such States, excep
our own. Canada leans on Great Britain no
unwillingly, and Switzerland is guaranteed b
interested monarchical States. Our own ex
pertinent has thus far beer successful, becaEs
by the continual addition of new States, tn
influence of each Of its members of the Ur
ion is constantly restrained and reduced. Y
one, of course, can foretell the way and mar
Her of travel, but history indicates with ut
erring certainty the one which the several col
federacies would reach. Licentiousness woul
render life ntolerable and they would sIor
er or later purchase tranquility and domesti
safety by the surrender of liberty, and yiel
themselves up to the protection of militar
despoIism.
Indulge me, sir in one or two details undt
this head. First, it is only sixty days sinC
this disnnion' movement begun already tho'
who are engaged in it have canvassed Wi
pOrteutous freedom the possible recombin
tions of the States when discovered, and ii
feasible alliances of those recombinations wi
European relations, alliances as unnatural, al
; which would prove ultimately as pestilenti
to society here as that of the Tlasonians wi
; the Spani ard, who promised them revenge u
on their ancient enemies, the Aztees.
: Secondly, The disunion movement aris
, partly out of a dispute over the common d
main of the United states. Hitherto I
D . Mon has confined this controversy with
' the bounds of political debate, by referring