The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-01-26

! can have only one construction, and only
one tribunal to pronounce that construction,
| OF every treaty. Local and temporary in-
terests and passions, or personal cupidity
and ambition, can drive small Confederacies
or States more easily than great Republic
into indiscreet violations of treaties.
The United States being great and
| formidable Power, can always secure favor
able and satisfactory treaties. Indeed,
| every treaty we have was voluntarily made.
Small Confederacios or States must take
such treaties as they can get, and give what
ever treaties are exacted. A humiliating,
| or even an unsatisfactory treaty, Is a chron-
ic cause of foreign war
The chapter of wars resulting from un-
| justifable causes would, in case of division,
amplify itself in proportion to the number
| of new Confederacies and their irritability.
| Our disputes with Great Britain sbout
| Oregon, the boundary of Maine, the patriot
| insurrection in Canada, and the Island of
San Juan; the border strifes between Texas
| and Mexico; the incursions of the late Will
| liam Walker into Mexico and Central
| America; all these were cases in which war
was prevented only by the imperturbability
of the Federal Government.
| This Government not only gives fewer
| causes for war, whether just or unjust, than
! smaller Confedercies would but it always
has a greater ability to accommodate them
| by the exercise of more GOODNESS and cour-
| age, the use of more various and more lib
eral means, and the display, if need be, of
| greater force. Every one knows how placa-
| bic we ourselves are in controversies with
| Great Britain, France and Spain; and yet
| how exacting we have been in our inter-
course with New Granada, Paraguay, and
| San Juan de Nicaragua.
Mr.. President, no one will dispute our
torefathers maxim, that the common safety
of all is the safety of each of the States
While they remain united, the Federal Gov
ernment combines all the materials, and all
the forces of the several States organizes
| their defenses on one general principle; har-
monies and assimilates them with one sys-
TEN watches for them with single eye,
which it turns in all directions, and moves
all agents under the control of one execu-
tive head. nation so constituted is safe
against assaults, or even insult.
War produces always a speedy exhaustion
of money, and severe strain upon credit.
The treasures and credits of small confed-
eracies would often prove inadequa
Those of the Union are always ample.
/ have thus far kept out of view the re-
lations which must arise between the con-
federacies themselves. They would be
small and inconsiderable nations, bordering
on each other, 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 by
violating them, each of the confederacies
| must Ialso maintain treaties with all the
others, and so be liable to give them fire.
quent offense. They would, necessarily,
have different interests resulting from their
establishment of different policies of reve-
nue., of mining, manufactures, and naviga-
ton, of immigration, 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 be in
| the last degree important that the new con-
| federacies to be formed should be as nearly
as possible equal in strength and power that
| mutual fear and mutual respect might in
/ spire them with caution against mutual Of
| fense. But such equality could not long be
| maintained one cOnfedsracy would arise
| in the scale of political Importance, and the
| others would view it thenceforward with
| envy and apprehension. Jealousies would
| bring on frequent and retaliatory wars, and
all these wars, from the peculiar circum-
| stances of the confederacies, would have the
nature and character of civil war Disso
luton, therefore, is, for the people of this
country perpetual civil war. To mitigate
it, and obtain occasional rest, what else
could they accept but the system of adjust
ing the balance of power which has obtain
ed in Europe, in which the few strong ma
tions dictate the very terms on which al
] nth hal hn fo
this hateful system should fail at last, for
eign nations would intervene, now in favor
of one and then in aid OF another ant
thus our country, having expelled all Euro
pean Powers from the continent, would re-
lapse into an aggregated form of its colonia
experience, and, like Italy, Turkey, Indis
and China, become the theater of transat
latte Intervention and rapacity.
If, however, we grant TO the new confed
eracies an exemption from complication
among each other with foreign States, still
there is too much reason to believe that no
one of them could long maintain republic
can form of government. Universal suf
frage and the absence of a standing army
are essential to the Republican system. Th,
world has yet to see a self-sustaining Stat,
of that kind, or even any confederation o
such States, except our own. Canada lean
, OH GEGhG DIltHIu uOt nWlluRly, anu OWlI
zerland is guaranteed by interested mon
archical States. Our own experiment ha
| thus far been successful because, by tn
f continual addition of new States, the in
fuence Of each of the members of the Uniol
is constantly restrained and reduced. n,
, one, of course, can foretell the way an,
, manner of travel bu. history indicates witt
unerring certainty the end which the sew
eral confederacies would reach. Licentious
S ness would render life intolerable and the,
f would, sooner or later, purchase tranquility
? and domestic safety by sanctioning th
9 surrender of liberty, and yield themselve
: up to the protection of military despotism
Indulge me, sir in one or two details un
: der this head. First, it is only six day
: since this disunion movement began; alread
t those who are engaged in it have canvas9e,
= with portentous freedom the possible recon
/ binations of the States when discovered, an
e the feasible alliances of those reconciliation
: with European nations alliances as unnat
: ural, and which would prove ultimately a
: pestilential to society here as that of th
n | TlascalanS with the Snauiard who DrOm Is