Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1861-01-24

revenue, of mining manufactures and nav
: lgation, of immigration, aud perhaps th'
3 slave trade. Each would st;pnlate will
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 il
the last degree important that the new
Confederacies to be formed should be as
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 be long maintained; one Confederacy
would rise in the scale of political impor-
tance, and Others would view it thencefor-
ward with envy and apprehension. Jeal-
ousles would bring on frequent and retail
atory wars, and all these wars, from the
peculiar circumstances of the Confedera-
cies, would have the nature and character
of civil war. Dissolution, therefore, is, for
the people of this country, perpetual civil
war. 10 mitigate it and obtain OCCASION
al rest, what else could they accept but
The system of adjusting the balance of
power which has obtained in Europe, in
which the few strong nations dictate the
very terms on which all the others shall be
coutent 10 live. When this hateful sys-
TEN should fail at last, foreign nations would
intervene, now IN favor of one and then in
aid of another, and thus our country bav-
ing expelled all European Powers from the
continent, would relapse into an aggregate
form of its colonial experience, and, like
Italy, Turkey, India, and China become
the theatre oftransatlantic Intervention and
rapacity.
If, however we grant to the new confed-
eracies an exemption from complications
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. Uni
versal suffrage and The absence of STAN
ding army are essential to republican
system. The world has yet to See a sin
gle self ustaining State OF that kind, or
even any confederation of suchStates, ex-
cept our own. Canada leans on Great Bri-
tan not unwillingly, and Switzerland is
guaranteed by interested monarchial States.
Our own experience has thus far been sue
cessful, because by the continual addition
of new States, the influence of the MEM
bers of the Union is constantly restrained
and reduced. No one, of course, can fore
tell the way and manner of travel; but his
tory indicates with unerring certainty, the
end which the several confederacies would
reach. Licentiousness would render life
intolerable; and they would sooner or later
purchase tranquility and domestic safety
by the surrender of liberty, and yield them
selves up to the protection of military des-
potism.
Indulge me, sir, in one or two details un-
der this head.
First. 1t is only sixty days since this
disunion movement began; already those
who are engaged in it have canvassed with
portentous freedom the possible recombi-
nations with European relations, alliances
as unnatural, and which would prove ulti-
mately as pestilential to society here, as
that of the TIascaians with the Spaniards,
who promised them revenge upon their an
clent ancestors, the Artecs.
Secondly. The disunion movement ari-
ses partly out of dispute over the COM
mon domain of the United States. Hith-
erto the Union has confined this controver-
sy 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 disunion would
transfer the whole domain to either party,
or than any other umpire than war would,
after dissolution, be invoked?
Thirdly. This movement arises, in an
othter view, out of the relations of the
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 Uuion,
they have practically remained ignorant of
the controversy. especially Of its bearing on
themselves. Can We hope that hagiaut
civil war shall rage among ourselves in their
very presence, and yet they shall remain
stupid and idle spectators? Does history
furnish us any satisfactory instructions up
on the horrors of civil war among people
so brave, SO skillful in arms, SO earnest in
and so intent in purpose as We
are! 1t is a mere chimera which suggests
an aggravation of those horrors beyond en-
durance, wien, on either side, there shall
occur the intervention of an uprising, fero-
cious, African slave population Ct four or
six, ten, or perhaps twenty millions.
The opinions of mankind change. and with
them the politics of nations. One hundred years
ago all the commercial European States were en-
gagged in transferring negro slaves from Africa
To this hemisphere. To-day all those States are
firmly set in hostility to the extension and even
10 The prncIice oil slavery. Opposition 10 it
lakes two forms: one. European, which is SIM
pie. direct abolition, effected. if need be- by
the other American, which seeks 10
arrest the African slave trade. aad resisls the {
entrance of domestic slavery into the territories
where it is yet unknown, while it leaves the dis
pusili"n of existing slavery to the considerile
action OF the Stale by which it is retained. 1t I
is the Union that restricts the opposition TO sla-
very in this country within those limits. Ifdis-
solution prevails. what guarantee shall there be +
against the full development here of the fearful
md uncompromising hostility to slavery which i
elsewhere pervadcs the world, and of which the (
recent invasion Of Virginia is an illustration? /
Mr.. President, have designedly dwelt so +
oRg on the probable effect of disunion upon the {
safety OF the American people, as to leave me !
little time to consider the other evils which ]
oss of safety involves every other form of pub t
ic calamity. When once the guardian angel f
las taken flight. everything is lost.
lv bt,f avti Ii,