The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1861-01-30

other nations, that disintegration, once begun
, inevitably continues until even the greatest
empire crumbles into many parts. Each
Confederation that shall ultimately arise out
OF the ruin Of the Union, will have necessity
for as many treaties as we now haye, and
will incur liabilities for war as often as we
now do, by breaking them. is the multi
plication of treaties, and the want of confede-
ration, that makes war the normal condition
of society in Western Europe and in Spanish
America. 1t is union that notwthstand.n
our worldwide intercourse, makes peace the
hahit of the American people.
will not descend so low as to ask whcth-
er new Confederacies would be able or willing
to bear the grievous expense of maintaining
the dplomatical relations which cannot be
dispensed with except by withdrawing from
foreign commerce.
Our Federal Government is better able to
avoid giving just causes of war than several
Confederacies, because it can conform the
action of all the States to compacts. 1t can
ave only one construction, and only one
h bunal to pronounce that construction, of
every treaty. Local and temporary interests
and passions, o. personal cupdity and am
bition can drive small Confederacies or States
more easily than great Republic into in
discreet violations Of treaties.
The United States being great and form
liable Power, can always secure favorable
and satisfactory treaties. Indeed, every
treaty we have was voluntarily made. Small
Confederacies or States must take such treat.
les as they can get, and give whatever treat
les are exacted. A bumiiating or even an
unsatisfactory treaty, is chronic cause of
foreign war
The chapter of wars resulting from unjusti-
fable causes would, in case of division, am
plify itself in proportion to the number of
new Confederacies and their irratability-
Our disputes with Great Britain about Ore
gon, the boundary of Maine, the patriot in
surrection in Canada, and the Island of San
Juan the border strife between Texas and
Mexico, the incursions Of the late William
Walker into Mexico and Central America
all of 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 Confederacies would but it always
has a greater ability to accommodate them
by the exercise of more GOODNESS and courage,
the use of more various and more liberal
means, and the display, if need be, Of greater
force. Every one knows how placable we
ourselves are in controversies with Great
Britain, France and Spain and yet how ex-
acting we have been in our intercourse with
New Granada, Paraguay and San Juan de
Nicaragua.
Mr. President, no one will dispute our fore
fathers maxim, that the common safety Of
all is the safety Of each Of the States. While
they remain united, the Federal Government
combines all the materials, and all the forces
Of the several States F; organizes their defen-
ses on one general principle; /; harmonizes and
assimilates them with one system watches
for chem with single eye, which it turns
in all directions, and moves all agents under
the control of one executive head. A nation
SO constituted is safe against assault, or even
insult.
War produces always speedy exhaustion
of money, and severe strain upon credit
The treasures and credits Of small confeder-
acies would often prove inadequate. Those
of the Union are always ample.
| have thus far kept out Of view the re'a-
tons which must arise between the confede-
racies themselves. They would be small and
incoEs; 3S1"r&slie nations tc-de-ing on each
al! cr, and thcrer r., according to ali political
/ philosophy, natural enemies. In addition to
the many treaties which each must make
with foreign Powers, and the cause of war
which they would give by violating them,
each of the confederacies must also maintain
| treaties with all the others, and so he W -.
! to give them frecvc-t o., g Thcyw3all,
necessarily, have different interests resulting
! from their establishment of different policies
! Of revenue, Of mining, of manufactures, and
navigation of immigration, and perhaps the
slave trade Each would stipulate with for
eign 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 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
candor against mutual offense. But such
equality could not long be maintained one
confederacy would arise in the scale of polit-
/ ical importance, and the others would view
it thenceforward with envy and apprehension
Jealousies would bring on frequent and re-
taliatory wars, and all these wars, from the
| peculiar circumstances of the confederacies,
would have the nature and character Of civil
war. Dissolution, there fore, is, for the peo-
pie of this country perpetual civil war. To
mitigate it, and obtain occasional rest, what
else could they accept but the system of ad-
justing the balance Of power which has OBJ
tanned in Europe, in which the few strong
nations dictate the very terms on which all
the others shall be content to live. When
this hateful system should fail at last. foreign
nations would intervene, now in favor Of one
and then in aid Of another, and thus our
country, having expelled all European Pow
ers from the continent, would relapse into an
aggregate form of its colonial experience,
and, like Italy, Turkey, India and China,
ton and rapacity.
If, however, we grant to the new confede-
racies an exemption from complications
among each other with foreign States, still
there is too much reason to believe that not
one of them could long maintain republican
form ofgovernment Universal suffrage and
/ the absence of a standing army are essential
to the republican system. The world has
yet to see a self-sustaining State of that kind,
or even any confederation of such States,
except our own. Canada leans on Great
Britain not unwillingly, ard Switzerland is
guaranteed by interested monarchical States.
Our own experiment has thus far been sue
/ cessful because, by the continual addition
of new States, the influence of each of the
members OF the Union is constantly restrained
ard reduced. No one, Of course, can foretell
the way and manner of travel but history
indicates with unerring certainty the end
which the several confederacies would read