Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1861-01-24

;-ss>zs7 $1,000
means, and she display, \ nesd be, n create I
er force. Evory ode knows how placable We
ourselves are ID controversies with Great
Britain, France and Spain and yet how
cxacting We have been IN our intercourse
with. New Granada, Paraguay and Ssn juan
de Nicaragua. 'efN s'si'''> ,''rs1i' o.
Mr.. President, no one win dispute our
forefathers' maxim, that the common safety
Of all Is the safety Of each Of the States Il
While they united, the Federal Gov
ernment combines all the materials and all
the force of the several States; organizes
their defences on one general principle; har-
,nonixes and asdmiIstcs them with one sys-
tern; watches for them with single eye,
which It turns in all directions, and moves
all agents under the control Of one executive
head. A nation 20 constitutedis is safe against
assaults or even insuk4 s,r,,,. va i....;,, /,
Mar produces always ASpeedy exhaustion
Of money and severe stF4h ofcredit. The
treasures and credits Of small Confedera-
cies would often prove inadequate. Those
ofthe Union are always smple. 80 60, !.
/ have thus far kept out of view the rela-
tions which must arise between the Confed-
eracies themselves, Thg would be small
and uncomfortable nations bordering on each
other, and therefore, according to all politi-
cal philosophy, natural enemies. In addi-
ton to the many treatieAWhich each must
make with foreign Powers, and the causes
Of war which they would give by violating
them, each, Of these Confedscies must also
maintain treaties with an the others, and 50
be liable to give them frequent offence. =.
They would necessarily have different in
tercsts resulting from their establishment of
different policies Of revenue, of mining,
manufactures and navigation, ofimmigration
and perhaps the slare-tsass- Each would
stipulate with foreign nations for advantages,
peculiar to itself sndinjurous 10 its rivals
II, indeed, it we're necessary that t he
Union should be broken upfit would be in
the last degree important that the new Con-
federscies to be formed should. be as nearly
as possible equal in strength and power, that
mutual fear & mutual respect might inspire
them with cautina aeainst mutual offence. But
equality could not long be maintained; one
Confederacy would rise inthe scale of politi-
cal importance, and the others would view
it thenceforward with envy and apprehension.
Jealousies would bring on frequent and re
taliatory wars, aod all these wars, from the
peculiar circumstances of the Confederacies,
would have the nature and character of civil
war. Dissolution, therefore, is, for the
people Of this country, perpetual civil war.
To mitigate it and altain occasional 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 content to live.
When this hateful systsm should fail at last
foreign nations would intervene, now in "a
vor of one and then in aid Of another, and
thus our country, having expelled all Euro
pean Powers from the continent, would re-
lapse into an aggregated form of its colonial
experience, and, like Italy, Turkey, India
and China, become the theatre of ftransatlan-
tic 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 re-
publican form of government Universal
suffrage and the absence 6s standing army
are essential to a, republican system. The
wcrld has yet to see single self-sustaihine
State of that kind, Or even any confedera-
| ton of such States, except our own. Canada
leans on Great Britain not unwillingly, and
Switzerland is guaranteed by Interested mon
archical States. Our own experiment has
thus far been successful, because, by the
continual addition Of new States, the inAu
ence Of each Of the members Of the Unior
is constantly restrained and reduced. NJ
one, of course, can foretell the way ant
manner Of travel; but history indicates witt
unerrins certainty the end which the severn
confederacies would reach, sLiecentiousnes
: would render life intolerable; and they woult
sooner or later purchase tranquility and do
mestic safety by the surrender Of liberty
!, and yield themselves up 70 the.protection o
military despotism. gs~ fiasi
| Indulge me, sir, in one or two details i'm
4 der this head. First, tits only sixty day
! since this disunion movement began; alread.
, those who are engaged in it have canvasse'
/ with pertentious freedom the possible re
I combinations of the States when discovered
(! and the feasible alliances Of those 'recombi
I nations with European relations, alliance
Z as unnatural, and which would prove nit
mately as pestfehtial to society here as tha
: of the Tisscaians with the. Spaniard, VIII
h promised them revenge upon their ancier
6 enemies, the Aztenx bsa4 wsr 10 IA
Il Secondly, The disunion movement arist
!. partly out of q dispute over the common d.
: main Of the United States Hitherto th
. Union has confined thia controversy with
a the bounds of political debste, BY referrin
n III, with all other nationsbopes, to the arbi
III rement of the ballot-box., Does any on