The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-11-19

TO preserve the 'natlOnal LIE. IhlS
is one Of those popular phrases which
play SO important part in American
affairs. Will it bear examination?
If the national lie cannot exist unless
Texas, California, Oregon, be COM
prised in the Union, how did it exist
when those regions belonged to a
foreign power? How did it exist
when North Carolina and Rhode
Island were outside Of the Union?
If anything represents the nation as
whole, it is the Constitution, with
out which we have no other than
separate States. Now, the Constitu-
ton, this sacred source of what is
called national life, itself provides for
state of things which left one third
Of the existing States outside of it's
pale. 1t provides that it should come
into full force whenever nine out
Of thirteen States should accept it.
Hence division Of the Union, the
separate existence of part of the
States, was not only q possibility fore
seen by the trainers of the Constit,1-
tion, but was calmly provided for in
1t. 1t Is well known that the people
of the North, having annexed the
greater part of the territory of Mexico,
look forward to the absorption of the
rest. Will it, then, be essential to
the national life that seven or eight
millions of race and creed totally dis
cordant, should form part of it? Is
a. nation made or preserved by invi-
ting the subjects of other powers, the
natives of other countries, German
and lr1shmen, to cross over and in
habit its territory? The policy pur-
sued by those who clamor for nation
ality is directly opposed to the exist
ence of nation. For nation can
not be made artifcially, by law OF by
importations from across the seas; it
must be 7aato, born on the soil.
Austria is great political power, but
there is no Austrian nation; it is an
aggregate of many nations. So the
United States form a great political
power, embracing millions of Irish
men, Germans, negroes; comprising,
indeed, the native races of three con
tinents. Hence the phrase, 'spre-
serving the national life," really
means preserving Northern power.
The Northern States, without the ad-
mixture of millions of negroes, and
a still larger number of men of tenn
permanent opposed to their own,
would surely have formed a more
perfect nationality than that attained
by all this bloodshed. Their terri
tory, three hundred miles ACROSS, and
their population, larger than that of
the whole Union was, few years ago,
might surely have satisfied a power
of which living men saw the birth.
1t Is true, we are told by Mr.. Ward
Beecher, that we, on this mere speck
of ground, have no idea of proper di-
mensions. Mr.. Beecher appears to
have forgotten that, SO far us mere
size goes, space equal to the whole
surface of the United States, North
and South, might be removed from
the British Empire without being Sc
rlously missed. The area of the
entire Union and its territories is
almost exactly 100000 of square
miles; and that Of the British Empire
is above 100000 of square miles.
OF this there is q section larger than
the Southern States, which we shall
permit peacefully to separate when
ever its people, with reasonable una
nimity, express a desire to do SO.
Hence, we think it quite possible in
this country to form other than petty
ideas even on the subject of magni-
tude; and we do not hesitate to ex-
press the opinion, that, if the popu-
lation of Great Britain were trans
feTed to America, and scattered over
100000 Of square miles, it would
be but question of time and growth
when division into separate powers
would occur. 1t hardly seems in the
nature of things that New York, on
the Atlantic, should be permanently
the metropolis of great regions on the
Pacific Ocean, $500 miles away from
1t. And however different may be the
popular feeling of the day. we reoard