The Continental Monthly | Page 4

what is meant by the outcry against coërcion is in the
interest, of secession, and that what is meant is, in effect, that the
Federal Government must be terrified or seduced into complete
coöperation with the revolution which it was its most binding duty to
have used all its power and influence to prevent.'
Jefferson Davis, in his late message, says: 'Let us alone, let us go, and
the sword drops from our hands.' But what does this involve? The
admission of the right of secession, which, as has been proved, is fatal
to all national unity and preservation. Even if this arrogant demand was
complied with, would peace be thus possible? Would not the breaking
up of the Union involve the people in calamities that no patience, or
wisdom upon the part of the North could avert? Remember a long

border in an open country, stretching from the Atlantic, possibly even
to the Pacific, is to be defended. Will the bordering people sink down
from war, and all its exasperations, and become as peaceful as lambs?
Constituted as human nature now is, will the dissolution of the Union
create with the great North and South the experience of millennium
prediction, 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie
down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling together;
and a little child shall lead them'? Here is a line crossed by great rivers;
we are to shut up the mouth of the Chesapeake bay, on Ohio and
Western Virginia; we are to ask the Western States to give up the
mouth of the Mississippi to a foreign power. Is it reasonable to suppose
that no provocation will occur on this long frontier? Will no slaves run
away? What is to be gained by a dissolution of the Union? Not peace;
for if, when united, there exists such cause of dissension, the evil will
be tenfold greater when separated. Not national aggrandizement, for
division brings weakness, imbecility, and a loss of self-respect; it
invites aggressions from foreign powers, and compels to submission to
insults that otherwise would not be given. Not general competence, for
the South is quite as dependent upon the North as the North upon the
South.
Disunion is a violent disruption of great material interests that now are
wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great
Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable,
is Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to
peace and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity.
The request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should
consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery
triumphant, and the great problem that a free people can not choose its
own rulers against the will of a minority prove a disgraceful failure. It
is a request that a nation should purchase a temporary peace at the price
of all that is dear to its liberty and self-respect. The arrogance of the
demand 'to be let alone,' is only equaled by the iniquity of the means
resorted to, to break up the best Government under the sun. The
question of disunion, of separate State sovereignty, was fully discussed
by our fathers. Thus Hamilton, whose foresight history has proved to
be prophetic, says:

'If these States should be either wholly disunited, or only united in
partial Confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian speculations,
who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into which they might be
thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To
presume a want of motives for such contests, as an argument against
their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive,
and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a
number of independent, unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same
neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human
events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.'
From a consideration of the true import of the Constitution, in relation
to slavery and the fallacy and wickedness of the doctrine of Secession,
we are now prepared to deduce, from what has been said, the following
reflections: First, the war in which the nation is now plunged should
have strictly for its great end, the restoration of the Constitution and the
Union to its original integrity; all side issues, all mere party questions
should be now merged in one mighty effort, one persevering and
self-sacrificing aim to maintain the Constitution and the Union. As
essential for this purpose, it is indispensable that all the rights
guaranteed to loyal citizens in the slave States should be respected. The
reason is two-fold. First, this war, upon the part of the North, is for