and appeal to the yeomanry of England, the peasantry of France, and ask them to keep the peace, while we restore to its fair proportions a government such as the world has never before seen. Our country will move on in a career of prosperity which shall know no limits in this generation, if we escape from the perils in which we are involved by slavery.

Our interest and our duty require us to avert the calamity of foreign war by any sacrifice, save that of justice and honor.

With one word more, my friends, I leave this subject. In the exigency in which we are placed, we must support the government. We may maintain our opinions, believing that in due time those opinions will possess influence; but the government, that must for it is the only means by which the rebellion is to be put down—from day to day, with the highest wisdom and on principles of established justice, execute all the requirements and provisions of the Constitution.

This contest is between slavery on the one side, and the government on the other. Both cannot stand. Either slavery will go down and the government remain, or the government will be destroyed and slavery triumph over us all. For slavery it is that we have made our sacrifices; for slavery it is that we are involved in these troubles; for slavery it is that we incur these expenditures ; for slavery it is that manufactures are paralyzed; for slavery it is that commerce is interrupted; for slavery it is that our foreign relations are disturbed; for slavery it is that foreign war threatens

our borders; for slavery it is that free institutions are perilled throughout the world, and among all the coming generations of men. Are there still further sacrifices demanded for the institution of slavery? Remember the dead that have fallen in defence of the country; remember the living who are perilled on the battle-field and in the camp; remember your friends who have gone out to fight the battles of the republic; and say whether you can lie upon your pillows, and feel that you have done your duty to them, to your country, and to your God, unless you exert such influences as you can command to bring to a speedy termination the cause of all our trials.

159

OUR DANGER AND ITS CAUSE.

PUBLISHED IN THE "CONTINENTAL MONTHLY" FOR FEBRUARY,

IT

1862.

T is certain, that, when this page comes under the eye of the reader, the relations of the United States, both foreign and domestic, will have been changed materially. At the present moment, however, the condition of the country is unpromising enough, yet not so gloomy as to preclude the hope of a fortunate issue. The sacrifices and sufferings of the people are greater in civil than in foreign wars; and the ultimate advantages and benefits are proportionately large. We speak now of those civil wars which have occurred between people inhabiting the same district of country, as the civil wars of England. Other contests, as the revolutions of Hungary, Poland, and Ireland even, were not, strictly speaking, civil wars. The parties were of different origin, and had never assimilated in language, customs, or ideas. The struggle was for the re-establishment of a government which had once existed, and not for the reformation or change of a government that, at the moment of the conflict, was performing its ordinary functions.

The civil war in America does not belong to either of the classes named. To be sure, in Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia, the contest

has been between the inhabitants of the several localities, aided by forces from the rebel States on the one hand, and forces from the loyal States on the other. But those States, as such, were never committed to the rebellion; and the struggle within their limits has demonstrated the inability of the so-called Confederate States to command the adhesion of Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia by force; but it does not, in the accomplished results, demonstrate the ability of the United States to crush the rebellion. The border States were debatable ground; but the question has been settled in favor of the government, as far, at least, as Western Virginia and Missouri are concerned.

In the eleven seceded States, there is no apparent difference of opinion among those in authority, or among those accustomed to lead in public affairs. The sentiment of attachment to the old Union has been disappearing rapidly since the secession of South Carolina, until there are now no open avowals of adherence to the government, unless such are made by the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina. These men are for the present destitute of power. Should our armies penetrate those regions, the inhabitants may essentially aid in the re-establishment of the government. For the time, however, we must regard the eleven States as a unit in the rebellion. Thus we are called to note the anomalous fact that the rebels seek a division between a people who speak the same language, occupy a territory which has no marked lines or features of separation, and who have, from the first day of their national existence,

been represented by the same national government. Hence it is plain, whatever may be the immediate result of the contest, that there can be no permanent peace until the territory claimed as the territory of the United States is again subject to one government. This may be the work of a few months, it may be the work of a few years, or it may be the business of a century. Without the re-establishment of the government over the whole territory of the Union, there can be no peace; and, without the re-establishment of that government, there can be no prosperity.

The armies of the rebel States will march to the great lakes, or the armies of the loyal States will march to the Gulf of Mexico. We are, therefore, involved in a war which does not admit of adjustment by negotiation. In a foreign war, peace might be secured by mutual concessions, and preserved by mutual forbearance. In ordinary civil strife, the peace of a state or of an empire might be restored by concessions to the disaffected, by a limitation of the privileges of the few, or an extension of the rights of the many. But none of these expedients meet the exigency in which we find ourselves. The rebels demand the overthrow of the government, the division of the territory of the Union, the destruction of the nation. The question is, Shall this nation longer exist? And why is the question forced upon us? Is there a difference of language? Not greater than is found in single States. Indeed, Louisiana is the only one of the eleven where any appreciable difference exists; and the number of French in that State is less than the number