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OUR DANGER AND ITS CAUSE.

PUBLISHED IN THE "CONTINENTAL MONTHLY" FOR FEBRUARY,

1862.

IT

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

of Germans in Pennsylvania. Nor has nature indicated lines of separation, like the St. Lawrence and the lakes on the north, and the Rocky Mountains on the west. The lines marked by nature the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River, and the Alleghanies-cut the line proposed by the Confederates transversely, and force the suggestion that each section will be put in possession of three halves of different wholes, instead of a single unit essential to permanent national existence.

Do the products of the industry of the two sections so conflict with each other in domestic or foreign markets as to encourage the idea, that, by separation, the South could gain in this particular? Not in the least. The North has been a large customer for the leading staple of the South; and the South is constantly in need of those articles which the North is fitted to produce. The South complains of the growth of the North, and vainly imagines, that, by separation, its own prosperity would be promoted. The answer to all this is, that there has never been a moment for fifty years when the seceded States had not employment, for all the labor that they could command, in vocations more profitable than any leading industry of the North; and, moreover, every industry of the North has been open to the free competition of the South. Not argument, only statement, is needed to show, that by origin, association, language, business, and labor interests, as well as by geographical laws, unity, and not diversity, is the necessity of our public life. Yet, in defiance of these considerations, the South has undertaken the task of de

stroying the government. Nor do the rebels assert that the plan of government is essentially defective. The Montgomery Constitution is modelled upon that of the United States; though the leaders no longer disguise their purpose to abolish its democratic features, and incorporate aristocratic and monarchical provisions. They hope, also, to throw off the restraints of law, bid defiance to the general public sentiment of the world, and re-open the trade in slaves from Africa. It remains to be seen whether the desire of England for cotton and conquest, and her sympathy with the rebels, will induce her to pander to this inhuman traffic.

It has happened occasionally that a government has so wielded its powers as to contribute, unconsciously, to its own destruction. But our experience furnishes the first instance of a government having been seized by a set of conspirators, and its vast powers used for its own overthrow.

It is now accredited generally that several members of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet were conspirators, and that they used the power confided to them for the purpose of destroying the government itself. Hence it appears, whatever the test applied, that the present rebellion is distinguished from all others in the fact that it does not depend upon any of the causes on which national dissensions usually have been based.

The public discontents in Ireland, in their causes, bore a slight analogy to our own. There were existing in that country various systems and customs that were prejudicial to the prosperity of the island. Among these may be mentioned the en