Could the English have
surrendered to their rebel colonists peaceable possession of the
colonies?
The indisputability of a fact is not very easily settled
while the circumstances are in course of action by which the fact
is to be decided. The men of the Northern States have not believed
in the necessity of secession, but have believed it to be their
duty to enforce the adherence of these States to the Union. The
American governments have been much given to compromises, but had
Mr. Lincoln attempted any compromise by which any one Southern
State could have been let out of the Union, he would have been
impeached. In all probability the whole Constitution would have
gone to ruin, and the Presidency would have been at an end. At any
rate, his Presidency would have been at an end. When secession, or
in other words rebellion, was once commenced, he had no alternative
but the use of coercive measures for putting it down - that is, he
had no alternative but war. It is not to be supposed that he or
his ministry contemplated such a war as has existed - with 600,000
men in arms on one side, each man with his whole belongings
maintained at a cost of 150l. per annum, or ninety millions
sterling per annum for the army. Nor did we when we resolved to
put down the French revolution think of such a national debt as we
now owe.
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