You May Explain To A Farmer's Wife, With Indisputable Logic,
That Her Churn Is A Bad Churn; But As Long As She Turns Out Butter
In Greater Quantity, In Better Quality, And With More Profit Than
Her Neighbors, You Will Hardly Induce Her To Change It.
It may be
that with some other churn she might have done even better; but,
under such circumstances, she will have a right to think well of the
churn she uses.
The American Constitution is now, I think, at the crisis of its
severest trial. I conceive it to be by no means perfect, even for
the wants of the people who use it; and I have already endeavored to
explain what changes it seems to need. And it has had this defect -
that it has permitted a falling away from its intended modes of
action, while its letter has been kept sacred. As I have endeavored
to show, universal suffrage and democratic action in the Senate were
not intended by the framers of the Constitution. In this respect
the Constitution has, as it were, fallen through, and it is needed
that its very beams should be restrengthened. There are also other
matters as to which it seems that some change is indispensable. So
much I have admitted. But, not the less, judging of it by the
entirety of the work that it has done, I think that we are bound to
own that it has been successful.
And now, with regard to this tedious war, of which from day to day
we are still, in this month of May, 1862, hearing details which
teach us to think that it can hardly as yet be near its end. To
what may we rationally look as its result? Of one thing I myself
feel tolerably certain, that its result will not be nothing, as some
among us have seemed to suppose may be probable. I cannot believe
that all this energy on the part of the North will be of no avail,
more than I suppose that Southern perseverance will be of no avail.
There are those among us who say that a secession will at last be
accomplished; the North should have yielded to the South at once,
and that nothing will be gained by their great expenditure of life
and treasure. I can by no means bring myself to agree with these.
I also look to the establishment of secession. Seeing how essential
and thorough are the points of variance between the North and the
South, how unlike the one people is to the other, and how necessary
it is that their policies should be different; seeing how deep are
their antipathies, and how fixed is each side in the belief of its
own rectitude and in the belief also of the other's political
baseness, I can not believe that the really Southern States will
ever again be joined in amicable union with those of the North.
They, the States of the Gulf, may be utterly subjugated, and the
North may hold over them military power. Georgia and her sisters
may for awhile belong to the Union, as one conquered country belongs
to another. But I do not think that they will ever act with the
Union; and, as I imagine, the Union before long will agree to a
separation. I do not mean to prophesy that the result will be thus
accomplished. It may be that the South will effect their own
independence before they lay down their arms. I think, however,
that we may look forward to such independence, whether it be
achieved in that way, or in this, or in some other.
But not on that account will the war have been of no avail to the
North. I think it must be already evident to all those who have
looked into the matter, that had the North yielded to the first call
made by the South for secession all the slave States must have gone.
Maryland would have gone, carrying Delaware in its arms; and if
Maryland, all south of Maryland. If Maryland had gone, the capital
would have gone. If the government had resolved to yield, Virginia
to the east would assuredly have gone, and I think there can be no
doubt that Missouri, to the west, would have gone also. The feeling
for the Union in Kentucky was very strong, but I do not think that
even Kentucky could have saved itself. To have yielded to the
Southern demands would have been to have yielded everything. But no
man now presumes, let the contest go as it will, that Maryland and
Delaware will go with the South. The secessionists of Baltimore do
not think so, nor the gentlemen and ladies of Washington, whose
whole hearts are in the Southern cause. No man thinks that Maryland
will go, and few, I believe, imagine that either Missouri or
Kentucky will be divided from the North. I will not pretend what
may be the exact line, but I myself feel confident that it will run
south both of Virginia and of Kentucky.
If the North do conquer the South, and so arrange their matters that
the Southern States shall again become members of the Union, it will
be admitted that they have done all that they ought to do. If they
do not do this - if instead of doing this, which would be all that
they desire, they were in truth to do nothing; to win finally not
one foot of ground from the South - a supposition which I regard as
impossible - I think that we should still admit after awhile that
they had done their duty in endeavoring to maintain the integrity of
the empire. But if, as a third and more probable alternative, they
succeed in rescuing from the South and from slavery four or five of
the finest States of the old Union - and a vast portion of the
continent to be beaten by none other in salubrity, fertility,
beauty, and political importance - will it not then be admitted that
the war has done some good, and that the life and treasure have not
been spent in vain?
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