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.
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