The Hell To Which I Allude Is, The Sad Position Of A Low
And Debased Nation.
Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf
States, if they succeed in obtaining secession - of a low and debased
nation, or, worse still, of many low and debased nations.
They will
have lost their cotton monopoly by the competition created during
the period of the war, and will have no material of greatness on
which either to found themselves or to flourish. That they had much
to bear when linked with the North, much to endure on account of
that slavery from which it was all but impossible that they should
disentangle themselves, may probably be true. But so have all
political parties among all free nations much to bear from political
opponents, and yet other free nations do not go to pieces. Had it
been possible that the slaveowners and slave properties should have
been scattered in parts through all the States and not congregated
in the South, the slave party would have maintained itself as other
parties do; but in such case, as a matter of course, it would not
have thought of secession. It has been the close vicinity of
slaveowners to each other, the fact that their lands have been
coterminous, that theirs was especially a cotton district, which has
tempted them to secession. They have been tempted to secession, and
will, as I think, still achieve it in those Gulf States, much to
their misfortune.
And the fears of the North are, I think, equally wrong.
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