The

this Union in order to increase your profits." The same rule will apply to external affairs. Texas would not have been annexed and be-slaved, no Mexican spoliations-no war of 1813-no Ostend manifestoes need have defaced the history of the country. Throughout the range of political affairs there would have been present that influence-so constantly absent-consideration for others. sovereignty of the people is a despotism untempered by division or check. The denial of secession has invited it to act despotically-to do simply as it listed, regardless of those supposed to have no escape from endurance. The more the subject is examined, the more plainly it will appear that under an admitted right of secession there would never have grown up to dangerous magnitude those causes which now produce-and that in so terrible a form-the disruption of the Union. Without those causes, had the feelings and interests of others been fairly and temperately considered, the Union might have existed as firmly this day as at any former period of its history.

Thus we arrive at the same conclusions as the authorities first quoted-that secession is a just and clear constitutional right of the States, and no violation of any enactment of the Federal compact. Admitting, therefore, that the people of the South had a perfect right to exercise this power, it remains to consider whether the circumstances in which they were placed enabled them to act upon it with prudence.

CHAPTER VII.

THE STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN THE UNION.

WHATEVER be the conclusion formed by the reader of the preceding chapter, whether in accordance with our own, that secession is a clear right based on the constitutional principles of the United States, or that the present movement must be regarded simply as a revolution, in either case a requirement existed of the first importance that power to maintain independence, without which its declaration might be futile. It is true that the leaders of the movement had little cause to anticipate civil war as a result. When carrying out the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, and the teaching of the New England States, they could not expect that an act so thoroughly in accordance with principles the triumph of which was the glory of American history, and the inexhaustible theme of her oratory-would bring down such a consequence. To the people of the South, acquainted with the enormous extent of the country and its well-proved obstacles to invasion, nothing could appear more incredible than a serious attempt to invade and subdue them.

Their leaders are also well read in the history of the early days of the Constitution, a subject which the Northern people prefer to ignore, and they could not anticipate that recourse would be had to "coercion," which Hamilton, the idol of the Northern Unionists, had stigmatised as "madness.' They knew that one of the chief objects for which the Constitution was framed, was to avert the impending danger of civil war; possessed of this knowledge, they could hardly anticipate that civil war would be invoked to maintain it.

Indeed, on

turning to peruse it they would find announced as one of its objects, "to insure domestic tranquillity." Strange indeed it were to expect that such an object would be sought with fire and sword. They knew also that no military force existed at the command of the Government, with which such an undertaking could be attempted. Not easily would any mind be brought to believe that the sister States would volunteer on such a service, least of all of them the people of the metropolis, New York-a city grown great upon their trade, and long united in bonds of the warmest alliance. It was the member for that State, who, as one of the founders of the Republic, had discarded with repugnance the idea that any State would ever be sunk so low as to be employed in coercing a sister State.

But although the people of the South, thoroughly convinced of their constitutional right to secede, had also these reasons to expect that the separation might be peacefully effected-still more

than this was required.

No assertion of inde

pendence can be a reasonable act, unless those who announce it be prepared to maintain it, by surer means than reliance on the calm judgment or fraternal feeling of others. The measure has some of the features of a challenge, which none should offer unless prepared for any consequence. It was the plain duty of the leaders, whatever the belief or the incitements to action, still in spite of them to abstain from so dangerous a movement, unless well assured that their resources would suffice to insure that which the world requires to justify movements of this nature,-success.

It may appear beyond the scope of an inquiry directed to the American Union, to examine the relative resources of the two sections. Were it wholly of an abstract nature this would be the case; connected as it is with the question of the maintenance or restoration of that Union, it is necessary, in order to embrace the subject as a whole, that this investigation should not be omitted. Indeed, after the first question whether the Union be really itself a good, or an evil, the inquiry naturally follows, whether it can be maintained.

There exists a popular impression, that the great superiority of the North in number gives to it an overwhelming preponderance of strength. This seems to have worked so strongly on the minds of some, as to preclude all doubt concerning the issue of the contest. Mr. Cassius M. Clay raises the question, "Can we subdue the South?" and replies to it at

once- "Of course we can. When Napoleon invaded Russia at the head of half a million of men, he was probably not less confident. The only apparent ground for this reliance is superiority in population. But in India we hold 180 millions under our rule, with a force of 80,000 men; and though in that case superiority of race is the real power, the simple fact seems to afford reason for distrusting the mere evidence of numbers. Modern history is replete with instances where no appreciable superiority of race has existed, and yet victory has remained with the smaller number. Frederick the Great would never have maintained himself against the three great empires that surrounded him, had success depended upon numbers. Portugal would not be independent of Spain, nor Switzerland of Austria, nor Greece of Turkey, by that rule; the history of our own wars gives it a very emphatic contradiction.

If, indeed, it were possible that the belligerents should enlist to the full capacity of the respective populations, and these forces were likely to meet on an equidistant plain-then this mode of calculation would hold good. Or if one country could invade another as a people, each man accounting for a foe, in that case the more numerous would remain with a balance triumphant on the field. But in modern warfare nothing of the kind occurs. The invading force is not a people, but an army. That army its progress must encounter obstacles fatal to far greater numbers than fall by the sword. The

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