Alan Sewell - The Confederate Union War

Mr. Lincoln took his Gettysburg Address from out of his pocket and read it aloud:

Four score and several years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a Second War of Independence, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated may long endure. We are met on a battlefield of that war guarding the approaches to the Cradle of Liberty where that nation was conceived. We have come to honor those who here gave their lives so that the Lamp of Liberty lit by our fathers shall continue to illuminate the world unto the latest generation.

We may be certain that our dedication to the principles of 1776 will be tested as surely today as they were tested then. They were tested at Delphi, as surely as they were tested at Lexington and Concord. They were tested here again at Gettysburg as surely as they were tested at Bunker Hill. Now, as then, the embattled citizens of a Free Republic stood their ground and turned back the armies sent forth by the tyrant to conquer them.

We may also be certain that we have the meansto secure our independence from those who seek to conquer us:

We are superior in numbers of free citizens to the Slave States styling themselves the Confederate Union. We far surpass them in manufactories and agricultural productions. We have a preponderance of mechanics, industrial workers, railroad engineers, and men possessing all the other inventive skills that modern warfare requires.

We are the Forge of Liberty.

Let us ask ourselves: When have superior numbers fighting bravely to maintain their freedom ever been defeated by lesser numbers fighting to conquer them? We need merely to unite ourselves, putting aside all partisan factions. Is it not better that those who voted for both parties in the last election should fight together as free citizens of a free country, than that any should side with a government that seeks to return some of them to slavery?

Also know that we do not fight alone. The Friends of Liberty in all parts of the world hear us, just as they heard us in 1776. They will come to our aid in our Second War of Independence just as Lafayette, Von Steuben, Kosciusko, Pulaski, and Thomas Paine, came to aid us in our first. And let us not forget our fellow citizens who, though they sympathize with our cause, reside in territory beyond our lines. Nor let us forget the friends we may have even in the Slave States, who, though accepting the existence of slavery in their states, do not seek to force it upon people who are free.

And also know that we are heard on a higher plane, by that Providence that never failed our fathers. Does any thoughtful man question whether Providence destines men to be slaves or to be free? Our Founders answered that question for us: “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Let us now dedicate ourselves to the great tasks remaining before us: of liberating New York and reopening our Gateway to the World; of restoring the territorial integrity of our Free States; of liberating the Free States on the Pacific Coast that are held by the carry-overs of pro-slavery territorial governments; and of reestablishing our authority over the Free Territories of the West. All of these things we willdo if we continue to fight as we have done at Delphi and Gettysburg.

And after vindicating our independence through our courage in battle let us vindicate by our example that freedom is the natural condition of men. If we will do that the country we used to call ‘The United States’ will be reunited when our late fellow citizens now calling themselves ‘The Confederate Union’ will choose to join us in freedom rather than insist upon coercing us to join them in slavery.

If we shall continue to do that which we have already shown we cando, here on this battlefield and elsewhere, then this new nation, under God, shall carry forth its birthright of freedom — so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

“You are a poet!” exclaimed Mrs. Lincoln. “If words can win us our Independence, then consider it to have been won!”

Mr. Lincoln took his wife’s hand. “Thanks to all you have done for me and for the cause. Tonight you charmed Governor Curtin and Fremont, just as you have made friends with many others who dismissed me as a backwoods Illinois sucker. I would not be here without you.”

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is help you to become President.” Mrs. Lincoln laughed. “I just didn’t expect it to be President of a new country!”

“Perhaps it is not really so much a new country, as it is the old country that our Founders bequeathed to us,” suggested Mr. Lincoln. “At least it is so in spirit. We may not have title to all the territory of the old Union, but we do have a pretty fair claim upon its founding principles. The fate of our true American Republic depends on what we do now, on what we do together.”

Mr. Lincoln smiled. Then he kissed his wife with an affection that he hadn’t felt in years.

Edgar County, Illinois, August 15, 1861

Colonel Thomas J. “Stoneballs” Jackson gazed out the train windows, awestruck by the endless expanses of the Illinois prairie. Acres of wheat and corn, bending in a wind that blew a scent of rain, filled the view to the horizon.

“A most productive country,” he observed. “Like the Shenandoah would be if it was all bottomland.”

“This is only the edge of it,” replied General of the Western Armies Robert E. Lee, equally awestruck. “I understand the land becomes even richer as one gets closer to Chicago. They say the topsoil goes down thirty feet.”

Stoneballs shook his head in amazement. “Ohio and Indiana are like that too, aren’t they?”

Lee nodded. “So are Iowa and Minnesota and Kansas and Nebraska. This Northwest, when brought fully under cultivation, will become the garden of this continent, perhaps of the entire world.”

Lee’s gaze followed Stoneballs’ out the window. On the horizon, past the fields and copses of trees, he saw church steeples marking the towns.

“This land is well suited for cultivation, settlement, and transportation,” Lee mused. “It’s bound to become the commercial center of the continent. It is the intersection of waterways between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Valley. The Ohio River runs to the base of the Alleghenies. The Missouri is the highway to the Rockies. Man’s ingenuity has improved upon nature’s highways. Look how they’ve crisscrossed the land with railroads. The east-bound railroads connect it with our most populated districts on the Eastern Seaboard. The southbound routes have their outlets on the Gulf of Mexico. The Pacific Railroads will be coming soon too.”

“A most blessed land,” agreed Stoneballs. “I wouldn’t call it pretty, not like Virginia, but it is inspiring in its immensity. One can only imagine how much corn, wheat, and livestock can be raised on forty acres.”

“Coal and limestone lie beneath it,” Lee elaborated. “Iron and copper are mined further north around the Lakes.”

Lee contemplated the future.

“This Northwest is destined to become not only the garden, but also the manufactory of the continent. Its cities will grow large from the processing of iron and coal into steel, and the manufacture of steel into railroads and locomotives and steamships and telegraphs. It will attract the ambitious peoples of all the states and foreign nations to farm and labor here. The people of these Inland States will multiply their numbers and grow their wealth. They will become a mighty people who will decide the destiny of this continent by choosing to join with us or with the Abolitionists. If we allow the Abolitionists to take it from us now they will in time grow strong enough to contest us for the rest of this continent.”