Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862

Jefferson Davis, in his late message, says: 'Let us alone, let us go, and the sword drops from our hands.' But what does this involve? The admission of the right of secession, which, as has been proved, is fatal to all national unity and preservation. Even if this arrogant demand was complied with, would peace be thus possible? Would not the breaking up of the Union involve the people in calamities that no patience, or wisdom upon the part of the North could avert? Remember a long border in an open country, stretching from the Atlantic, possibly even to the Pacific, is to be defended. Will the bordering people sink down from war, and all its exasperations, and become as peaceful as lambs? Constituted as human nature now is, will the dissolution of the Union create with the great North and South the experience of millennium prediction, 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling together; and a little child shall lead them'? Here is a line crossed by great rivers; we are to shut up the mouth of the Chesapeake bay, on Ohio and Western Virginia; we are to ask the Western States to give up the mouth of the Mississippi to a foreign power. Is it reasonable to suppose that no provocation will occur on this long frontier? Will no slaves run away? What is to be gained by a dissolution of the Union? Not peace; for if, when united, there exists such cause of dissension, the evil will be tenfold greater when separated. Not national aggrandizement, for division brings weakness, imbecility, and a loss of self-respect; it invites aggressions from foreign powers, and compels to submission to insults that otherwise would not be given. Not general competence, for the South is quite as dependent upon the North as the North upon the South.

Disunion is a violent disruption of great material interests that now are wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable, is Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to peace and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity. The request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery triumphant, and the great problem that a free people can not choose its own rulers against the will of a minority prove a disgraceful failure. It is a request that a nation should purchase a temporary peace at the price of all that is dear to its liberty and self-respect. The arrogance of the demand ' to be let alone ,' is only equaled by the iniquity of the means resorted to, to break up the best Government under the sun. The question of disunion, of separate State sovereignty, was fully discussed by our fathers. Thus Hamilton, whose foresight history has proved to be prophetic, says:

'If these States should be either wholly disunited, or only united in partial Confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian speculations, who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.'

From a consideration of the true import of the Constitution, in relation to slavery and the fallacy and wickedness of the doctrine of Secession, we are now prepared to deduce, from what has been said, the following reflections: First, the war in which the nation is now plunged should have strictly for its great end, the restoration of the Constitution and the Union to its original integrity; all side issues, all mere party questions should be now merged in one mighty effort, one persevering and self-sacrificing aim to maintain the Constitution and the Union. As essential for this purpose, it is indispensable that all the rights guaranteed to loyal citizens in the slave States should be respected. The reason is two-fold. First, this war, upon the part of the North, is for the maintenance of the Constitution as our fathers gave it to us. Its object is not a crusade against slavery. What may be the results of the war in relation to slavery is one thing; what should be the simple purpose of the North is another. That this war, however it may turn, will be disastrous to slavery, is evident from a great variety of considerations. But that we should pretend to fight for the Constitution and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its provisions, in relation to loyal citizens South, is in the highest degree impolitic and suicidal. It is the constant aim of the enemies now in armed rebellion against the Union, to misrepresent the North upon this very point. By systematic lying, they have induced thousands South to believe that the election of Lincoln was designed as an act of war upon slave institutions, and to subvert the Constitution that protects them in all that they call their property.

There is nothing that the rebels South are more anxious to see than the Government adopting a policy that will give them a plausible pretense for continuing in rebellion. The Constitution places the local institution of slavery under the exclusive control of those States where it exists. Its language, faithfully interpreted, is simply this: Your own domestic affairs you have a right to manage as you please, so long as you do not trespass upon the Union, or seek its ruin. All loyal citizens should be encouraged to stand by the Union in every Southern State, with the unequivocal declaration that all their rights will be respected, and that their true safety, even as noblest interests, must lie in upholding the North in the effort made to put down the vilest rebellion under the sun. My second reflection is, that those South, who are in armed rebellion against the Constitution and the Union, must make up their minds to take what the fortune of war gives them. This rebellion should be bandied without gloves. The North should permit nothing to stand in the way of a complete and permanent triumph. As Northern property is all confiscated South; as Union men there are treated with the utmost barbarity; as nothing held by the lovers of the Union is respected, the greatest injury in the end to the Constitution and the Union is, an unwise clemency to armed rebellion. In this death-struggle to test the vital question, whether the majority shall rule, let there be no holding back of money or men. Dear as war may be, a dishonorable peace will prove much dearer. Great as may be the sufferings of the camp and the battle-field, yet the prolonged tortures of a murdered Union, a violated Constitution, and Secession rampant over the country, will be found to be greater. My third reflection is, that the main cause of our civil war is slavery. It has now assumed gigantic proportions of mischief, and with its hand upon the very throat of the Constitution and the Union, it seeks its death. The worst feature connected with it has ever been, that it is satisfied with no concession, and the more it has, the more it asks. By the very admission of the chiefs of this rebellion, it is confessedly got up for the sake of slavery, and to make it the corner-stone of the new Confederacy of States. The real issue involved by the rebellion is, complete independence of the North, the dissolution of the Union, and exclusive possession of all the territories south of Mason and Dixon's line; or reconstruction upon such conditions as would result in the repudiation of the old Constitution, the nationalization of slavery, and giving complete political control to a slaveholding minority of the country. This rebellion has placed the North where it must conquer, for its own best interests, and dignity, and the salvation of free institutions. It must conquer, to command future friendship and that respect without which Union itself is a mockery. Let the South see that the North can not be beaten, and the universal consciousness of this fact will command an esteem, and the useful fear of committing offense, that will do more to keep the peace than all the abject professions or humble submissions in the world. Having found out that the North not only is conscious of its rights, but has the willingness and the ability to defend them, it is certain that the country will yet have as much peace, general thrift, and noble enterprise with the onward march of virtue and intelligence, as may be reasonably expected of any community upon the face of the earth.