There is yet another point on which I would say a word. It is this: From the proceedings of the Canada Confederates, and their Northern allies, and the outgivings of the Richmond press, I conclude that their last suggestion is this: two or more confederacies, Northern, Southern, Middle, New England, Northwest, Mississippi, and Pacific. They are to be united by free trade between them all, and by an alliance offensive and defensive. That is, whenever any one of these confederacies go to war, we are to join them in the conflict. Namely, if the Southern Confederacy wishes to conquer and annex Cuba or Porto Rico, or to conquer and extend slavery to Central America, and war follows, we are to join them in the war, and sustain them with our blood and treasure. If so, the temple of Janus will never be closed on our continent, and war will be our normal condition—a war not declared by us, or in our own interest, but by the South, as a foreign government. Such an alliance is visionary, ruinous, and impracticable. It is simply a scheme to secure Southern independence.
Then, as to the free trade to be secured by treaty between the several confederacies. Recollect that each of these nations is to be foreign and independent, and to have its separate treaties with foreign Powers. How long would such treaties and such an alliance last? Why, the flag of the South would scarcely float over the mouth of the Chesapeake and Mississippi, before the conflict with us of views and measures would begin, nursed and promoted by foreign Powers, where each of the new confederacies would have its separate ministers, representing distinct and discordant interests. When have such alliances or treaties lasted even for half a century? Where are all the leagues of antiquity or of modern Europe? Where are all such leagues and treaties even of the last century? Where is our own alliance with France of 1778? Where all such alliances and treaties even of the first half of the present century? They are all extinguished. Experience proves—the voice of history proclaims—that treaties or alliances between independent Powers are always of short duration, being soon swept before the gust of contending passions, or melted in the crucible of conflicting interests. Where is the celebrated alliance and treaty of 1814 and 1815 of Vienna, between the great European Powers, establishing FOREVER, by a congress, the balance of European power? Is there a single clause now in force? Where is the clause securing France to the Bourbons, and guaranteeing her forever against the reign of any of the Bonaparte family? Where are the states whose independence was forever guaranteed by those treaties? Where are Parma and Modena and Tuscany? Where is Lombardy, where the Romagna, Naples, and the Two Sicilies? Where are the duchies of Lauenburg, Schleswig, and Holstein, and where the treaty of 1852 in regard to them? All, all have passed away, just as would our proposed treaties or alliances. The first war would sweep them out of existence. No, my countrymen; as Washington, the father of his country, most truly told us in his Farewell Address: 'To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances, in all time, have experienced.'
Washington thus foresaw and warned us against this most insidious proposition to divide our country into separate confederacies, no matter how strict the alliances between them might be; and let us adopt his counsels.
Is it not strange, while Italy and Germany seek, in Italian and German unity, relief from the ruin and oppression of so many independent states and governments, and are each making advances to that great consummation, that we are asked to adopt the reactionary policy, and separate glorious Union into distinct confederacies, soon to be followed by grinding taxation, by immense standing armies, and perpetual wars?
And now then, my countrymen, I bring this letter to a close, imploring you to give no vote which will subject the Union to the slightest peril. Come, then, my friends, of all parties, come, Republicans, and Whigs, and Democrats, and Irish and German and native citizens, trampling under our feet all past issues, and all old party names and prejudices, and, standing on the broad basis of principle, let us vote, not for men or parties, but for the salvation and perpetuity of the Union.
R. J. Walker.
GENIUS.
Far out at sea the wave was high,
While veered the wind and flapped the sail;
We saw a snow-white butterfly
Dancing before the fitful gale,
Far out at sea!
The little creature, which had lost
Its mate, of danger little knew;
Settled awhile upon the mast,
Then fluttered o'er the waters blue,
Far out at sea!
Away it danced with shimmering glee,
Now dim, distinct, now seen, now gone:
Night comes, with wind and rain, but he
No more shall dance before the morn,
Far out at sea!
He dies unlike his mates, I ween,
Perhaps not sooner or more crossed;
But he has known, and felt, and seen,
A wider, larger hope, though lost
Far out at sea!