No! New England has planted herself too deeply in the hearts of the American people—she has sprinkled too many of her scions among the population of the West and South—to allow of a moment's serious thought of cutting her off from our communion. The cry is but the party cry of the designing and evil disposed, the traitors to our name and nation; and with the crushing out of the rebellion and the restoration of our nationality; it will pass away forever.
But to return to the direct results of the war. Having shown the threatened evils of separation, our province leads us no farther, for this comprises all the evils within the scope of man's imagination. See, then, the issue involved: in our success lie all our hopes of future stability and prosperity; in our failure lies simply—inevitable ruin. With such a prospect before them—with existence itself hanging in the balance—why are the people of the North asleep? Why will they not see the true bearings of the war in this light, and arise in all their power and strength, determined to crush out this infamous rebellion, even at the cost of the last dollar and the last drop of blood! Shall we grumble at the cost of the war? Shall we growl over the paltry taxes which, even yet, are scarcely felt? Shall the father grieve for the loss of half his wealth which goes to redeem his only son from death—his 'darling from the power of the lions'? Shall the house-holder grumble over the reward he has offered for the rescue of his wife and little ones from the burning house? Shall the felon begrudge the last cent of his earthly possessions that purchases his relief from the gallows? Better that we should all be ruined—better that the land should be entirely depleted of its youth, and the country irretrievably in debt, with a prospect of a future and lasting peace, than a compromise now, with the inevitable certainty of everlasting war and tumult and bloodshed, worse, a thousand times worse than that of the South American States. Shall we make a peace now, only that we may again go to war among ourselves? Would this not be literally 'jumping out of the frying pan into the fire'? The war men of the North are the men of peace, and the so-called peace men are the men of eternal war; those are they who would prolong the miseries of our country, simply by turning them in a new direction—by turning all our hostilities into our own bosoms and against out own wives and children. Nay I there can be no pausing now. We have everything to gain by prosecuting the war to the bitter, even ruinous end; everything to lose by leaving the work half done. The South is said to be fighting for its very existence; yet not by a thousand degrees can this be as truly said of them as of us. Therefore should our earnestness, our enthusiasm, our determination, our desperation be a thousand times greater than theirs. Do you tell me that we cannot conquer so united, so brave, and so desperate a people? I answer, WE MUST. In the whole wide world of human destiny there is no other road left open for us; the path to defeat is blocked by our own dead bodies. Unless the people of the North arouse and take hold of the work with an energy, an earnestness of purpose, to which the past bears no parallel, too late will they repent the folly of their own supineness, their own blindness. As in the affairs of men, so in those of nations, there is a critical point when those who hope for success must seize the winged moment as it flies and work steadily on with singleness of aim and unchangeable, unfaltering devotion of purpose. That moment, once past, will never return. Now is our golden opportunity, and according as we improve or neglect it will our future be one of greatness and power or one of utter nothingness among the nations of the earth. No subsequent time can repair the errors or failures of to-day.
Since the greater part of this article was written, the prospect of our success has immeasurably brightened. But let us not by the fairness of the sky be lulled into a false sense of security; let us not be again deceived by the ignis fatuus glare which plays around our banners, and which has already so often lured us to forgetfulness and defeat. For the storm may again break forth in a moment when we think not of it, and from a quarter where we seemed the most secure. A single week may reverse every move upon the great chess board of strategy. There should be no relaxation of the sinews of war until the end is accomplished. So should we be safest in our watchfulness and strength, and, by the irresistible influence of overwhelming numbers and might, render that permanent which is now but evanescent.
But, it will be asked, if there is between North and South an antipathy so deep seated and of such long standing, how shall we ever succeed in conquering a lasting peace? how shall we ever persuade the people of the South to live in amity with a race so cordially hated and despised? The question has often been asked, but always by those faint-hearted ones whose clamors for a disgraceful peace have added strength to the cause of our opponents. The answer is so plain that it requires no demonstration. There is but one remedy for so sore a disease, and however severe it may be, however revolting to the tender sensibilities of peace-loving men, the inevitable and inexorable must urges it on to execution, and stands like a giant, blocking up every other path. It is like those dangerous remedies which the physician applies when the patient's recovery is otherwise utterly hopeless, and which must result either in recovery or in death by its own agency rather than that of the disease. Concession has been tried in vain, 'moral suasion' has been proved to be of no avail. The South must be shown how entirely hopeless must be every effort, in all time, to overturn such a government as ours. They must be made to feel our immense superiority in power and resources; they must be shown in unmistakable colors the unconquerable might of nationality in strong contrast with the weakness of sectionalism, as well as their own dependence upon the North; in a word, every atom of resistance must be utterly and forever crushed out by brute force. To no other argument will they listen, as experience has proved; and this 'last resort of kings' must be exerted in all its strength and proclaimed in thunder tones, even though its reverberations should shake the earth to its very core. This done, and peace once more established, the South must be, not abolitionized, not colonized, not Puritanized, nor yet oppressed, but Americanized. They must be familiarized with those immortal principles of justice and freedom, to which they have hitherto been strangers, which lie at the heart of all national success among an enlightened and Christian people. They must be made acquainted with the all-important fact that we are a nation of one blood, one common ancestry; that we can never live at peace as separate nationalities, and that only in unity and mutual concession and forbearance can a glorious destiny be wrought out for our common country. Then, not now, will be the time for conciliation on our part, but yet conciliation never divided from the utmost vigilance and a firm support of the doctrine of national supremacy, as opposed to, and paramount to the iniquitous dogma of State rights. The people of the North must first divest themselves of all prejudices, all hereditary antipathies, and wipe away old scores in the dawn of a golden future. Then will our brethren of the South not be slow to respond to the proffered peace and good will and brotherly kindness, and again we shall become a prosperous, united, and happy people.
And what a future lies before our country! What a wealth of uncultivated fields lies waiting for the plough of the adventurous emigrant! What unmeasured wilds wait but for the touch of enlightened and educated labor, to blossom like the rose, to become the site of great cities and smiling villages, the resting place of the wanderer from all quarters of the globe, the residence of a great people, the component parts of a mighty nation whose parallel earth has not seen since the days of the creation! It needs but ordinary human foresight to see that here is to be the fountain head, the permanent abiding place, of four great interests, with which we shall rule the world: manufactures, grain, cotton, and wine. The Great West is to feed all Europe with her harvests of yellow grain; the South, with her cotton interest, is to clothe, not Europe only, but the world; the Pacific States will be the 'vineland' of America, furnishing the wherewithal to 'gladden the heart of man,' while the manufactures of New England and the Middle States shall furnish the implements of labor to the brethren all over the continent, and turn the raw material both of the South and of their own sheep-feeding hills into garments for the toiling millions of America. Here, then, we shall produce, as no other country can, the great staples of life; and when we add to them those considerable minor interests which we share more equally with the rest of the world, namely, wool-growing and mining, as well of the precious ores as of coal and the baser metals, how stupendous seem our resources, how tremendous the influence we are to wield among the great human family! And is it a necessity of social life that these great interests should jar? that political and commercial antagonisms should spring up between these cumulators of the world's great stock of wealth, for no better reason than that their hands are engaged upon a different work, or, rather, upon different branches of the same great work of production? Nay, verily! So long as we are bound together by a common tie of country, living and working under the same laws and institutions, such antagonisms can only exist in the trains of designing demagogues. So far from conflicting, these great interests will, from the very nature of the law of exchange, work harmoniously together, blending the one into the other as perfectly fitting parts of one concordant whole. One section will play into the hands of another, sustaining each other from the very necessity of self-preservation; and each will find in his brother the readiest consumer of the products of his labor. Only in the event of separation can jealousies, antipathies, and narrow-minded prejudices spring up between the different sections, and healthy competition be degraded into low and mercenary jobbing; only by separation can the onward march of the American race be retarded and the arm of American industry paralyzed. Accursed, then, be the hand that aims a blow at the foundations of our fair fabric of Liberty; thrice accursed he whose voice is raised in the promulgation of those pernicious doctrines whose end is to lead a great people astray.
GREAT HEART.
Great Heart is sitting beneath a tree:
Never a horse upon earth has he;
But he sings to the wind a hearty song,
Leaves of the oak trees rustling along:
'Over the mountain and over the tide,
Over the valley and on let us ride!'
There's many a messenger riding past,
And many a skipper whose ship sails fast;
But none of them all, though he rides or rows,
Flies as free as the heart of Great Heart goes,
Free as the eagle and full as the tide:
'And over the valley and on let us ride!'
Many a sorrow might Great Heart know,
Thick as the oak leaves which over him grow
Many a trouble might Great Heart feel,
Close as the grass blades under his heel;
But sorrow will never by Great Heart bide,
Singing 'Over the valley and on let us ride!'
'But tell me, good fellow, where Great Heart dwells?'
In the wood, by the sea, in the city's cells;
Where the Honest, the Beautiful, and True
Are free to him as they are to you;
Where the wild birds whistle and waters glide,
Singing 'Over the valley and on let us ride!'
Few of his fellows doth Great Heart see;
Seldom he knows where their homes may be;
But the fays of the greenwood are still on earth—
To many a Great Heart they'll yet give birth;
And thousands of voices will sing in pride,
'All over the wide world and on let us ride!'