But I do not see the probability that the proud hopes, which dictated a perpetual league among the states, are to be disappointed. It seems to me that the occasions in which their interests clash are few, compared with those in which they coincide, and that one of the strongest ligaments of union is the diversity of pursuits among the states, by which they are all benefited by a free commercial intercourse. Thus, some produce grain and cattle, others, fish, or sugar, or rice and cotton: some are exclusively agricultural in their pursuits, and are of course venders of raw produce, whilst others are manufacturing states, and purchasers of raw produce: some are largely concerned in navigation, whilst others are inland. Thus all are gainers by an interchange of their respective commodities and species of industry; and this mutual commerce, founded in mutual interests, will less and less require aid from the government.
We may, moreover, reasonably expect, that these sources of mutual benefit and intercourse will increase, and that new products of agriculture and manufactures will arise under some propitious accident or kindness of nature, will extend the mutual dependence of the states, and proportionally multiply the bonds of union. Each state will be important to the rest for its useful products, and they in turn will be valuable to it, both for affording a market, and for the products they give in exchange. The commerce, too, will be the more profitable, and likely to be the more extensive, by its being free from imposts or vexatious restrictions. Under the fostering care of this freedom, we may expect that wine, and silk, and the olive may be added to the products of the south—and that whenever labor shall fall to the point of merely earning a subsistence, tea may be also cultivated; as no doubt some part of our country is similar in climate to China, since it is not only in a correspondent latitude, but on the same side of its continent.
The time will come when most of our manufactures can be procured from the northern or middle states cheaper than from Europe, and when those states will also furnish a larger market for the products of the south. The time has already come when cotton, and rice, and tobacco, if that pernicious weed shall always constitute one of man's artificial wants, can be procured more cheaply from the southern states than elsewhere; and though there is not, within the present limits of the United States, as much land adapted to the cane as will supply its future inhabitants with sugar, without that increase of price which must greatly diminish its rate of consumption, yet the trade in this useful commodity will not therefore be less important, either to the states which sell, or those which purchase it.
This commercial intercourse will be greatly extended by the numerous canals and rail roads, which are destined to intersect our country in every direction. By the greater cheapness of transportation, the commerce will be extended, not only because more distant points will be brought into connection, but also because there will be a greater number of articles which may be advantageously transported. All the canals and rail roads from one state to another, which shall be sufficiently used to compensate for their construction, will be so many sinews to knit together our wide spread and diversified republic. New York and Pennsylvania have already thus bound themselves to the west. Maryland and Virginia, and, without doubt, Georgia and the Carolinas, will follow the example.
When we shall be thus connected by the golden chain of mutual interests instead of the iron fetters of power, and by that homogeneousness of manners which an increased intercourse will produce, what will be likely to effect a separation? Let us suppose any state, considering itself aggrieved by some measure of the federal government, was to withdraw herself from the confederacy, and that the other states were to acquiesce in her course, either because they felt no interest in the matter, or because they were willing to surrender up those interests to a claim of right. It can scarcely be doubted that such seceding state would find the disadvantages of its new situation so great, surrounded by rival and hostile and taunting neighbors—attended with so much contingent danger and certain expense, that after the first irritation had passed away, it would sue to be re-admitted.
But when it is recollected that, in no distant day, every state will either be an outlet for other states to the ocean, or the medium of communication for those lying on each side of it, it would be according to all experience to presume that they will not regard a question thus directly affecting their interests, as one also affecting their rights, and will vindicate both, by an appeal to force, if necessary: and thus the question of separation will always be a question of war. The constitutional question, which may have been previously agitated, will be drowned in the din and tumult of arms, and finally decided by the issue of the war. Victory is the great arbiter of right in national disputes, and that scale of justice on which she happens to light, is almost sure to preponderate.
I have been supposing the case of a single state, or even a small section of states to desire a separation. But it may be asked whether all the states may not voluntarily consent to a dissolution; or at least so large a portion as to make resistance on the part of the rest hopeless. I answer that I am not able to conceive any such general and powerful cause, nor do I know of any example of a similar voluntary disseverance in history. In every case in which an integral community, whether consolidated or confederate, has been separated, it has been by violence, and commonly external violence—either by one nation, subjugating another, or by some successful leader succeeding by his arts and talents in arraying one part against the rest: or the parts of a great empire have been partitioned among the descendants or legatees of the last occupant—none of which causes of separation can be expected to operate here. It is indeed a conceivable thing for some prominent and popular individual to excite a particular state to discontent, and finally to civil war; and although we have happily had no example of such flagitiousness, we have seen enough to make us think it possible: yet whatever may be the supposed success of such men at home, there will always be many counteractions to their influence in the adjoining states, and in the same degree that the agitator is a popular idol in his own state, he will be an object of suspicion in the adjoining states, who will judge of him by his actions, unaffected by his arts or the imposing lustre of his personal qualities.
Our own past history affords some confirmation of these views. It is, for example, now seen, since the veil which once concealed the acts of the Hartford Convention, has been partially raised, that the power of the agents in that combination to separate the union was far less than had been supposed, and that they could not have led on the states there represented to make that shew of resistance to the general government which excited apprehensions for the union, if they had professed any other than the moderate and legitimate objects of making their peculiar interests more respected, and of providing additional guards against the invasion of those interests in the time to come. It now appears, that however we may disapprove the means used to effectuate their objects, the ends were blameless; and there is much reason to believe that the moment the separation of the states had shewn itself to be the ultimate object of their leaders, that moment they would have been deserted by the larger part of their followers.
The case of him whose history has been so pregnant of instruction to lawless ambition, and who eighteen years ago was arraigned in this very capitol for the highest of all crimes, affords another instructive example. So long as his object was believed to be the settlement of the Washita lands, he may have ranked among his followers the most honest and patriotic of the land. So long as he merely proposed to emancipate the Mexicans from the Spanish yoke, the generous and enterprising youth of the west, as unsuspicious of guile in others as they were incapable of it themselves, might have flocked to his standard, and even gloried in the act of self-devotion: but no sooner was it known that the infatuated man was pursuing the phantom of individual aggrandizement, at the expense of his country's peace and in violation of her laws, than he was "left alone in his glory." Most of his followers abandoned him from principle, and the few who were without principle, deserted him from cowardice. It is peculiarly gratifying that both of these examples so strikingly exhibit the attachment of the American people to the union, as it will probably be only in one or the other of these modes that its integrity will ever be assailed.
The event by which the union was still more seriously threatened, has been too recent for me to say much of it on the present occasion. Yet I may be permitted to remark, without opening wounds hardly yet cicatrized, that both those who apprehend disunion and those who dread consolidation may draw salutary lessons from that event; and that each party may, by a course of imprudence, promote the very evil of which it is most apprehensive. I will add, that it affords additional evidence of the strength of the ligaments which bind us together, for if those who felt themselves aggrieved by the general government, had been less sensible of the value—of the necessity of the union—then the master pilot,7 who at the critical moment seized the helm, and steered the ship of state through the breakers that threatened her on either side, had interposed his consummate skill in vain.