Putting abolition aside, let us examine the condition of the North's
"second charger"--battle-horse--Restoration of the Union at any cost.
The question of the right of the Southern States to secede has been
discussed till every European ear must be weary of the theme; so we will
let the justice of the case alone, and only look at the wild
improbability of any such result being achieved. In the North, of
course, there is a strong peace-party; in the South I do not think that
any man would venture to suggest to his nearest friend any compromise
short of the acknowledgment of the Confederacy as an independent nation.
It is an utter mistake to suppose that, if the Emancipatory Proclamation
were revoked, the road towards peace would be smoothed materially: it
might have a good effect in displaying a spirit of conciliation on the
part of the Federal Government--nothing more. The wedges that will keep
the South apart from the North, forever, were moulded and sharpened long
before they were driven home. For years far-seeing men, especially on
the Border States, had provided, in their financial and domestic
arrangements, for a certain disunion: not for the first time in history
has an aristocracy grown up in the centre of a democracy, and, while the
world shall last, such a state of things can never long endure without a
collision, involving temporary subjugation or permanent disruption.
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