cept Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia,
which are old English colonies, all the rest of the South is situated on
lands purchased and paid for by the Union. This proves that the North
has sustained the greatest part of the expense. Ancient Louisiana was
sold to the Americans, in 1804, by the first consul at a price of
fifteen millions of dollars; Florida was bought from Spain, in 1820, for
five millions; and it required the war with Mexico, a payment of ten
millions, and heavy losses besides, to acquire Texas. In a few words, of
all the rich countries which border on the Mississippi and Missouri,
from their sources to their mouths, there is not one inch of ground for
which the Union has not paid, and which does not belong to her. The
Union has driven out or indemnified the Indians. The Union has built
fortifications, constructed shipyards, light-houses, and harbors. It is
the Union that has made all this wilderness valuable and rendered its
settlement possible. It is the men of the North as well as those of the
South who have cleared and planted these lands, and transformed them
from barren solitudes to a flourishing condition. Show us, if you can,
in old Europe, where unity is entirely the result of conquest, a title
to property so sacred, a country which is more the common work of one
people! And shall it now be allowed to a minority to take possession of
a territory which belongs to all, and, moreover, to choose the best
portion of it? Shall a minority be permitted to destroy the Union, and
to imperil those who were its first benefactors, and without whom it
would never have existed? If this does not constitute an impious revolt,
then any whim that seizes a people is just and right. It is not only
political reasons that oppose a separation; geography, the positions of
places force the United States to form a single nation. Strabo,
meditating on this vast country now called France, said, with the
certainty of genius, that, to look at the nature of the territory, and
the course of the waters, it was evident that the forests of Gaul,
inhabited by a thinly scattered people, would become the abode of a
great people. Nature has disposed our territory to be the theatre of a
great civilization. This is also true of America, which is really but a
double valley, whose place of separation is imperceptible, and which
contains two large water courses, the Mississippi, and the St. Lawrence.
There are no high mountains which iso