pared to that of the Mississippi, which has a
course of two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and which receives
all the waters of the West?

To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which embraces two thirds
of the United States.

They say 'we will neutralize the river.' We know what such promises are
worth. We have seen what Russia did at the mouth of the Danube; the war
of the Crimea was necessary to give to Germany the free use of her great
river. If a new war were to break out between Austria and Russia, we
might be sure that the possession of the Danube would be the stake
played for. It could not be otherwise in America, from the day the
Mississippi would flow for more than three hundred miles between two
foreign servile banks: the effect of the war has already been to prevent
the exportation of wheat and corn, the riches of the West. In 1861 it
was necessary to burn useless harvests, to the great prejudice of
Europe, who profited by their exportation. The South itself feels the
strength of its position so well that its ambition is to separate the
valley of the Mississippi from the Eastern States, and to unite itself
to the West, consigning the Yankees of New England to a solitude which
would ruin them. With the Mississippi for a bait, the Confederates hope
to reestablish to their profit, that is, to the profit of slavery, the
Union which they have broken for fear of liberty[6]. We now see what is
to be thought of the pretended tyranny of the North, and if it is true
that it wishes to oppress and to subjugate the South. On the contrary,
the North only defends itself. In maintaining the Union, it defends its
rights, and it is its very life that it wishes to save.

Thus far I have only spoken of the material interests--interests which
are lawful, and which, founded on solemn titles, give sacred rights; but
if we examine moral and political interests which are of a superior
order, we will understand better still that the North cannot give up
without destroying itself. The United States is a republic, the most
free, and at the same time the mildest and most happy form of government
the world has ever seen. Whence comes this prosperity of the Americans?
Because they are alone upon an immense territory; they have never been
obliged to concentrate their power and enfeeble liberty in order to
resist the jealousy and ambition of their neighbors. In the United
States there was no standing army, no naval force; th