idea that
by separation the South could gain in this particular? Not in the least.
The North has been a large customer for the leading staple of the South,
and the South is constantly in need of those articles which the North is
fitted to produce. The South complains of the growth of the North, and
vainly imagines that by separation its own prosperity would be promoted.
The answer to all this is, that there has never been a moment for fifty
years when the seceded States had not employment, for all the labor that
they could command, in vocations more profitable than any leading
industry of the North; and, moreover, every industry of the North has
been open to the free competition of the South. Not argument, only
statement, is needed to show that by origin, association, language,
business, and labor interests, as well as by geographical laws, unity
and not diversity is the necessity of our public life. Yet, in defiance
of these considerations, the South has undertaken the task of destroying
the government. Nor do the rebels assert that the plan of government is
essentially defective. The Montgomery constitution is modeled upon that
of the United States; though the leaders no longer disguise their
purpose to abolish its democratic features and incorporate aristocratic
and monarchical provisions. They hope, also, to throw off the restraints
of law, bid defiance to the general public sentiment of the world, and
reopen the trade in slaves from Africa. It remains to be seen whether
the desire of England for cotton and conquest, and her sympathy with the
rebels, will induce her to pander to this inhuman traffic.

It has happened occasionally that a government has so wielded its powers
as to contribute, unconsciously, to its own destruction. But our
experience furnishes the first instance of a government having been
seized by a set of conspirators, and its vast powers used for its own
overthrow.

It is now accredited generally that several members of Mr. Buchanan's
cabinet were conspirators, and that they used the power confided to them
for the purpose of destroying the government itself. Hence it appears,
whatever the test applied, that the present rebellion is distinguished
from all others in the fact that it does not depend upon any of the
causes on which national dissensions have been usually based.

The public discontents in Ireland, in their causes, bore a slight
analogy to our own. There were existing in that country v