of the governed
to enable it to subsist, and that it would be defeated in a struggle
to maintain the Union against one or more separate States. In 1861 nine
States, with a population of 8,753,000, seceded, and maintained for four
years a resolute but unequal contest for independence, but they were
defeated.

Lastly, the author was mistaken in supposing that a community of
interests would always prevail between North and South sufficiently
powerful to bind them together. He overlooked the influence which the
question of slavery must have on the Union the moment that the majority
of the people of the North declared against it. In 1831, when the author
visited America, the anti-slavery agitation had scarcely begun; and the
fact of Southern slavery was accepted by men of all parties, even in the
States where there were no slaves: and that was unquestionably the view
taken by all the States and by all American statesmen at the time of the
adoption of the Constitution, in 1789. But in the course of thirty years
a great change took place, and the North refused to perpetuate what had
become the "peculiar institution" of the South, especially as it gave
the South a species of aristocratic preponderance. The result was the
ratification, in December, 1865, of the celebrated 13th article or
amendment of the Constitution, which declared that "neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude--except as a punishment for crime--shall exist
within the United States." To which was soon afterwards added the 15th
article, "The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or
previous servitude." The emancipation of several millions of negro
slaves without compensation, and the transfer to them of political
preponderance in the States in which they outnumber the white
population, were acts of the North totally opposed to the interests
of the South, and which could only have been carried into effect by
conquest.--Translator's Note.]]

Reason for which the preponderating force lies in the States rather than
in the Union--The Union will only last as long as all the States choose
to belong to it--Causes which tend to keep them united--Utility of
the Union to resist foreign enemies, and to prevent the existence
of foreigners in America--No natural barriers between the several
States--No conflicting interests to divide them--Reciprocal interests
of the Northern, Southern, an