robable result of the present
struggle, and appeared greatly gratified when I told him that I
apprehended no serious danger to the republic. I made him laugh by
mentioning the opinion of the witty Abbe Correa, who said, "The
Americans are great talkers on political subjects; you would think they
were about to fly to their arms, and just as you expect a revolution,
_they go home and drink tea_." My acquaintance was anxious to know if
our government had sufficient strength to put down nullification by
force, for he had learned there was but a single sloop of war, and less
than a battalion of troops, in the disaffected part of the country. I
told him we possessed all the means that are possessed in other
countries to suppress rebellion, although we had not thought it
necessary to resort to the same system of organization. Our government
was mild in principle, and did not wish to oppress even minorities; but
I made no doubt of the attachment of a vast majority to the Union, and,
when matters really came to a crisis, if rational compromise could not
effect the object, I thought nine men in ten would rally in its defence.
I did not believe that even civil war was to produce results in America
different from what it produced elsewhere. Men would fight in a republic
as they fought in monarchies, until they were tired, and an arrangement
would follow. It was not common for a people of the same origin, of
similar habits, and contiguous territory, to dismember an empire by
civil war, unless violence had been used in bringing them together, or
conquest had first opened the way to disunion. I did not know that we
were always to escape the evils of humanity any more than others, or why
they were to fall heavier on us, when they proceeded from the same
causes, than on our neighbours. As respects the small force in Carolina,
I thought it argued our comparative strength, rather than our
comparative weakness. Here were loud threats of resistance, organized
and even legal means to effect it, and yet the laws were respected, when
sustained by only a sloop of war and two companies of artillery. If
France were to recall her battalions from La Vendee, Austria her
divisions from Italy, Russia her armies from Poland, or England her
troops from India or Ireland, we all know that those several countries
would be lost, in six months, to their present possessors. As we had our
force in reserve, it really appeared to me that either our disaffection
w