ause to ensue upon his
avowal. At the same time that all his sympathies and hopes were for the
North, the writer entertained opinions which forbade him to condemn the
South, so far as the mere fact of secession and armed insurrection was
concerned. To take a wide view of the question, he apprehends, that, in
every fully constituted community, there are two coextensive and
countervailing rights: the right of the existent _de facto_ government
to maintain itself by all legal and honorable means, and, if requisite,
by the arbitrament of the sword; and the right of any section of the
community to reorganize itself as it may see fit for its own interests,
and to establish its independence by force of arms, should nothing else
serve,--the "sacred right of insurrection." The insurgent party is not
to be decried for the mere act of resistance, nor the loyal and
governmental party for the mere act of self-conservation and repression
of its opponents; each stands the hazard of the die, and commits its
cause to a supreme trial of strength. If the American colonies of Great
Britain were not to be blamed for the mere act of resisting the
constituted authorities, if the English Parliamentarians, the French
Revolution, the Polish Insurrection, the Italian Wars of Independence,
were justifiable,--and the writer thoroughly believes that they all were
so,--he fails to see that the Southern States of the American Union were
necessarily in the wrong simply because they revolted from the Federal
authority. And in each case he recognizes the coextensive right, so far
as that alone is concerned, of the existing government to assert itself,
and stem the tide of revolt. It is the old question of the Rights of Man
and the Mights of Man, concerning which Carlyle has had so much to say.
A trial between the Mights often throws considerable light upon the
question of the Rights; and, until at any rate the true Might has been
ascertained by this crucial test, one may without half-heartedness admit
that both of the opposing Rights, the conservative and the disruptive,
are genuine rights, mutually antagonistic and internecine, but neither
disproved by the other.

But this is only the most rudimentary view of the matter. An abstract
and indefeasible right of insurrection may exist, maintainable in any
and every case; and yet a particular instance of insurrection maybe
foolish, wicked, and altogether worthy of ruin and extinction. And the
writer believes