wrong
Contrary to Daniel Webster’s assertion, Liberty does not require Union, according to this Southern editorial. Also, it’s too bad the Lincoln administration is pursuing this war because in time there could have been an alliance between two strong, liberty-loving nations. On the other hand, one positive of the war is that it has increased the military might and reputation of the two sections.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch March 9, 1863:
The European Republicans.
The almost universal sympathy of European Republicans with the United States is because they confound Liberty with Union, and consider them “one and inseparable.” The European despots revel in the scenes now occurring in America, because they labor under the same delusion. Liberty existed on this continent long before Union, and in England — from which we derived all our principles of free government — it had been the steady growth of centuries. Liberty survived the separation of England and America, and waxed stronger in both countries from that hour. Why should its influence be impaired because of the dissolution of a mere co-partnership between independent States in this hemisphere? If the Republicans of Europe took a more intelligent view of American affairs they would perceive that every principle of free Government is involved in the success of the Southern cause and the final over throw of that Union which has destroyed every vestige of liberty in its own section, and which, in the event of its triumph over the Southern Confederacy, would itself discard the very name of Union, and, transformed into a confessed military despotism, rule the South as Russia rules Poland, and AustriaHungary.
wrong (but really building up American military power and prestige)
Even the moral and physical weight which the Union exerted on behalf of Republicanism abroad would not have been permanently impaired if the besotted Government of Lincoln had consented to a peaceful dissolution. The two sections would then have parted friends, and perhaps formed an offensive and defensive alliance, both advancing with unchecked progress in trade and power. In progress of time there would have been two mighty Republics, whose influence and arms would have been as united and efficacious on the side of constitutional liberty as if they had remained under one Union. It is not the dissolution of Union, but the war waged by Lincoln, which has almost irreparably damaged the prestige of free institutions abroad, and seriously impaired the resources of both countries. But even the war, if the despotism at Washington would now terminate it, would increase respect at least for the military power of America abroad; and in view of the prodigious martial resources it has developed, would make the two separate Confederacies more feared in the Old World than they were under a united Government. The world did not know, we did not ourselves know, nor would we have discovered for a long time, the military capacity of the American States but for this war. Every one remembers how, as late as the Administration of Lincoln’s predecessor, British gunboats chased, stopped, and boarded American merchantmen off our own coast, with perfect impunity. It was in vain that the public press invoked Buchanan to send out a few vessels and inflict summary punishment upon the offenders. He could not be kicked or pummeled into anything more than a gentle remonstrance. Would England, with the knowledge disclosed by the present war, have ever ventured upon such indignities, or an American President, who had formed the fainest conception of the strength of his country, have failed to obtain reparation? The profound anxiety of England to avoid a collision even with the mere ramp of the United States is a suggestive contrast to the gunboat bullying of four years ago.
But of what avail to Republican ideas in Europe will be the military greatness of the United States if the South is subjugated and enslaved? A great military despotism, sympathizing with military despotisms everywhere, and having no affinities or interests in common with human freedom in any clime, will be the inevitable result of the triumph of the North. There would then be left upon the earth but one powerful free Government, that of Great Britain, for ages the ark of liberty; but how long that would last, standing alone amid a world of despotisms, no one can predict. On the contrary, let the Confederacy triumph, and even the North may be saved from itself, and the cause of constitutional liberty throughout the world receive new strength and vigor.
Daniel Webster’s January 1830 Second Reply to Hayne on the floor of the United states senate was an attack on Southern nullification, which could eventually lead to bloody civil feuds:
… When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first and Union afterwards”; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart-Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!
wrong (by about 13 stars)
