3. What will be the effect of the present troubles upon the political condition of the country? This will depend entirely upon the conduct of the General Government, and especially of the Executive branch, upon which, under present circumstances, the weight of responsibility principally falls. If the crisis be met with the necessary firmness and discretion, there can hardly be a doubt, that the resources of the Union are amply sufficient to secure the execution of the laws. If, from a want of firmness and discretion in the Executive, or of a disposition in Congress to sustain the Executive in the measures required by the crisis, – contingencies of which we cannot anticipate the possibility, – the nullifiers are permitted to carry their projects into effect, the Government is of course at an end. The state of things which would then ensue, has been described somewhat in detail in a preceding part of this article. The ports of Carolina would be free, and the country would be deluged through them, with foreign goods imported without duties. The revenue would fall off to nothing; the manufactures would all be destroyed; the public credit would cease, and the public service come to a stand for want of funds; a general bankruptcy of private fortunes would overspread the country, and the body politic would fall into a state of complete dissolution.
Of these disastrous results we are, however, unwilling to admit the possibility, although they would necessarily follow from the success of the projects of the nullifiers. It has been well observed, that the attempt of a State to place itself in direct opposition to the authority of the Federal Government, is one of the evils naturally incident to our political system; – that the occurrence of such an attempt is a sort of crisis, which we must have expected to go through at one time or another, as the individual, in his progress to maturity, is subject to the attacks of certain diseases, from which he can hardly hope to escape; – and that the circumstances, under which this attempt is now made, afford perhaps as favorable a prospect as any that could well be imagined for such a termination of it, as will at once prevent any immediate mischief, and discourage the renewal of similar attempts in future. The State which now places itself in open opposition to the law, however distinguished in other times for intelligence, patriotism, and generosity, is physically and politically one of the least effective in the Union. – With a white population of less than two hundred and fifty thousand souls, of whom at least a third are opposed to the project; – with a dangerous internal enemy in her bosom; – unsupported by the co-operation of any other State, her nearest neighbors being among the most determined opponents of her views; – it is apparent that Carolina takes the field against the Union under every disadvantage. The fanaticism with which the nullifying party are inspired may perhaps give occasion to some distressing scenes: but should the General Government meet the crisis in a proper manner, the odds on the first development of military force will be so desperate, that we incline to think there will be very little occasion for actual violence, and that tranquillity will be restored with hardly any injury to life or property. Should such be the event, the probability of future occurrences of a similar kind will be diminished; our institutions will acquire new force and stability; and the general result of the whole affair will be favorable, rather than adverse to the prosperity of the country. Had the experiment of a violent opposition to the authority of the General Government been tried for the first time by New-York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New-England in a body, or any State or combination of States which would have been able to carry with it a great array of actual physical force, the crisis would have been of a very different character.
We may add, that it is difficult to conceive of any case in which the right could be more clearly with the General Government, and against the discontented State, than it is in this: a circumstance, which adds to the vast preponderance of material power at the disposal of the former, the moral influence which is so important and even essential to the success of any cause. However the nullifiers may, under the influence of the enthusiasm which now possesses them, have wrought themselves up into a sincere belief in the justice of their cause, it is impossible but that in cooler moments they should feel its weakness. This conviction will press itself upon them with new force when the power of the Government is actually displayed, and will produce an indecision on their part, which will contribute very much to bring the struggle to a favorable issue.
Still, the crisis, – though as little dangerous as any one of the same description that could well be imagined, – is yet one of fearful importance, and the friends of the country cannot but look forward with deep and painful anxiety to its termination. The question of the continuance of our present form of Government, – of the existence on this continent of republican institutions of any description, – is now to be decided. The precise problem, as we understand it, is not whether the Union shall be preserved, but whether the Union shall be preserved under our present mild and beneficent system of polity, or whether, after a temporary dissolution of the bonds that now unite us, – we shall be brought together again into a new body politic, consolidated by the iron bands of military power. That the States composing this Union can ever remain for any length of time politically separate from each other, is in the nature of things impossible. The experiment was tried in the short interval between the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution, and was found impracticable. If repeated, under whatever circumstances, the result would be the same. We have shown in a preceding part of this article that, by the present Constitution, the States formed themselves into one body politic under a common Government, and that they are now, in form, one people. If the Constitution were in this respect a false representation of their actual and substantial political condition; – if they were really separated from each other by important substantial differences, whether of geographical position, origin, language, physical conformation, or any others, there would then be a constant tendency to a dissolution of the Union; and separation, being the natural state of the parties, would probably, when it had once taken effect, become the permanent one. Thus the attempt of the British Government to combine their European possessions and the colonies now composing the United States under one system of civil polity, was obviously at variance with the law of nature, and could only terminate sooner or later in the way in which it did. The same may be said of their present attempt to combine under the same political system with their European possessions, the northern part of this continent, – the vast peninsula of Hindostan with its hundred million inhabitants, – the southern termination of Africa, and half the islands on the face of the globe, – including the Australian Continent, with its dependencies, which, of themselves, may be said to constitute another new world. All these scattered limbs, —membra disjecta, – of the mighty Queen of the Ocean, – are destined to fall off successively from the parent body, and form themselves into independent States. With the members of this Union, the case is different. Descended from the same original stock; united by community of language, literature, manners, laws, religion and government; enclosed, notwithstanding the vast extent of their territory, by a border of unbroken geographical continuity; – brought up from their first plantation, through the long period of colonial infancy, to their present flourishing and glorious maturity, as sisters of one family; – bound together by the million various indissoluble ties of personal relationship, that have been created by a constant intercourse of more than two centuries, – the States composing this Union not only are, according to the form of the Constitution, but they are in fact and in feeling one people. They were united, before they framed the Constitution, by the high and paramount decree of the great Lawgiver of the universe: and whom God hath joined, man cannot put asunder. It is not enough to say, that the Union ought not to be dissolved, – that the States have no right to dissolve it, – that it is better that it should not be dissolved: – the truth is, that it cannot permanently be dissolved. Its members cannot exist for any length of time in a state of separation from each other. The present form of Union may, – should Providence intend to visit us with his severest judgments, – be temporarily broken up. What would be the consequence? The very act of its destruction would in all probability be attended by a development of military power and a series of military movements, which would end in the recombination of the States into another Union, under a military Government. Should we even suppose, – what is next to impossible, – a peaceful temporary separation, what would still be the consequence? The continual relations between twenty-four neighboring States of kindred origin and civilization, would necessarily lead to collisions, which would grow into wars, and these would continue until conquest had again consolidated the whole country into a new Union, not as at present, under the quiet reign of constitutional liberty, but under the sway, in some of its various forms, of a lawless and sanguinary despotism.
The necessity of these results is apparent on the slightest reflection, and is confirmed by the examples of all the nations of which we know the history. To look only to the mother country: – a thousand years ago, the British islands were occupied by hundreds of independent communities, essentially different in their origin, languages, manners, laws, every thing that constitutes civilization. Continued wars gradually brought them under common Governments, until, at the close of the last century, the union of Great Britain and Ireland finally completed the consolidation of the whole into one political body. So it has been in France, in Holland, in Spain, in Germany, in Italy, in Russia. So it has been in ancient times and other regions; – in Egypt, China, Greece, Rome. So it has always been and always must be every where. The European nations have all arrived through centuries of carnage and confusion at their present condition; they are still tending violently to a more complete union, which, after other centuries of carnage and confusion, they will ultimately reach. It has been our blessed fortune to begin where they have ended or are likely to end; to grow up from the hour of our political birth, in those happy bonds of fraternal kindness, which have been forced upon all other great nations by a long experience of the sorest evils. If, in an hour of wild delusion, – of mad insensibility to the causes of our present prosperity, – of criminal ingratitude to the Giver of all good, – we should burst these flowery fetters, the only possible result would be, that after a period, more or less protracted, of that confusion and carnage which we have thus far escaped, we should exchange them for the chains, that are now clanking round the limbs of every other people on the globe, and from which the enlightened and civilized nations of Europe are at this moment straining in agony to set themselves free.
The question, therefore, is not whether we shall maintain the Union, which must at all events exist, but whether we shall maintain our present republican institutions, or exchange them, after an intervening period of anarchy and civil war, for a Government of a different, probably an arbitrary character. The crisis, we repeat, though as little alarming as any one of the kind that could well be imagined, is nevertheless fraught with painful interest. But, though there is much in the present aspect of political affairs to create apprehension; – although we are certainly very far from considering the country as perfectly secure; – we are nevertheless inclined to look forward with hope rather than despondency. We derive consolation, as well from the circumstances already mentioned, which induce us to believe that, with the exercise of suitable firmness and discretion on the part of the Executive, the troubles in Carolina may be appeased without much difficulty, as from a general survey of the history and present situation of the country. It so happens in the progress of human affairs, that the secret principles, which determine the welfare of nations, appear to operate with much greater activity at particular times and places than they do at others, although it may not be in every case very easy to point out exactly the causes of the difference. Why, at the same period, and under nearly similar circumstances, some communities should be active, virtuous, civilized, prosperous and free, while others are roaming through the woods in the untamed wildness of barbarism, or bowing down like beasts of burden under the yoke of a taskmaster, – why the metropolis of civilization is to be found in one age upon the banks of the Ganges, the Euphrates or the Nile, and in another upon those of the Tiber, the Thames, or the Potomac; are questions, which philosophy has not yet brought to a quite satisfactory solution. An English lady, in a fine poetical fiction, has attributed the various fortunes of the different nations and races of men to the influence of a Spirit to whom she has not given a name, but whom she would probably have called the Genius of Civilization, if a word so long could have been conveniently compressed into one of her verses. The presence of this Genius in a country is described as the fruitful cause of every blessing, and his retirement as the signal of impending decay and ruin; but his origin is unknown, his progress secret, and his movements are governed by caprice rather than by any obvious and assignable cause.2 Without pursuing this train of thought, which would soon carry us very far beyond the limits of an article, it may be sufficient for our purpose to remark, that the presence of the most active principles of national prosperity, whatever they may be, has no where and at no time been more clearly perceptible than in the condition of this country, from the period of its first settlement to this day. When we look back to the handful of obscure adventurers and persecuted outcasts who formed our small beginnings, and compare their humble dwellings, scattered thinly along the coast, with the great and flourishing empire that now stretches in pride and beauty far and wide over half the continent, we cannot but feel that the history of the world offers no example, in any way parallel, of a rapid and extensive development of all the elements of national prosperity. When we contemplate the condition of the country at this very time; population proceeding in the same steady untiring progress, – wealth augmenting in a still more rapid ratio, – every branch of industry animated by the highest degree of activity and enterprise, – agriculture, and commerce supplying the markets of the world with our products, – manufactures rapidly rivaling the most perfect establishments of Europe, – improvement in science and learning, education, morals, and religion, the object of general attention and solicitude; – when we contemplate this state of things, we cannot doubt, that the causes to which we have owed our prosperity are still as busily at work as they have ever been before. What they are, it might not be safe, even in reference to our own country with which we are most familiar, to attempt to say. When we venture to assign, as one of them, the character of our Government, the sages of Europe smile in conscious superiority at our simplicity, and assure us that we have become what we are in spite of our institutions, and not in consequence of them. When we hint at the fixed religious principles, the stern morality, the persevering industry of the pilgrim fathers of New-England, who have formed the kernel of the whole population of the Union, we are scornfully told that the mass of the original settlers were, after all, the refuse of the British jails. The only principle of our success, which is readily admitted by our friends abroad as real, (it being one which confers no credit upon us) is the immense extent of our territory; although, if this circumstance alone could make a people prosperous, it is not easy to see why civilization should not be as active on the vast central plateaux of Tartary and Mexico, as it is in the valley of the Mississippi. But whatever may be the cause, such at all events is the effect. We are undoubtedly at a period of our national existence corresponding with the youth of a vigorous and healthy individual, when the body is daily developing new resources in all its parts, and possesses an elasticity which enables it to throw off without difficulty almost every principle of evil that may be introduced into it. We say not this to encourage a reckless confidence, or a disposition to bold and hazardous experiments on our political institutions. We are well aware that the strength and buoyant spirits, which betray to excess, may be themselves the very causes of ruin. We would rather in ordinary times allay than exalt the sentiment of national pride, which so easily runs into presumption. But when the crisis is actually upon us, – when the hour of danger has come, and many good and wise men are perhaps too prone to despond, and even despair of the Republic, it may then be well to remind them and ourselves, that if the trial is likely to be severe, our political Constitution, as we have reason to hope, is strong enough to enable us, with the favor of Providence, to go through this and many other trials of equal severity, should it be our fortune to encounter them, with safety.
Let the friends of the country, therefore, in their several spheres of action, meet the crisis with a cheerful, resolute spirit, and with the calm and steady courage that belongs to freemen and Christians. Let no differences of opinion upon minor questions, – no personal or sectional preferences be permitted to deter any one from a zealous and cordial co-operation in the great and good work of securing the Union. Among the private citizens, the Union party within the State of South Carolina occupy the post of peculiar honor and danger, and should receive our warmest sympathy. They have now a glorious opportunity of displaying in the face of the country, of the world, the noblest civic virtues. But whatever may be done by individuals within or without the State, the result will, after all, depend in a very great degree, as we have already said, upon the temper and conduct of the General Government. It is therefore with real satisfaction, that we find the Administration exhibiting, thus far, the union of firmness and discretion which the occasion requires. We are no partisans, political or personal, of General Jackson. We have in no way contributed to his elevation; and although, as journalists, we have taken no part in the recent contest, we have felt it to be our duty, as individuals, to oppose his re-election. But he is now the Chief Magistrate of the country. The people look to him to carry them safely through the present season of alarm and peril, and in all the suitable measures which he may take for this purpose, the friends of the country, without distinction of party, will give him their support. The maxim which ought to direct his course was distinctly stated by himself three years ago, in terms which cannot be surpassed for precision or energy, and which ought at this period to be the watchword of every citizen. THE FEDERAL UNION, – IT MUST BE PRESERVED.