My inference from these facts and principles is, that the new powers must be deposited in a new body, growing out of a consolidation of the Union, as far as the circumstances of the states will allow. Perhaps however, some may meditate its dissolution, and others, partial confederacies.
The first is an idea awful indeed, and irreconcilable with a very early and hitherto uniform conviction, that without union we must be undone; for, before the voice of war was heard, the pulse of the then colonies was tried, and found to beat in unison. The unremitted labor of our enemies was to divide, and the policy of every Congress to bind us together. But in no example was this truth more clearly displayed, than in the prudence with which independence was unfolded to the sight, and in the forbearance to declare it until America almost unanimously called for it. After we had thus launched into troubles never before explored, and in the hour of heavy distress, the remembrance of our social strength not only forbade despair, but drew from Congress the most illustrious repetition of their settled purpose to despise all terms short of independence.
Behold, then, how successful and glorious we have been, while we acted in fraternal concord. But let us discard the illusion, that, by this success and this glory, the crest of danger has irrecoverably fallen. Our governments are yet too youthful to have acquired stability by habit. Our very quiet depends upon the duration of the Union. Among the upright and intelligent, few can read without emotion the future fate of the states, if severed from each other. Then shall we learn the full weight of foreign intrigue. Then shall we hear of partitions of our country. If a prince, inflamed by the lust of conquest, should use one state as the instrument of enslaving others; if every state is to be wearied by perpetual alarms, and compelled to maintain large military establishments; if all questions are to be decided by an appeal to arms, where a difference of opinion cannot be removed by negotiation; in a word, if all the direful misfortunes which haunt the peace of rival nations are to triumph over the land, for what have we to contend? Why have we exhausted our wealth? Why have we basely betrayed the heroic martyrs of the federal cause?
But dreadful as the total dissolution of the Union is to my mind, I entertain no less horror at the thought of partial confederacies. I have not the least ground for supposing that an overture of this kind would be listened to by a single state; and the presumption is, that the politics of the greater part of the states flow from the warmest attachment to a union of the whole. If, however, a lesser confederacy could be obtained by Virginia, let me conjure my countrymen well to weigh the probable consequences, before they attempt to form it.
On such an event, the strength of the Union would be divided in two, or perhaps three parts. Has it so increased, since the war, as to be divisible, and yet remain sufficient for our happiness?
The utmost limit of any partial confederacy, which Virginia could expect to form, would comprehend the three Southern States, and her nearest northern neighbor. But they, like ourselves, are diminished in their real force, by the mixture of an unhappy species of population.
Again may I ask, whether the opulence of the United States has been augmented since the war? This is answered in the negative, by a load of debt, and the declension of trade.
At all times must a southern confederacy support ships of war and
