The Brothers' War - The Original Classic Edition. John Calvin
after adoption.[33]
To sum up, the generation that drafted and adopted the constitution, and all the succeeding ones who had lived under it, agreed that the States were sovereign.
How could even Webster talk these facts out of existence? At every stage of the intersectional debate the cause of the south supporting State sovereignty became stronger. And there were great hosts at the north who understood the record as the south did; and, while they hoped and prayed that separation would never come, they conscientiously conceded State sovereignty to the full. It seems to me to be the fact that, although the federal soldiers cherished deep love for the union, a very great majority of the more intelligent among them did not long keep at its height the emotion excited by the attack on Fort Sumter, and soon settled back into their for-mer creed, holding, because of the reasons summarized above, the States to be sovereign; and while they thought it supreme folly in the south to set[Pg 73] up the confederacy, they still believed that to do so was but the exercise of an indubitable right of the States creating it. From what I saw at the time, and the many proofs that appeared to accumulate upon me afterwards, this explains the unprecedented panic with which the federal army abandoned the field at the First Manassas. Consider just a moment. The federal army, giving the confederates a complete surprise, turns their position and drives them back in rout. The confederates make an unexpected stand, fight for some hours, and at last, assuming the offensive, win the field. The troops on each side practically all raw volunteers, very much alike in race and character. But the federals had much more than two to one engaged, as is demonstrated by the fact that the confederates had only twenty-five regiments of infantry in action, and they took prisoners from fifty-five. The more one who,
like me, observed much of the war, thinks it over, the more clearly he sees that the flight from Manassas is not to be explained
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because of the superior courage and stamina of the southern soldiers. I believe that the union men, observing how brave and death-defying their brothers on the other side were in facing disaster that seemed irretrievable and odds irresistible, at last became convinced that these brothers, defending home and firesides, were right, and that they themselves, invading an inviolably sovereign State, were heinously wrong; and thus awakened conscience made cowards of all these gallant men. And it is thoroughly established,
I believe, that everywhere in the first engagements of the war, the southern volunteers, if they were commanded by a fighter, showed far more spirit and stomach than their adversaries. In the amicable meetings, often occurring upon the picket line, when we confederates would with good humor ask the union men how it was[Pg 74] that we won so many fights, it was a stereotyped reply of the
latter, "Why, you are fighting for your country and we only for $13 a month." It was but natural that, by reason of what has been told in the foregoing, the south unanimously, and a very large number at the north, should believe any State could under its reserved pow-ers rightfully secede from the union whenever and for whatever cause it pleased.
We see now what the angry brothers did not see. The absolute sovereignty of the States, and the right of secession both de facto
and de jure could have been conceded, and at the same time the war for the union justified. The unionists could well have said to the
south:
"Your independence is too great a menace to our interests to be tolerated, and the high duty of self-defence commands that we
resist to the death. The status quo is better for us all. Now that you have set up for yourself, we must tell you, sadly but firmly, that if you do not come back voluntarily, we must resort to coercion,--not under the constitution, for you have thrown that off, but under the law of nations to which you have just subjected yourself."
The man who of all southerners has given State sovereignty its most learned and able defence--Sage, the author of "The Republic of Republics"--says: "To coerce a state is unconstitutional; but it is equally true that the precedent of coercing states is established, and that it is defensible under the law of nations."[34]
To have received the confederate commissioners as representing an independent nation, and made demand that the seceding States return to the union, would have[Pg 75] been a far stronger theory than that on which the war was avowedly waged; for it would have taken from the south that superiority in the argument which had given her great prestige in Europe, and even in the north. And
lastly, under the law of nations, the federal government, after coercing the seceding States back, would have had--even according to
the theory of State rights as maintained in the south--perfectly legitimate power to abolish slavery. The statement that emancipation was "sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the constitution, upon military necessity," protests so much that one sees that the highly conscientious man hesitated and doubted. And well may he have doubted; for what warrant can be found in the constitution for destroying that property which it solemnly engaged to defend and protect as a condition precedent of its adoption?-- that is, if the southern States were still in the union and under the constitution, as was claimed by all who justified the proclamation? But if the southern States had gone out of the union, they had revoked their ratification and had thrown away all the protection of slavery given by the constitution; and while the constitution did not direct how the federal government should act in the matter, the law of nations gave full and ample directions. Its authority was not stinted nor hampered by any rights recognized in the constitution as reserved to the States under it. The subsequent amendment, imposed as a condition of reconstruction, shows that the people of the north seriously questioned if slavery had been abolished by the proclamation and its enforcement by the union armies.
But this, strong as it was, would not have been the true theory. The true theory--the real fact--is that at the outbreak of the brothers' war, and long before, the States had become more closely connected than the[Pg 76] Siamese Twins,--indissolubly united as integral parts of the same organism, like the different trunks of the Banyan tree; and while the southern nationalization was opposing the union forces with might and main, it was really but an excrescence, with roots far more shallow than those of the American union--a parasite like the mistletoe, growing upon the American body politic, fated to die of itself if not destroyed by its fell foe. For, as we have explained, the sole motor of this southern nationalization--slavery--could no more maintain itself permanently against free labor than the handloom could stand against the steam-loom, or the draft-horse can much longer compete with artificial traction power.
Now let us rapidly set in array the stronger supports of this true theory. We should start with the impulse to combine which adjacency always gives to communities of the same origin; and external compression and joint interest to those of diverse origin, as we see in the case of the Swiss. How clearly does our great American sociologist trace the effect of this impulse in ancient society. First a body of consanguinei grows into a gens; after a while, neighboring gentes of the same stock-language form a tribe; then neighboring tribes, as some of the Iroquois and Aztecs, form a confederacy. At this point the development of the American Indians was arrested by the coming of the whites. "A coalescence of tribes into a nation had not occurred in any case in any part of America," says the great authority.[35] But we can easily understand what would have occurred had the Indians been left to themselves. They
would have passed out of the nomadic state into settlements of fixed abodes, local and geographical political divisions evolving from the old gentes and tribes, the contiguous[Pg 77] ones often uniting. History furnishes many examples of neighboring communities coalescing into nations. One of the most remarkable of all is the environment which has constrained peoples of four different lan-
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guages to coalesce into the little Swiss nation. Turning away from prehistoric times and also ancient history, let the student re-enforce the case of the Swiss, just alluded to, with the modern nation-making in Italy and Germany. These few of the many instances which can be given show how and what sorts of adjacent communities are prone to co-operate or combine for a common purpose, and how such combination develops at last an irresistible proneness to national union. Drops of liquid in proximity to one another on a
plane may long maintain each their independent forms; but bring them into actual contact, and presto!