22 sippi into the Gulf of Mexico, that one part of the great valley cannot secede from the other. Providence has written its eternal decree upon the rivers and mountains of our continent, that the north-western and the south-western States shall be forever joined. But if it were possible to be otherwise if several independent communities, without any national tie, could exist side by side in the great basin of our continent they would be rivals, and from rivals would become enemies, warring with each other, seeking foreign alliances, obstructing each other's prosperity, and assailing each other's power. The great experiment of Republican Government would have failed ; an experiment depending for its success upon the possibility of uniting the independent action of separate States in respect to the greater number of the functions of government, with the action of a national government upon all matters of common concern. If, as we believe, the fate of Republican Government in America is to determine whether a great country can be governed by any other than the monarchical form, with its concomitants of privileged classes, and standing armaments ; and, of course, whether this country of ours is to continue to be the asylum for the poor and the oppressed of all countries ; there can be no greater question presented to any people than that now presented to us ; none in which the millions of this continent, and of Europe, are more deeply concerned. If such a sacrifice were necessary, the thirty millions who now inhabit these States could do nothing so useful or sublime as to give themselves and all that they have, that they might leave this broad land under one free, indissoluble, republican government, opening wide its arms to the people of all lands, and promising happy homes to hundreds of millions for scores of ages. We are persuaded that there has never been a struggle between authority and rebellion, whose issues involved more of good or ill to the human race. We are fighting not for ourselves alone, but for our fellow-men, and for the millions who are to come after us. These are scenes in the great war of opinion, which began before the century opened, and which will be ended only when it shall be decided whether government is for the few or the many. We do not war with monarchical governments, or monarchical
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