Disunion

“ The voice of history tells us—the bloodstained fields of our sister republics of America proclaim, that disunion would be the signal for WAR—a war of conquest, in which the weak would fall before the power of the strong; and upon the ruins of this now happy Union might arise the darkest despotism that ever crushed the liberties of mankind, for it would be established and could only be maintained by the bayonet. ”

“ If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin. ”

“ I do not believe it is good policy for the slaveholders to let their neighbors hear them talk of disunion. Unless I read very stupidly the signs of the times, it will not be the Union they will thus endanger, but the interest to which they would sacrifice it. If they insist that the Union and slavery cannot live together, they may be taken at their word, but it is the Union that must stand. ”

“ Fellow-citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion—the names of those, once respected, by whom it is uttered—the array of military force to support it—denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. ”

“ Multitudes of our fellow-citizens are so infatuated with fear of the danger of disunion, which has now passed, that they create a danger of centralism fatal to all liberty—to all constitutional government—and at last by inevitable reaction to the Union itself. ”

“ It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims—its first magistrate cannot, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty—the consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal—it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. ”

“ To the psychologist it is plain that the seriousness of disunion is the discouragement to ourselves it necessarily involves. In this lies its single and its immense importance. Every note of disunion is a loss of moral power of incalculable influence; every evidence of union is an equally incalculable gain of moral power. Both halves of this statement deserve consideration, but the latter is incomparably the more important. If disunion were the more potent influence, a great deal might be done for national morale by the forcible control of opinion and expression. ”

“ Their obvious tendency also is, to throw amongst the states of the union the apple of discord—to increase those jealousies and suspicions, which have been already too far excited, and to give new life, activity and nurture to those seeds of dissention and disunion which have been recently sown with an unsparing hand by insidious combinations and associations, all of them professing to promote the general good, but acting in direct opposition to their professions. ”

“ For the purpose of keeping the nation true to the Union and false to itself, these men exerted every faculty and all their strength. They exhausted their genius in showing that slavery was not, after all, very bad, and that disunion was the most terrible calamity that could by any possibility befall the nation, and that the Union, even at the price of slavery, was the greatest possible blessing. They did not suspect that slavery would finally strike the blow for disunion. ”

“ A kindred spirit now animates the Free States against the Slave Power, breathing everywhere its involuntary inspiration, and forbidding repose under the attempted usurpation. It is the spirit of the Lord, and is irresistible. The threat of disunion, too often sounded in our ears, will be disregarded by an aroused and indignant people. Ah, Sir, Senators vainly expect peace. ”

“ If disunion and civil war were crouching in the rough way of the Nation’s duty, the Republic was not to turn aside into easier ways to avoid them. It should on the contrary, regardless of consequences, seek to re-establish itself in justice and liberty. ”

“ Men say: "Look at our history: revolutions have not been in our line; and look at our political map: its construction is unfavorable to an organized uprising, and without unity what could a revolt accomplish? It is disunion which has held our empire together for centuries, and what it has done in the past it may continue to do now and in the future." ”

“ Many persons deprecate our plan, for fear of a civil war; and terrific ideas of rivers of blood rolling across our fields, and piles of bones heaped on our shores, startle them in their slumbers, as the rustling of a leaf fills the slaveholder's heart with fear. In the first place, how very absurd is this idea of a civil war being the result of disunion. Can any one seriously urge it, as an objection to this movement? Look at the vast extent of territory open to the incursions of an enemy, if the North should withdraw from the South. ”

“ The party under which the war for the Union was conducted is to be denounced and proscribed as the party of disunion, and we are to be edified by addresses on the indissoluble unity of the nation by Secessionists, who have hardly yet had time to wash from their hands the stains of Union blood. ”

“ The popular fiat has gone forth in opposition, on the one hand, to secession and disunion, whether in the shape of active rebellion, or its more insidious ally, advocacy of an inglorious and dishonourable peace; and, on the other, to everything that savors of abolition, or tends towards a violation of the guarantees of slave property provided by the Constitution. ”

“ If any American has ever, for a moment, admitted the idea of consenting to a separation of the Union, let him read the burning words of this enlightened and disinterested foreigner, and blush for his want of comprehension of the true interests and glory of his country. It is not a mere sentimental enthusiasm which leads us to combat disunion and to cherish the greatness and oneness of our country. ”

“ Third, That to the Union of the States, this Nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home, and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for Disunion, come from whatever source they may: And we congratulate the Country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of Disunion, so often made by Democratic members, without rebuke, and with applause, from their political associates ”

“ A tendency to disunion, to anarchy among the members rather than to tyranny in the head, has been heretofore the melancholy fate of all the federal governments of ancient and modern Europe. Our Union and national Constitution were formed, as we have hitherto been led to believe, under better auspices and with improved wisdom. ”

“ But while this process is going on, must we be distracted and tortured by the baleful passions and wicked works that unrestrained party-spirit and ungoverned factions will bring upon us, under such a government as ours? Must we rush on to disunion, and civil wars, and servile wars, till all their train of horrors pass over us like devouring fire? ”

“ On the side of disunion, endless bickerings, intestine wars, standing armies, crushing debts, languishing commerce, all improvement at a stand still, tyranny settling darkly down over the liberties of the people and of individuals, and national influence gone forever. ”

“ Our bond of Union has been put at issue by the meddlesome and sensitive—the fanaticism of the one part and the boiling passions of the other are encouraged by demagogues—the virtue of the people can alone preserve it. A little more steam upon the locomotive of disunion—a little more fuel from the north and fire from the south may burst the boiler and destroy the beautiful engine of our Liberty. ”

“ I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed, with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. ”

“ We all know how every occurrence has been magnified by the disunion press and leaders and scattered abroad, and for no other purpose than to arouse the passions of the people and drive them into the Southern Disunion movement; for if you can make the people believe that the terrible accounts of abolition plots here are true, they will be ready for anything, sooner than suffer their continuance. ”

“ This is what they may realise by their union; their disunion, on the contrary, will only encourage the fatal conduct of these men who are endangering the future equally, some by their opposition, the others by their headlong violence. ”

“ If the evil does not immediately proceed the full length of disunion, yet the strength, the unity of exertion, the union of interest will be gone. We are no longer one people, and representatives from that part of the country in our public councils, will partake of the spirit and breathe the sentiments of a distinct nation ”

“ Every thing the great Creator has ordained in the natural world is founded on consummate wisdom: but let him tell us what advantages convulsions, dissensions, and bloodshed, will produce in the political world. Can disunion be the means of securing the happiness of the people in this political hemisphere? ”

“ But disunion, with all its attendant evils, would not so completely prostrate the mind, and relax all the energies of man, as the other more dangerous result which may happen—I mean consolidation! A number of independent governments, no matter how bad, no matter how despotic, must to some extent at least, exert a stimulating influence, each over a portion of its own territory. ”

“ What if a mountain had been put first on the poor animal's back? Nullification is a mountain! Disunion is a mountain! and what could Polk and Texas do with two mountains on their backs? And here, Mr. President, I must speak out. The time has come for those to speak out who neither fear nor count consequences when [614] their country is in danger. Nullification and disunion are revived, and revived under circumstances which menace more danger than ever, since coupled with a popular question which gives to the plotters the honest sympathies of the patriotic millions. ”

“ Some few of the young men, ardent, impetuous, devoted to ideas, believed that disunion was the only possible relief from the constant insults and aggressions of the North, its oppression and its selfish power. ”

“ As great an evil as disunion would be, we consider there is still a greater, and that is, submission to the unrestricted will of a reckless fanaticism which overrides the barriers erected by the Constitution for the protection of the minority, and tramples with ruthless iron heel, upon the plainest principles of justice and equality. ”

“ It is therefore by appeal for the Union that people are deluded. In this way the weak are cajoled, the timeserving are seduced, and the timid are frightened; and people professing opposition to Slavery gravely come forward as supporters of these Proslavery factions.
The unknown is apt to be exaggerated; so that, if these threats of disunion were now heard for the first time, we might, perhaps, pardon men who yield to their influence. ”

“ At a stroke, it would take all the trouble off the hands of secession, except only what proceeds from the external blockade. It would do for the disunionists that which of all things they most desire,—feed them well and give them disunion without a struggle of their own. It recognizes no fidelity to the Constitution, no obligation to maintain the Union; and while very many who have favoured it are doubtless loyal citizens, it is, nevertheless, very injurious in effect. ”

“ But though the closing decade of the nineteenth century presented a spectacle of national disunion and apathy, of failing vigour and vanishing ideals, it saw the beginning of a movement destined to arrest the decline of one department of the national life. ”

“ In the years 1831 and 1832 it had become an inquiry, a subject of disquisition in my State, and the late Judge Gaston, in an address delivered in 1832 before the Literary Societies of the University, thus treats of the subject:
"Threats of resistance, secession, separation, have become common as household words in the wicked and silly violence of public declaimers. The public ear is familiarized with, and the public mind will soon become accustomed to, the detestable suggestion of disunion. ”