They intended that the territories should be kept for the free immigrant, who should not be degraded by slaves at work in the next field. Only a minority of the party,--though a minority likely in the long run to lead it--looked with hope and purpose to ultimate emancipation. And when the question of Secession was at issue by the people's votes and voice, and had not yet come to the clash of arms, the rights and interests of the slave fell into the background. The supreme question of the time was felt to be the unity or the division of the nation.
The Secessionists' plea was in two clauses; that their States were aggrieved by Northern action, and that they had a legal right to leave the Union without let or hindrance. A double answer met them, from their fellow-Southerners that it was impolitic to secede, and from the North that secession was illegal, unpermissible, and to be resisted at all costs.
The Secessionists were fluent in argument that the framers of the Constitution intended only a partnership of States, dissoluble by any at will. However difficult to prove that the original builders purposed only such a temporary edifice, there was at least ground for maintaining that they gave no authority for coercing a State into obedience or submission, and indeed rejected a proposal to give such authority. If there were no legal or rightful authority to keep a State in the Union by force, then for all practical purposes its right to go out of the Union was established. But against that right, as ever contemplated by the fathers, or allowable under the Constitution, there was strong contention on legal and historic grounds.
But deeper than all forensic or academic controversy was the substantial and tremendous fact, that the American people had grown into a nation, organic and vital. That unity was felt in millions of breasts, cherished by countless firesides, recognized among the peoples of the earth.
There had developed that mysterious and mighty sentiment, the love of country. It rested in part on the recognition of material benefits. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, the tides of commerce flowed free, unvexed by a single custom-house. The Mississippi with its traffic united the Northern prairies and the Louisiana delta like a great artery. Safety to person and property under the laws, protection by an authority strong enough to curb riot or faction at home, and with a shielding arm that reached wherever an American traveler might wander,--these benefits rooted patriotism deep in the soil of homely usefulness. And the tree branched and blossomed in the upper air of generous feeling. Man's sympathy expands in widening spheres, and his being enlarges as he comes into vital union, first with wife and children, then successively with neighborhood, community, country, and at last with humanity. The Russian peasant, in his ignorance and poverty, or facing the foe in war, is sublimated by his devotion to the White Czar and Holy Russia. Still more inspiring and profound is the patriotism of a citizen whose nation is founded on equal brotherhood. Deeper than analysis can probe is this passion of patriotism. Gladstone characterized it well, when, writing in August, 1861, he recognized among the motives sustaining the Union cause, "last and best of all, the strong instinct of national life, and the abhorrence of Nature itself toward all severance of an organized body."