There is another idea involved in this war; and, unlike the idea of political equality, it is sanctioned by the precedents of all ages and all nations, so as to preclude any possibility that it should now be disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.
The Southern confederacy is the organized protest of anarchy against law. It represents in politics that doctrine in religious thought which declares every man a law unto himself. It kicks against the restraints of constitutions and laws, declaring virtually that when a law, or a constitution ordaining laws, ceases to be agreeable, its binding force is gone. For a similar and equally valid reason, some men (and, alas! some women), disregarding the solemn sanctions of the marriage tie, have been willing to set aside this first law of the family and of home. The Southern confederacy also makes light of national agreements, disposing of them according to the facile doctrine of repudiation, which its perjured chief once adopted as the basis of a system of state finance. It is eminently in accordance with the fitness of things, that the man who could counsel his State to repudiate its bonds, should stand at the head of a confederacy which began its existence by repudiating the sacred agreement to which the faith and fortune of all its members were solemnly pledged, and under the broad shield of whose protection they had grown prosperous and powerful. If one may be permitted to express an opinion different from Mr. Stephens's, it might be said that the corner stone of the Southern confederacy is properly repudiation. On the other hand, the cause of the United States is the cause of order. It is also the cause of freedom.
It is important to note the union of these two forces of civilization; for hitherto, in the great wars of history, liberty has generally opposed itself to order, and has too often seemed to be synonymous with anarchy. The passions of the masses have too often burst forth, in great revolutions, like volcanic eruptions, carrying devastation and destruction in their path; The French Revolution stands for the type and instance of all these terrible catastrophes. This war of ours presents a different spectacle; for in the maintenance of it the two principles of freedom and order go hand in hand. It is this union of them which demands for the United States, in this contest, the support of both the great parties of civilization--the conservatives and the radicals. It is, therefore, preëminently a just war, because waged in the combined interests of liberty and order.