The armies of the rebel States will march to the great lakes, or the armies of the loyal States will march to the gulf of Mexico.  We are therefore involved in a war which does not admit of adjustment by negotiation.  In a foreign war, peace might be secured by mutual concessions, and preserved by mutual forbearance.  In ordinary civil strife the peace of a state or of an empire might be restored by concessions to the disaffected, by a limitation of the privileges of the few, or an extension of the rights of the many.  But none of these expedients meet the exigency in which we find ourselves.  The rebels demand the overthrow of the government, the division of the territory of the Union, the destruction of the nation.  The question is, Shall this nation longer exist? And why is the question forced upon us?  Is there a difference of language?  Not greater than is found in single States.  Indeed, Louisiana is the only one of the eleven where any appreciable difference exists, and the number of French in that State is less than the number of Germans in Pennsylvania.  Nor has nature indicated lines of separation like the St. Lawrence and the lakes on the north and the Rocky Mountains on the west.  The lines marked by nature—­the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River, and the Alleghanies—­cut the line proposed by the confederates transversely, and force the suggestion that each section will be put in possession of three halves of different wholes, instead of a single unit essential to permanent national existence.

Do the products of the industry of the two sections so conflict with each other in domestic or foreign markets as to encourage the idea that by separation the South could gain in this particular?  Not in the least.  The North has been a large customer for the leading staple of the South, and the South is constantly in need of those articles which the North is fitted to produce.  The South complains of the growth of the North, and vainly imagines that by separation its own prosperity would be promoted.  The answer to all this is, that there has never been a moment for fifty years when the seceded States had not employment, for all the labor that they could command, in vocations more profitable than any leading industry of the North; and, moreover, every industry of the North has been open to the free competition of the South.  Not argument, only statement, is needed to show that by origin, association, language, business, and labor interests, as well as by geographical laws, unity and not diversity is the necessity of our public life.  Yet, in defiance of these considerations, the South has undertaken the task of destroying the government.  Nor do the rebels assert that the plan of government is essentially defective.  The Montgomery constitution is modeled upon that of the United States; though the leaders no longer disguise their purpose to abolish its democratic features and incorporate aristocratic and monarchical provisions.  They hope, also, to throw off the restraints of law, bid defiance to the general public sentiment of the world, and reopen the trade in slaves from Africa.  It remains to be seen whether the desire of England for cotton and conquest, and her sympathy with the rebels, will induce her to pander to this inhuman traffic.