Great social and political results have thus been attained without
consciously intending them, or seeing how they were to be brought about.
Our Government, without professing great moral purposes, may yet
accomplish more in that direction, and this, too, by the relentless and
bloody hand of war, than has ever been the result of purely moral design
by the most approved moral means, on the part of any combination of
mankind. It may be a crisis in history, and the ushering in of a new
era.
Our Government proposes to recover lost possessions, and restore the
integrity of the Union. Wherefore? Ours is the most beneficent
Government upon the earth, blessing the most human beings, and it should
be sustained. The whole nation has contributed to the acquisition of
Southern territory, and it is not meet that the Northern people should
surrender their interest in the same. The Mississippi River belongs as
naturally to the great West as to the South, and it should be under the
control of the same sovereign power, to be used for the good of one
great people. There is no natural division line between the North and
South, and it would be fatal to the future peace and prosperity of this
continent to attempt to make one.
These are some of the reasons ordinarily given for the prosecution of
this war--for our great effort to reestablish the Union.
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