Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to
every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a
self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to
each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand
in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at
the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in
the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually
dependent and forever inseparable. Hence the inestimable value of unity,
the leading issue of the war.
The issues of the war might be symbolized by the picture of a great
river; the smaller branches forming still larger ones, and these putting
into the main stream--unity--itself, as it descends, widening into the
great ocean of the future.
These issues might, also, be exhibited in a kind of formula. The
following is no doubt very imperfect, but it may be somewhat suggestive.
The first includes the second, the second the third:
I. Political unity _vs._ secession:
{ A progressive civilization _vs._ a stagnant one;
{ A republican form of government _vs._ an aristocratic one;
II. { Personal freedom _vs._ chattel slavery;
{ General peace _vs._ diplomatic intrigue and war;
{ An enlarged individual freedom _vs.
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