In that event, a
long-continued border warfare would have been to be anticipated, with
innumerable complex difficulties from expenditure in the protection of
the irregular and imperfect boundary, the collection of the revenues,
and the like.
The reason why we have chosen, in these glances at the possible
outcomings of the conflict, to go back to the state of the case as it
was at the opening of the war, and to view the subject as it would
present itself to the mind of a thoughtful man then, is, that this very
paper was originally written at that day, and is now only recast to
adapt it to the altered events from the actual progress of the war. The
boundary line above sketched, as one which the nation might possibly
find itself compelled to accept, was sketched, as it stands above, at
that time, nearly two and a half years ago; and the reader will hardly
fail to be struck with the remarkable coincidence between it and the
present state of the military lines between the Northern and Southern
armies; except in the fact of our actual possession of the Mississippi
river to its mouth, cutting the Southern confederacy in twain. Had the
defences below New Orleans proved impregnable, and Vicksburg more than a
match for the strategy of General Grant, our present position would be
almost identical with that contemplated by the writer at that early
period of the war, as one of the alternative positions at which the
struggle might at least temporarily terminate; and our present military
line would be almost the same as that indicated as the halting point of
the war, then to be nominally but not really brought to an end.
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