A defection of this kind would carry dismay and insure defeat throughout
the whole South, especially if it were vigorously followed up by the
same policy and by adequate military skill on the part of the North; and
the result of a war so inaugurated could hardly fail to be the rapid and
complete disorganization of the whole system of Southern industry and
the total revolution and final submission of the Southern States.
'No man can exactly foresee the consequences of so great a conflict, nor
predict with any certainty the course of events through such an untried
and tremendous pathway; but it is next to impossible to conceive that
the Southern war-spirit could in any way long survive the disasters
inevitably consequent upon the general prevalence of a claim to freedom
by the slaves, upon any legal basis, suddenly diffused throughout the
South. Should the alternative be forced upon the people of that region,
of submission, or servile in addition to civil war, their troubles will
thicken upon them to a degree calculated to calm their over-excited
imaginations, and to subdue their vaulting ambition. Panic will come to
their own doors with a new and all-pervading significance, such as the
North hardly knows how to conceive. The North should abstain to the last
moment from thrusting even enemies into calamity so dire. But, if the
arrogance and madness of the South shall force on us, now or later, this
terrific resort, the world _may_ witness, as the result of this war, the
most tremendous retribution for national and organic sin which any
people has ever yet been called on to endure.
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