Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/95

Rh with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.

No nation has reached, or can reach power and greatness, until it rests upon the strong foundation of a wide extent of territory. Had the United States been confined to the limits proposed at the treaty of Paris, accepting the Alleghany mountains for its western boundary, or the Ohio river for its northern boundary; had its progress been arrested at the Mississippi river or at the Florida line; this country might have become a prosperous and happy people, but it would not have been a great and powerful nation. With due respect for the opinions of those who opposed the territorial expansion, experience now enables us to point out their error of judgment, and all should rejoice that the wiser policy prevailed.

3. It is idle to disguise the fact that this country is divided by natural laws into geographical sections differing in soil, climate and domestic interests. "Let there be no North, no South, no East, no West," is a figure of speech used to convey the sentiment that there should be no hostility between the sections. In its figurative sense, this is a patriotic expression worthy of all praise. Taken literally, it would be an absurd protest against the laws of nature. The State lines are political and may be changed. The geographical divisions are natural and ineffaceable. Although the irritating cause, slavery, has been removed, yet other causes remain which must ever render the sections geographically distinct, and must lead to conflicts of interest. Stronger causes bind them together, and enforce conciliation and compromise.

This division into geographical sections need not be deplored by the patriot, and cannot be disguised by the historian. It constitutes the peculiar strength of American institutions. These differences of interest are implanted by nature and must exist whether the several sections are organized into separate nations, or united