The truth is that it is nonsense to reproach any one section with being especially disloyal to the Union. At one time or another almost every state has shown strong particularistic leanings; Connecticut and Pennsylvania, for example, quite as much as Virginia or Kentucky. Fortunately the outbursts were never simultaneous in a majority. It is as impossible to question the fact that at one period or another of the past, many of the states in each section have been very shaky in their allegiance as it is to doubt that they are now all heartily loyal. The secession movement of 1860 was pushed to extremities, instead of being merely planned and threatened, and the revolt was peculiarly abhorrent, because of the intention to make slavery the "corner-stone" of the new nation, and to reintroduce the slave-trade, to the certain ultimate ruin of the Southern whites; but at least it was entirely free from the meanness of being made in the midst of a doubtful struggle with a foreign foe. Indeed, in this respect the ultra-Federalists of New York and New England in 1814 should be compared with the infamous Northern copperheads of the Vallandigham stripe rather than with the gallant confederates who risked and lost all in fighting for the cause of their choice. Half a century before the "stars and bars" waved over Lee's last intrenchments, perfervid New England patriots were fond of flaunting "the flag with five stripes," and drinking to the health of the--fortunately stillborn--new nation. Later on, the disunion movement among the Northern abolitionists, headed by Garrison, was perhaps the most absolutely senseless of all, for its success meant the immediate abandonment of every hope of abolition.
In each one of these movements men of the highest character and capacity took part. Morris had by previous services rendered the whole nation his debtor; Garrison was one of the little band who, in the midst of general apathy, selfishness, and cowardice, dared to demand the cutting out of the hideous plague spot of our civilization; while Lee and Jackson were as remarkable for stainless purity and high-mindedness as they were for their consummate military skill. But the disunion movements in which they severally took part were wholly wrong. An Englishman of to-day may be equally proud of the valor of Cavalier and Roundhead; but, if competent to judge, he must admit that the Roundhead was right. So it is with us. The man who fought for secession warred for a cause as evil and as capable of working lasting harm as the doctrine of the divine right of kings itself. But we may feel an intense pride in his gallantry; and we may believe in his honesty as heartily as we believe in that of the only less foolish being who wishes to see our government strongly centralized, heedless of the self-evident fact that over such a vast land as ours the nation can exist only as a Federal Union; and that, exactly as the liberty of the individual and the rights of the states can only be preserved by upholding the strength of the nation, so this same localizing of power in all matters not essentially national is vital to the wellbeing and durability of the government.