in it, and the principles at issue have the same application
to Maine that they have to Florida.

When we ask, then, where this rebellion will leave us, and what will be
the condition of the United States when the authority of the Government
has been vindicated and reestablished, the answer must be sought in the
considerations already suggested. The rebellion cannot be ended, until
we have settled as a principle of constitutional law for our own
citizens, and as a fact of which all other nations must take notice,
that this whole country belongs to the people of the United States. No
foreign power shall possess a foot of it. If the majority of the people
of a State can throw off their allegiance to the Union, they can
transfer their allegiance to England or Spain at their pleasure, as
well as to a new confederacy of their own devising. The battles of the
Revolution which secured our independence were fought by the whole
country, and for the whole country, without reference to local
majorities. The accessions to our territory were made by the nation as
a unit, and belong to it as such. We did not acquire Texas, and pay the
millions of its debt, with the reservation that it might sell itself
again the next day to the highest bidder. That no foreign dominion shall
interpose between the Northwest and the Atlantic, or between the Valley
of the Mississippi and the Gulf, is a geographical necessity. But
that, the American Union is indissoluble is essential to our national
existence. If that be not so, we have neither a flag nor a country,--we
can neither contract a debt nor make a treaty,--we have neither honor
abroad nor strength at home,--our experiment of free government is a
blunder and a failure, and for us, "Chaos has come again."

But the further question remains, In what way is it possible that
harmony shall be restored between the parts of the country through which
the rebellion has spread and those which have remained faithful to the
Constitution and the Union? When we have dispersed the armies of the
rebels, and demolished their batteries, and retaken our forts
and arsenals, our navy-yards and armories, our mints and
custom-houses,--when we have visited their leaders with retributive
justice, and made Richmond and Charleston and New Orleans as submissive
to lawful authority as Baltimore or Washington or Boston,--what then?
Will a people we have subjugated ever live with us again on terms of
equality and friendship?