destruction.
Whatever may be the actual issue of the struggle--whether the attempted
dismemberment shall prove a success or a disastrous failure--the effect
of the civil war on the character of our institutions must be
commensurate with the organic character of the causes out of which it
arose. So profound a disturbance of the existing social order, so vast
an upheaval of the very foundations of the whole political fabric, must
either rend it into fragments, and make necessary a complete
reconstruction, or must cause it to settle down upon a basis firmer and
more lasting than that on which it has hitherto rested. We think it
almost absolutely certain that the latter result will be brought out in
the end. It cannot be possible that our system will be utterly
destroyed; and if, against all human probabilities, it should be
momentarily overthrown, it will rise again hereafter in greater splendor
and power, by reason of the very calamity through which it will have
passed.

The federative system, on this continent, will never be abandoned; it
will be far more likely to be extended much beyond its present limits,
even including that immense territory which has been the theatre of its
origin and glorious progress down to the present day. Its superiority
over any system of consolidated power on a large scale, is beyond all
doubt, inasmuch as it provides effectually for the perfect freedom of
local legislation and administration, and for the full participation of
all the parts in the government of the whole, as to those questions
which concern the general interests. But in this very distribution of
powers always consisted the greatest difficulty and the most threatening
peril; for nothing but actual experience, long continued, could adjust
to each other with perfect accuracy the nicely balanced parts of this
complicated political machinery. The principle of local independence is
naturally liable to exaggeration and abuse. The State authorities have
ever shown a tendency to claim absolute sovereignty, and to array their
will against the authority of the Federal Government. This troublesome
question, forever recurring in the important exigencies of our national
life, has never been definitely settled, and perhaps it could not be,
except under the pressure of a great and critical emergency like the
present. One of the most important consequences of the rebellion will
therefore be to dispose of this question forever--to settle the