de any possibility that it should now be
disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's
first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of
society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like
the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.

The Southern confederacy is the organized protest of anarchy against
law. It represents in politics that doctrine in religious thought which
declares every man a law unto himself. It kicks against the restraints
of constitutions and laws, declaring virtually that when a law, or a
constitution ordaining laws, ceases to be agreeable, its binding force
is gone. For a similar and equally valid reason, some men (and, alas!
some women), disregarding the solemn sanctions of the marriage tie, have
been willing to set aside this first law of the family and of home. The
Southern confederacy also makes light of national agreements, disposing
of them according to the facile doctrine of repudiation, which its
perjured chief once adopted as the basis of a system of state finance.
It is eminently in accordance with the fitness of things, that the man
who could counsel his State to repudiate its bonds, should stand at the
head of a confederacy which began its existence by repudiating the
sacred agreement to which the faith and fortune of all its members were
solemnly pledged, and under the broad shield of whose protection they
had grown prosperous and powerful. If one may be permitted to express an
opinion different from Mr. Stephens's, it might be said that the corner
stone of the Southern confederacy is properly repudiation. On the other
hand, the cause of the United States is the cause of order. It is also
the cause of freedom.

It is important to note the union of these two forces of civilization;
for hitherto, in the great wars of history, liberty has generally
opposed itself to order, and has too often seemed to be synonymous with
anarchy. The passions of the masses have too often burst forth, in great
revolutions, like volcanic eruptions, carrying devastation and
destruction in their path; The French Revolution stands for the type and
instance of all these terrible catastrophes. This war of ours presents a
different spectacle; for in the maintenance of it the two principles of
freedom and order go hand in hand. It is this union of them which
demands for the United States, in this contest, the support of both