no man may foretell the period of dissolution.... The many
restraining causes are out of sight of foreign observation.
The Lilliputian threads binding the man mountain are
invisible; and it seems wondrous that each limb does not act
for itself independently of its fellows. A closer examination
shows the nature of the network which keeps the members of
this association so tightly bound. Any attempt to untangle
the ties, more firmly fastens them. When any one State talks
of separation, the others become spontaneously knotted
together. When a section blusters about its particular
rights, the rest feel each of theirs to be common to all. If
a foreign nation hint at hostility, the whole Union becomes
in reality united. And thus in every contingency from which
there can be danger, there is also found the element of
safety." Yet, he added, "All attempts to strengthen this
federal government at the expense of the States' governments
must be futile.... The federal government exists on
sufferance only. Any State may at any time constitutionally
withdraw from the Union, and thus virtually dissolve it[32]."

Even more emphatically, though with less authority, wrote one Charles
Mackay, styled by the American press as a "distinguished British poet,"
who made the usual rapid tour of the principal cities of America in
1857-58, and as rapidly penned his impressions:

"Many persons in the United States talk of a dissolution of
the Union, but few believe in it.... All this is mere bravado
and empty talk. It means nothing. The Union is dear to all
Americans, whatever they may say to the contrary.... There is
no present danger to the Union, and the violent expressions
to which over-ardent politicians of the North and South
sometimes give vent have no real meaning. The 'Great West,'
as it is fondly called, is in the position even now to
arbitrate between North and South, should the quarrel stretch
beyond words, or should anti-slavery or any other question
succeed in throwing any difference between them which it
would take revolvers and rifles rather than speeches and
votes to put an end to[33]."

The slavery controversy in America had, in short, come to be regarded in
England as a constant quarrel between North and South, but of no
immediate danger to the Union. Each outbreak of vio