And now we may begin to see distinctly what it was that the American
government fought for in the late civil war,--a point which at the time
was by no means clearly apprehended outside the United States. We used
to hear it often said, while that war was going on, that we were
fighting not so much for the emancipation of the negro as for the
maintenance of our federal union; and I well remember that to many who
were burning to see our country purged of the folly and iniquity of
negro slavery this used to seem like taking a low and unrighteous view
of the case. From the stand-point of universal history it was
nevertheless the correct and proper view. The emancipation of the negro,
as an incidental result of the struggle, was a priceless gain which was
greeted warmly by all right-minded people. But deeper down than this
question, far more subtly interwoven with the innermost fibres of our
national well-being, far heavier laden too with weighty consequences for
the future weal of all mankind, was the question whether this great
pacific principle of union joined with independence should be overthrown
by the first deep-seated social difficulty it had to encounter, or
should stand as an example of priceless value to other ages and to other
lands. The solution was well worth the effort it cost. There have been
many useless wars, but this was not one of them, for more than most wars
that have been, it was fought in the direct interest of peace, and the
victory so dearly purchased and so humanely used was an earnest of
future peace and happiness for the world.

The object, therefore, for which the American government fought, was the
perpetual maintenance of that peculiar state of things which the federal
union had created,--a state of things in which, throughout the whole
vast territory over which the Union holds sway, questions between
states, like questions between individuals, must be settled by legal