Many of the opponents of Home Rule, too, point to the vigour with which
the United States Government put down the attempt made by the South to
break up the Union as an example of the American love of "imperial
unity," and of the spirit in which England should now meet the Irish
demands for local autonomy. This again is rather surprising, because you
will find no one in America who will maintain for one moment that troops
could have been raised in 1860 to undertake the conquest of the South
for the purpose of setting up a centralized administration, or, in other
words, for the purpose of wiping out State lines, or diminishing State
authority. No man or party proposed anything of this kind at the
outbreak of the war, or would have dared to propose it. The object for
which the North rose in arms, and which Lincoln had in view when he
called for troops, was the restoration of the Union just as it was when
South Carolina seceded, barring the extension of slavery into the
territories. During the first year of the war, certainly, the revolted
States might at any time have had peace on the _status quo_ basis, that
is, without the smallest diminution of their rights and immunities under
the Constitution. It was only when it became evident that the war would
have to be fought out to a finish, as the pugilists say--that is, that
it would have to end in a complete conquest of the Southern
territory--that the question, what would become of the States as a
political organization after the struggle was over, began to be debated
at all. What did become of them? How did Americans deal with Home Rule,
after it had been used to set on foot against the central authority what
the newspapers used to delight in calling "the greatest rebellion the
world ever saw"? The answer to these questions is, it seems to me, a
contribution of some value to the discussion of the Irish problem in its
present stage, if American precedents can throw any light whatever on
it.