Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[388] are no filibusters. Her nearness to us there cannot harm us. Let Kansas witness that while Union fettered her, and our national banner clung to the flagstaff heavy with blood, we still made good George Canning's boast, “Where that banner is planted, foreign dominion shall not come.” With a government heartily on his side, and that flag floating in the blessings of twenty million of freemen, the loneliest settler in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains will sleep fearless.

Why, then, should there not be peace between two such confederacies? There must be. Let me show you why:--

1st. Th. laws of trade will bind us together, as they now do all other lands. This side of the ocean, at least, we are not living in feudal times, when princes make war for ambition. We live in days when men of common sense go about their daily business, while frightened kings are flying along the highways. Leave neighborhood and trade alone to work their usual results, and we shall be at peace. Observe, only Northerners are lynched at the South now. Spaniards, French, Scotch are safe. When English Captain Vaughan is tarred and feathered, the Mayor offers a reward, and the grand jury indict. After a fair, sensible disunion, such as I have described, a Boston man will be as well off as Captain Vaughan. Fair treaties are better security than sham constitutions.

At any rate, disunion could not make the two sections any more at war than they are now. Any change in this respect would be an improvement. If the North and Mexico had touched boundaries, would they ever have quarrelled? Nothing but Southern filibusterism, which can never point North, ever embroiled us with Mexico. To us in future the South will be another Mexico; we shall not wish to attack her; she will be too weak, too intent on her own broils, to attack us.