and recognized in the family of nations the Union alone holds the purse and the sword,
regulates foreign intercourse, imposes taxes on foreign commerce,
makes war and concludes peace The Revolution, he reminded his readers,
had made America a nation, with a flag respected abroad and almost idolized at home as the symbol of union and coming greatness Yet, in recalling the Revolution, Motley had hit on an
important and troubling point, although it is doubtful if he recognized the fact. Secession, he argued,
was nothing more than a case of rebellion However, if it proved successful,
then it became “revolution.”
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This was much more than a distinction without a difference. The difference between rebellion and revolution in an American context, was vast. The American nation,
and the Union that theNorth was fighting to save, was the product of a revolution, a fact that the South had not been slow to pickup on and use in defense of its actions in 1861. Although equally keen to align themselves with the ideals of the revolutionary generation, northerners found it difficult to breakthrough this particular part of the South’s defenses. As it was understood at the start of the war, the Revolution seemed better suited as justification for the
Confederacy than as prop for the Union. To acknowledge that the South was engaged in an act of revolution was,
in a very real sense, to validate secession and to recognize that the South had the right to attempt to establish a Confederate nation.
One possible response, and the one favored by Lincoln himself, was to argue that the act of secession was less an attempt to construct a separate nation than an attack on an established Union which had to be met with force. Lincoln regarded secession as rebellion, pure and simple. Further, he saw it as rebellion not of but in the South. This was a theme he developed throughout the first year of the war. Some months before the fall of Fort
Sumter he had questioned what principle of original right is it that one- fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a state,
have the right to breakup and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle
Once war had broken out, he encouraged support for the Union by reflecting that this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States.
It presents to the whole family of man the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy—a government of the people, by the same people
—can, or cannot, maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes By the end of the year he was still reiterating his firm belief that secession constituted nothing more or less than a war upon the first principle of popular government—the rights of the people.”
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Lincoln would continue to develop and refine his arguments in defense of the Union throughout the war—putting them most succinctly and powerfully in his Gettysburg
Address
of but his position, however persuasive it seems with hindsight, was by no means impregnable. Throughout the conflict, Lincoln,
and those who concurred with his viewpoint, had to work hard to defend
From Union to Nation?
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307 themselves against attack not just from the South but from opposition forces within the Union.
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