The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 / Page: 7 of 18
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graphic communication is an added argument for union. Hence, the
argument is growing stronger, and the question of severance is involved
with more appalling difficulties, and is of more portentous import, the
longer our union lasts.
And yet this is the time selected by a fanatical sectionalism to
count the value of this union, and weigh it in the balances against party
ends and personal ambition. The time was when this question was
tabooed, The indignant words of eloquent qnd patriotic denunciation
used by Webster, were appropriate expressions of national feeling, and
found an echo in all hearts. This was the era of chivalrous and ro-
mantic attachment to the union. But it has passed away. Men in
both sections are now standing on the jagged verge of the gulf of dis-
union, and peering into the darkness, are calculating the probabilities
of the fearful plunge. Some have even persuaded themselves that
there is no chasm at all, and talk of the severance of these sister
States as a man might of the landmarks - the metes and bounds that
were to apportion his estate among his children. I ask such where
this line may be drawn? We are in this city (and many others are
similarly situated) in associations of closest intimacy, and yet we have
come from the extremest parts of this confederacy. This band of in-
terlocked and clinging contact stretches across the continent as the
milky bands the sky. And this intermingling extends in greater or
less degree to every town and county in our land. This is emphati-
cally true of the great West, that is so soon to hold the balance of
power in this Republic. Here, population and interest are so blended
that it is true, as has been well said, that there is not a foot of land
from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Allegheny to the Rocky
mountains, that belongs either to the North or South.
But suppose a line drawn. How could it be made permanent ?
It would be changeable as the line that divides day from night, as it
flits around the globe. But if once settled, how soon would it divide
vindictive and relentless enemies. All the present causes of quarrel
would remain, and be intensely aggravated. And history testifies,
that the bitterness of strife is in exact proportion to the closeness of
former intimacy. Family quarrels are the fiercest of all. "A brother
offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions
are like the bars of a castle." When I passed down the Rhine, I
sympathized with all other travelers in admiration of the beauty and
grandeur of that wonderful scenery. Its castled hills were clothed to
the top with vines, bending under clusters of the luscious grape. So
precious was the soil, that wherever a terrace of a few feet could be
found, it was compelled to make its contribution to the fruitful-
ness of the land. And yet I found that there was room made for the
parade ground, and the granite wall pierced with port-holes, and the.L Jr
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Anderson, S. J. P., (Samuel James Pierce), 1841-1873. The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 /, pamphlet, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth497972/m1/7/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.