The Sword in the Western Territory

A dismemberment of the Confederacy, however, would revive this dispute and would create others on the same subject. A large part of the vacant Western Territory is by session at least, if not by any interior right, the common property of the Union. In the wide field of Western Territory, therefore, we perceive an ample theatre for hostile pretensions without any umpire or common judge to interpose between the contending parties. To reason from the past to the future, we shall have good ground to apprehend that the sword would sometimes be appealed to as the arbiter of their differences.