Let us not forget, moreover, that the border States are at hand, forming a rampart, as it were, to protect the extreme South.  Several of these States, I am convinced, incline sincerely towards the North, and will remain united with it; but are there not others, Virginia, for instance, which perhaps only refrain from seceding for the better protection of those that have done so, and whose present role consists in preventing all repression, while its future role will be to trammel all progress by the continued threat of joining the Southern Confederacy?

These are serious obstacles; yet I have not pointed out the most serious of all—­the intense and sincere repugnance which many Northern people, though declared adversaries of slavery, experience towards measures that are calculated to provoke slave insurrections, and endanger the safety of the planters.  I must acknowledge that the patience of the strong seems here rather more laudable than the so much vaunted audacity of the weak, who count on this patience, and know that they can be arrogant without much risk.

The second pretext that is audaciously brought forward to solicit our good will towards the South, is that it has just ameliorated the Federal institutions.  Let us ask in what consists this pretended amelioration?  The South has not feared to write in set terms, in its fundamental law, what none before it ever dared write, the constitutional guarantee of slavery.  Slavery, in accordance with the Constitution of the South, can neither be suppressed nor assailed.  Slavery will be the holy ark to be regarded with respect from afar off, the corner-stone which all are forbidden to touch.  By the side of this, the South ostentatiously proclaims freedom of speech, of the press, of discussion in every form!  Men shall be free to speak, but on condition of not touching, nearly or remotely, on any subject connected with slavery, (and every thing is connected with it in the South.) They shall be free to print, but on condition of giving no writing whatever to the public from which may be inferred the unity of mankind, the sanctity of family ties, the great principles, in fact, which the “patriarchal system” throws overboard.  They shall be free to discuss, but on condition of not disturbing this institution, impatient by nature, and still more so in future, now that it feels itself hemmed in and threatened on all sides.  It will be by itself alone the whole Constitution of the South; this one article will devour the rest; in default of legislatures and courts, the Southern populace know how to give force to the guarantee of slavery, and to restrain freedom of speech, of the press, and of discussion.

It is true that adroit patrons of the South Carolinian rebellion have a third argument at their service which is no less specious.  “All is over,” they exclaim, “there is nobody now to sustain, there are no sympathies now to testify; in four days, peace will be made, the new Confederation will be recognized by Lincoln in person, a commercial treaty will even ally it to the United States:  the affair is ended.”