be more hostile.  Total secession itself can be born only from a sentiment of declared hostility; it amounts to a declaration of war.  Suppose that Mr. Lincoln rejects the advice of those of his cabinet who would incline to accept the fact of separation; suppose that, while treating the South with gentleness, and striving to spare it the horrors of an armed strife, he persists in protecting the rights of the Confederation, and securing to it, by a maritime blockade, the collection of taxes; suppose that the blockade is organized from South Carolina to the Rio Grande, supported by Forts Pickens, Jefferson, and Taylor, which will have been revictualled at all costs after the forced evacuation of Fort Sumter; suppose that, in this manner, watch is kept over the ports of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, may it not happen that the insurrectional government at Montgomery will decide to effect a march on Washington?  Is it not probable that North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland will allow themselves to be crossed without saying a word?  More than this, are we not justified in believing that these States, and with them a considerable number of the central ones, rallied around their ancient banner by the very approach of peril, will make common cause with the slave Confederacy?  In such a case, how avert the chances of a direful conflict?  Will the United States carry patience with respect to the aggressors, the fear of giving a signal of ruin, deference to the counsels lavished on them perhaps, so far as to refuse to return a violent attack, and to consent to the ravishment of their capital?  It is hard to believe.  If the South make the attack, the war will break out, and the border States will be exposed to the first blow.

But admit that they succeed in preventing an immediate explosion, the mere fact of a total secession, and of the formation of two Confederacies, almost equal, (in appearance at least,) will permit no one to count on the prolonged preservation of peace.  What repulsion, what grievances will be found in all relations, in all questions!  And from a grievance to war, from war to negro insurrections, what will be the distance, I ask?  The South will be then an immense powder magazine, to which the first spark will set fire.  And the South will not lose its habits of arrogance, it will be quarrelsome as always.  Has it not already announced in its journals that, on the first encouragement given to its fugitive slaves, it will draw the sword?  Now, such encouragement certainly will not be wanting.  The South does not know at the present time how much the North, of which it complains, contributes to prevent the escapes which it fears.  The Federal Government is at hand to oppose them, in some measure at least.  When the preventive obstacle shall have disappeared, the South will see with what rapidity its slavery will glide away on every point of its frontier; it will see its happy negroes ready to brave a thousand perils rather than