“I hear with distress and anguish the word ‘secession.’  Secession! peaceable secession!  Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle.  The dismemberment of this great country without convulsion!  The breaking up the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface!  There can be no such thing as peaceable secession.  It is an utter impossibility.  Is this great Constitution, under which we live, to be melted and thawed away by secession, as the snows on the mountains are melted away under the influence of the vernal sun?  No, sir; I see as plainly as the sun in the heavens what that disruption must produce.  I see it must produce war.”

“Peaceable secession! peaceable secession!  What would be the result?  Where is the line to be drawn?  What States are to secede?  What is to remain American?  What am I to be?  Am I to be an American no longer,—­a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common?  Heaven forbid!  Where is the flag of the Union to remain?  Where is the eagle still to tower?  What is to become of the army?  What is to become of the navy?  What is to become of the public lands?  How is each of the thirty States to defend itself?  Will you cut the Mississippi in two, leaving free States on its branches and slave States at its mouth?  Can any one suppose that this population on its banks can be severed by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien government, down somewhere,—­the Lord knows where,—­upon the lower branches of the Mississippi?  Sir, I dislike to pursue this subject.  I have utter disgust for it.  I would rather hear of national blasts and mildews and pestilence and famine, than hear gentlemen talk about secession.  To break up this great government!  To dismember this glorious country!  To astonish Europe with an act of folly, such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government!  No, sir; such talk is enough to make the bones of Andrew Jackson turn round in his coffin.”

Now, what are we to think of these sentiments, drawn from the 7th of March speech, so disgracefully misrepresented by the politicians and the fanatics?  Do they sound like bidding for Southern votes?  Can any Union sentiments be stronger?  Can anything be more decided or more patriotic?  He warns, he entreats, he predicts like a prophet.  He proves that secession is incompatible with national existence; he sees nothing in it but war.  And of all things he dreaded and hated, it was war.  He knew what war meant.  He knew that a civil war would be the direst calamity.  He would ward it off.  He would be conciliating.  He would take away the excuse of war, by adhering to the Constitution,—­the written Constitution which our fathers framed, and which has been the admiration of the world, under which we have advanced to prosperity and glory as no nation ever before advanced.