But deplorable as would be such a violation of compact in itself and in all its direct consequences, that is the very least of the evils involved.  When sectional agitators shall have succeeded in forcing on this issue, can their pretensions fail to be met by counter pretensions?  Will not different States be compelled, respectively, to meet extremes with extremes?  And if either extreme carry its point, what is that so far forth but dissolution of the Union?  If a new State, formed from the territory of the United States, be absolutely excluded from admission therein, that fact of itself constitutes the disruption of union between it and the other States.  But the process of dissolution could not stop there.  Would not a sectional decision producing such result by a majority of votes, either Northern or Southern, of necessity drive out the oppressed and aggrieved minority and place in presence of each other two irreconcilably hostile confederations?

It is necessary to speak thus plainly of projects the offspring of that sectional agitation now prevailing in some of the States, which are as impracticable as they are unconstitutional, and which if persevered in must and will end calamitously.  It is either disunion and civil war or it is mere angry, idle, aimless disturbance of public peace and tranquillity.  Disunion for what?  If the passionate rage of fanaticism and partisan spirit did not force the fact upon our attention, it would be difficult to believe that any considerable portion of the people of this enlightened country could have so surrendered themselves to a fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few Africans in the United States as totally to abandon and disregard the interests of the 25,000,000 Americans; to trample under foot the injunctions of moral and constitutional obligation, and to engage in plans of vindictive hostility against those who are associated with them in the enjoyment of the common, heritage of our national institutions.

Nor is it hostility against their fellow-citizens of one section of the Union alone.  The interests, the honor, the duty, the peace, and the prosperity of the people of all sections are equally involved and imperiled in this question.  And are patriotic men in any part of the Union prepared on such issue thus madly to invite all the consequences of the forfeiture of their constitutional engagements?  It is impossible.  The storm of frenzy and faction must inevitably dash itself in vain against the unshaken rock of the Constitution.  I shall never doubt it.  I know that the Union is stronger a thousand times than all the wild and chimerical schemes of social change which are generated one after another in the unstable minds of visionary sophists and interested agitators.  I rely confidently on the patriotism of the people, on the dignity and self-respect of the States, on the wisdom of Congress, and, above all, on the continued gracious favor of Almighty God to maintain against all enemies, whether at home or abroad, the sanctity of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union.