A sixth reason why the South will not dissolve the Union, is found in the difficulty of bringing about an actual separation.  Preparatory to such a movement, it would seem indispensable, that Union among the seceding states themselves should be secured.  A General Convention would be necessary to adjust its terms.  This would, of course, be preceded by particular conventions in the several states.  To this procedure the same objection applies, that has been made, for the last two or three years, to holding an anti-abolition convention in the South:—­It would give to the question such notoriety, that the object of holding the convention could not be concealed from the slaves.  The more sagacious in the South have been opposed to a convention; nor have they been influenced solely by the consideration just mentioned—­which, in my view, is but of little moment—­but by the apprehension, that the diversity of sentiment which exists among the slave states, themselves, in relation to the system, would be disclosed to the country; and that the slaveholding interest would be found deficient in that harmony which, from its perfectness heretofore, has made the slaveholders so successful in their action on the North.

The slaveholding region may be divided into the farming and the planting—­or the slave-selling and the slave-buying districts.  Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and East Tennessee constitute the first.  West Tennessee is somewhat equivocal.  All the states south of Tennessee belong to the slave-buying district.  The first, with but few exceptions, have from the earliest times, felt slavery a reproach to their good name—­an encumbrance on their advancement—­at some period, to be cast off.  This sentiment, had it been at all encouraged by the action of the General Government, in accordance with the views of the convention that formed the Constitution, would, in all probability, by this time, have brought slavery in Maryland and Virginia to an end.  Notwithstanding the easy admission of slave states into the Union, and the yielding of the free states whenever they were brought in collision with the South, have had a strong tendency to persuade the farming slave states to continue their system, yet the sentiment in favor of emancipation in some form, still exists among them.  Proof, encouraging proof of this, is found in the present attitude of Kentucky.  Her legislature has just passed a law, proposing to the people, to hold a convention to alter the constitution.  In the discussion of the bill, slavery as connected with some form of emancipation, seems to have constituted the most important element.  The public journals too, that are opposed to touching the subject at all, declare that the main object for recommending a convention was, to act on slavery in some way.

Now, it would be in vain for the planting South to expect, that Kentucky or any other of the farming slave states would unite with her, in making slavery the perpetual bond of a new political organization.  If they feel the inconveniences of slavery in their present condition, they could not be expected to enter on another, where these inconveniences would be inconceivably multiplied and aggravated, and, by the very terms of their new contract, perpetuated.