to yourselves by disunion?  If you “secede,” what do you “secede” from, and what do you “accede” to?  Do you look for the current of the Ohio to change, and to bring you and your commerce to the tidewaters of Eastern rivers?  What man in his senses can suppose that you would remain part and parcel of Virginia a month after Virginia should have ceased to be part and parcel of the United States?

The secession of Virginia!  The secession of Virginia, whether alone or in company, is most improbable, the greatest of all improbabilities.  Virginia, to her everlasting honor, acted a great part in framing and establishing the present Constitution.  She has had her reward and her distinction.  Seven of her noble sons have each filled the Presidency, and enjoyed the highest honors of the country.  Dolorous complaints come up to us from the South, that Virginia will not head the march of secession, and lead the other Southern States out of the Union.  This, if it should happen, would be something of a marvel, certainly, considering how much pains Virginia took to lead these same States into the Union, and considering, too, that she has partaken as largely of its benefits and its government as any other State.

And ye men of the other Southern States, members of the Old Thirteen; yes, members of the Old Thirteen; that always touches my regard and my sympathies; North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina!  What page in your history, or in the history of any one of you, is brighter than those which have been recorded since the Union was formed?  Or through what period has your prosperity been greater, or your peace and happiness better secured?  What names even has South Carolina, now so much dissatisfied, what names has she of which her intelligent sons are more proud than those which have been connected with the government of the United States?  In Revolutionary times, and in the earliest days of this Constitution, there was no State more honored, or more deserving of honor.  Where is she now?  And what a fall is there, my countrymen!  But I leave her to her own reflections, commending to her, with all my heart, the due consideration of her own example in times now gone by.

Fellow-citizens, there are some diseases of the mind as well as of the body, diseases of communities as well as diseases of individuals, that must be left to their own cure; at least it is wise to leave them so until the last critical moment shall arrive.

I hope it is not irreverent, and certainly it is not intended as reproach, when I say, that I know no stronger expression in our language than that which describes the restoration of the wayward son,—­“he came to himself.”  He had broken away from all the ties of love, family, and friendship.  He had forsaken every thing which he had once regarded in his father’s house.  He had forsworn his natural sympathies, affections, and habits, and taken his journey into a far country.  He had gone away from himself and out of himself.  But misfortunes overtook him, and famine threatened him with starvation and death.  No entreaties from home followed him to beckon him back; no admonition from others warned him of his fate.  But the hour of reflection had come, and nature and conscience wrought within him, until at length “he came to himself.”