“Why, yes,” said Mrs. North, “it would be simple in them, after seceding, to suffer themselves to be bombarded.  But have they any right to secede?”

“As to that,” said Mr. North, “my mind has been much exercised of late with this thought:  I have always advocated the right of the negroes to make insurrection, or to flee from oppression.  But now their masters complain of being oppressed by the North.  Why have not the masters the same right to secede from their government as the negro from his?”

“Well, husband,” said his wife, “I think that you are getting on fast.”

“Why,” said I, “Mr. North, is not slavery ‘the sum of all villanies?’ Did the negro ever consent to his form of government?”

“Well,” said he, “I never consented to be born; I find myself in existence; I have no more consented to the government of the United States than I suppose the negroes, generally, have submitted to their civil condition.  My question is, Who shall decide when the Southern masters say, We are intolerably oppressed; we are under a yoke; ’break every yoke!’ ‘let the oppressed go free!’ If I interpose and say, ’You are not oppressed; you are better off as you now are,’ is not this the reply of the masters when we seek to free their slaves?  Do we not say that the oppressed must be the judges of their necessity?  And why may I coerce the master, if it be wrong for him to coerce the negro?”

“I must let you, work out that question at your leisure, and on your own principles,” said I.—­“We were speaking of seizing and holding the forts and arsenals.  The French proverb says, ’It is the first step that costs.’  Seceding involves the necessity of seizing the forts.  If they who do this embarrass other persons in their lawful rights, they must risk the consequences; but if they secede from the government, the question is, Do circumstances justify a revolution? for secession is revolution.  Is revolution justifiable in the present case?

“But not to discuss that question,” said I, “all that I wished to say was this, that our government seems admirably suited for a people who will behave well under it.  We can take care of isolated cases of rebellion.  But if any important part of the country rises up and departs, it is exceedingly difficult to know what to do.  Prevention is excellent; but cure is next to impossible.  So long as there is a general acquiescence in the exercise of executive power against insurrectionists, one or more, we have a general government; but when States depart, we are a house divided against itself.  We find that we have been living, as it were, not so much under paternal authority, as under fraternal rule.  If broken irretrievably, the alternative is to be divided, or for one part of the country to coerce its neighbors and brethren.  This we find to be extremely inconvenient and really impracticable without civil war; and after the war,—­whose horrors, in our case, can never be pictured,—­we would either find ourselves in the same divided state as before, or if politically united, it will have been effected at a cost which it is fearful to contemplate.