otal inadequacy of
disunion as a remedy for the differences between the people of the
two sections. I did so in language which I cannot improve, and which,
therefore, I beg to repeat:

"One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to
be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be
extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause
of the Constitution and the laws for the suppression of the foreign slave
trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a
community where the moral Sense of the people imperfectly supports the law
itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation
in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be
perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation
of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one
section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not
be surrendered at all by the other.

"Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our
respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between
them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and
beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country
cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse,
either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible,
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory
after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends
can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens
than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight
always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse,
are again upon you."

There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary
upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line
between the free and slave country, and we shall find a little more than
one third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated,
or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its
remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk
back and forth without any consciousness of their presence. No part of
thi