were not required, therefore, to make this
supposition any less favorable to the North than the division just
suggested; and unless, again, power had been acquired by the South to
impose terms on the North little short of those which a conqueror
imposes on a conquered people, the North, within its own limit of Free
States, would be left in a condition boldly to announce and actively to
defend its own legitimate policy in behalf of the extension of free
institutions and their development to the supreme degree of beneficent
truth.

But again, it might have been foreseen that in case the eagle of victory
should perch on the banners of the North; in case our arms should be
generally victorious after a few incipient disasters; in case our armies
should move in power southward, meeting, nevertheless, a steady and
resisting front on the part of the South, making the prospect of
ultimate conquest remote or hopeless; in case, in a single word, the
North should find herself in position to dictate terms short of absolute
submission and return to the common fold, but substantially in
accordance with her own wishes, the question of boundary and of the
future policy of the new North would have become one of immense
importance.

Had such considerations been forced on the attention of the country by
the course of the war, it may not be uninteresting to speculate upon
the nature of the possible boundary, which a drawn game in the
contest--a possibility at least, viewed from that early point of
observation--might have imposed upon the two future nationalities. We
are considering the case still in which the preponderance of advantage
should have remained with the North. It would have been, in that event,
of the first importance that we should retain within the limits of the
North all that portion of the South--by no means inconsiderable in
extent--which has never been thoroughly debauched by Southern
slaveholding opinion and theories of government; where the true American
feeling is still extant; and where a good degree of loyalty to the
Government of the United States has been hitherto exhibited. Such are
especially Delaware, Maryland, Western Virginia, Kentucky, Western North
Carolina, Eastern, and to some extent, Middle Tennessee, Northern
Georgia, Northern Alabama, and Missouri. An important object would have
been, had the power of the North proved inadequate to do more, to secure
this territory within the boundary of the new North