, but when he wills
destruction, it is sudden as the lightning's flash, the crash of the
earthquake, or the sweep of the hurricane, marked by ruin and
desolation. Would we avoid like disasters in solving this stupendous
problem, we must follow, in humble faith, the ways of God, and thus by
gentle, but constant and successive movements, reach the grand result.

History, however, exhibits a few extraordinary cases, in which man, as
an instrument in the hands of Providence, sometimes punishes great
crimes, eradicates great evils, and accomplishes great national reforms
by acts as sudden as the devastating career of the tempest in sweeping
away pestilential vapors. Such may be the case with the revolted States,
if they should persist in this wicked rebellion beyond the close of the
period of solemn warning.

The coming year may be the great crisis of human destiny. It may see our
rivers, like those of Egypt, turned into blood. It may witness similar
loathsome plagues, and pestilence, and fiery hail, and darkness
palpable. But may it never behold the dread work of the destroying angel
as of old, at the midnight hour, in every dwelling whose lintels were
unmarked by the typical blood of the Paschal sacrifice! Avoiding the
last dread scene of the great Egyptian drama, may we have, not the
Jewish Passover, but the grand American jubilee, when we may hail the
South redeemed from the curse of slavery, and forever united with the
North, as the one blessed home of universal freedom.

As the South was as earnest as the North in protesting against the
landing upon our shores of the first cargo of African slaves, and the
continuance of the traffic so long forced upon us under the British
flag, and as they all united in excluding the word 'slave' from the
Federal Constitution, so will they ultimately cooeperate in expunging
from our system the institution of slavery.

I shall discuss this question as to the border States under no sectional
or party aspect, no influence of passion or prejudice, or any motive but
the desire to promote the good of my country. Our national and material
interests must be fully considered, as also those great moral principles
and intellectual developments which exalt and dignify the character of
man. I shall examine the subject inductively and deductively, the facts
and the causes.

That a return to the Union with gradual emancipation and colonization by
the rebel States would be best for them and for u