he north, by showing what are the real purposes
of the Republican party. In the meantime, it is evident we have
to meet in a serious way the movements of South Carolinian
Disunionists. These men have for years desired this disunion; they
have plotted for it. They drove Buchanan from his Kansas policy;
they got up this new dogma about slave protection, they broke up
the Charleston convention merely to advance secession; they are
now hurrying forward excited men into acts of treason, without
giving time for passion to cool or reason to resume its sway. God
knows what will be the result. If, by a successful revolution,
they can go out of the Union, they establish a principle that will
break the government into fragments. Some local disaffection or
temporary excitement will lead one state after another out of the
Union. We shall have the Mexican Republic over again, with a
fiercer race of men to fight with each other. Secession is
revolution. They seem bent upon attempting it. If so, shall the
government resist? If so, then comes civil war, a fearful subject
for Americans to think of.

"Since the election I have been looking over the field for the
purpose of marking out a course to follow this winter, and I have,
as well as I could, tested my political course in the past. There
has been nothing done by the Republican party but what merits the
cordial approval of my judgment. There have been many things said
and done by the Republican leaders that I utterly detest. Many of
the dogmas of the Democratic party I like, but their conduct in
administering the government, and especially in their treatment of
the slavery question, I detest. I know we shall have trouble this
winter, but I intend to be true to the moderate conservative course
I think I have hitherto undertaken. Whatever may be the consequences,
I will insist on preserving the unity of the states, and all the
states, without exception and without regard to consequences. If
any southern state has really suffered any injury or is deprived
of any right, I will help reduce the injury and secure the right.
These states must not, merely because they are beaten in election,
or have failed in establishing slavery where it was prohibited by
compromise, attempt to break up the government. If they will hold
on a little while, they will find no injury can come to them,
unless, by their repeated misrepresentation of us, they stir up
their slaves to insurrection.