ings respecting the incompatibility of
interests, and the inevitable conflict, between the North and the South;
the superiority of slavery over every other form of labor; and the
imminent danger of the overthrow of this benign institution by Northern
fanaticism, and by the unfriendly influence of the commercial and
financial policy of that section. Thus, the mischievous error of
secession was roused to life and action by the exhibition of those
unreal phantoms, so often conjured up to frighten the South--abolition,
agrarianism, and protective oppression.

All these deceptive ideas were required to be infused into the minds of
the people, in order to prepare the way for rebellious action. The right
of secession was an indispensable condition, without which there could
be no justification for the violent measures to be adopted. No
considerable number of American citizens could be found ready to lay
treasonable hands upon their government; but a great step would be taken
if they could be convinced that the constitution provided for its own
abrogation, and that the act of destruction could at any time be legally
and regularly accomplished. The absolute humanity, justice, and morality
of slavery, its excellence as a social institution, and its efficiency
in maintaining order and insuring progress, must be fully established
and universally admitted, in order to enlist the powerful motives of
self-interest on the side of the projected revolution. And finally, it
was necessary to show that the divine institution was in danger, that
the free labor of the North was actively hostile to it and planning its
ruin, and that this hostility was to be aided by all the selfish desires
of the protectionists and the dangerous violence of the agrarian
'mudsills' of the other section. It was not of the least importance that
these statements or any of them should be true. Let them be thoroughly
believed by the people, and that conviction would answer all the
purposes of the conspirators. Accordingly, for more than a quarter of a
century, these heresies and falsehoods were most industriously instilled
into the minds of the Southern people, of whom the great mass are
unfortunately, and, from their peculiar condition, necessarily, kept in
that state of ignorance which would favor the reception of such
incredible and monstrous fallacies.

The argument as to the right of secession has been exhausted; and if it
had not been, it does not come within