at you might peaceably prevent their
execution, deceived you--they could not have been deceived themselves.
They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution
of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their
object is disunion; but be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed
force, is TREASON. Are you really ready to incur this guilt? If you are,
on the head of the instigators of the act be the dreadful
consequences--on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the
punishment--on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of
the conflict you force upon the government of your country. It cannot
accede to the mad project of disunion of which you would be the first
victims--its first magistrate can not, if he would, avoid the
performance of his duty--the consequence must be fearful for you,
distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good
government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity
with a vexation they could not conceal--it was a standing refutation of
their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the
triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them.
There is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the
Sumpters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the
pages of your revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union to
support which so many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, as
you honor their memory--as you love the cause of freedom, to which they
dedicated their lives--as you prize the peace of your country, the lives
of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps.
Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its
convention--bid its members to re-assemble and promulgate the decided
expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct
you to safety, prosperity, and honor--tell them that compared to
disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an
accumulation of all--declare that you will never take the field unless
the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you--that you
will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you
live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your
country!--its destroyers you can not be. You may disturb its peace--you
may interrupt the course of its prosperity--you may c