Its vast extent and its variety of
climate and productions are of advantage in this age for one people
whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and
intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for
one united people.

In the Inaugural Address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of
disunion as a remedy for the differences between the people of the two
sections. I did so in language which I cannot improve and which,
therefore, I beg to repeat:

One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be
extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be
extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave
clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the
foreign slave-trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can
ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly
supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry
legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I
think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases
after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign
slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived
without restriction in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only
partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of
our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.
Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make
treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends?
Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much
loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the
identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.

There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary
upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line
between the free and slave country, a