e their portion of the Territories, they can
take, and will be entitled to take, all that will now lie on the
southern side of the line which I have proposed. Then they will have
a right to permit slavery to exist in it; and what do you gain for the
cause of anti-slavery? Nothing whatever. Suppose you should refuse their
demand, and claim the whole for yourselves, that would be a flagrant
injustice which you would not be willing that I should suppose would
occur. But if you did, what would be the consequence? A State north and
a State south, and all the States, north and south, would be attempting
to grasp at and seize this territory, and to get all of it that they
could. That would be the struggle, and you would have war; and not
only disunion, but all these fatal consequences would follow from your
refusal now to permit slavery to exist, to recognize it as existing,
on the southern side of the proposed line, while you give to the people
there the right to exclude it when they come to form a State government,
if such should be their will and pleasure.

Now, gentlemen, in view of this subject, in view of the mighty
consequences, in view of the great events which are present before you,
and of the mighty consequences which are just now to take effect, is
it not better to settle the question by a division upon the line of the
Missouri Compromise? For thirty years we lived quietly and peacefully
under it. Our people, North and South, were accustomed to look at it
as a proper and just line. Can we not do so again? We did it then to
preserve the peace of the country. Now you see this Union in the most
imminent danger. I declare to you that it is my solemn conviction that
unless something be done, and something equivalent to this proposition,
we shall be a separated and divided people in six months from this time.
That is my firm conviction. There is no man here who deplores it more
than I do; but it is my sad and melancholy conviction that that will be
the consequence. I wish you to realize fully the danger. I wish you
to realize fully the consequences which are to follow. You can give
increased stability to this Union; you can give it an existence, a
glorious existence, for great and glorious centuries to come, by now
setting it upon a permanent basis, recognizing what the South considers
as its rights; and this is the greatest of them all; it is that you
should divide the territory by this line, and allow the people south o