own on Rebellion. Said he:

"Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States,
that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their Property and
their Peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample
evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to
their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of
him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches,
when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the Institution of Slavery in the States where it
exists.' I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no
inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me, did so with
the full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations,
and had never recanted them. * * *

"I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon
the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is
susceptible, that the Property, Peace, and Security of no Section are to
be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add,
too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution
and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States,
when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause--as cheerfully to one Section
as to another.

"I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations, and with
no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical
rules. * * *

"A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now
formidably attempted. I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law,
and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.
Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all
National Governments. It is safe to assert that no Government proper
ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National
Constitution, and the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to
destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument
itself.

"Again, if the United States be not a Government proper, but an
Association of States in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a
contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it?
One party to a contract may violate it--break it