longer a
nationality, but broken into fragments, to become the jest and
laughingstock of the world, which would point to us and say, 'These
people began to build, and were not able to finish!'

How do you fancy the picture? Do you think any morbid delicacy, any fear
of giving offense to our 'loyal Southern brethren,' should prevent our
examining this slave question? We raise, be it understood, no foregone
conclusion, we do not even pronounce on the result of the examination;
but examine it we must. Not the President, with his honest desire to
preserve every guaranteed right to the South; not the Secretary of
State, who unites the qualities of a timid man with those of a radical,
and who is therefore by instinct temporizing and 'diplomatic;' not any
other member of the cabinet, dare longer attempt to slide over or around
it. We observe, we venture on no conclusion in advance. We are not
prepared to say, if the South in a body should seek now to return to
their allegiance, that they could not hedge in and save their
'institution.' But we should still desire to discuss the subject
carefully.

So long as slavery was tolerated as a domestic custom long established
and difficult to deal with, it stood in the list of permitted evils
which all condemn, yet which it seems impossible to get rid of. But it
is one thing to _tolerate_ an evil, quite another to adopt it as a good.
And we declare that never in the world's history was there an attempt so
shameless and audacious as that to found a government on slavery as a
cornerstone! Is it possible to conceive of more ungoverned depravity or
a madness more complete?[2]

There have been contests innumerable on the earth. We read of wars for
conquest, to avenge national insults, about disputed territory, against
revolted provinces, and between dynasties; civil wars, religious wars,
wars for the succession, to preserve the balance of power, and so forth.
But never before was a war inaugurated to _establish_ slavery as a
principle of the government. We can predict no other fate for the
leaders in this diabolical plot than discomfiture and defeat. We have
an unwavering faith that the Republic will come out of this contest
stronger than ever before; that it will become a light to lighten the
nations, the hope of the lovers of liberty everywhere. But we will not
anticipate.

In periods like the present, circumstances appear to be charged with
vital and intelligent properties, working