s that now
are wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great
Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable, is
Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to peace
and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity. The
request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should
consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery
triumphant, and the great problem that a free people can not choose its
own rulers against the will of a minority prove a disgraceful failure.
It is a request that a nation should purchase a temporary peace at the
price of all that is dear to its liberty and self-respect. The arrogance
of the demand '_to be let alone_,' is only equaled by the iniquity of
the means resorted to, to break up the best Government under the sun.
The question of disunion, of separate State sovereignty, was fully
discussed by our fathers. Thus Hamilton, whose foresight history has
proved to be prophetic, says:

'If these States should be either wholly disunited, or only united
in partial Confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian
speculations, who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into
which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests
with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as
an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men
are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a
continuation of harmony between a number of independent,
unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would
be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at
defiance the accumulated experience of ages.'

From a consideration of the true import of the Constitution, in relation
to slavery and the fallacy and wickedness of the doctrine of Secession,
we are now prepared to deduce, from what has been said, the following
reflections: First, the war in which the nation is now plunged should
have strictly for its great end, the restoration of the Constitution and
the Union to its original integrity; all side issues, all mere party
questions should be now merged in one mighty effort, one persevering and
self-sacrificing aim to maintain the Constitution and the Union. As
essential for this purpose, it is indispensable that all the rights
guaranteed to loyal citizens in the slave States should be r