her struggle, its
enemies could not present a more acceptable issue than that of a State
whose constitution clearly embraces "a republican form of government"
being excluded from the Union because its domestic institutions may not
in all respects comport with the ideas of what is wise and expedient
entertained in some other State. Fresh from groundless imputations of
breach of faith against others, men will commence the agitation of this
new question with indubitable violation of an express compact between
the independent sovereign powers of the United States and of the
Republic of Texas, as well as of the older and equally solemn compacts
which assure the equality of all the States.

But deplorable as would be such a violation of compact in itself and
in all its direct consequences, that is the very least of the evils
involved. When sectional agitators shall have succeeded in forcing on
this issue, can their pretensions fail to be met by counter pretensions?
Will not different States be compelled, respectively, to meet extremes
with extremes? And if either extreme carry its point, what is that so
far forth but dissolution of the Union? If a new State, formed from the
territory of the United States, be absolutely excluded from admission
therein, that fact of itself constitutes the disruption of union between
it and the other States. But the process of dissolution could not
stop there. Would not a sectional decision producing such result by a
majority of votes, either Northern or Southern, of necessity drive out
the oppressed and aggrieved minority and place in presence of each other
two irreconcilably hostile confederations?

It is necessary to speak thus plainly of projects the offspring of that
sectional agitation now prevailing in some of the States, which are as
impracticable as they are unconstitutional, and which if persevered in
must and will end calamitously. It is either disunion and civil war
or it is mere angry, idle, aimless disturbance of public peace and
tranquillity. Disunion for what? If the passionate rage of fanaticism
and partisan spirit did not force the fact upon our attention, it would
be difficult to believe that any considerable portion of the people of
this enlightened country could have so surrendered themselves to a
fanatical devotion to the supposed interests of the relatively few
Africans in the United States as totally to abandon and disregard
the interests of the 25,000,000 Americans; to