one
such convention, and, whatever the secret motives of its members may
have been, the very fact that it was a sectional convention, that it was
believed to be convened to calculate the value of the Union, that it was
supposed to have in view an Eastern confederacy, has sealed the doom of
its members and projectors. And when the calm shall follow the storm, a
similar fate awaits all who will go into this Southern convention. I
trust there never will be another partial convention, Northern,
Southern, Eastern, or Western; for, whether assembled at Hartford or
Columbia, they are equally dangerous to the Union of the States. They
create and inflame geographical parties. Could the North, assembled in
convention, have that full knowledge of the situation and wants of the
people of the South, as to legislate for them, and propose ultimatums to
which the South must submit, or leave the Union? Could the South possess
that full knowledge of the situation and wants and interests of the
people of all the other States, as to enable them to dictate the terms
on which the Union should be governed or dissolved? No; it is only in a
meeting of all the States, in Congress or convention, that that
knowledge of the wants and interests of all, and that fusion of
sentiment and opinion, and spirit of concession, can exist, in which the
Constitution was framed, and all its powers should be exercised.

If we hold Southern conventions, then will there be Northern, Eastern,
and Western conventions, and they will overthrow the Union. Partial
confederacies will first be formed, and then, as Mr. Jefferson most
truly tells us, would speedily follow the formation of a separate and
independent government by each State. What is it we are asked to
abandon, and for what? That Union which ushered in the morn of American
Liberty, and gave birth to the Declaration of Independence; which
carried our armies victoriously through the storms of the Revolution and
the last war, and now waves triumphantly in every sea, the kindred
emblem of our country's glory. It gave us Washington--it gave us
liberty, and bears our name aloft among the nations of the earth. It is
our only rampart in war--our only safeguard in peace, and under its
auspices we declared, achieved, maintained, and can alone preserve our
liberties. It is the only basis of our solid and substantial interests,
and the last star of hope to the oppressed of every clime. Shall we
calculate its value? No!