Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/110

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS pursue their slaves ; they would be repelled, and war would break out. In less than sixty daya war would be blazing forth in every part of this now happy and peaceable land. But how are you going to separate them? In my humble opinion, Mr. President, we should begin at least with three confederacies — ^the Con- federacy of the North, the Confederacy of the Atlantic Southern States (the slave-holding States), and the Confederacy of the Valley of the Mississippi. My life upon it, sir, that vast population that has already concentrated, and will concentrate, upon the headquarters and tributaries of the ]Iississippi, will never consent that the mouth of that river shall be held subject to the power of any foreign State whatever. Such, I believe, would be the consequences of a dissolution of the Union. But other confed- eracies would spring up, from time to time, as dissatisfaction and discontent were dissem- inated over the country. There would be the Confederacy of the Lakes — perhaps the Con- federacy of New England and of the Middle ^'^^^-STsaid that I thought that there was no right on the part of one or more of the States to secede from this Union. I think that the Con- stitution of the thirteen States was made, not merely for the generation which then existed, but for posterity, undefined, unlimited, perma- nent, and perpetual — for their posterity, and for every subsequent State which might eome into 100