Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/259

 LINCOLN questions. Shall fugitives from labor be sur- rendered by national or State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Con- gress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide up- on them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the govern- ment is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a mi- nority of their own will secede from them when- ever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sen- timents are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession ? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in re- 249