events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper,
and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised,
according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope
of a peaceful solution of the National troubles, and the restoration of
fraternal sympathies and affections.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy
the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will
neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to
them. To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not speak?

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our
National fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes,
would it not be wise to ascertain why we do it? Will you hazard so
desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the
certain ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the
certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly
from,--will you risk the omission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can
be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the
Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is
so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this.
Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written
provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere
force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly
written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view,
justify revolution--certainly would if such right were a vital one.
But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and
of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and