both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old
questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.'

"There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a National boundary
upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to West, upon the line
between the Free and Slave Country, and we shall find a little more than
one third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated,
or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its
remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk
back and forth without any consciousness of their presence.

"No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass, by writing
it down on paper or parchment as a National boundary. The fact of
separation, if it comes, gives up, on the part of the seceding Section,
the Fugitive Slave clause, along with all other Constitutional
obligations upon the Section seceded from, while I should expect no
treaty stipulations would ever be made to take its place.

"But there is another difficulty. The great interior region, bounded
East by the Alleghanies, North by the British dominions, West by the
Rocky Mountains, and South by the line along which the culture of corn
and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of
Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of
Dakota, Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already has above ten million
people, and will have fifty millions within fifty years, if not
prevented by any political folly or mistake.

"It contains more than one-third of the country owned by the United
States-certainly more than one million square miles. Once half as