58 of the fountains of the great deep, without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg everybody’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the crush of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun? disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see as plainly, as I see the sun in heaven, what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold character. Peaceable secession!—peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate ! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and oh the other. Why, what would be the result ? Where is the line to be drawn ? What States are to secede ? What is to remain American ? What am I to be ? An American no longer ? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist? with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other House of Congress ? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain?
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