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to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they and they alone are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them.
For this the people of the North are not more responsible, and have no more right to interfere, than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.
Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance, I confess, I still greatly rely.
Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the States.
Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.
The President then proceeded to show how rash and causeless would be the action of the cotton States, should they rise in revolutionary resistance against the
Federal Government, at a time when their rights were in no real danger, either from the election or administration of
Mr. Lincoln.
He says:
And this brings me to observe, that the election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union.
This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again occur.
In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of “a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise” of powers not granted by the Constitution.
The late Presidential election, however, has been held in strict conformity with its express provisions.
How, then, can the result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution?
Reason, justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait for some overt and dangerous.
act on the part of the President elect, before resorting to such a remedy.
It is said, however, that the antecedents of the President elect have been sufficient to justify the fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional rights.
But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals?
From the very nature of his office,
