James Buchanan, Buchanan's administration on the eve of the rebellion

‘ [61] weighed scarcely less heavily than upon the negroes themselves. You will, also, be applying a saving balm to your own outraged hearts and consciences, and your children—yourselves in fact— freed from the accursed stain of slavery, will become respectable, useful, and honorable members of society.’

He then taunts and defies the slaveholders in this manner:

And now, sirs, we have thus laid down our ultimatum. What are you going to do about it? Something dreadful of course I Perhaps you will dissolve the Union again. Do it, if you dare! Our motto, and we would have you to understand it, is, “The abolition of slavery and the perpetuation of the American Union.” If, by any means, you do succeed in your treasonable attempts to take the South out of the Union to-day, we will bring her back to-morrow; if she goes away with you, she will return without you.

Do not mistake the meaning of the last clause of the last sentence. We could elucidate it so thoroughly that no intelligent person could fail to comprehend it; but, for reasons which may hereafter appear, we forego the task.

Henceforth there are other interests to be consulted in the South, aside from the interests of negroes and slaveholders. A profound sense of duty incites us to make the greatest possible efforts for the abolition of slavery; an equally profound sense of duty calls for a continuation of those efforts until the very last foe to freedom shall have been utterly vanquished. To the summons of the righteous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful; no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side of slavery shall be permitted to pass us unimproved.

Thus, terror engenderers of the South, have we fully and frankly defined our position; we have no modifications to propose, no compromises to offer, nothing to retract. Frown, sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, nay, annihilate the solar system if you will—do all this, more, less, better, worse, any thing—do what you will, sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us; our purpose is as firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven; we have determined to abolish slavery, and so help us God, abolish it we will! Take this to bed with you to-night,