I am opposed to organizing a sectional
party, which appeals to Northern pride, and Northern passion and
prejudice, against Southern institutions, thus stirring up ill feeling
and hot blood between brethren of the same Republic. I am opposed to
that whole system of sectional agitation, which can produce nothing but
strife, but discord, but hostility, and finally disunion. * * *
"I ask Mr. Lincoln how it is that he purposes ultimately to bring about
this uniformity in each and all the States of the Union? There is but
one possible mode which I can see, and perhaps Mr. Lincoln intends to
pursue it; that is, to introduce a proposition into the Senate to change
the Constitution of the United States in order that all the State
Legislatures may be abolished, State Sovereignty blotted out, and the
power conferred upon Congress to make local laws and establish the
domestic institutions and police regulations uniformly throughout the
United States.
"Are you prepared for such a change in the institutions of your country?
Whenever you shall have blotted out the State Sovereignties, abolished
the State Legislatures, and consolidated all the power in the Federal
Government, you will have established a Consolidated Empire as
destructive to the Liberties of the People and the Rights of the Citizen
as that of Austria, or Russia, or any other despotism that rests upon
the neck of the People.
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