Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/128

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS section to poverty, desolation, and wretched- ness ; and accordingly they feel bound by every consideration of interest and safety to defend it. Unless something decisive is done, I again ask, What is to stop this agitation before the great and final object at which it aims — ^the abolition of slavery in the States — is consum- mated ? Is it, then, not certain that if something is not done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession? Indeed, as events are now moving, it will not require the South to secede in order to dissolve the Union. Agitation will of itself effect it, of which its past history furnishes abundant proof — as I shall next proceed to show. It is a great mistake to suppose that disunion can be effected by a single blow. The cords which bind these States together in one common Union are far too numerous and powerful for that. Disunion must be the work of time. It is only through a long process, and successively, that the cords can be snapped until the whole fabric falls asunder. Already the agitation of the slavery question has snapped some of the most important, and has greatly weakened all the others. If the agitation goes on, the same force, acting with increased intensity, as has been shown, will finally snap every cord, when nothing will be left to hold the States together except force. But surely that can with no propriety of lan- guage be called a Union when the ordy means 118