Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/83

WEBSTER Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi ? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the arron- dissement of the slave States? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be con- nected, in the new Republic, with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it; I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country ! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession. And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day ; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which be- long to us ; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the 73