"That portion of the Earth's surface which is owned and inhabited by the People of the United States, is well adapted to be the home of one National family; and it is not well adapted for two, or more. Its vast extent, and its variety of climate and productions, are of advantage, in this age, for one People, whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence, have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united People.
"In the Inaugural Address I briefly pointed out the total inadequacy of Disunion, as a remedy for the differences between the people of the two Sections. I did so in language which I cannot improve, and which, therefore, I beg to repeat:
"'One Section of our Country believes Slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The Fugitive Slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign Slave Trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the People imperfectly supports the law itself.
"The great body of the People abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the Sections, than before. The foreign Slave Trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one Section; while Fugitive Slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.
"Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective Sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and each go out of the presence and beyond the reach of the other; but the different parts of our Country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.
"'Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? suppose you go to War, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.'
"There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a National boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to West, upon the line between the Free and Slave Country, and we shall find a little more than one third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated, or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk back and forth without any consciousness of their presence.
"No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass, by writing it down on paper or parchment as a National boundary. The fact of separation, if it comes, gives up, on the part of the seceding Section, the Fugitive Slave clause, along with all other Constitutional obligations upon the Section seceded from, while I should expect no treaty stipulations would ever be made to take its place.
"But there is another difficulty. The great interior region, bounded East by the Alleghanies, North by the British dominions, West by the Rocky Mountains, and South by the line along which the culture of corn and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already has above ten million people, and will have fifty millions within fifty years, if not prevented by any political folly or mistake.
"It contains more than one-third of the country owned by the United States-certainly more than one million square miles. Once half as populous as Massachusetts already is, it would have more than seventy-five million people. A glance at the map shows that, territorially speaking, it is the great body of the Republic. The other parts are but marginal borders to it, the magnificent region sloping West, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, being the deepest and also the richest in undeveloped resources. In the production of provisions, grains, grasses, and all which proceed from them, this great interior region is naturally one of the most important in the World.