the language of the Texas compromise,
they "shall be admitted [as a State] into the Union with or without
slavery." Is this a question to be pushed to such extremities by excited
partisans on the one side or the other, in regard to our newly acquired
distant possessions on the Pacific, as to endanger the Union of thirty
glorious States, which constitute our Confederacy? I have an abiding
confidence that the sober reflection and sound patriotism of the people
of all the States will bring them to the conclusion that the dictate of
wisdom is to follow the example of those who have gone before us, and
settle this dangerous question on the Missouri compromise, or some other
equitable compromise which would respect the rights of all and prove
satisfactory to the different portions of the Union.

Holding as a sacred trust the Executive authority for the whole Union,
and bound to guard the rights of all, I should be constrained by a sense
of duty to withhold my official sanction from any measure which would
conflict with these important objects.

I can not more appropriately close this message than by quoting from the
Farewell Address of the Father of his Country. His warning voice can
never be heard in vain by the American people. If the spirit of prophecy
had distinctly presented to his view more than a half century ago the
present distracted condition of his country, the language which he then
employed could not have been more appropriate than it is to the present
occasion. He declared:

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now
dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your
peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from
different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken,
many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this
truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of
infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustom