n; we can approach
the problem just propounded by the present crisis, and, confining
ourselves no longer to the appreciation of the past, can glance at the
future. Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to prophecy; political
predictions, suspected with reason in all times, should be still more so
at our epoch, which is that of the unforeseen. But I have a right to
prove that the work which is being pursued in America is, as I have
affirmed, a work of elevation, not of destruction. The dangers which the
nation is advancing to meet are nothing, compared with those towards
which it was lately progressing; the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the
secession of the cotton States have introduced a new position which at
last affords a glimpse of real chances of salvation.

I have named secession: what are we to think of the principle on which
it rests? For this question another may be substituted: what is a
Confederation? If we reduce it, which is inadmissible, to a simple
league of States, it still remains none the less binding on each of
them, so long as the end of the league remains intact. Never yet existed
on earth, a federal compact conceived in this wise: "The States which
form a part of this league will remain in it only till it pleases them
to leave it." Such, notwithstanding, is the formula on which the
Southern theorists make a stand. Among the anarchical doctrines that our
age has seen hatched, (and they are numerous,) this seems to me worthy
of occupying the place of honor. This right of separation is simply the
_liberum veto_ resuscitated for the benefit of federal institutions. As
in the horseback diets of Poland, a single opposing vote could put a
stop to every thing, so that it only remained to vote by sabre-strokes,
so Confederations, recognizing the right of separation, would have no
other resort than brute force, for no great nation can allow itself to
be killed without defending itself.

Picture to yourselves, I intreat you, the progress that political
demoralization would make under such a system. As there is never a law
or a measure that is not displeasing to some one, it would be necessary
to live in the presence of the continually repeated threat: "If the law
passes, if the measure is adopted, if the election takes place, if you
do not do all I want, if you do not yield to all my caprices, I leave
you, I constitute myself an independent State, I provoke the formation
of a rival Confederacy." The worst c