anded the cordial
approval of that metropolitan audience:

"We can at least, in an authoritative way and a practical
manner, arrive at the basis of a _peaceable separation_.
[Cheers.] We can at least by discussion enlighten, settle, and
concentrate the public sentiment in the State of New York upon
this question, and save it from that fearful current, which
circuitously but certainly sweeps madly on, through the narrow
gorge of 'the enforcement of the laws,' to the shoreless ocean
of civil war! [Cheers.] Against this, under all circumstances,
in every place and form, we must now and at all times oppose a
resolute and unfaltering resistance. The public mind will bear
the avowal, and let us make it--that, if a revolution of force
is to begin, _it shall be inaugurated at home_. And if the
incoming Administration shall attempt to carry out the line of
policy that has been foreshadowed, we announce that, when the
hand of Black Republicanism turns to blood-red, and seeks _from
the fragment of the Constitution to construct a scaffolding for
coercion--another name for execution_--we will reverse the order
of the French Revolution, and save the blood of the people by
making those who would inaugurate a reign of terror the first
victims of a national guillotine!" [Enthusiastic applause.]

And again:

"It is announced that the Republican Administration will enforce
the laws against and in all the seceding States. A nice
discrimination must be exercised in the performance of this
duty. You remember the story of William Tell.... Let an arrow
winged by the Federal bow strike the heart of an American
citizen, and who can number the avenging darts that will cloud
the heavens in the conflict that will ensue? [Prolonged
applause.] What, then, is the duty of the State of New York?
What shall we say to our people when we come to meet this state
of facts? That the Union must be preserved? But, if that can not
be, what then? _Peaceable separation._ [Applause.] Painful and
humiliating as it is, let us temper it with all we can of love
and kindness, so that we may yet be left in a comparatively
prosperous condition, in friendly relations with another
Confederacy." [Cheers.]

At the same meeting ex-Governor Horatio Seymour asked the question--on
which subsequent events have cast their own commentary--