every
day; and these will multiply in proportion to the success of our arms
and the decline of power in the rebellion. If we are mistaken in this
view, then our argument falls to the ground. If, upon a full
consideration of all the circumstances and with perfect freedom to act
according to their understanding of their best interests, the people of
the Southern States should deliberately determine upon a permanent
separation, our noblest hopes would be sadly disappointed. But this is
utterly impossible. In moments of frenzy, men may perpetrate deeds of
desperation. Among the masses of all communities, some are found who,
under various impulses, will commit suicide. But the conduct of the
great majority everywhere is controlled by the dictates of reason and
self-interest. Whatever folly, even to the extremity of
self-destruction, a few madmen in the Southern States may counsel, it
may confidently be expected that rational thoughts will prevail among
the masses. The paths of duty and of interest are for them the same;
and, upon the whole, are too broad and plain to be mistaken. Their
self-constituted leaders have already overwhelmed them with calamities.
The emancipated people will scarcely heed the advice of these, when
their plausible schemes shall have been all baffled, and their usurped
power utterly overthrown.

It is, therefore, very far from the thoughts of loyal men, in upholding
the Federal Government, to establish the principle of force as the bond
of the American Union. They repel the lawless force which now assails
it; and even while they do so, they invite the misguided people of the
rebellious region to return again to their allegiance and to take
shelter under the political system which is their only security for
permanent peace and prosperity. The result of the contest in the
restoration of the Union, so far from establishing force as the basis of
political authority, on the contrary, will certainly destroy it, and
give a far wider scope to the voluntary principle of consent, which is
the only solid foundation of freedom. In the normal condition of the
larger number of the loyal States, that is to say, in times of peace,
liberty prevails in its broadest and most universal sense. Force nowhere
holds a place in society, except for the protection of individual rights
and of public order. Every man is permitted to pursue happiness in his
own way, and to enjoy perfect freedom of thought, of speech, and of
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