to restore peace and harmony to this distracted
country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to
accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever
contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic
institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they
alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing
among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible
and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in
Russia or in Brazil.

Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance I confess I still
greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President,
no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace
and harmony among the States. Wisely limited and restrained as is his
power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but
little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.

And this brings me to observe that the election of any one of our
fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford
just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if
his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority
of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes,
which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to
revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted by
the Constitution. The late Presidential election, however, has been held
in strict conformity with its express provisions. How, then, can the
result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? Reason,
justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait
for some overt and dangerous act on the part of the President elect
before resorting to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the
antecedents of the President elect have been sufficient to justify the
fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional
rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future
sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of
government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office
and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The
stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this
Government affords in itself a g