held in the highest respect,
and when pronounced in a foreign land it causes the hearts of our
countrymen to swell with honest pride. Surely when we reach the brink
of the yawning abyss we shall recoil with horror from the last fatal
plunge.

By such a dread catastrophe the hopes of the friends of freedom
throughout the world would be destroyed, and a long night of leaden
despotism would enshroud the nations. Our example for more than eighty
years would not only be lost, but it would be quoted as a conclusive
proof that man is unfit for self-government.

It is not every wrong--nay, it is not every grievous wrong--which
can justify a resort to such a fearful alternative. This ought to be
the last desperate remedy of a despairing people, after every other
constitutional means of conciliation had been exhausted. We should
reflect that under this free Government there is an incessant ebb and
flow in public opinion. The slavery question, like everything human,
will have its day. I firmly believe that it has reached and passed the
culminating point. But if in the midst of the existing excitement the
Union shall perish, the evil may then become irreparable.

Congress can contribute much to avert it by proposing and recommending
to the legislatures of the several States the remedy for existing evils
which the Constitution has itself provided for its own preservation.
This has been tried at different critical periods of our history, and
always with eminent success. It is to be found in the fifth article,
providing for its own amendment. Under this article amendments have
been proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and have been
"ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States,"
and have consequently become parts of the Constitution. To this process
the country is indebted for the clause prohibiting Congress from passing
any law respecting an establishment of religion or abridging the freedom
of speech or of the press or of the right of petition. To this we
are also indebted for the bill of rights which secures the people
against any abuse of power by the Federal Government. Such were the
apprehensions justly entertained by the friends of State rights at
that period as to have rendered it extremely doubtful whether the
Constitution could have long survived without those amendments.

Again the Constitution was amended by the same process, after the
election of President Jefferson by the House of