ies on both sides,--each, in the event of
separation, having the means of avoiding the confusion and
anarchy to which the parts would be subject without such
organization. This would contribute much to increase the
power of resistance on the part of the weaker section
against the stronger in possession of the government. With
these great advantages and resources, it is hardly possible
that the parties occupying the weaker section would consent
quietly, under any circumstances, to break down from
independent and equal sovereignties into a dependent and
colonial condition; and still less so, under circumstances
that would revolutionize them _internally_, and put their
very existence as a people at stake. Never was there an
issue between independent States that involved greater
calamity to the conquered, than is involved in that between
the States which compose the two sections of the Union. The
condition of the weaker, should it sink from a state of
independence and equality to one of dependence and
subjection, would be more calamitous than ever before befell
a civilized people. It is vain to think that, with such
consequences before them, they will not resist; especially,
when resistance _may_ save them, and cannot render their
condition worse. That this will take place, unless the
stronger section desists from its course, may be assumed as
certain; and that, if forced to resist, the weaker section
would prove successful, and the system end in disunion, is,
to say the least, highly probable. But if it should fail,
the great increase of power and patronage which must, in
consequence, accrue to the government of the United States,
would but render certain and hasten the termination in the
other alternative. So that, at all events, to the one or to
the other--to monarchy or disunion--it must come, if not
prevented by strenuous or timely efforts."

This is a very instructive passage, and one that shows well the
complexity of human motives. Mr. Calhoun betrays the secret that,
after all, the contest between the two sections is a "contest for the
honors and emoluments of the government," and that all the rest is but
pretext and afterthought,--as General Jackson said it was. He plainly
states that the policy of the South is rule or ruin. Besides this, he
intimates tha