evived without restriction in one
Section; while Fugitive Slaves, now only partially surrendered, would
not be surrendered at all by the other.

"Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our
respective Sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and each go out of
the presence and beyond the reach of the other; but the different parts
of our Country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and
intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.

"'Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or
more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make
treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more
faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? suppose
you go to War, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on
both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old
questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.'

"There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a National boundary
upon which to divide. Trace through, from East to West, upon the line
between the Free and Slave Country, and we shall find a little more than
one third of its length are rivers, easy to be crossed, and populated,
or soon to be populated, thickly upon both sides; while nearly all its
remaining length are merely surveyors' lines, over which people may walk
back and forth without any consciousness of their presence.

"No part of this line can be made any more difficult to pass, by writing
it down on paper or parchment as a National boundary. The fact of
separation, if it comes, gives up, on the part of the seceding Section,
the Fugitive Slave clause, along with all other Constitutional
obligations upon the Section seceded from, while I should expect no
treaty stipulations would ever be made to take its place.

"But there is another difficulty. The great interior region, bounded
East by the Alleghanies, North by the British dominions, West by the
Rocky Mountains, and South by the line along which the culture of corn
and cotton meets, and which includes part of Virginia, part of
Tennessee, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories of
Dakota, Nebraska, and part of Colorado, already has above ten million
people, and will have fifty millions within fifty years