g ever since that failure
in 1832 of their first attempt at Disunion, in South Carolina.

They had now succeeded in irritating both the Free and the Slave-holding
Sections of our Country against each other, to an almost unbearable
point; had solidified the Southern States on the Slavery and Free-Trade
questions; and at last--the machinations of these same Conspirators
having resulted in a split in the Democratic Party, and the election of
the Republican candidate to the Presidency, as the embodiment of the
preponderating National belief in Freedom and equality to all before the
Law, with Protection to both Labor and Capital--they also had the
pretext for which they had both been praying and scheming and preparing
all those long, long years--they, and some of their fathers before them.

It cannot be too often repeated that to secure a Monarchy, or at least
an Oligarchy, over which the leading Conspirators should rule for life
--whether that Monarchy or that Oligarchy should comprise the States of
the South by themselves, or all the States on a new basis of Union--was
the great ultimate aim of the Conspirators; and this could be secured
only by first disrupting the then existing Republican Union of
Republican States.

The doctrine of the right of Secession had now long been taught, and had
become a part of the Southern Slave-holders' Democratic creed, as fully
as had the desirability of Slavery and Free-Trade--and even many of the
Northern Democrats, and some Republicans as well, were not much inclined
to dispute, although they cared not to canvass, the point.

The programme of action was therefore much the same as had been laid
down in the first attempt in 1832:--first South Carolina would secede
and declare her independence; then the other Slave States in quick
succession would do likewise; then a new Constitution for a solid
Southern Union; then, if necessary, a brief War to cement it--which
would end, of course, in the independence of the South at least, but
more probably in the utter subjugation and humiliation of the Free
States.

When the time should come, during or after this War--as come, in their
belief, it would--for a change in the form of Government, then they
could seize the first favorable occasion and change it. At present,
however, the cry must be for "independence." That accomplished, the
rest would be easy. And until that independence was accomplished, no
terms of any sort, no settlement of any