"I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice, which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve our liberties, and promote our happiness." Grant us then, gentlemen of the North, what we are willing to stand upon--what we will try to stand upon, and what we believe we can. At least, this will save the rest of the States to yourselves and to us. The States that are now in the Union will continue there. What is it we ask you to do? It is to settle this question as to our present territory. To settle it--how? By dividing it. And how by dividing it? By the line of 36 deg. 30'. Apparently, you think we are asking the North to yield something. I tell you it is we who are yielding. By the decision of the Supreme Court we have the right to go North of this line with our slaves. Now, all we ask you to give us here is the territory south of that line; and even as to that, we give you the right to destroy slavery there whenever a State organized out of it chooses to do so. We are, in fact, yielding to you. We abandon our rights North. Will you not let us retain what is already ours, South?