But when Virginia, our neighbor on the northern frontier, also withdrew, and Tennessee on the west had taken measures for the same object, when war had been actually begun, no matter by whose rashness or folly, and the only alternatives presented were in the choice of the side we should espouse, considerations of national or State interest, safety and necessity (such as are not unfrequently forced upon the decision of neutrals by the conduct of belligerents not connected under the same government) at once occurred, and were obliged to be weighed with the obligations of constitutional duty. Our borders were surrounded on all sides, except that washed by the ocean, by seceded States. Our youth must go forth to battle with or against these States. The Union we had so long and so sincerely cherished, was a Union in its integrity; and next to that, and as a part of it, was a Union with neighboring States, in which were our kindred and most intimate friends, and identical institutions. Slavery, whatever may be thought of it elsewhere or now, constituted more than one-half of our individual and public wealth. It had paid our taxes, built our railroads, reared our seminaries of education and charity, and was intimately connected with the order and repose of our society. Withal, in the acrimony of a long quarrel, its maintenance had become a point of honor. In the actual posture of affairs, which promised to continue while the war lasted, instead of fifteen States in which slavery existed, whose Representatives were to maintain a common interest in the halls of Congress, there were to be but three, or at most, four, and all these, except our own, with a minor interest in the system. A civil war which threatened to be sanguinary and protracted, kindled avowedly for the protection of slavery, was not likely to end in the defeat of the insurgent States without the destruction of the institution in them, and after no long time, in the adhering States, also. Though far from approving the course of the recusant States, victory on the side of those who held the reins of government could not inure in benefit, nor without serious disaster, to us.