Having shown how the “_redress_” of disunion will operate upon one of the grievances alleged as its motive and excuse, let us look at another of those “hazards,” whose list, of indefinite length, the south is so willing to brave. In case of rebellion or secession, to whom will the territories belong? It is the rule of political as well as of municipal law, that whoever retires from a community, leaves its common property behind him. I have a direct interest and proprietorship in the church in my parish, in the schoolhouse in my town, and in the state-house and other public property belonging to my state. But if I expatriate myself, I leave all that interest and proprietorship behind me. If the county of Brooke, in Virginia, should secede from the State of Virginia, and should annex itself to Ohio or Pennsylvania, no one doubts that it would forfeit all its rights to whatever public property the State of Virginia possesses. In like manner, if the “_United States South_”--as the new confederacy has already been named by the “Richmond Enquirer,”--should secede, they would, by the very act of secession, surrender and abandon all right, title, and interest in the new territories. By such secession, all their citizens become foreigners. They have no rights under the treaty with Mexico. The new Spanish citizen, whose allegiance was transferred by the treaty with Mexico, and whose citizenship is not yet two years old, would have a right to expel them. The “United States South,” it is true, may declare war, and attempt the conquest of the territories by force; but in such a contest, the army and navy and military stores of the government, which, also, they have lost by secession, will be turned against them. But, I venture to prophesy, that if the slave states shall pass through one war, single-handed, they will afterwards be the most peaceable nation the world ever saw. To every frontier country and to every naval power, they have given three millions of hostages for their good behavior. Let us look at a third grievance they mean to redress, and a third “hazard” they are ready to encounter. They complain of northern agitation on the subject of slavery, and northern instigation of the slaves themselves. On the subject of “agitation,” I deny that the north has ever overstepped the limits of their constitutional rights. They have never agitated the question of slavery in the states. It has been only in regard to slavery in this District, or the annexation of Texas, or the acquisition of territory for the extension of slavery, or the imprisonment of her own citizens in southern ports, or a denial of the inviolable right of petition;--it has been only on such subjects that the north has lifted up the voice of expostulation and remonstrance. Even these constitutional rights she has used forbearingly. She has never exerted force, nor threatened force, either to maintain the right of petition or to liberate her own citizens imprisoned in southern jails.