In a former letter, published over my signature, of the 30th September, 1856, called 'AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION,' I said: '_I have never believed in a peaceable dissolution of the Union_. * * _No; it will be war_, CIVIL WAR, _of all others the most sanguinary and ferocious._ * * _It will be marked_ * * _by frowning fortresses, by opposing batteries, by gleaming sabres, by bristling bayonets, by the tramp of contending armies, by towns and cities sacked and pillaged, by dwellings given to the flames, and fields laid waste and desolate. It will be a second fall of mankind; and while we shall be performing here the bloody drama of a nations suicide, from_ THE THRONES OF EUROPE _will arise the exulting shouts of despots, and upon their gloomy banners shall be inscribed, as, they believe, never to be effaced, their motto_, MAN IS INCAPABLE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.' Alluding to the subject of the present discussion, I then also said: '_I see, too, what, in this probable crisis of my country's destiny, it is my duty again to repeat from my Texas letter_: * * THE AFRICAN RACE, _gradually disappearing from our borders, passing, in part, out of our limits to Mexico, and Central and Southern America, and in part returning to the shores of their ancestors, there, it is hoped, to carry Christianity, civilization, and freedom throughout the benighted regions of the sons of Ham_.' My views, then, of 1844, were thus distinctly reiterated in 1856, in favor of the gradual extinction of slavery, accompanied by colonization.