people of all the other States, as to enable them to dictate the terms on which the Union should be governed or dissolved? No; it is only in a meeting of all the States, in Congress or convention, that that knowledge of the wants and interests of all, and that fusion of sentiment and opinion, and spirit of concession, can exist, in which the Constitution was framed, and all its powers should be exercised. If we hold Southern conventions, then will there be Northern, Eastern, and Western conventions, and they will overthrow the Union. Partial confederacies will first be formed, and then, as Mr. Jefferson most truly tells us, would speedily follow the formation of a separate and independent government by each State. What is it we are asked to abandon, and for what? That Union which ushered in the morn of American Liberty, and gave birth to the Declaration of Independence; which carried our armies victoriously through the storms of the Revolution and the last war, and now waves triumphantly in every sea, the kindred emblem of our country's glory. It gave us Washington--it gave us liberty, and bears our name aloft among the nations of the earth. It is our only rampart in war--our only safeguard in peace, and under its auspices we declared, achieved, maintained, and can alone preserve our liberties. It is the only basis of our solid and substantial interests, and the last star of hope to the oppressed of every clime. Shall we calculate its value? No! for we will not estimate the value of liberty--and 'liberty and union are inseparable.' Dissolve this Union, and let each State become, as Mr. Jefferson truly tells us it would, a separate government, could we preserve our liberties? Where would be the army and navy and seamen of the State of Mississippi? how to be procured, and how to be maintained and paid? Where would be her ambassadors and treaties, her commerce--and through what ports and by whose permission would she ship her exports or introduce her imports? Who would respect her flag, who recognize her as a nation--and how would she punish aggressions upon her rights, on the ocean or the land? No, fellow citizens; the President truly tells us that 'separate independence' is a 'dream'--a dream from which we would wake in bondage or in death. But, if disgraced abroad, what would be our situation at home, as separate bordering and hostile States--and how long could we remain in peace and concord? The voice of history tells us--the bloodstained fields of our sister republics of America proclaim, that disunion would be the signal for WAR--a war of conquest, in which the weak would fall before the power of the strong; and upon the ruins of this now happy Union might arise the darkest despotism that ever crushed the liberties of mankind, for it would be established and could only be maintained by the bayonet. Perhaps, while yet the civil war should rage with doubtful issue, while exhausted and bleeding at every pore, that