Look, then, at scenes which have already occurred in our land. Look at Baltimore: it is night, and within one of its prisons are shut up some of its most excellent and respected citizens. They dared to use the rights of free-men, and express their opinions, and oppose the measures of the majority; and for this, a fierce multitude is raging around those walls, demanding their blood. They force the doors, and, with murderous weapons, reach the room containing their victims. Some friendly hand extinguishes the lights, and in the protecting darkness they seek to escape. Some succeed; others are recognised, and seized, and stabbed, and trampled on, and dragged around in murderous fury. One of the noblest of these victims, apparently dead, is seized by some pitying neighbour, under the pretence of cruelty, and thrown into the river and carried over a fall. There he is drawn forth and restored to consciousness; and there, too, it is discovered, that by Americans, by the hands of his fellow-citizens, _his body has been stuck with scores of pins, deep plunged into his flesh_! Look, again, at the Southwest, and see gamblers swinging uncondemned from a gallows, and among them a harmless man, whom the fury of the mob hung up without time for judge or jury to detect his innocence. See, on the banks of the Mississippi, fires blazing, and American citizens _roasted alive_ by their fellow-citizens! See, even in New-England, the boasted land of law and steady habits, a raging mob besets a house filled with women and young children. They set fire to it, and the helpless inmates are driven forth by the flames to the sole protection of darkness and the pitiless ruffians. See, in Cincinnati, the poor blacks driven from their homes, insulted, beaten, pillaged, seeking refuge in prisons and private houses, and for days kept in constant terror and peril. See, in Philadelphia, one class of citizens arrayed in arms against another, both excited to the highest pitch of rage, both thirsting for each other’s blood, while the civil authority can prevent universal pillage, misrule, and murder, only by volleys that shoot down neighbours, brothers, and friends. See, too, how the rage of political strife has threatened the whole nation with a civil war. South Carolina declares that she will not submit to certain laws, which she claims are unconstitutional. Her own citizens are divided into fierce parties, so exasperated that each is preparing to shoot down the other. Even the women are contributing their ornaments to meet the expenses of the murderous strife. From neighbouring states, the troops are advancing, the ships of war are nearing their harbours. One single act of resistance, and the state had been the battle-field of that most bitter, most cruel, most awful of all conflicts, _a civil and a servile war_.