There could be no doubt in the mind of any one that the destruction of the Union would be deplored by Mr. Buchanan as profoundly as by any living man. His birth and rearing as a Pennsylvanian leave no other presumption possible. In the original Union, Pennsylvania was appropriated denominated the Keystone of the arch, supported by, and in turn supporting, the strength of all. Of the "old thirteen" there were six free States north of her, and six slave States south of her. She was allied as warmly by ties of friendship and of blood with her Maryland and Virginia neighbors on the one side as with those of New Jersey and New York on the other. Her political and social connection on both sides were not more intimate than those of a business and commercial character. As the Union grew in power and increased in membership, Pennsylvania lost nothing of her prestige. She held to the new States as intimate relations as she held to the old. The configuration of the country and the natural channels of communication have bound her closely to all sections. Her northern border touching the great lakes, connected her by sail and steam, before the era of the railway, with the magnificent domain which lies upon the shores of those inland seas. Her western rivers, whose junction marks the site of a great city, form part of the most extensive system of interior water-communications on the globe, affording a commercial highway twenty thousand miles in length through seventeen States not included in the original Union. Patriotic tradition increased Pennsylvania's attachment to the National Government. It was on her soil that the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed. It was in her Legislative halls that the Constitution was formed and the "more perfect Union" of the States ordained. From geographical position therefore, from material interest, from inherited pride, from every association and sympathy, from every aspiration, and from every hope, Pennsylvania was for the Union, inviolable and indissoluble. No threat of its destruction ever came from her councils, and no stress of circumstances could ever seduce her into a calculation of its value, or drive her to the contemplation of its end.