Never were these States so insulted,
and attempted to be betray'd. All the main purposes for which the
government was establish'd were openly denied. The perfect equality of
slavery with freedom was flauntingly preach'd in the north--nay, the
superiority of slavery. The slave trade was proposed to be renew'd.
Everywhere frowns and misunderstandings--everywhere exasperations and
humiliations. (The slavery contest is settled--and the war is long
over--yet do not those putrid conditions, too many of them, still
exist? still result in diseases, fevers, wounds--not of war and army
hospitals--but the wounds and diseases of peace?)
Out of those generic influences, mainly in New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, &c., arose the attempt at disunion. To philosophical
examination, the malignant fever of that war shows its embryonic
sources, and the original nourishment of its life and growth, in the
north. I say secession, below the surface, originated and was brought
to maturity in the free States. I allude to the score of years
preceding 1860. My deliberate opinion is now, that if at the opening
of the contest the abstract duality-question of _slavery and quiet_
could have been submitted to a direct popular vote, as against their
opposite, they would have triumphantly carried the day in a majority
of the northern States--in the large cities, leading off with New York
and Philadelphia, by tremendous majorities. The events of '61 amazed
everybody north and south, and burst all prophecies and calculations
like bubbles.
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