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I think it will be admitted, at least, that during the six
years in which I have been connected with the executive
administration of the government I have acted in that
character and upon those principles. And now to assume
a sectional character. All of you here, and all the people
in Virginia, and all in North Carolina, and all I might
also say in Georgia, and in Mississippi, and Texas, and
Louisiana, and Connecticut, and Boston, were all born on
the eastern slope of the Allegany mountains. We find
here no dividing line of the North and the South. Upon
the West the mountains are our barriers, and on the East
the Atlantic Ocean is our border. Differences arose be-
tween the sections, and progressed until we reached ex-
cited animosities, and finally the most fearful civil war
.that ever destroyed the human family—and all to settle
the balance of power between the Northern Atlantic
States and the Southern Atlantic States—between the
free States of the North and the slaveholding States of
the South. While we have been consuming our patriotism
and energies in this strife between the North and the
South, the tide of migration has gone across the Alle-
ganies.
While discussing the questions incident to that, there
comes up a power in the great West—a free people—who
know nothing of the negro and who care less for the
master, and still less for the manufacturer. This young
empire has a mutual care for each of the sections. It be-
comes us, speaking as a sectional statesman, to reconcile
our views and to settle our questions amongst ourselves.
You are losing time in these everlasting contentions. How
are we now in the councils of the nation ? The Constitu-
tion, to secure to the,people in the aggregate their rights,
declares "that no law shall be passed without the ap-
proval of the President of the United States, unless a
minority of one-third shall vote against it." You have
the President and the Congress, but where is your minor-
ity of one-third ? I think it will be found on the Atlantic
Coast; and this will require the whole Atlantic Coast,
from Maine to Mississippi. If you are going to restore
the Constitution, you must establish harmony between
the North and South.
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