and the Union of which his father had been one of the principal founders. It must be admitted also that, while the North was superior to the South in population and means at that period, yet the disproportion was not yet large enough to make the maintenance of the Union by force a promising task.
An attempt by the South, or by the larger part of it, to dissolve the Union would therefore, at that time, have been likely to succeed. There would probably have been no armed collision about the dissolution itself, but a prospect of complicated quarrels and wars afterwards about the property formerly held in common, and perhaps about other matters of disagreement. A reunion might possibly have followed after a sad experience of separation. But that result would have had to be evolved from long and confused conflicts, and the future would at best have been dark and uncertain. Even in the event of reunion, the fatal principle of secession at will, once recognized, would have passed into the new arrangement.
In view of all this, it seemed good statesmanship to hold the Union together by a compromise, and to adjourn the final and decisive struggle on the slavery question to a time when the Union feeling should be strong and determined enough to maintain the integrity of the Republic, if necessary, by force of arms, and when the Free States should be so superior in men and means to the slave-holding section as to make the result certain.
