I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full
confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions
will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never
suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however
fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into
the gloomy and perilous scene into which the advocates for disunion
would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you
that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords
of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family;
can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness;
can no longer be fellow citizens of one great, respectable, and
flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you
that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty
in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the
theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is
impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this
unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it
conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American
citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their
sacred rights, consecrate their Union, and excite horror at the idea of
their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies.
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