And, sir, how are you going to separate the States of this Confederacy? In my humble opinion, Mr. President, we should begin with at least three separate Confederacies. There would be a Confederacy of the North, a Confederacy of the Valley of the Mississippi. My life upon it, that the vast population which has already concentrated and will concentrate on the head waters and the tributaries of the Mississippi will never give their consent that the mouth of the river shall be held subject to the power of any foreign state or community whatever. Such, I believe, would be the consequence of a dissolution of the Union, immediately ensuing; but other Confederacies would spring up from time to time as dissatisfaction and discontent were disseminated throughout the country—the Confederacy of the Lakes, perhaps the Confederacy of New England, or of the Middle States. Ah, sir, the veil which covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond it is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or hand.
Mr. President, I am directly opposed to any purpose of secession or separation. I am for staying within the Union, and defying any portion of this Confederacy to expel me or drive me out of the Union. I am for staying within the Union and fighting for my rights, if necessary, with the sword, within the bounds and under the safeguard of the Union. I am for vindicating those rights, not by being driven out of the Union harshly and unceremoniously by any portion of this Confederacy. Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die, as far as my individual wishes or purposes can go—within it to protect my property and defend myself, defying all the power on earth to expel me or drive me from the situation in which I am placed. And would there not be more safety in fighting within the Union than out of it? Suppose your rights to be violated, suppose wrong to be done to you, aggressions to be perpetrated upon you, can you not better vindicate them—if you have occasion to resort to the last necessity, the sword, for a restoration of those rights—within, and with the sympathies of a large portion of the population of the Union, than by being without the Union, when a large portion of the population have sympathies adverse to your own? You can vindicate your rights within the Union better than if expelled from the Union, and driven from it without ceremony and without authority.