Annihilate this trade, arrest its free progress
by the geographical lines of jealous and hostile States, and you
destroy the prosperity and onward march of the whole and every
part and involve all in one common ruin. But such considerations,
important as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance when
we reflect on the terrific evils which would result from disunion
to every portion of the Confederacy--to the North, not more than
to the South, to the East not more than to the West. These I shall
not attempt to portray, because I feel an humble confidence that
the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to
frame the most perfect form of government and union ever devised
by man will not suffer it to perish until it shall have been
peacefully instrumental by its example in the extension of civil
and religious liberty throughout the world.
Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the
Union is the duty of preserving the Government free from the taint
or even the suspicion of corruption. Public virtue is the vital
spirit of republics, and history proves that when this has decayed
and the love of money has usurped its place, although the forms of
free government may remain for a season, the substance has
departed forever.
Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history.
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