One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to
be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to
be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-
slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression
of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as
any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the
people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the
people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few
break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and
it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the
sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly
suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one
section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered,
would not be surrendered at all by the other.
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our
respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall
between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different
parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face
to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must
continue between them.
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