Their voice would
no longer be the voice of God, but of his enemy. Poverty, ignorance,
oppression, and its hand-maid, cowardice, breaking out into merciless
cruelty; slaves false; freemen slaves, and society itself poisoned
at the cradle and dishonored at the grave;--its life, now so full
of blessings, would be gone with the life of a fraternal and united
Statehood. What sacrifice is too great to prevent such a calamity? Is
such a picture overdrawn? Already its outlines appear. What means the
inaugural of Governor Pickens, when he says: "From the position we may
occupy toward the Northern States, as well as from our own internal
structure of society, the government may, from necessity, become
strongly military in its organization"? What mean the minute-men
of Governor Wise? What the Southern boast that they have a rifle or
shot-gun to each family?
What means the Pittsburgh mob? What this alacrity to save Forts Moultrie
and Pinckney? What means the boast of the Southern men of being the
best-armed people in the world, not counting the two hundred thousand
stand of United States arms stored in Southern arsenals? Already Georgia
has her arsenals, with eighty thousand muskets. What mean these lavish
grants of money by Southern Legislatures to buy more arms? What mean
these rumors of arms and force on the Mississippi? These few facts have
already verified the prophecy of Madison as to a disunited Republic.
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