If any proof were wanted, that _slavery_ is the cause of all this discord, it is furnished by Eastern and Western Virginia. They belong to the same State, and are protected by the same laws; but in the former, the slaveholding interest is very strong--while in the latter, it is scarcely any thing. The result is, warfare, and continual complaints, and threats of separation. There are no such contentions between the different sections of _free_ States; simply because slavery, the exciting cause of strife, does not exist among them.
The constant threat of the slaveholding States is the dissolution of the Union; and they have repeated it with all the earnestness of sincerity, though there are powerful reasons why it would not be well for them to venture upon that untried state of being. In one respect only, are these threats of any consequence--they have familiarized the public mind with the subject of separation, and diminished the reverence, with which the free States have hitherto regarded the Union.
The farewell advice of Washington operated like a spell upon the hearts and consciences of his countrymen. For many, many years after his death, it would almost have been deemed blasphemy to speak of separation as a possible event. I would that it still continued so! But it is now an every-day occurrence, to hear politicians, of all parties, conjecturing what system would be pursued by different sections of the country, in case of a dissolution of the Union. This evil is likewise chargeable upon slavery. The threats of separation have _uniformly_ come from the slaveholding States; and on many important measures the free States have been awed into acquiescence by their respect for the Union.
Mr. Adams, in the able and manly report before alluded to, says: "It cannot be denied that in a community spreading over a large extent of territory, and politically founded upon the principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, but differing so widely in the elements of their social condition, that the inhabitants of one-half the territory are wholly free, and those of the other half divided into masters and slaves, deep if not irreconcilable collisions of interest must abound. The question whether such a community can exist under one common government, is a subject of profound, philosophical speculation in theory. Whether it can continue long to exist, is a question to be solved only by the experiment now making by the people of this Union, under that national compact, the constitution of the United States."