"_Resolved_, That this movement does not seek merely disunion, but the more perfect union of the free States by the expulsion of the slave States from the confederation in which they have ever been an element of discord, danger and disgrace.
"_Resolved_, That it is not probable that the ultimate severance of the union will be an action of deliberation or discussion, but that a long period of deliberation and discussion must precede it, and this we meet to begin.
"_Resolved_, That henceforward, instead of regarding it as an objection to any system of policy that will lead to the separation of the States, we will proclaim that to be the highest of all recommendations and the grateful proof of statesmanship; and we will support politically and otherwise, such men and measures as appear to tend most to this result.
"_Resolved_, That by the repeated confession of Northern and Southern statesmen, the existence of the union is the chief guarantee of slavery, and that the despots of the whole world and the slaves of the whole world have everything to hope from its destruction and the rise of a free Northern republic.
"_Resolved_, That the sooner the separation takes place the more peaceable it will be; but that peace or war is a mere secondary consideration in view of our present perils. Slavery must be conquered; peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."
To keep before the people of the United States, North and South, the hostility of the then controling spirit of the North towards the South, the above resolutions cannot be repeated too often. Nor were they an isolated example of party fanaticism. The stock and staple of the entire republican press was slander of the Southern people; and like noxious weeds it well nigh rooted out all that was elevating to man, and ennobling to woman. The pulpit became a rostrum from which bitter invective of the South flowed in Niagaran torrents; and the beautiful fields of Poesy were made to yield an abundant crop of briar and bramble and deadly Upas.
The burden of every song, of every prayer, of every sermon, was the "poor down-trodden slave" of the South. What wonder that seed thus constantly and malignantly sown sprang up and bore a crop of discontent which nothing short of "separation" from the enemy could appease. We, too, felt that under the existing circumstances peace or war was a mere secondary consideration in view of our perils in the union, and took measures to withdraw from a sectional union of States that had ceased to respect State sovereignty outside of its own borders.