US Presidency
1857

We at present enjoy a free trade throughout our extensiveand expanding country such as the world has never witnessed. This tradeis conducted on railroads and canals, on noble rivers and arms of the sea, which bind together the North and the South, the East and the West, ofour Confederacy. Annihilate this trade, arrest its free progress by thegeographical lines of jealous and hostile States, and you destroy the prosperityand onward march of the whole and every part and involve all in one commonruin. But such considerations, important as they are in themselves, sinkinto insignificance when we reflect on the terrific evils which would resultfrom disunion to every portion of the Confederacy to the North, not morethan to the South, to the East not more than to the West.