Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

1860-1861.] THE PINE STRE ET MEETNG ADDRESS.

351

to which we owe it all is in imminent danger of becoming a
prey to internal dissension, sacrificing the great interests of
the country, and forfeiting the high position it holds among
the nations of the earth. To avert a calamity so disgraceful
to us as a free people, so disastrous to the common welfare,
and so disheartening to the friends of representative government in both hemispheres, we appeal to you by the sacred
memory of that fraternal friendship which bound our forefathers together through the perils of the Revolution, which
has united us all through succeeding years of alternate good
and ill, and which has conducted us, under the protection of
the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe, to wealth and powerby a progress unexampled in the history of the past-by all
the endearing recollections with which this association is hallowed, we conjure you to pause before the current of disunion shall acquire a force which may prove irresistible, that we
may consult together, with the calmness due to the magnitude
of the crisis, for the removal of the causes which have produced it. We make this appeal to you in entire confidence
that it will'not be repulsed. We have stood by you in the
political contest through which we have just passed. We
have asserted your rights as earnestly as though they had
been our own. You cannot refuse, therefore, to listen to us,
and to weigh with becoming deliberation the reasons we have
for believing that the wrongs which have led to the existing
alienation between the two great sections of the country may,
with your co-operation, be speedily redressed. We do not intend to go back to the origin of these wrongs. We will not
review the dark history of the aggression and insult visited
upon you by abolitionists and their abettors during the last
thirty-five years. Our detestation of these acts of hostility is
not inferior to your own. We take things as they exist, to
deal with them as an evil not to be eradicated by violence,
but to be remedied by a treatment which shall at the same
time be considerate and firm. We call on you as friends to
delay action until we can induce those through whose agency