V ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS may be prepared to meet the consequences of whatever follows. The responsibility will rest npon your own heads. You may think that the suppression of an outbreak in the Southern States would be a holiday job for a few of your Northern regiments, but you may find to your cost, in the end, that seven millions of people fighting for their rights, their homes, and their hearthstones, can not be *' easily conquered." I submit the matter to your deliberate considera- tion. I have told you, sincerely and honestly, that I am for peace and the Union upon any fair and reasonable terms — it is the most cherished sentiment of my heart. But if you deny these terms — if you continue *'deaf to the voice" of that spirit of justice, right, and equality, which should always characterize the deliberations of statesmen, I know of no other alternative that will be left to the people of the South, but, sooner or later, **to acquiesce in the necessity" of
- holding you, as the rest of mankind, enemies
in war — in peace, friends.*' 143
