of the Union, the probability is that the slave power would have lost hope, that emancipation movements would have sprung up with renewed strength, and that slavery would have gradually declined and died. But would the South in 1820 have submitted without attempting dissolution? There is good reason to believe that it would not. The Union feeling had indeed been greatly strengthened by the war of 1812, but it had not grown strong enough in the South to command the self-sacrifice of an interest which at that time was elated by the anticipation of great wealth and power. In New England all there was of anti-Union sentiment had been crushed, but not so in the South. The dissolution of the Union was not then, in the popular imagination, such a monstrous thing as it is now. The Union was still, in some respects, regarded as an experiment; and when a great material interest found itself placed at a disadvantage in the Union, it was apt to conclude that the experiment had failed. To speculate upon the advisability of dissolving the Union did not then appear to the popular mind politically treasonable and morally heinous.
That the dissolution of the Union was freely discussed among the Southern members of the Sixteenth Congress is certain. James Barbour of Virginia, a man of very high character, was reported to be canvassing the free-state members as to the practicability of a convention of the states to dissolve the Union, and to make arrangements
