The  great  interests  of  the  country  require  immediate  relief  from  these
enactments.  Business  in  the  South  is  paralyzed  by  a  sense  of  general  in-
security, by  the  terror  of  confiscation,  and  the  dread  of  negro  supremacy.
568  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents

The  Southern  trade,  from  which  the  North  would  have  derived  so  great
a  profit  under  a  government  of  law,  still  languishes,  and  can  never  be
revived  until  it  ceases  to  be  fettered  by  the  arbitrary  power  which  makes
all  its  operations  unsafe.  That  rich  country — the  richest  in  natural  re-
sources the  world  ever  saw — is  wTorse  than  lost  if  it  be  not  soon  placed
under  the  protection  of  a  free  constitution.  Instead  of  being,  as  it  ought
to  be,  a  source  of  wealth  and  power,  it  will  become  an  intolerable  burden
upon  the  rest  of  the  nation.
