elements?

The matter is, indeed, more complicated and difficult than is generally
imagined. Should we be imprudent enough to meddle with it, we might
rightfully be blamed. Here, summary proceedings are evidently not
admissible. Time and the spirit of Christianity must do their work by
degrees; they will do it, be sure, provided the evil be circumscribed,
provided the seat of the conflagration be hemmed in and prevented
henceforth from spreading further.

Now, such is the great result acquired by the election of Mr. Lincoln;
it is nothing more than this, but it is all this: it is prudence in the
present, and it is also the certainty of success in the future.
Emancipation is by no means decreed; it will not be for a long time,
perhaps: yet the principle of emancipation is established, irrevocably
established in the sight of all. Irrevocability has prodigious power
over our minds: without being conscious of it, we make way for it; we
arrange in view of it our conduct, our plans, and even our doctrines.
Once fully convinced that its propagandism is checked, that the future
of which it dreamed has no longer any chances of success, the South
itself will become accustomed to consider its destiny under a wholly new
aspect. The border States, in which emancipation is easy, will range
themselves one after another on the side of liberty. Thus the extent of
the evil will become reduced of itself, and instead of advancing, as
during some years past, towards a colossal development of servitude, it
will proceed in the direction of its gradual attenuation.

I reason on the hypothesis of a final maintenance of the Union, whatever
may be the incidents of temporary secession. I am not ignorant that
there are other hypotheses, which may possibly be realized, and which I