"Most of them [Southern Democrats] would probably say to us, 'Let us alone; do nothing to us, and say what you please about slavery.' But we do let them alone—have never disturbed them—so that, after all, it is what we say which dissatisfies them. ...

I am also aware they have not as yet in terms demanded the overthrow of our free-State constitutions. Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with more solemn emphasis than do all other sayings against it; and when all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to resist the demand ... Holding, as they do, that slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal right and a social blessing."

Abraham Lincoln's Speech at the Cooper Institute
New York, February 27, 1860

The language in Lincoln's speech foreshadows which of the following? (1 point)

a
Attempts at reconciliation preceding secession

b
Secession of the Southern states from the Union

c
Predictable outcome of the election

d
Influence of Northern industrialization on the South