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 SPEECH 
 
 HON. IT. WINTER DAVIS, 
 
 • < 
 
 OF MARYLAND, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE EXPULSION OF MR. LONG. 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 11, 1664. 
 
 The House having tmder consideration the resolution offered by Mr. Colfax, proposing the 
 sxpulsion of Mr. Long, Mr. DAVIS said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: A singular disposition has been manifested to avoid the ques- 
 tion before the House, I desire to cajl your attention to that question before I 
 follow the gentlemen on the other side in the rather irrelevant discussion in 
 which they have indulged. 
 
 It is not whether in the House of Representatives of the United States of 
 America freedom of opinion is secured by law, nor whether the freedom of 
 3peech And of the press is the constitutional right of the American citizen, but 
 whether the gentleman who delivered the speech now in question is a fit and 
 worthy member of this House; not whether, out of doors, in his private ca- 
 pacity, he would be entitled to entertain and as an individual to express the 
 opinions which he has uttered here, but whether as a legislator charged, to pro- 
 tect the interests of the people, sworn to maintain the Constitution of the Uni- 
 ted States, he has not avowed a purpose inconsistent with those duties, a reso- 
 lution not to maintain but to destroy; a determination not to defend but to 
 yield up undefended to the enemies of the United States what he was sent here 
 to protect. That is the question — and that is the only question which has not 
 been discussed by the defenders of the gentleman from Ohio. 
 
 They tell us' words cannot be the subject of animadversion under the rules 
 of this House, nor under the Constitution of the United States ! What becomes 
 of the resolution declaring the member from Maryland [Mr. Harris] to be an 
 unworthy member of thi» House, adopted by their votes on Saturday ? What 
 becomes of the solemn adjudication as far back as 1842, when a majority of 
 this House asserted the right to censure Joshua R. Giddings, not for introduc- 
 ing a petition to dissolve the Union, but for offering resolutions for the consid- 
 eration of this House declaring that the mutineers of the Creole were not re- 
 sponsible for any criminal act under the laws of the United States, interpreted 
 by the resolution of censure into a justification of mutiny and murder? 
 
 It is the judgment of this House, and therefore not necessary to be argued 
 by me, that words may prove criminality when they reveal a criminal purpose; 
 and, if they are sufficiently criminal, that they may be visited first by cer.sure, 
 and, if they judge it necessary to the public safety, by expulsion from the 
 House. I do not envy the gentlemen who refused to expel the gentleman from 
 Maryland for language uttered in the presence of us all, which they immediately 
 after voted to declare tended and was designed to give aid and encouragement 
 te the public enemies of the nation, and therefore he was an unworthy member 
 of the House. Sir, it would seem to have been the logical conclusion that if 
 he is an unworthy member of the House he ought hot to be suffered to remain 
 in it, and that gentlemen who so thought would have so said on the first vote 
 
£ 
 
 • u 
 
 2 
 
 for expulsion. How gentlemen will reconcile that glaring inconsistency to 
 their constituents, how they who have declared the gentleman from Maryland 
 an unworthy member but that he should remain a member, who asserted the 
 right to punish by inflicting punishment but refused the only adequate penalty 
 for the offense of which they voted him guilty, will justify themselves in the 
 face of their own votes, it is for them to consider. It would be cruel to ag- 
 gravate their embarrassments by any observations. Ab hac scabie tencamus 
 ungues. 
 
 But it remains conceded by the votes of our opponents that in spite of the 
 Constitution of the United States, in spite of the conceded freedom of opinion, 
 in spite of the conceded freedom of speech, words are and may be here, not out 
 of doors, but here in this House, here upon a subject before the House for con- 
 sideration, here where everybody has the right to express his views upon every 
 measure before the House, words are and have been adjudged by the votes of 
 our opponents to be criminal, to be punishable, and they have been punished 
 within two days. 
 
 The measure of judgment is a matter of discretion. The Constitution says 
 that with the consent of two-thirds either House may expel a member: that 
 means not capriciously but for some wrong, for misconduct, for acts, for words, 
 for purposes, for avowals inconsistent with his duty on this floor, tending to 
 show that he is not a safe depositary of the great powers of a Representative; 
 and the only constitutional criterion of what is and what is not adequate cause 
 of* expulsion is the judgment of two-thirds of this House. 
 
 If that be so, the only further question we have to ask is, whether the gen- 
 tleman from Ohio, respectable as he is in his private relations, respectable as 
 has been his conduct in this House, honestly as his convictions may be enter- 
 tained, has not placed himself beyond the pale of thet protection which this 
 House accords to freedom of speech, not by speaking as he ought not to have 
 spoken, but by avowing himself in favor of the destruction of the nation. 
 
 Now, what is the charge against him? That his judgment is that there are 
 but two alternatives — one, the extermination of the enemies of the United 
 States, and the other the destruction of the United States itself, which he puts 
 in the form of a recognition of the southern States as an independent govern- 
 ment. And not resting on that mere declaration of opinion, and the alterna- 
 tive resting in his own mind, he goes further and says that of the two he pre-, 
 ferred the latter. That means, "7, here a Representative, charged and sworn 
 to the extent of my whole influence in the legislation of this House to protect 
 and maintain the integrity of the nation, have come to the conclusion, in the 
 midst of a great war, when the existence of the nation is at stake, that, rather 
 than exterminate the enemies of the nation, I will exterminate the nation." 
 He proclaims himself the friend of the enemies of the nation, and an enemy 
 himself of the United States. He avows it his purpose to destroy it at the first 
 opportunity, to the extent of his vote. The rebel chiefs proclaim independence 
 or extermination the only alternatives. The gentleman from Ohio declares ex- 
 termination or independence the- only alternatives. The rebel chiefs prefer the 
 recognition of their independence to their extermination. The gentleman from 
 Ohio avows himself for recognition and against extermination; and recognition 
 of the southern confederacy means the dissolution of the United States. The 
 Constitution proclaims the perpetuity of the Union; and that Constitution re- 
 cognizes no dissolution, no end of its existence. Sworn to maintain that Con- 
 stitution, he now says: "In violation of a solemn oath, in spite of the duty I 
 am sent here to discharge, rather than maintain it to the extent of exterminating 
 its enemies, I will destroy it." 
 
 Now, that is the case stated in plain language. It has not been stated here 
 before to-day. And the question which we are bound as gentlemen and as legis- 
 lators to determine is, whether a gentleman, acknowledged to be respectable, be- 
 lieved to be sincere, entertaining and avowing purposes which do not differ from 
 those of the chief of the rebel confederacy, or of the men in armed array beyond 
 the Potomac bent on ejecting us from this Hall, is the fit companion of gentle- 
 men here, a fit depositary of his constituents' vote, a safe person to be intrusted 
 here with the secrets of the United States, a worthy guardian of the existence 
 of the Republic. Are we to be seriously told that the freedom of speech screens 
 a traitor because he puts his treasonable purposes in words! Does the Cousti- 
 
tution secure the right of our avowed enemies to vote in this Hall? May a 
 man impudently declare that his purpose here is so to vote as to promote the 
 success of the rebellion, to embarrass and paralize the Government in its sup- 
 pression, to secure its triumph and our overthrow, to bring the armed enemy 
 to Washington, or arrest our army lest it exterminate that enemy? Then why 
 do not. the eoDgress at Richmond adjourn to Washington, push us from our 
 stools, and by parliamentary tactics, under the Constitution, arrest the wheels of 
 Government? You could not expel them? Sir, that picture is history, recent 
 history. In 1860 that side of the House swarmed with the avowed enemies of 
 the Republic. One after one, as their stars dropped from the firmament of the 
 Union, they went out; some with tears in their eyes over the miseries they 
 were about to inflict ; some of them with exultation over the coming; calamities ; 
 some of them with contemptuous lectures to the members in the House; some 
 stayed behind to do the traitor's business in the disguise of honest legislators in 
 both Houses as long as they dared. One disgraced the Senate for one long 
 session after armed men were soaking their native soil with their blood, and 
 now he is in the ranks of our enemies. 
 
 Are we to be told that gentlemen, entertaining not these opinions but these 
 purposes resolved to the extent of their power to paralize the Government, and 
 only limited in what they can do by what it may be safe to do, must be allowed 
 not merely to be members of the House, but to rise and insolently fling in our 
 faces the avowal of their enemity, and invoke the Constitution of the United 
 States in order that they may stab it to the heart ? Shall men rise here and be 
 allowed 10 express, whether in one form of phraseology or another, as may best 
 aid the public enemy, their desire for the triumph of the rebel cause, and that, 
 being too tender-hearted to wish that the enemies of the United States may be 
 exterminated, they prefer our ruin ? -And is it to be said that that comes within 
 the Sirred shield of the freedom of public opinion, the right of debate, the 
 freedom of speech ? Why, sir, it is not opinion that we complain of. It is not 
 liberty of speech that we wish to restrict. On the contrary, I thank the 
 gentleman [Mr. Long] for his speech, for it revealed an enemy, and an avoved 
 is a more respectable than a concealed foe. He is more frank than the gentl-e- 
 mau from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] who, with similar sentiments, 
 conceals them. He is more manly than that gentleman from New York, who 
 on Saturday rose before the House with a paper in his hand, declaring it to be 
 the identical sheet from which the gentleman from Ohio read, read it flauut- 
 ingly in the face of the House, and declared that he corcurred in every word 
 of it, and that if the House expelled the gentleman from Ohio it must expel 
 him also: — but to.day. frightened by the explosion of the indignation of the 
 House on he head of the gentleman from Maryland, was careful to say that he 
 did not at all agree with the opinions for which the gentleman from Ohio is 
 called in question. Commend me, sir, to an open adversary. 1 can respect 
 the one ; I cannot have so much respect for the other. It is not for the free- 
 dom of the avowal, it is the entertaining the purpose which he does avow ; it 
 is not that he violated the order of the House, it is because he violates the law 
 of the country by his purpose to destroy it, that the gentleman from Ohio is 
 arraigned. We do not punish him for saying what he did, we punish him for 
 meaning what he declared he does mean to do. And that is what we are called 
 upon to do by the highest considerations of public policy, the plainest dictates 
 of patriotic duty. 
 
 Oh ! but we are told that it touches the lights of his constituents. Let his 
 constituents have an opportunity to pass upon that, after this declaration of 
 purpose. But we must have mutual consideration for each other? Why, cer- 
 tainly, sir. But how far? Is there no end to patience? Is there no avowal 
 showing criminal intent which wisdom requires we ehould guard against before- 
 hand ? What do you suppose would be the fate of a man sitting in the capitol 
 at Richmond who should arise there and propose to recognize the supremacy 
 of the United States ? Do you sup'pose that the freedom of debate which gen- 
 tlemen have enjoyed on this floor would have been tolerated, even if desired by 
 anybody ? • Is it not certain that he would have been expelled, if he lived long 
 enough for the vote of expulsion to be taken? Suppose that in the French 
 Assembly, when the life of France was at stake, as the lite of this natioii is now 
 at stake, and when heroic men were struggling to maintain it, some one had 
 
arisen and proposed to call back the Bourbons, and place the reins of fro^ern" 
 gnenfc in their hands — how long would he have remained a member of that 
 bee v ? Suppose that the day before the battle of Culloden, or the day after 
 the battle of Preston Pans, some Jacobite had arisen iu the House os Commons 
 of England and declared himself of the opinion that the. Pretender could not 
 be expelled without the extermination of the Jacobites, and that therefore they 
 should place him on the throne of England! Do you think the traditional 
 liberty of speech in England would have saved him from summary expulsion ? 
 jDo you think there is any law iu England that could have stood between him 
 and, not expulsion, but death. Would not the act have been considered a 
 <H ■ ad the declaration of it in Parliement have been considered an aggra- 
 va'.on of the crime, demanding his expulsion? Would not the vote of that body 
 have been instantaneous, and his execution swifter than that vote? 
 
 Are we to be told here that men are to rise in this Hal!, where the guns of 
 the impending battle will echo in our ears, when we sit here only because we 
 have on? hundred and fifty thousand bayonets between us and the enemy; 
 when Washington is a great camp, the centre of thirty miles of fortifications 
 stretching around us for our protection ; are we to be told that here, within 
 this citadel of the nation, an enemy may beckon with his hand to the armed 
 foe, assuring him of friends within the people's Hall, at the very centre of 
 power, and we cannot expel him? 
 
 Sir, let me eay to this House that if it were a constitutional right so to speak, 
 in ray judgment this is one of those cases which so far transcends the ordinary 
 rules of law, one of those cases which carries us so near to the original right 
 of self defense, one of those cases which appeals so directly to the inalienable 
 right of self-protection, that without law and in spite of law the safety of the 
 people requires his expulsion, and I would be one to do it. But, sir, 1 do not 
 thinjk the Constitution does confer the right so to speak. I think we are within 
 the limits of written law which the wisdom of our forefathers gave us with 
 which to protect ourselves in every emergency, and this among others And 
 the only question is whether the patriotism of this House goes to the exte*nt of 
 the two thirds of its members required to rid it of the presence of an avowed 
 public enemy. That, and that alone is the question. 
 
 But, Mr, Speaker, we are told that this is a. question of opinion. If it be, it 
 is one of those questions of opinion that nobody in this country has a right to 
 be on more than one side of. On one side is patriotism, duty, and an oath. On 
 the other is treason, crime, and perjury. Is it our duty f( r the protection of a 
 man in his opinion to allow him to destroy the nation we are trying to defend ? 
 Where, in the record of nations, do you find an illustration of that position? 
 By what examples in history do you defend it? By what precedent of states- 
 manship? The great name of Chatham has often, in this debate, been invoked 
 and desecrated to cover this avowal of preference for the enemy over the 
 country. His example is wretchedly misunderstood. Doubtless his voice was 
 lifted in -warning tones against taxation without our consent, and still fiercer 
 against war to enforce it. His example might be pleaded for moderation and 
 respect for the rights of our southern fellow-citizens; but they have not been 
 violated. But never, never to sanction a division of the Re\ ublic. His ex- 
 ample is the bitterest reproach to those who claim its protection. After years 
 of war unjustly begun and weakly waged, when exhausted England sank before 
 the combined arms of America and France, and the Duke of Richmond rose in 
 the House of Lords to move for peace with America, the patriotic soul of Chat- 
 ham, was stirred within him at the thought of the humiliation and divi.-ion of 
 that empire whose limits he had expanded and whose name he had decorated ; 
 and, frail and dying, his legs swathed !n flannel, his crutch in his hand, he was 
 borne to the House of Lords in the arms of his great son to lift his last voice in 
 execration of the folly which had brought England to such humiliation, and to 
 enter his dying protest against the recognition of American independence, 
 already secured in fact by the sword. His English heart had no fear of exter- 
 minating the enemies of England in the holy work of maintaining the integrity 
 of her empire. Sir, I accept the example, and I commend it to the considera- 
 tion of the patriotic gentlemen on the other side of the House. I keg them to 
 read a little further than fcoej seem to have done, the history of the English 
 statesman. Freedom of opinion 1 Surely sir, opinion is the breath of our nation. 
 
It is the measure of every right, the guarantee of every privilege, the protec- 
 tion of every blessing. It is opinion which creates our rulers. It is opinion 
 that nerves or palsies their arm. It is opinion that casts down the proud and 
 elevates the humble. Its fluctuations are the rise and fall of parties; its cur- 
 rents bear the nation on to prosperity or ruin. Its free play is the condition 
 of its purity. It is like the ocean, whose tides rise and fall day by day at the 
 fickle bidding of the moon ; yet it is the great scientific level from which every 
 height is measured — the horizon to which astronomers refer the motion of the 
 stars. But, like the ocean, it has depths whose eternal stillness is the condition 
 of its stability. Those depths of opinion are not free, and it is they that are 
 touched by the words which have so moved the House. Men must not commit 
 treason and say its guilt is matter of opinion and its punishment a violation of 
 its freedom. Men cannot swear to maintain the integrity of the nation and 
 avow their intention to destroy it, and cover that double crime by the freedom 
 of speech. That is to break up the fountains of the great deep on which all 
 Government is borne, and to pour its flood in revolutionary ruin over the land. 
 To punish that is not a violation of the freedom of opinion or its expression. 
 It is to protect its normal ebb and flow, its free and healthy fluctuaiions, that 
 we desire to relieve it from the opprobrium of being confounded with the 
 declaration of treasonable purposes here in the high and solemn assemblage of 
 tne Nation. 
 
 The free expression of opinion ! I am at a loss to know how jthe opinions 
 of Abraham Lincoln, or Horace Greely, or Wendell Philips, or the gentleman 
 from Ohio, [Mr. Scuenck,] or Mr. Chase, if truly quoted, and equally criminal 
 with those now arraigned, can extenuate their guilt or shield their author 
 from the indignation of the House. Their guilt is not his innocence. If he 
 imitated their guilt, let him follow their repentance. The time which they have 
 devoted to atoning for error by patriotic services he has dedicated to indurating 
 his error and accomplishing his unpatriotic purposes. But I am not concerned 
 to vindicate in them what I condemn in him. I execrate the avowal equally in 
 every mouth ; and if their guilt is beyond my judgement, that of the gentleman 
 from Ohio is not. I can well understand how such examples may serve to 
 screen the Democratic party or to delude an ill informed crowd and teach 
 them that treason is error of opinion and not a crime; but they-cannot be 
 successfully urged here before the gentlemen of the House of Representatives 
 to exculpate the gentleman from Ohio; nor even, sir, can it vindicate the Dem- 
 ocratic party from the charge of more sympathy with the enemies of the coun- 
 try than with the country itself. The people will laugh at this attempt to im- 
 peach the loyalty of the friends of the administration. They will see in this 
 zealous defense of the gentleman from Ohio only another proof of Democratic 
 sympathy with his views and purposes, hitherto invariably manifested wher- 
 ever they have b^en in power. Where have they had power that they have 
 not exhibited their sympathy with the enemies of the Republic? I admit there 
 are honorable exceptions. I admit there are cases of honest delusion. I sup- 
 pose theie are cases of unconscious sympathy. I cannot doubt the prevalence 
 of a criminal interest in the triumph of the rebels. I shall not discrimate one 
 from the other. I speak of the party and its conduct. Where, since the war 
 broke out, from the time that James Buchanan disgraced the American name 
 by his message declaring, as gentlemen on that side of the House declare now, 
 that this war is waged in violation of the Constitution, that there is no power 
 to coerce a sovereign State, down to this day, is there a Democratic Governor 
 or Legislature which, until warned by the indignant voice of the people, has 
 not tried to embarrass and discredit the Government and to give aid and en- 
 couragement to its enemies? The disavowals of individuals cannot extenuate 
 the conduct of Legislatures and Governors. The prudence or cunning of cau- 
 cusses or Congressmen, since the chastisement of 1863 cannot make the people 
 forget the conduct which provoked it. Will they ever forget the Legislature 
 of Indiana and its votes on the resolutions for armistice and peace, which 
 swarmed before it; or the Legislature of Illinois and the bill to strip the Gov- 
 ernor of his just military authority ; and the resolutions for an armistice and 
 a convention at Louisville of western and rebel States, to dictate terms to the 
 United States, actually adopted, I think, by one House; or the New Jersey 
 Legislature, which sent Wall, of Fort Lafayette, to the United States Senate, 
 
and was ready to adopt peace resolutions, but for an accidental adjournment 
 ■which enabled the members to gather the whisperings of their indignant con- 
 stituents? How have they expressed their sympathies on the side of the United 
 States, unless by attempting to array the State authorities against the United 
 States, to excite the prejudicesof the people against the necessary suspension of 
 the habeas corpus, to represent the assertion of the supremacy of the United States 
 courts and officers in the enforcement of the United States laws as invasions of 
 the rights of the States? What Democrat in Pennsylvania did not vote for 
 Woodward ? What Democrat in New York did not vote for Horatio Seymour? 
 What Democrat in Connecticut did not vote for Seymour of Connecticut? 
 What Democrat in Ohio did not vote for Vallandigham ? It is vain to at- 
 tempt to conceal it. The history of that party during the war proves the dec- 
 laration made on this floor that there is no such thing as a Democratic party 
 for the war; its elastic mantle covers equally those who, like the trentleman 
 from New York, [Mr. Kernan,] have a love for the Union and fail when he 
 comes to vote on it, and those who, like the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. 
 Harris,] glory in th,e failure of the armies of the United States to conquer the 
 States in rebellion. 
 
 The gentleman from New York, [Mr. Kernan,] who last spoke, and whose 
 earnest tones all must have felt, declared himself ready to do all in his power 
 to suppress the insurrection, and yet, he failed to. vote for the conscription bill, 
 the indispensable condition to the prosecution of the war. That is the type 
 of the war Democrat ! Very earnest in vague generalities for the war, equally 
 earnest in descrying the policy of the Administration, but, having exhausted 
 their earnestness on those topics, are' so unable on any practical measure to 
 tear themselves away from party association, so penetrated with valetudinarian 
 views or "perverse judgments on the Constitution of the United States, that 
 their aid is more embarrassing than their opposition. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, if it be said that a time may come when the question of 
 recognizing the southern confederacy will have to be answered, I admit it ; and 
 it is answering the strongest and the extreme case that gentlemen on the 
 other side can present. I admit it. When a Democrat shall darken the White 
 House and the land ; when a Democratic majority here shall proclaim that free- 
 dom of speech secures impunity to treason and declare recognition better than 
 extermination of traitors: when Vallandigham shall be Governor of Ohio, and 
 Bright Governor of Indiana, and Woodward Governor of Pennsylvania, and - 
 Seymour Governor of Connecticut, and Wall Governor of New Jersey, and 
 the gentleman from New York city [Mr. Wood] sit in Seymour's seat, and thus, 
 possessed of power over the great centre of the country, they shall do what 
 they attempted in vain before in the midst of rebel triumphs — anay theauthor- 
 ities of the States against those of the United States; oppose the militia to 
 the Army of the United States; invoke the habeas corpus to discharge con- 
 fined traitors; deny to the Government the benefit of the laws of war, lest it 
 exterminate its enemies; when the Democrats, as in the fall of 1S62, shall 
 again, with more permanent success, persuade the people of the country that 
 the war should not be waged till the integrity of the territory of the Union is 
 restored, cost what it might, thaf such a war violates the spirit of free institu- 
 tions, which those who advocate it wish to overthrow, that it should stop for 
 their benefit, somewhere this side of absolute triumph, lest there be no room 
 for a compromise; when gentlemen of that party iu New York shall again, as 
 in November, 1852, hold illegal and criminal negotiations with Lord Lyons, 
 avow their purposes to him, the representative of a foreign and unfriendly 
 Power, and urge him to arrange the time of proffering mediation with a view 
 to their possession of power and their preparation of the minds of the ]>• ople 
 to receive suggestions from abroad ; when mediation shall appear, by the 
 event, to be the first step toward foreign intervention, swiftly and surely fol- 
 lowed by foreign armed enemies upon our shores to join the domestic enemies; 
 when the war in the cars shall begin, which was menaced at the outbreak of 
 the rebelliou, and the friends of Seymour shall make the streets of New York 
 run with blood, on the eveof another Gettysburg le.-s damaging to their hopes ; 
 when McClellan and Fitz John Porter shall have again brought the rebel arm- 
 ies within sight of Washington city, and the successor of James Buchanan shall 
 ■withdraw our armies from the unconstitutional invasion of Virginia to the 
 
north of the Potomac; when exultant rebels shall sweep over the fortifications 
 and their bomb-shells shall crash against the dome of the Capitol ; when thou- 
 sands throughout Pennsylvania shall seek refuge on the shores of Lake Erie 
 from the rebel invasion, cheered and welcomed by the opponents of extermin- 
 ation ; when the people, exhausted by taxation, weary of sacrifices, drained of 
 blood, betrayed by their rulers, deluded by demagogues into believing that 
 peace is the way to union, and submission the path to victory, shall throw 
 down their arms before the advancing foe; when vast chasms across every 
 State shall make apparent to every eye, when too late to remedy it, that divi- 
 sion from the -South is anarchy at the North, and that peace without union is 
 the end of the Republic — tiiex the independence of the South will be an ac- 
 complished fact, and gentlemen may, without treason to the dead Republic, 
 rise in this migratory House, wherever it may then be in America and declare 
 Ives for recognizing their masters at the South rather than exterminating 
 them! Until that day, in the name of the American nation, in the name of 
 every house in the land where there is one dead for the holy cause, in the name 
 of those who stand before us in the ranks of battle, in the name of the liberty 
 our ancestors have confided to us, I devote to eternal execration the name of 
 him who shall propose to destroy this blessed land rather than its enemies. 
 
 But until that time anive, it is the judgment of the American people there 
 shall be no compromise; that ruin to ourselves or ruin to the southern rebels 
 are the only alternatives. It is only by resolutions of this kind that nations 
 can rise above great dangers and overcome them in crisis like this. It was 
 only by turning France into a camp, resolved that Europe might exterminate, 
 but should not subjugate her, that Fiance is the leading empire of Europe 
 to-day. It ie by such a resolve that the American people, coercing a reluctant 
 Government to draw the sword and stake the national existence on the integ- 
 rity of the Republic, are now anything but the fragments of a nation before 
 the world, the scorn and hiss of every petty tyrant. It is because the people 
 of the United States, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicated this gene- 
 ration to the sword, and pouring out the blood of their children as of no account, 
 and avowing before high Heaven that there should be no end to this conflict 
 but ruin absolute, or absolute triumph, that we are now what we are ; that the 
 banner of tlie Republic, still pointing onward, floats proudly in the face of the 
 enemy, that vast regions are reduced to obedience to the laws, and that a great 
 host in armed array now presses with steady step into the dark regions of the 
 rebellion. It is only by the earnest and abiding resolution of the people that 
 whatever shall be our fate, it shall be grand as the American nation, worthy 
 of that Republic which first trod the path of empire and made no peace but 
 under the banners of victory, that the American people will survive in history. 
 And that will save us. We shall succeed and not fail. I have an abiding con- 
 fidence in the firmness, the patience, the endurance of the American people, 
 and, having vowed to stand in history on the great resolve to accept of nothing 
 but victory or ruin, victory is ours. And if with such heroic resolve we fall, 
 we fall with honor, and transmit the name of liberty committed to our keeping 
 untarnished, to go down to future generations. The historian of our deeline 
 and fall, contemplating the ruins of the last great Republic, and drawing from 
 its fate lessons of wisdom on the waywardness of men, shall drop a tear as he 
 records with sorrow the vain heroism of that people who dedicated and sacri- 
 ficed themselves to the cause of freedom, and, by their example, will keep alive 
 her worship in the hearts of men till hanpier generations shall learn to walk 
 in her paths. Yes, sir, if we must fall, let our last hours be stained by no weak- 
 ness. If we must fall, let us stand amid the crash of the falling Republic and 
 be buried in its ruins, so that history may take note that men lived in the mid- 
 dle of the nineteenth century worthy of a better fate, but chastised by God 
 for the sins of their forefathers. Let the ruins of the Republic remain to test- 
 ify to the lat; st generations our greatness and our heroism. And let Liberty, 
 crownless and childless, sit upon these ruins, crying aloud in a sad wail to the 
 nations of the world, "I nursed and brought up children, and they have re- 
 belled against me." [Great applause on the floor and in the galleries.] 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRt^ 
 
 012 027 961 
 
 SPEECHES AND DOCUMENTS FOR DISTRIBUTION BY THE 
 
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 Abraham Lincoln — "Slavery and its issues indicated by his Speeches, Letters, 
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 Hon. William D. Kelly — " Freedmen's Affairs." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. Green Clay Smith — " Confiscation of Rebel Property." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. D. W.. Gooch— "Secession and Reconstruction." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. R. C. Schenck — " No Compromise with Treason." 8 pp ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. Lyman Trumbull — "A Free Constitution." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. Charles Sumner — "Universal Emancipation, without Compensation." 16 
 pp. ; $2 per 100. 
 
 Hon. James Harlan — " Title to Property in Slaves." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. Daniel Clark — "Amendment to Constitution." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. John C. Ten Eyck — "Reconstruction in the States." 8 pp. ; $1 per 100. 
 
 Hon. Reverdy Johnson — "Amendment to Constitution." 16 pp. ; $2 per 100. 
 
 Hon. J. D. Defrees — "Thoughts for honest Democrats." 
 
 Biographical Sketch of Andrew Johnson, candidate for the Vice Presidency. 16 
 pp. ;$2 per 100. 
 
 Hon. J. D. Defrees — "The War commenced by the Rebels." 16 pp. ; $2 per 100, 
 
 Numerous Speeches and Documents not included in the foregoing will be pub- 
 lished for distribution, and persons willing to trust the discretion of the Committee, 
 can remit their orders with the money, and have them filled with the utmost 
 promptitude, and with the best judgment as to price and adaptation to the locality 
 where the speeches are to be sent. 
 
 Printed by L. Towers for the Union Congressional Committee. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 Hollinger 
 
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 Mill Run F3-1719