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 PROCEEDINGS AND SrEECHES 
 
 AT A 
 
 I^XJBLIC ISliHlETINa 
 
 OP THE 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE UNION, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CITY OF BALTIMORE, 
 
 HELD AT THE 
 
 MARYLAND INSTITUTE, 
 
 On Thursday Evening, January 10, 1861. 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN D, TOY 
 
 1861. 
 
 ^'^Q^C 
 
PllOCEEDINGS AND SPEECHES 
 
 AT A 
 
 PUBLIC nVIKETINa 
 
 OF TIIR 
 
 FRIENDS OF THE UNION, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 CITY OF BALTIMORE 
 
 HELD AT THE 
 
 MARYLAND INSTITUTE, 
 
 On Thursday Evening, Januai'y 10, 1861- 
 
 "5 ote^;.^ . cc^w. » 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN D. TOY 
 1861. 
 
. s 
 
 1 
 
PROCEEDINGS 
 
 The undersigned, a Committee appointed at a meeting of 
 a large number of the citizens of Baltimore, held at the 
 Law Buildings, on the evening of the 27th of December, 
 
 1860, in obedience to the resolutions passed at said meet- 
 ino", and in response to the request of a large number of 
 our citizens, hereby respectfully invite all the friends of 
 the Union, in the City of Baltimore, to attend a Mass 
 Meeting of the Friends of the Union, to be held at the 
 Maryland Institute on Thursday, the 10th day of January, 
 
 1861, at 7 o'clock, P. M. 
 
 It is expected that said meeting will be addressed by dis- 
 tinguished and eloquent speakers. 
 
 William H, Collins, 
 William McKim, 
 B. Deford, 
 William E. Hooper, 
 Joseph Cushing, Jr. 
 
 Committee . 
 
 Under the instructions of this Committee, Wm, McKim 
 nominated as 
 
 OFFICERS OF THE MEETING. 
 
 PRESIDENT : 
 ARCHIBALD STIRLING. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS : 
 
 JOHN B. MORRIS, JOHN P. KENNEDY, 
 
 GALLOWAY CHESTON, WILLIAM HEALD, 
 
 THOMAS KELSO, COLUMBUS O'DONNELL, 
 
 HENRY MAY, THOMAS SWANN, 
 
 JOHN J. ABRAHAMS, WILLIAM COOKE, 
 
 JAMES C. SKINNER, CHARLES A. GAMBRILL, 
 
 MOSES WIESENFIELD, LEWIS TURNER, 
 
 JAMES HOOPER, Jr. WILLIAM WOODWARD, 
 
 JOHNS HOPKINS, HENRY D. HARVEY, 
 
 JAMES MULLLER, ENOCH PRATT, 
 
 CHARLES F. MAYER, JOHN B. SEIDENSTRICKER, 
 SAMUEL J. K. HANDY. 
 
 SECRETARIES I 
 C. L. L. LEARY. CHARLES A. GRINNELL. 
 
The uoniinations of the Committee were accepted by the 
 meeting with enthusiastic unanimity. 
 
 REMAKKS OF ARCHIBALD STIRLING, ESQ. 
 
 Gentlemen, — Before proceeding to the business of the 
 evening, I beg leave to thank you for the honor you have 
 done me, in calling me to preside. 
 
 While I regret that some one, possessed of more experi- 
 ence in such matters, has not been selected, I accept your 
 call with pride and pleasure. 
 
 I consider the object of this meeting, to preserve and per- 
 petuate the Union, as one that ought to be dearer to every 
 patriotic breast, than property or life; and should the pro- 
 ceedings of this meeting aid in stilling the storm that beats 
 around us, and in arresting the progress of secession, I 
 shall ever regard my humble participation as the happiest 
 event of my life. 
 
 Gentlemen, I mean not to detain you by any attempt to 
 make a speech. That, as you all know, is not my vocation. 
 
 A Committee was appointed at your preliminary meeting 
 at the Law Buildings to prepare the measures of business 
 for this meeting. That Committee has prepared resolu- 
 tions to be submitted for 3^our consideration, and have 
 invited Gentlemen to address you on these resolutions. 
 
 SPEECH OF WM. H. COLLINS, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, — I have been instructed by the Committee 
 in charge of the resolutions to be presented to this meeting, 
 to say a few Avords before offering them for consideration. 
 Will I be pardoned if I do so? 
 
 Mr. Chairman^ we are in perilous times. Our country is 
 in danger; not from any foreign power, (for that we would 
 know full well how to meet,) but from discontent and dis- 
 trust amongst ourselves. It is the conviction of this danger, 
 together with a deep-rooted love for our common country, 
 which has brought you, as also this vast audience, here to- 
 night. I say for our common country. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Citizens of Baltimore, may I ask. 
 What is our country? 
 
Is it the State of Maryland, witli her noble Bay and 
 beautiful Rivers piercing and blessing her two Shores? Is 
 it her plains and uplands, her mountains and valleys, her 
 thriving cities, and towns, and villages? Is it her health- 
 ful climate and productive soil, her free institutions, her 
 people of a brave and vigorous stock ? Is it our own beau- 
 tiful city, with its industry, its thrift and its skill, its love 
 of order, its comfortable homes, its throngs of loving wives 
 and beautiful daughters, of manly husbands, and fathers 
 and sons? Are these our country? No, sir. Maryland 
 is a pure and bright star in our constellation. TAere may 
 she ever remain ! True, faithful^ loyal and brave, we love 
 her as our own bright_, particular star. She is our home, 
 and we will watch over her welfare and honor with filial 
 affection. This is natural; it is right, it is loyal. 
 
 But, Mr. Chairman and People of Baltimore_, Maryland 
 is not our country. She is but a part of it, though a dear 
 and treasured part. She has an area of but ten thousand 
 square miles, whilst our country contains three millions. 
 She has less than a million of people, whilst our country 
 numbers thirty millions. 
 
 People of Baltimore, our country, our true country, extends 
 from the great lakes of the North to the Gulf of Mexico 
 and the Piio Grande in the sunny regions of the South; 
 and from the resounding shores of the Atlantic, over low- 
 lands and mountains, and valleys, and rivers and plains, to 
 the Pacific, where we look out upon China and Japan. 
 
 This, this is our country, the noblest, the grandest heri- 
 tage which God has ever granted to one people. Capable of 
 containing, and soon to be inhabited by a hundred millions 
 of brave sons, this our country, if she prove true to our 
 glorious Union, is destined to be the happiest, the greatest 
 and the freest nation that by its great deeds has ever fired 
 the poet's song, or lent eloquence to the flowing page of 
 history. In arms, in arts, in wealth, in patriotism, in 
 liberty, in science and in moral power, she will be the fore- 
 most nation of the world. TJiis, Mr. Chairman and Fellow- 
 Citizens, is the grand and glorious country to which we 
 this night otfer the devotion, the undying love of our 
 
6 
 
 hearts. This our country is yet in its youth. The beard 
 has scarcely started on its cheek; and yet it has a history 
 of Avhich we may well he proud. 
 
 For more than thirty centuries the great Hebrew — warrior, 
 leader, legislator, scholar, poet, statesman and prophet — 
 stood without a rival, admittedly the grandest man of all 
 the world. This our own young land, in her struggle for 
 liberty, saw the majestic form of one of her own sons rise 
 up into the view of the world, admittedly the greatest man 
 of thirty centuries; ap])roaching nearer to, if not fully 
 equalling in grandeur, the colossal jiroportions of the 
 great Hebrew. With both, the love of their people was 
 the grand and controlling passion. Washington, in his 
 hours of despondence and devotion, (and there were many 
 such,) had that same deep-rooted love of his people which 
 burst forth from the lips of the great Hebrew in his im- 
 passioned prayer for his countrymen: "Yet now, if Thou 
 wilt, forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, 
 out of thy book." 
 
 Through centuries of grandeur as well as of disaster ; 
 scattered in every land, and in many o])pressed, the Hebrew 
 has ever bent in reverent homage over the history of his 
 great chief. For centuries, and for scores of centuries to 
 come, I humbly hope our countrymen will catch with atten- 
 tive ears, and treasure up in pious hearts, the parting 
 lessons of our great American. 
 
 It is to these parting lessons, which, if not written with 
 the prophet's fire, are the grandest jjroduction of the 
 greatest and wisest man of modern times, that you will be 
 mainly indebted for the resolutions which I hold in my 
 hand, and to which I trust you will give a hearty ajiproval. 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 Resolved, That the unity of government which constitutes 
 us one people is justly dear to us, for it is a main pillar in 
 the edifice of our real independence, the support of our 
 tranquility at home, our peace abroad, of our safety, of our 
 prosperity, of that very liberty which we so highly prize. 
 
Resolved, That notwithstanding much pains has been 
 taken to weaken in our minds the conviction of the immense 
 value of our national Union to our collective and individual 
 happiness, we still cherish a cordial, habitual and immove- 
 able attachment to it; that we will accustom ourselves to 
 think and speak of it as of the palladium of our political 
 safety and prosperity ; that we will watch for its preserva- 
 tion with jealous anxiety ; that we will discountenance 
 whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any 
 event be abandoned ; and that we will indignantly frown 
 upon every attempt to alienate any portion of our country 
 from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties wdiich link 
 together the various parts. 
 
 Resolved, That to the efficacy and permanence of our 
 Union, a government for the whole is indispensable; and 
 that no alliances, however strict^ between the parts can be 
 an adequate substitute. 
 
 Resolved, That the Government of the Union, the off- 
 spring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopt- 
 ed upon full investigation and mature deliberation ; com- 
 pletely free in its principles, in the distribution of its 
 powers, uniting security with energy_, and containing 
 within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just 
 claim to our confidence and our support, and that respect 
 for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in 
 its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental max- 
 ims of true liberty. 
 
 Resolved, That the preceding resolutions — taken from the 
 Farewell Address of the Father of his Country — contain a 
 declaration of principles and duties by whicli we mean to 
 abide, for weal or for woe; whilst, at the same time, we 
 claim that every privilege and right guaranteed to us and 
 to our sister States by the Constitution can, and shall be, 
 maintained under and according to its provisions; and that 
 we will never desecrate the fame of Washington by the 
 destruction of the Constitution and the Union, which, are 
 the true monuments of his glory. 
 
 Resolved, That various Northern States have passed laws 
 usuallv called "Personal Libertv law's," which we believe 
 
8 
 
 to be in violation of the Constitution of tlie United States, 
 of the acts of Congress passed pursuant thereto, and of the 
 sacred obligations which those States owe to our common 
 country; and that we appeal to the Constitutional duty, 
 the patriotism, the honor, the justice, and the brotherhood 
 of the people of those States respectively, to repeal those 
 lawS;, and by every way and means in their power, to put 
 down the aggressions of their people on the peculiar institu- 
 tions of the Southern States, as the only way to remove the 
 well-founded discontents and complaints of their brethren 
 of the Southern States, and which, if not removed, may 
 prove fatal to our Union, as well as to all those vital 
 interests which ought to bind us together as one people. 
 
 Resolved, That the present condition of our country de- 
 mands of all who love her a spirit of fairness, of candor, of 
 conciliation, of concession, and of self-sacrifice ; and that we 
 hail with thankful and hopeful hearts the patriotic efforts 
 now being made in Congress for the settlement, as we trust 
 forever, of the dangerous questions at issue, on some Consti- 
 tutional, just and equitable principle ; and that such of our 
 statesmen and States, whether of the North or of the South, 
 as may contribute most to this holy end, will challenge the 
 highest place in the affections of our country; and that those 
 who may refuse to lend their aid to this holy purpose may 
 justly expect, as they will be sure to receive, the condem- 
 nation and reprobation of the present age, as well as of 
 future ages. 
 
 speech" OF A. W. BRADFORD, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Felloit- Citizens, — In rising to second, 
 as I now do, the Resolutions just offered by nw friend who 
 has set down, I do so in response to the invitation with 
 which I have been honored b}" the Committee, to address 
 you on the absorbing topics of the day. in doing so, I feel 
 the deep sense of the unspeakable importance of the subject, 
 and the still deeper sense of my utter inability to do it jus- 
 tice. The consciousness of that inability forces itself upon 
 me at this moment still more impressively as I survey the 
 vast crowd here collected, and feel how absolntely impossi- 
 
9 
 
 ble it is that my voice can convey to all the little I may 
 have to say. Had I consulted my own personal inclination, 
 I should have declined this honor. I have for many years 
 avoided the turmoil of politics, and have surveyed its an- 
 nual contests only from an outside stand-point. 
 
 If I had consulted my own inclination, I should not have 
 been here to-night, but I cannot but feel that this is a fault 
 to which our people have been but too jjrone — this yielding 
 to personal inclination, to avoid the din and the strife of 
 politics, and consequently commit some of their dearest in- 
 terests to the keeping of the mere professional politician. 
 Still, I doubt whether such consideration would have in- 
 duced me to leave my quiet country home, to come here 
 with the small mite, the very small mite, that I may have 
 to offer to the conservative cause, did I not fear that I saw 
 in the imminence of the peril that now stares us in the face 
 great apprehensions for the future. 
 
 My friends, the dangers at this time urgently demanding 
 our particular attention are the dangers of disunion. The 
 great j)eril that overshadows all other perils, is the apparent 
 determination of some of the States of this Union, to tear 
 asunder its government, and split up our country into two 
 or more rival confederacies. How shall Maryland best act 
 to avert, if possible, such a catastrophe? Maryland — the 
 heart of this Union so long as it can be preserved — Mary- 
 land, the Belgium of this continent, so soon as it shall be 
 dissolved. Her local position, the conservative character 
 of her people, their long established and well known attach- 
 ment to the Constitution and the Union demand that she 
 should well consider the step that is so important to her 
 weal or woe. 
 
 In order that we may act advisedly and effectually upon 
 this subject, let us satisfy ourselves at the outset, as far as 
 possible, of some of the latent causes which stand in the 
 way of a settlement of this vexed question between the 
 North and the South. These questions, my friends, upon 
 their face would seem to ordinary minds to be so extremely 
 easy of adjustment, and in point of any practical importance, 
 to be so vastly subordinate to the mighty interests they are 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 suffered to control, that it is impossible to believe that a 
 genuine faith in their intrinsic importance is the hona fide 
 actual influence now governing sectional parties at both 
 ends of the Union. No, my friends. The affected sym- 
 pathy for the slave upon the one side, and affected fear of 
 the loss of his services on the other, are, to a great extent, 
 the shallow pretexts invented simply to screen the selfish 
 ambition of selfish partisans in both ends of the country. 
 
 The jDolitician at the North, with an appetite for office, 
 whetted by long abstinence, having found at last the prac- 
 tical value of this pretext in bringing him to power is 
 calculating, with his accustomed shrewdness, how much of 
 it he can safely afford to part with without relinquishing 
 the station he has won ; whilst his extreme adversary at 
 the South, born and bred in office — with an appetite that 
 has grown by what it has fed on — seems to have come to 
 regard it at last as a sort of chartered right, eminently 
 befitting a gentleman of leisure — and sooner than surren- 
 der it, or sooner than risk its chance of becoming Pre- 
 sident, Cabinet Officer, or Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
 United States, he will carve out for himself a new poli- 
 tical hemisphere, and become the President, Cabinet 
 Officer, or Minister Plenipotentiary of a little Republic of 
 his own. 
 
 Let us, my friends, therefore, at the outset of our pro- 
 ceedings, be assured that no lingering hope of mere partisan 
 supremacy, to be either acquired or retained, mingles itself 
 with the legitimate influences that should actuate our con- 
 duct at the present crisis. Let us turn a deaf ear to all such 
 appeals as address themselves to past political organizations, 
 or anything even in the remotest degree to stir up old politi- 
 cal feuds. 
 
 I myself, my friends, have entertained, in my day, strong 
 political attachments, have recognized party leaders, for 
 whom I felt an almost filial reverence, and Imve, no doubt, 
 like other men, been swayed by political animosities that 
 occasionally have swerved my better judgment; but, if I 
 know myself, there never was a day yet, in times most 
 memorable for political excitement — in 1840 and 1844 — 
 
11 
 
 when, if this Uuiou had been assailed and insulted, as it is 
 this day, by the leader whom I most idolized, and my most 
 obnoxious political adversary had said to me, "let's try and 
 save it," that I would not have turned my back upon that 
 idol, and grasped the hand of my adversary, in sworn 
 fellowshi}) forever. 
 
 If, therefore, we expect Maryland to exert the influence 
 to which she is entitled, in saving this Union, her citizens 
 must agree to forget all past political distinctions, must 
 agree to surrender all lingering thoughts of revivifying that 
 old party, or retaining power and office, for this and our 
 conservative people, remembering only the interest they 
 have in the preservation of this Union, and the peculiar 
 dangers to which they will be exposed should it be dis- 
 solved, must unite all their energies in the consummation 
 of the glorious task before them. 
 
 If then, my fellow-citizens, we are agreed upon this pre- 
 liminary fact, that it is to the conservative men of the coun- 
 try that we are to look for a rescue at this period of imminent 
 peril, if the people, separating themselves from scheming 
 politicians and divesting themselves of old partisan ties, 
 have made up their minds to put forth their strength to 
 save the Union, the question is: "How shall that strength 
 be best exerted ? In what direction shall their batteries be 
 pointed? Upon this my own convictions arc clear and 
 decided. 
 
 To such a condition, my friends, has this bitter sectional 
 feud, has this partisan controversy, been at last reduced, 
 that if the national men of the country expect to exercise 
 their due weight in quelling it, they must each address 
 himself to the task of rebuking this sectional violence in 
 that particular section to which he may belong. Suppose 
 that the conservative men at the North — and I am happy 
 to know that there are thousands still to be found there — 
 suppose that they, through their presses and in their 
 assemblies, overlooking the unconstitutional aggressions 
 committed by their own citizens, were to confine their 
 denunciations to the revolutionary violence of the Southern 
 seceders, whilst such a course would but aggravate tliat 
 
12 
 
 violence, their own political fanatics would feel themselves 
 encouraged by such an imjjlied endorsement in obstinately 
 refusing to repeal their unconstitutional legislation. 
 
 But the conservative men at the North are pointing their 
 arguments and appeals in a different direction. Every 
 where their conservative presses and national men, of all 
 political complexion, are directing their anathemas against 
 the reckless obstinacy of their own destructives, and its 
 good effect is manifest in bringing some of the most influ- 
 ential of the Eepublican journals to advocate the repeal of 
 their obnoxious legislation, and is still more forcibly and 
 practically apparent in the defeat of the Republican candi- 
 dates, and the election of sound national conservative men 
 in some of the strongest Republican districts. 
 
 Whilst^ therefore, our co-operators at the North are 
 directing their assaults chiefly against the aggressive vio- 
 lence of the abolitionists, let us, the conservatives of the 
 South, and particularly us, the conservatives of Maryland, 
 concentrate the whole force of our efforts upon those open 
 revolutionists at the South^ now contemptuously defying 
 every authority of the Government. 
 
 Let us not, my friends, weaken the effect of these efforts 
 by pausing to inquire into the primary cause of these sec- 
 tional parties — by wasting all our strength upon the North- 
 ern aggressor as the earliest wrong-doer. When the master 
 finds his ship just upon tlie brink of the breakers, he does 
 not stop to inquire how she came there, or whose was the 
 fault — whether it was the neglect of the pilot at the wheel, 
 or the false light of the wreckers on the beach, but he calls 
 all hands around him, and puts her about if jjossible, ere 
 she makes the last fatal plunge into the fearful gulf beyond. 
 Such is the character of the peril which brings us together 
 here this evening. One link in the bright chain in which 
 our glorious States have been united claims to have pulled 
 itself loose from the others, and it is our purpose to save 
 as many as possible of those that still remain. I can 
 hardly realize the fact, my friends, that the day has come 
 when it is necessary to address you, the people of Mary- 
 land, arguments to keep you within the Union. 
 
13 
 
 When in the course of the late Presidential canvass it 
 was sometimes suggested that some of the Southern politi- 
 cians had connected themselves with an ultimate design 
 upon the integrity of this Union, the intimation was every- 
 where met with indignant scorn and denial ; and some of 
 those against whom the imputation pointed were brought 
 from the extreme South and stumped the State, it would 
 seem, for the express purpose of correcting this impression. 
 The imputation was denounced as a mere political tricky 
 invented without authority to operate upon the votes of 
 Union-loving Maryland. 
 
 But yet, in fifty days from the election in which we were 
 then engaged, not only are the very men against whom 
 these imputations pointed, found in open revolution, but 
 many of those who here denounced these imputations as 
 political calumnies, are justifying the revolutionary pro- 
 ceedings, and using all their efforts to unite Maryland in 
 the same rebellion. Various false issues have been framed. 
 New and visionary theories invented, and a new republic is 
 contrived, in which Maryland and her commercial metropolis 
 are made to assume a conspicuous part_, in the hope that, 
 by such procedure, she may be warped into that measure. 
 We hear a great deal about the sympathy due from Mary- 
 land to the Cotton States of the South, whose right of pro- 
 perty has been assailed by Northern legislation, and in 
 which description of property we have a common interest. 
 The State of Maryland, without regard to questions of self- 
 interest_, will be always ready to render sympathy towards 
 any community suffering under oppression. But when we 
 speak of those mutual sympathies existing between the 
 Cotton States and ours in relation to the subject of slavery, 
 and of the mutual obligations subsisting between them, 
 there seems a strange inclination to reverse the natural 
 current of their sympathy and those obligations. 
 
 If South Carolina, or any of her immediate neighbors, 
 were situated as we are^ with one hundred miles of terri- 
 tory running side by side with a Free State, with nothing 
 running between us but a mere imaginary line, and if we 
 occupied her position, with no foot of territory within one 
 
14 
 
 liiindred and fifty miles of a Free State, and witli a double 
 tier of Slave States surrounding us on the North, we could 
 then understand and appreciate, and under such circum- 
 stances would be ready to render the sympathy that would 
 be justly due from Maryland to South Carolina; and for 
 the same reason do we claim that whatever agency sympa- 
 thy is to exercise in controlling the actions of our respective 
 States, should exert its influence chiefly upon them, and 
 teach them that consideration that is due to us, who have 
 ever been doing a sentinel's duty, and encountering a sen- 
 tinel's danger under the very ramparts of the Northern 
 aggressor ? 
 
 Can her losses be compared to ours ? I will venture to 
 say that no single one of the Cotton States^ since the first 
 day of their existence, ever lost so many slaves as Mary- 
 land has done in a single year. Are their sons so much 
 more enterprising than ours, that they feel more seriously 
 than we do the want of a place for their surplus popu- 
 lation in the vast Territories of the far AVest ? Again, I 
 venture to say, that where one of the sons of the South 
 ever left its rich Savannah, to seek a home outside of the 
 borders of his native State, a hundred of the hardy sons 
 of Maryland have abandoned their old fields to seek their 
 fortunes in those far oft" regions. 
 
 In every one, therefore, of the subjects of complaint^, 
 now so convulsing the extreme South, the burden of the 
 injury has fallen upon our own good State. Is she so much 
 less sensitive to all just considerations affecting either her 
 right of property, her personal honor, or her State pride, 
 that she has only to be awakened to the sense of these 
 rights when South Carolina has pointed them out, and can 
 find no remedy for their redress but the reckless one she 
 herself has prescribed? We are officially apprised that 
 the Governors of South Carolina and Mississippi have 
 each recommended the adoption of restrictive and pro- 
 hibitory laws, by which they shall interdict the intro- 
 duction of slaves from any of the Border States refusing 
 to join in this Southern Confederacy ; and this, if recom- 
 mended, with the express purpose of so hampering us 
 
15 
 
 between Northern aggression on the one side, and closing 
 all outlets for escape on the other, that we shall he forced 
 to submit either to that loss, or unite in the South Carolina 
 Confederacy. That is the legislation proceeding from a 
 Slave State, to operate upon the citizens of a sister Slave 
 State, to force them to hoist the disunion banner. 
 
 Will Maryland, under the existence of such a menace, 
 follow any such leadership ? And especially a leadership 
 that lands us upon some unknown shore, with the waves 
 of revolution breaking all around us. No, my friends, I 
 claim not to be more patriotic or self-sacrificing than the 
 most of you ; but so far as my personal interests are con- 
 cerned, they have perhaps suffered as largely as any of 
 yuo. Within the last twelve or thirteen years, twelve full 
 bodied slaves, belonging either to myself or my immediate 
 family, worth about $15,000^ and comprising four-fifths 
 of all that we owned in the world, found their way to 
 the Free States, and though much pains and expense have 
 been undergone in the attempt to get them back, nut one 
 of them was ever recovered. Yet^ sooner than be com- 
 pelled to follow in the wake of South Carolina, and submit 
 to her leadership and her menacings, and put Maryland 
 in the condition of a Border State of a Southern Confed- 
 eracy, subject to all the horrors of a border warfare, and 
 all the civil, social and political calamities of a divided 
 Union, if these fugitive slaves were standing here to-niglit, 
 with their value twice as great as it is, I would send tliem 
 back to their abolition allies, and think I had purchased at 
 a cheap price my riglit to remain a citizen of these United 
 States. 
 
 One more word, my friends, upon this Utopian scheme 
 of a Southern Confederacy. The details of this plan seems 
 so far to be put forth with much caution. There is good 
 reason to believe that the seceder has found means to suc- 
 ceed in persuading some who take but a superficial view of 
 the subject of the feasibility of some such plan in awakening 
 a vague hope of the advantages which we are to derive from 
 it. Indefinite and unexplained notions of a certain metro- 
 politan importance, which Baltimore is to acquire under 
 
16 
 
 their new dynasty, are sounded in the ears of her citizens ; 
 hut a moment's consideration must exhibit its fallacy. I 
 would like to know what is the aggregate amount of all 
 the trade Baltimore enjoys from all the Gulf States known 
 as the Cotton States of this Union. I have not the means 
 of accurately determining, hut I am satisfied it is a com- 
 parative trifle. We all know that sundry efforts were made 
 from time to time, within the last few years, to establish a 
 single steamer between this port and Charleston, which 
 proved abortive. 
 
 I will venture to say that three-fourths, if not nine- 
 tenths, of all the goods purchased on account of the Cotton 
 States in ports north of Virginia, find their way to New 
 York, notwithstanding their complaint of New York, 
 and Northern aggression being such an oppression to 
 them that they cannot find refuge within this Union. 
 Who shall estimate the loss of your trade connected with 
 the vast empire of the West. For more than a quarter of 
 a century you have been submitting patiently, through toil 
 and taxation, to complete your great works of internal 
 improvement, and now, when they are all consummated, 
 and when the great lakes of the North, and the mighty 
 valleys of the West, with their fruitful warehouses of trade, 
 have been brought into direct and immediate connection 
 with your. doors, do you mean, by the formation of this 
 separate Confederacy, to declare that the West, as well as 
 the North, shall be a distinct community from you — that 
 the terminus of every rail road you possess shall be here- 
 after in a foreign State, and the whole current of your great 
 Western trade be carried along the Philadelphia and New 
 York lines to what will then be their only home market. 
 
 The true subjects of complaint are the one connected with 
 our territorial status, and the other growing out of the 
 Northern obstruction of the Fugitive Slave law. These 
 subjects were engrossing the attention of Congress, and the 
 speaker believed that some amicable adjustment would be 
 made ; but you do not find a single extremist from the 
 South that has consented to be satisfied with any measure 
 of compromise so far suggested. It will ultimately no 
 
1^ 
 
 doubt prevail. The distinguished and venerable old man 
 of Kentucky, the Nestor of the Senate, with his brave 
 heart encouraged by the eleven thousand signatures with 
 which you here recently fortified him, will no doubt per- 
 severe in his course until a great good is accomplished. 
 We can sometimes understand and appreciate the conduct of 
 a brave man, when borne down by a stress of numbers that 
 he cannot meet, is compelled to relinquish what is com- 
 mitted to his custody. A gallant commander in a belea- 
 gured fortress surrounded by an exasperated populace, may 
 retreat to some more commanding point; but before he 
 does so, he spikes his guns and takes his ammunition along 
 with him. But here it is proposed to surrender our whole 
 right in the Territories, without striking a blow to the very 
 parties of whose usurpations we complain on the ground, 
 that unless we do, they may at some future day come and 
 usurp it. 
 
 The Speaker next reviewed the effect of this separate 
 Southern Confederacy upon the Slave property of Maryland. 
 When all Constitutional barriers were broken down, when 
 there were no tribunals, and all questions of boundary were 
 trampled under foot, what assurance could weaker com- 
 munities have from the oppression of their Northern foreign 
 neighbor? Once cut loose from the moorings of the Con- 
 stitution, and no man can foresee whither we shall drift. 
 I cannot believe that a community who have always ral- 
 lied to the defence of the Union, no matter under what 
 disguise its assailants cloak themselves, will fail to come 
 to its rescue now. When in December, 1832, the hero 
 of New Orleans — the gallant defender of this Union — issued 
 his proclamation declaring his purpose to execute the laws 
 and maintain the Union, and calling upon Union-loving 
 men and law-abiding men to aid him in his purpose, where 
 was the man found that did not profess himself ready and 
 willing to stand by him to the last? And when, in the 
 ardor of his patriotic wrath, he swore that this Union should 
 be preserved, where was the heart that did not beat high at 
 the thought that he had such a country to preserve, and 
 such a captain to preserve it? 
 
18 
 
 The stand which that old hero took at that time com- 
 pletely disarmed all his former political opponents, and 
 when he afterwards was gathered to his fathers, full of 
 honors, he was lamented by the whole nation, but never so 
 much as at present. Where is the man at this time pre- 
 pared to reverse the judgment which public opinion then 
 pronounced upon the patriotism of that act? Where is the 
 political follower of his among the thousands of Maryland, 
 who are in the habit of rendering to him an annual tribute 
 by stereotyping upon their ballots his well known features, 
 that will again venture to look upon that face, when he re- 
 members that he has aided in spreading a heresy which he 
 so effectually denounced, and in severing a Union which he 
 would have sacrificed his life to save? 
 
 One of the false issues, artfully arranged by the seceders, 
 consists in so presenting this question as to give it the ap- 
 pearance of a question between the North and South. Such 
 is not the case. If the people of this country possessed the 
 Constitutional power to divide it, and in pursuance of such 
 power were mutually to agree to such a division, separating 
 it into a Northern and Southern Confederacy, then, indeed, 
 we would be fairly called on to determine between them, 
 and would not, probably, long hesitate in our choice; but 
 such is far from the case. The question, truly presented, is : 
 When a State, in the assumed exercise of a right which we 
 can never admit — the right of secession for any fancied 
 cause — undertakes to march out of the Union, shall we fol- 
 low her, or remain in it? It is not a question between 
 North and South, but a question between the United States 
 and the South Carolina Confederacy. Shall we continue 
 under the old flag of the one, or swear a new allegiance to 
 the Palmetto banner of the other? 
 
 It is idle to say that a United States no longer remains 
 to us, because one, two, or a half a dozen that were recently 
 united with us, have determined to take their leave. A 
 ship is still a ship, though a few of her studding sails have 
 yielded to the passing hurricane and been blown away. 
 And whilst the hull and masts and spars and sails still 
 continue amply sufficient to keep her gallantly afloat, we 
 
19 
 
 will never give her ii[). The time is coming when these 
 outo-oine; States will stand in actual need of all that sym- 
 pathy can do for them. Let us remain where we can etfec- 
 tually exert tliem — continue at home rendering our duty to 
 the paternal government, and receiving the shelter of the 
 paternal roof, and when those wlio have wandered off shall 
 have wasted their suhstance and turned their faces once 
 more homeward, we will be there the first to kill the fatted 
 calf and welcome hack the returning prodigal. 
 
 It is a point almost universally conceded in Maryland, 
 that the only right which can be invoked to the support of 
 the present disunion movement, is that ultimate right of 
 an oppressed people — the riglit of revolution— and it is 
 possible that the day may come when those Northern 
 aggressions may reach the point of such an oppression as 
 to justify this last resort. 
 
 But where are the signs of such an oppression now existing 
 as to justify such a revolution? Where on God's fair earth 
 can another people be found so powerful and prosperous, 
 united under a government so free. 
 
 Our very abundance, if not our much learning, would 
 seem to have made us mad. We are like an ungrateful, 
 who never knew what sickness was ; who has been blessed 
 with a lifetime of vigorous health, without ever pausing to 
 appreciate its blessings, until some withering disease at 
 last, contracted by his own blind and headstrong course, 
 opens his eyes to the blessings he had wasted, and leaves 
 him forever afterwards a stricken monument of his own 
 egregious follv. 
 
 There has always seemed to me an ardor about an Ameri- 
 can's patriotism, exceeding that of other people — a hearti- 
 ness about the greeting with which he recognizes his coun- 
 try's flag wherever found — an involuntary identification ot 
 himself with all who are found beneath it — that bids me 
 hope the day is yet distant when he will submit to see it 
 supplanted by any other. W^ell may it be so, for where is 
 the other to be found that through long ages has ever won 
 or worked its way to such renown as it has achieved within 
 the memory of living men. Who will consent to see it now 
 
20 
 
 struck? and those national airs, too, that never, from our 
 nursery days, could we listen to without keeping time to 
 their measures with both hands and feet — the Old hundreds 
 of our country's minstrelsy — who will consent to see them 
 now expunged from one of our national hymn hooks? Let 
 us, my friends, cherish all these time honored emblems 
 with warmer love than ever. And wlien to their inspiring 
 influences our country shall once more rise above the moun- 
 tain wave of faction, against which she is now struggling, 
 let us cheer her on in the language of an American poet:> 
 bidding God speed 
 
 -'to that old ship of Stale. 
 
 Sail on our Union, fair and great; 
 
 Humanity, With all its fears, 
 
 With all its hopes of future years — 
 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate, 
 
 Wo know what master laid thy keel, 
 
 What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel ; 
 
 Who made each mast and sail and rope, 
 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
 
 In what a forge and what a heat — 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
 
 In spite of rock and tempests roar, 
 
 In spite of false lights on the store. 
 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee. 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 
 Our fiiith triumphant o'er our fears. 
 
 Are all Avith thee — are all with thee ! " 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. REVERDY JOHNSON. 
 
 Mr. President and Gendemen of Baltimore : — For this 
 cordial and warm salutation^, you have my most sincere 
 and grateful thanks. Although willing to refer it in some 
 measure to feelings of personal kindness to myself, I prize it 
 the more, infinitely the more, from the assurance it gives me 
 that you believe I am, as I know you are, attached, devo- 
 tedly attached, to the Union our fatlicrs bequeathed to us 
 as the crowning work of all their trials, struggles, perils, 
 in the miglity Avar which, ending in our independence^ 
 animated and strengthened the hopes of human liberty in 
 the bosoms of its votaries in all tlie nations of the earth. 
 
21 
 
 As long as tliey were spared to us, that work, under then- 
 superintending vigilance and patriotic wisdom, was pre- 
 served in its perfect integrity. No false local ambition was 
 suffered to mar it; no unfounded^ heretical doctrine of 
 State rights was permitted to overturn it. No vandal hand 
 dared to strike at it. No traitorous heart — if in those 
 days there was one — ventured to breathe even its destruc- 
 tion. They died — and thank God that it was so — in the 
 full belief that that priceless legacy would be valued by 
 us as they had valued it, and forever transmitted in its 
 entirety as complete and absolute as they left it. Their last 
 moments were made happy in the conviction that the free- 
 dom they had won and secured, and preserved, would be 
 immortal. They no doubt too supposed, as well they 
 might, that the faults of a frail nature, whatever these 
 may have been, would in mercy be blotted out of the record 
 of Heaven's chancery, in consideration of the mighty 
 achievement of striking down tyrranny, and establishing 
 enlightened, constitutional freedom, by a form of govern- 
 ment admirably adapted, if honestly administered, to 
 '^ establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide 
 for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and 
 secure the blessings of liberty" to themselves and their 
 posterity. 
 
 Fearless as they were, boldly as they faced death in every 
 battle field, nobly as they defied the mighty power of 
 England, then almost the mistress of the world, and glo- 
 riously as they triumphed over it — philosophically as in 
 the closet and at the council board they meditated on the 
 future of their country — they could not bring themselves, 
 they had not the heart — to look to that future wliich would 
 be its condition if the Union, intended to be consolidated by 
 that Constitution, should ever be destroyed. If in a moment 
 of temporary despondency the thought flitted througli the 
 mind, the constant prayer was_, that their eyes should be 
 sealed in death before the happening of the dire catastroptiy. 
 
 The immortal author of the Declaration of Independence, 
 a States-rights man of the strictest sect, and as sincere and 
 as zealous a friend of human freedom as ever blessed the 
 world, whilst in such a moment indulging the apprehen- 
 
22 
 
 sion, had for himself but the consolation of an antecedent 
 grave. ^'My only comfort and confidence (said lie in a 
 letter to a friend, on the 13th of April, 1820,) is that I shall 
 not live to see it; and I envy not the present generation the 
 glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices 
 of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experi- 
 ment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capa- 
 ble of self government. The treason against human hope 
 ivill signalize their epoch in future history as the counterpart 
 of the medal of their predecessors." 
 
 That "human hope" even now, before the entire genera- 
 tion is gone, whose noble deeds and consummate wisdom 
 kindled it into ecstatic strength, is losing its fervor. De- 
 si)air rather — sickening, frightful despair — is taking its place. 
 The heart of the good and true men of the land, in every 
 corner of this ocean-bound Republic^ beats with trembling 
 solicitude lest that hope is now and forever to be blasted. 
 It fears, and it has reason to fear, that the fondly cherished 
 experimant may now be ultimately decided. That it may 
 now be proved that self-government is not within the capa- 
 city of man. 
 
 Let it be our purpose, as I know it is our ardent wish, 
 to take counsel with our countrymen, our brothers. East, 
 West, North and South, patriotism knows no latitudes, who, 
 true to the teachings of a noble ancestry, cling as we do, 
 with unfaltering attachment, to the Union they gave, and 
 so commended to us, as the ark of our political safety. 
 Who faithful to all, yes, to all the obligations which that 
 Union imposes, or was intended to impose upon States and 
 citizens, and to all the rights and the powers it confers on 
 the united whole, are, with us, resolved, by prudent coun- 
 sels, patriotic efforts, gratitude, reverence for the great dead, 
 solicitude for the peace, happiness, honor of the living pre- 
 sent, love for the countless generations, that are to follow, 
 and respect for the opinion of the world, already condemn- 
 ing us, even in anticipation, of our possible ''treason 
 against human hope," are willing, anxious, resolved to 
 sacrifice individual opinion, yield conflicting prejudices, 
 frown down party plottings, stifle the grating voice of the 
 
zo 
 
 demagogue, tread intii nothingness tlie political partisan, 
 drive into exile the designing traitor, and in an elevated 
 and patriotic and fraternal spirit, resolve to amend what 
 may be defective, define what may be, or esteemed to be 
 doubtful, in the sacred charter of our liberty and the 
 source of our present prosperity and power and world-wide 
 fame, so as to extinguish the nation's fears, electrify with 
 delight unspeakable its patriotic heart, and ydace it upon a 
 foundation so deep and impregnable that tlie most skeptical 
 will pronounce the danger over, and the world see tliat this 
 generation, like the last, is incapable of '-'treason against 
 human hope," and will never have a counterpart of the 
 medal our ancestors left us, as their proudest boast, the 
 emblem of their conviction that "^man is capable of self- 
 government," and that with us it can only be successfully 
 demonstrated, by preserving, in all its purity, "^the unity 
 of government which constitutes us one people," and, with 
 unsleeping vigilance, guarding it through all time as "a 
 main pillar of the edifice of our real independence." 
 
 And I have an abiding faith, if time is given for such 
 a consultation, that all will be well, and American citizens 
 everywhere, as in the days of our fathers, be brought to 
 know and hail each other but as' brothers — jojnt-heirs of a 
 common inheritance of constitutional freedom, co-workers 
 in the almost holy purpose of so using and maintaining it 
 as to challenge the admiration and command the imitation 
 of the Avorld. 
 
 I have said, gentlemen, that its founders intended the 
 Union to be pei'petual. This is evident from the causes 
 which induced it, and equally evident from the Constitution 
 itself which accomplished it. 
 
 It is necessary, perhaps, to a just understanding of the 
 difficulties which surround and embarrass us, that this 
 should be clearly understood. And although the imme- 
 diate occasion would not justify or admit of a full examina- 
 tion of the subject, you will, I hope, not think it amiss if I 
 submit to you a few suggestions in regard to it. Before, 
 and for nearly two years subsequent to the Declaration of 
 Independence, the struggle was maintained by union alone. 
 
24 
 
 No Colony or State then dreamed of carrying it on, only 
 by itself or for itself. Common danger — a common canse, 
 and a common end, united them in that immortal conflict, 
 as closely, practically, for a time, as the present Constitu- 
 tion unites us. 
 
 It was soon found, however, that that bond was not to be 
 relied upon, and the articles of confederation, agreed upon 
 by Congress in November, 1*7*77, and ratified by every State 
 in March, 1*780, took its place. 
 
 Tlie object of these was to render the Union more secure, 
 by vesting in the General Government the powers then 
 deemed necessary to that end, and for its continuance for- 
 ever. A few years' experience, however, demonstrated 
 their defects. These, too, were found to be fatal to its 
 wholesome operation and its perpetuity. What these were, 
 your recollection will readily recall to you. The great, the 
 leading one, you will remember, was that the principal 
 powers were made to depend for their execution on the 
 States as States. That this was destructive of the purpose, 
 soon became evident. State pride. State policy, State pre- 
 judice. State rivalry, supposed conflicting interests, made 
 some of the States oblivious to the obligations of their com- 
 pact. It was but a compact. It was called in the third 
 article a "league." The thirteenth stipulated that it 
 should "be inviolably observed by every State," and that 
 the Union "be perpetual." But this was mere promise. 
 No means were provided for its enforcement. Each State, 
 as a Sfcde, retained its sovereignty, freedom and indepen- 
 dence, and every power, jurisdiction and right not expressly 
 delegated. 
 
 The whole constituted but a compact, a treaty, between 
 the States, as such. No authority was given the Govern- 
 ment to act directly upon the people. They, in each State, 
 could only be eff'ected by and through State sovereignty. 
 The powers were in themselves apparently comprehensive 
 and adequate. • The vice was the absence of sufiicient means 
 to enforce them. For want of this instrumentality they 
 failed. It was soon seen by the patriotic statesmen of the 
 day that this defect was fatal to union. Experience hourly 
 demonstrated it. Union, however, was not to be abandoned. 
 
9r. 
 
 Nor was that only hope of preserving our freedom and our 
 happiness abandoned by them. They early took steps to 
 avert it. The result was the present Constitution of the 
 United States. Does that correct the chief, the ruinous 
 defect of the confederation ? That it was adopted with that 
 view we know. Has it accomplished it? If it has not, the 
 failure, until now, has not appeared. So far it has proved 
 capable, by its own inherent energy, to execute its own 
 powers, and protect itself by its own means. 
 
 The fancy, it is but a fancy— it is not entitled to the dig- 
 nity of being called a theory— that this, like the former, is 
 but a compact which can only be practically enforced under 
 State assent, and at anytime be legally terminated by State 
 power, until recently has never seriously been maintained. 
 Some years ago South Carolina, that gallant State of vast 
 pretensions but little power, though apparently in her own 
 conceit able to meet the world in arms, ventured to act upon 
 the fancy. In that day, however, statesmen ruled over us, 
 an iron and patriotic will wielded the Executive power, and 
 the Senate chamber was filled with the counsels of Webster. 
 There it ventured in January, 1830, to assert its soundness. 
 A favored son of the State, with South Carolina's reckless, 
 unreflecting daring, was bold enough to challenge the 
 great expounder to the contest. Right nobly, too, did he 
 conduct himself, but his cause was bad — his fate and the 
 fate of his cause was known in advance — they were alike 
 sure of the same destiny — signal, signal defeat. On the 
 26th of that month the great Northern statesman spoke as 
 no man ever spake before, and the doctrine and its gallant 
 champion fell together. That speecli, too, did more than 
 make the name of Webster immortal. It achieved more, 
 much more, than a triumph over the Southerner and his 
 fancy. It fired the patriotic heart of the country. It made 
 it rejoice that that country was ours, then and forever. It 
 planted deep, deep in ''every true American heart" that 
 sentiment so vital to our duty, our honor, our fame, our 
 power, our happiness, our freedom, "Liberty and Union, 
 now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 4 
 
26 
 
 The fancy, however, is now revived. Gentlemen in the 
 puhlic councils, of rare ability, are perverting that ability to 
 maintain it. The public mind of the South to an alarming 
 extent is being deluded by it. Treason, under its supposed 
 protection_, is being perpetrated. The Union is attempted 
 to be severed by it, and it is producing its natural results — 
 solicitude, distress_, agony inconceivable at home, and un- 
 exampled wonder^ and our shame, degradation abroad. 
 
 The defences of the nation, erected at enormous expense 
 out of a common treasure, for the protection of common 
 rights, are being seized. Our glorious national airs hissed, 
 derided and execrated, under its authority. The Iflag, the 
 glorious flag that never yielded to a foreign foe^ is shame- 
 lessly being dishonored^ torn to pieces^ trodden to the earth 
 by the very children of the fathers who adopted it, went as 
 brothers together to battle — to death — or to victory under 
 its inspiring^ sacred folds; and bequeathed it as the emblem 
 of a common brotherhood, a common destiny and a common 
 freedom. A doctrine leading to such consequences cannot 
 be true. Our great patriotic dead never could have left 
 such a doctrine to us. It was that very vice existing in the 
 Confederation, and found to be leading to just such results, 
 which they designed to correct and annihilate by the Con- 
 stitution. Compact^ league, power only to be exerted upon 
 States, was that vice? Is this, in spite of their purpose, 
 and what they evidently supposed they had accomplished, 
 still in the Constitution? 
 
 Wiser, greater men_, more accomplished statesmen, have 
 never lived before or since. How could such men have 
 made such a failure ? The question almost answers itself. 
 The very supposition slanders their memory. But the work 
 itself, in almost every line of it, demonstrates its injustice 
 and absurdity. "A more 'perfect Union" is stated in its 
 very first line, to be its object. "Justice"' for all, "domes- 
 tic tranquility " for all, "the common defence,'' "the gene- 
 ral welfare,"' are stated as the ends of such Union, and, as 
 the means of securing it, it says, "we, the people of the 
 United States," not of any one State, but of all in the ag- 
 gregate, "do ordain this Constitution for the United States 
 
27 
 
 of Anioricaj" not tor the States separately, but for all as 
 one; not a league or eompact, but a Constitution, a Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 And then mark its powers. By the first section, first 
 article, ^'all legislaiive powers herein granted" are vested 
 in Congress. The power to lay and collect taxes, duties, 
 imposts and excises, to pay tlie debts and provide for the 
 common defence and general welfare of all, with no distinc- 
 tion or limit as to the first, and no other as to the rest, but 
 that they "be uniform throughout the United States, is 
 granted; the power to borrow on the credit of all, to regu- 
 late commerce with foreign nations, among the States^ and 
 with the Indian tribes; to coin money and regulate its 
 value, to punish certain crimes, treason included, against 
 the United States; to declare war, to raise and support 
 armies, to })rovide and maintain a navy, to provide for call- 
 ing the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress 
 insurrection and repel invasion; for organizing, &c. the 
 militia, and a variety of other powers, in their nature 
 exclusive, and wholly independent of State power or sove- 
 reignty, exerted in any mode, whether by State or people, 
 are granted. 
 
 All executive power, too, is vested in the President with 
 no limitations whatever any way dependent on State autho- 
 rity, and all judicial power in a judiciary, in and over every 
 variety of case involving the authority of the United States, 
 or the individual rights of person and property, and obliga- 
 tions of the United States intended to be secured or imposed 
 by the Constitution, and finally these powers are all to be 
 enforced, not on the citizen through his State, but upon tlie 
 former directly. 
 
 It follows, consequently, that the offending citizen cannot 
 rely as a defence on State power. His responsibility is to 
 the United States alone. His allegiance, his paramount 
 allegiance, out of which the responsibility springs, as to all 
 these powers, is to that Government alone. His State can- 
 not legally protect him or stand in his place. Her prior 
 sovereignty as to this was extinguished by the act of the 
 people in adopting the Constitution, never again to be 
 
28 
 
 resumed under that instrument. A State or the people of 
 a State may attempt its overthrow, but tlie attempt is trea- 
 son if made with force, it being a "levying war against the 
 United States," an act defined to be treason by the third 
 section of the article. 
 
 But it has, in these degenerate days, recently and even 
 in Congress, and witli great gravity and apparent confi- 
 dence, been insisted in support of the right of secession 
 that as secession, in fact, places a State out of the Union, 
 there is no power in the General Government to prevent it 
 in advance, or redress it if done, because it has no powers 
 that are not granted, and the power to make war upon a 
 State is not granted. 
 
 Admitting, for argument sake, that this is so, and that 
 being so, no remedy exists, would this justify or excuse the 
 act? That the State and her people are subject to all the 
 obligations of the Constitution is clear. Its legislative and 
 all its Executive and judicial officers are in express terms 
 hound by oath to support the Constitution. 
 
 This oath is not fulfilled by secession. That, inten- 
 tionally violates and destroys, instead of supporting. She 
 has, too, incurred under it, liabilities in common with her 
 sisters. These have been contracted by all and for all. 
 Treaties are made, debts are contracted, fortifications, 
 arsenals, a navy_, navy yards, custom houses, a capitol^ an 
 executive mansion, court houses, and other public buildings, 
 light houses, post offices, are constructed at enormous expense 
 with the money of all, for the benefit of all. Immense ter- 
 ritory has been acquired in the same way, or by joint valor. 
 Does the seceding State get clear by secession of these trea- 
 ties and debts ? Does she take with her any, aiid, if any, 
 what interest in the public property ? That which is within 
 the limits of the States was acquired with the consent of 
 each, and which, under the very language of the Consti- 
 tution, not only makes it, thenceforth, the property of the 
 United States, but clothes them with the right of exclusive 
 legislation over it. Thenceforth such portions of her ter- 
 ritory ceased to be hers, and as effectually as if it never had 
 been within her limits, and became eo instant i — the cession — 
 
29 
 
 the sole territory of the United States, and liable to their 
 exclusive legislative power. The State, after this, has no 
 interest in it, except as she is a State of the Union, and only 
 so Ions: as she remains within the Union An act attended 
 with such results to her sisters and herself, absolving her 
 from responsibility for joint contracts, and depriving her of 
 all interest in property and joint acquisitions, and defences 
 necessary to her protection, finds no warrant in the Consti- 
 tution—none whatever. It is, therefore, wrong and illegal. 
 
 Admit then that the Constitution is so defective as to be 
 forced to submit to it, does that prove the act right or legal ? 
 Its illegality, its gross violation of duty, its perjured viola- 
 tion on the part of those who are under an oath to " sup- 
 port " the Constitution, are not the less censurable and 
 illegal because there may be no provision for its punish- 
 ment. Is there no obligation in duty ? Is morality not a 
 virtue — immorality a crime ? Is patriotism an empty 
 phrase? Is treason the less treason because there is no law 
 or tribunal competent to arrest or punish it ? Let the world 
 judge, as it ivill, the teachers of such a doctrine. Do you 
 doubt its judgment? Good men may for a time lash 
 themselves into passion, overwhelm reason, and give them- 
 selves up to the wildest license ; but as Heaven is just and 
 as opinion is enlightened, the victims of the madness of the 
 hour will soon see the estimate whicli the civilized world 
 will place upon their conduct, and shrink with remorse from 
 its sentence. 
 
 But the Constitution is not thus fatally impotent. It is 
 true that it contains no power to declare war against a State, 
 but it has every power for the execution of the laws and the 
 enforcement of their penalties. It goes against the individ- 
 ual offender. It makes no appeal to State power to protect 
 it. For that end it is self-sustaining ; it is its own protec- 
 tor. If the State places herself between the United States 
 and the offending citizen, and attempts to shield him by force 
 of arms, it is she who declares war upon the United States, 
 not the United States upon her. In such a contingency, 
 the force used by the latter, and whicli they have a clear 
 right to use, is not in attack but in defence ; not war, but 
 
30 
 
 the rightful vindication of rights against unjustifia))lo and 
 illegal assaults. 
 
 It is further maintained that the light to secede actually 
 exists because although it be wrong, it is one that cannot be 
 punished through the only legal proceeding known to the 
 Constitution, and for this the sixth amendment is seriously 
 relied upon. That provides that " in all criminal prosecu- 
 tions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and pub- 
 lic trial by an impartial jury, of the State and district 
 wherein the crime shall have been committed," &c.; and it 
 is said that, as in a seceding State, the Judiciary of the 
 United States is abolished by State power, and her people 
 are with her in feeling, or by their allegiance bound to fol- 
 low her, whether approving her course or not, there can be 
 no such trial as the Constitution secures to the offender. 
 
 If this is so, and is ever to lemain so, does it divest the 
 United States of the power admitted to exist before seces- 
 sion, of arresting the offender and holding him until he 
 can be tried. The clause assumes, as is always tlie case, 
 arrest, accusation first and trial afterwards. The first can 
 be made peaceably, or, if necessary, by force. Suppose it 
 done. Is it illegal because the right to a speedy trial can- 
 not be enjoyed? If not, why not? The fault is not with 
 the United States, but witli the State under whose usurpa- 
 tion the party has offended. She, bj her act, has deprived 
 him of the right. Is he to be discharged on that account? 
 Novel doctrine ! The State commits treason against the 
 United States; all her citizens participate in it; the Courts 
 of the United States are closed ; the Judges exiled. The 
 people are prohibited by force from performing their duties. 
 The offender cannot, and for that reason only, be tried. 
 The act is clearly a revolt, and yet it is said that that very 
 treason and revolt in which the party accused is an actor, 
 entitles him to impunity, because the very crime itself de- 
 prives him of the right to a speedy trial in the State where 
 he perpetrated it. 
 
 To such of my professional friends as may be present, I 
 put it to answer, if they think a ground like that, in the 
 judgment of the esteemed and able Chief Justice of the 
 
31 
 
 United States, would suj^port an application for a habeas 
 corpus. Would any of you, regardful as I know you are of 
 your reputation, venture to make it? And yet, Senators 
 have ventured to make it. Truly has it heen said, with 
 what little wisdom is the world governed. 
 
 Further, what is true of treason is equally true of any 
 other crime, and is applicable alike to States and to the 
 United States. Nearly all, if not all, the Constitutions of 
 the former contain a provision that the offenders he tried only 
 in the vicinage where the offences are charged to have been 
 committed. Are they to go unpunished — to be perpetrated 
 with impunity — if, from local partiality or prejudice, a fair 
 trial cannot be had? Gambling houses, cock-fighting, 
 racing, may be fashionable amusements, though prohibited 
 by law. The law is violated — the offence of constant occur- 
 rence — the whole country sanctions it, deem the prohibition 
 tyrannical and put it at defiance. Has the State no right to 
 enforce it? No^ says the perpetrator — no, says our modern 
 jurist. The right to punish is gone, because the power to 
 punish, from the very prevalence and fashion of the crime, 
 does not exist. A trial can only be constitutionally had in 
 the county or district Avhere the offence is committed, and 
 there it cannot be had, as there all are offenders, and they 
 will not sanction or suffer its punishment. 
 
 What do we know has occurred? The United States, by 
 the very letter of the Constitution, are authorized to pro- 
 hibit, by punishment, the African slave trade. They are 
 also empowered, in order to preserve the peace of the coun- 
 try, and maintain its honor, to restrain our citizens from 
 warring upon other nations Avith whom we are at peace. 
 Laws for both purposes have long existed, and their Con- 
 stitutionality never questioned. The trade has, neverthe- 
 less, been carried on, and hostile enterprises set on foot. 
 The parties have been arrested. 
 
 In some cases indictments could not be obtained, because 
 an impartial,, honest Grand Jury could not be found. In 
 others such a petit jury, for the same cause, could not be 
 had to convict. In others the offender has been rescued. 
 The power to punisli, therefore, in these instances, did not 
 
32 
 
 exist. The citizens of the only constitutional place for trial 
 and punishment practically set at naught the laws. They 
 acknowledged a higher law. They thought the slave trade 
 moral — the breach of the neutrality acts, patriotism. The 
 one extended the area of a favored institution, and in time 
 would Christianize its victims — the other extended the 
 area of freedom, and in time would make liberty universal. 
 
 But the acts, notwithstanding, were crimes, and should 
 be punished. No, say our modern constitutional ex- 
 pounders. No, say Senators. They are not crimes, what- 
 ever may be the law on the statute book, because there is 
 no potential legal mode to try and punish them, the mere 
 machinery of the law, in that particular, is defective, the 
 whole vicinage being tainted, and participating or sympa- 
 thizing with the offence and offender, impunity is secured, 
 and impunity converts crime into virtue. 
 
 As well might the thief or murderer who so cunningly 
 steal or kills as to escape detection, rely upon his cunning 
 as a moral and legal justification. The whole theory shocks 
 common sense. It is not punishment which makes the 
 crime. It is the wrong, the illegality of its perpetration. 
 The question of punishment arises after the crime is com- 
 mitted, and exists wholly irrespective of subsequent detec- 
 tion and punishment. If, then, secession is a crime — is 
 treason against the United States — it will remain so forever, 
 whether the latter succeeds in dealing with it as the law 
 requires or not. 
 
 Again, it is maintained that the right to secede exists, 
 first, because it is reserved; secondly, because it is not pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 It is said to be reserved. For this the ninth and tenth 
 articles of the Constitution are relied upon. 
 
 The first is evidently designed to exclude the conclusion 
 that the enumeration in the instrument of certain rights 
 to the people, the citizens, as such, in their individual 
 character, is to be held ''to deny or disparage others 
 retained by the people." It has nothing to do with State 
 sovereignty or power at all. 
 
33 
 
 The second, so far from sustaining the doctrine, clearly 
 refutes it. It is read as if it reserved to the States, or the 
 people, all rights not prohibited by it to the States, Such 
 is not, however, its language or its purpose. 
 
 It certainly does not reserve rights prohibited, but it 
 does more, and if it had not, the whole scheme of govern- 
 ment would have failed at once. Certain powers, with a 
 view to the benefit of all, were found indispensable to be 
 vested in the Government. For want of these, the whole 
 were suffering great, and, as was believed, if not obviated, 
 fatal mischief. These powers in their very nature were 
 such as the States could not beneficially oxei'cise. They 
 were to be vested, therefore, if to exist at all, in the Gov- 
 ernment. To reserve them to the States, or the people of 
 the States, would destroy the very object of placing them 
 elsewhere. The amendment, therefore, does not do such a 
 silly, suicidal act. The powers delegated are not reserved. 
 On the contrary, these, by the very words of the amend- 
 ment, are as clearly excluded as the power prohibited. 
 
 The language is "the powers not delegated to the United 
 States by the Constitution," &c. are reserved. A delegated 
 power consequently, like a prohibited power, is not within 
 tlie reservation. 
 
 If, therefore, the Constitution delegates to the Govern- 
 ment certain poAvers to be executed in a State, she has no 
 right to resist them under this amendment. The fact of 
 delegation, as well as the fact of express prohibition, is the 
 exclusion of all State power. 
 
 If then the Constitution is in any sense a compact, it is 
 a compact creating and establishing a government, and its 
 powers are as supreme and exclusive as if they had been 
 vested and established by the whole people in the aggregate. 
 
 But it is in no sense a compact, except as every govern- 
 ment is a compact, implied in the correlative obligations of 
 protection and allegiance. This is clear upon tlie authority 
 of tlie great names that assisted in forming it. 
 
 The doctrine of compact in the days of South Carolina 
 nullification, (she has been before restive and troublesome, 
 perhaps from not having much else to do tlian to theorize 
 5 
 
34 
 
 and grumble and scold,) was relied upon in support of that 
 heresy. Ever alive to the fame of a work in great measure 
 his own, Mr. Madison, in a few masterly letters, rich with 
 the perspicuity of his style, and with the patriotism which 
 ever adorned him, exposed its fallacy to a demonstration. 
 His motives were beyond suspicion, if unworthy motives 
 could ever have been attached to his pure nature. His 
 public career was run. He had greatly contributed to his 
 country's prosperity and renown, in every high official sta- 
 tion. He had seen the various defects of the Confederation, 
 and to correct them, had successfully exerted his transcen- 
 dent abilities in establishing for us the Constitution which 
 he came from his honored retreat to defend. His years 
 were many; his race on earth nearly at an end. But he 
 loved his native land with all his original ardor, and seeing 
 how sure the doctrine was to involve it in the calamities 
 certain to have resulted from the government which the 
 Constitution displaced, and displaced in order to avoid, he 
 exposed and denounced it as a fatal heresy, full of the very 
 perils which it was the very purpose of the Convention to 
 avert. I have not time to give you more than an extract 
 or two from the correspondence. But these will be enough 
 for my object. Writing to Mr. M. L. Hurlburt in May, 1830, 
 who had sent him a pamphlet of his own on the subject, he 
 says, in order to discover its true nature: 
 
 '^'The facts of the case which must decide its true charac- 
 ter, a character without a prototype, are that the Constitu- 
 tion was created by the people, but by the people as com- 
 posing distinct States and acting by a majority of each ; 
 that, being derived from the same source as the Constitu- 
 tion of the States, it has within each State the same au- 
 thority as the Constitution of the State, and is as much a 
 Constitution, in the strict sense of the term, as the Consti- 
 tution of the State; that, being a compact among the States 
 ia their highest sovereign capacity, and constituting the 
 people thereof one people for certain purposes, it is not 
 revocable or alterable at the will of these States individu- 
 ally, as the Constitution of a State is revocable and alter- 
 able at its individual will. 
 
35 
 
 "That the sovereign or supreme powers of government 
 are divided into the separate depositories of the Govern- 
 ment of the United States and the Governments of the 
 individual States. 
 
 *'That the Government of the United States is a Govern- 
 ment, in as strict a sense of the term, as the Governments 
 of the States: being, like them, organized into a legisla- 
 tive, executive and judicial department, operating^, like 
 them, directly on persons and things, and having, like 
 them, the command of a physical force for executing the 
 powers committed to it." 
 
 He writes Mr. Kives, in December, 1828: ''Were some 
 of the Southern doctrines latterly advanced valid, our 
 political system would not be a government, but a mere 
 league, in which the members have given up no part what- 
 ever of their sovereignty to a common government, and 
 retain, moreover, a right in each to dissolve the compact 
 wdien it pleases. It seems to be forgotten, that in the case 
 of a mere league there must be as much right on one side 
 to assert and maintain its obligations as on the other to 
 cancel it, and prudence ought to calculate the tendency of 
 such a conflict. It is painful to observe so much real talent, 
 and at bottom, doubtless, so much real patriotism, as pre- 
 vail in the Southern quarter, so much misled by the sophis- 
 try of the passions." 
 
 To Mr. N. P. Trist, February, 1830: 
 
 "The Constitution of the United States divides the sov- 
 ereignty, the portions surrendered by the States composing 
 the Federal sovereignty of each over specified subjects; the 
 portions retained forming the sovereignty of each over the 
 residuary subjects within its sphere. If sovereignty cannot 
 be thus divided, the political system of the United States is 
 a chimera; mocking the vain pretensions of human wis- 
 dom. If it can be so divided, the system ought to have a 
 fair opportunity of fulfilling the wishes and expectations 
 which cling to the experiment. 
 
 " Nothing can be more clear than that the Constitution 
 of the United States has created a Government, in as a 
 strict sense of the term as the Governments of the States 
 
36 
 
 created by their respective Constitutions. The Federal 
 Government has, like the State Governments, its legislative, 
 its executive, and its judiciary departments. It has, like 
 them, acknowledged cases in which the powers of these 
 departments are to operate. And the operation is to be 
 directly on persons and things in the one Government as in 
 the otlier." 
 
 In the same letter, he said, considering it but as a com- 
 pact : 
 
 " Applying a like view of the subject to the case of the 
 United States, it results, that the compact being among 
 individuals as embodied into States, no State can at pleasure 
 release itself therefrom and set up for itself. The compact 
 can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or 
 by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect. 
 It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the 
 terms or nature of the compact authorizing a party to dis- 
 solve it at pleasure. 
 
 "It is indeed inseparable from the nature of a compact that 
 there is as much right on one side to expound it, and to 
 insist on its fulfilment according to that exposition, as there 
 is on the other, so to expound it as to furnish a release from 
 it ; and that an attempt to annul it by one of the parties 
 may present to the other an option of acquiescing in the 
 amendment or of preventing it, as the one or the other 
 course may be deemed the lesser evil. This is a considera- 
 tion which ought deeply to impress itself on every patriotic 
 mind, as the strongest dissuasion from unnecessary ap- 
 proaches to such a crisis. 
 
 ''What would be the condition of the States attached to 
 the Union and its government, and regarding both as essen- 
 tial to their well-being, if a State placed in the midst of 
 them were to renounce its Federal obligations, and erect 
 itself into an independent and alien nation? Could the 
 States North and South of Virginia, Pennsylvania, or New 
 York, or of some other States, however small, remain asso- 
 ciated and enjoy their present happiness, if geographically, 
 politically and practically thrown apart by such a breach of 
 the chain which unites their interests and binds them 
 
37 
 
 together as neighbors and fellow-citizens? Itcouhl not be. 
 The innovation wonld be Altai to the Federal Government, 
 fatal to the Union, and lata! to the hopes of liberty and 
 humanity^ and presents a catastrophe at which all ought to 
 shudder. 
 
 "Without identifying the case of the United States with 
 that of individual States, there is at least an instructive 
 analogy between them. What would be the condition of 
 the State of New York, of Massachusetts, or of Pennsylva- 
 nia, for example, if portions containing their great com- 
 mercial cities, invoking original rights as paramount to 
 social and constitutional compacts, should elect themselves 
 into distinct and absolute sovereignties ? In so doing they 
 would do no more, unless justified by an intolerable oppres- 
 sion, than would be done by an individual State as a por- 
 tion of the Union, in separating itself without a like cause 
 from the other portions. Nor would greater evils be inflicted 
 by such a mutilation of a State on some of its parts than 
 miglit be felt by some of the States from the separation of 
 its neighbors into absolute and alien sovereignties." 
 
 And lastly, he writes Mr. Webster, in May, 1830, who 
 had sent him his speech on Foot's resolution : 
 
 " I had before received more than one copy from other 
 sources, and had read the speech with a full sense of its 
 powerful bearing on the subjects discussed, and particularly 
 its overwhelming effect on the nullifying doctrine of South 
 Carolina." 
 
 How clear, how convincing are all these to show the utter 
 unsoundness of the doctrine, in the opinion of one so emi- 
 nently fit to give us the true meaning of the Constitution 
 from having largely assisted in framing it, in expounding 
 it, in commending it to the adoption of the people, and 
 administering it with unsurpassed ability in almost every 
 department of the public service, including the very highest. 
 How pale do the small, feeble lights of the present day 
 appear in the presence of such a luminary ! How unreli- 
 able and unauthoritative our modern sciolists, compared 
 with one who, deeply imbued with all the knowledge that 
 makes the accomplished statesman, had converted it almost 
 
38 
 
 into a part of his very nature, from a daily application of 
 it in the promotion of his country's welfare, and the main- 
 tenance and perpetuation of the noble form of Government, 
 which he had done so much to establish. Looking at it 
 with the eye of a patriot and with a knowledge of the un- 
 paralleled blessings it had conferred on his country, he con- 
 strued it so as to preserve it. He did not with the acuteness 
 of a special pleader, try to discover defects fatal to its con- 
 tinuance. His mind, though the law was his early study, 
 had not been cabined within technical limits. Though 
 astute, it was comprehensive. 
 
 The law he only knew as it was connected with the 
 character and duties of the statesman. He never dreamed, 
 who does who is competent to the task, of construing the 
 Constitution of a great nation, as you would an indictment 
 to rescue a culprit. His object was to preserve and enforce 
 it, not to escape from it by little technical subterfuges. He 
 wished to perpetuate, not to destroy. He gave no counte- 
 nance to a doctrine, an "innovation" which "would be fatal 
 to the Federal Government, fatal to the Union, and fatal to 
 the hopes of liberty and humanity, and present a catas- 
 trophe at which all ought to shudder," 
 
 Mr. Webster and Mr. Adams, too, have been invoked to 
 support tlieheres}'. What desecration ! If their spirits had 
 been permitted to revisit the Senate Chamber, so often the 
 theatre of their fame and glory, and to have heard the invo- 
 cation, can you not imagine the sternness and indignation 
 with which they would instantly have rebuked so unfounded 
 an imputation on their wisdom and patriotism — Webster 
 the advocate or the apologist of secession? His speech 
 already referred to of January, 1830, in almost every line 
 of it, denounces the doctrine. Which of you has failed to 
 read that speech, and to be convinced? It will remain for- 
 ever a crushing answer to the heresy. And as it has ever 
 since been, so it will ever continue to be^ the brightest gem 
 in the patriotic literature of the age. 
 
 Secession — peaceable, constitutional secession — asserted 
 even in the Senate Chamber on the authority of Daniel 
 Webster. Hear what he thought of it. In 1850, as in 
 
39 
 
 1830, the country was threatened with destruction. The 
 error again ventured to sliow itself. Its disciples once more 
 rallied to its support. Do you remember his 7th of March 
 speech? Let me recall a part of its lofty eloquence and its 
 more lofty patriotism: 
 
 "I hear, with pain and anguish and distress, the word 
 secession, especially when it falls from the lips of those who 
 are eminently patriotic, and known to the country and 
 known all over the world for their political services. Seces- 
 sion! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are 
 never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of 
 this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of 
 the fountains of the great deep without ruffling its surface! 
 Who is so foolish, I beg everybody's pardon, as to expect 
 to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now 
 revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects 
 to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, 
 may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush 
 from their spheres and jostle against each other in the 
 realms of space, without producing the crush of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 "There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. 
 Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is tl)e great 
 Constitution under which we live here — covering this whole 
 country — is it to be thawed and melted away by secession 
 as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a 
 vernal sun — disappear almost unobserved and die off? No, 
 sir! no, sir! I will not state what might produce the dis- 
 ruption of the States; but, sir, l see it as plainly as I see 
 the sun in heaven — I see that disruption must produce such 
 a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold characters. 
 
 "Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concur- 
 rent agreement of all the members of this great Ptepublic to 
 separate! A voluntary separation with alimony on one side 
 and on the other! Why, what would be the result? Where 
 is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What 
 is to remain American? What am I to be? — an American 
 no longer? Where is the flag of the Piepublic to remain? 
 Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and 
 shrink and f^iU to the ground? 
 
40 
 
 "Why, sir, our ancestors — our fathers and our grand- 
 fathers — those of them that are yet living among us with 
 prolonged lives would rehuke and reproach us; and our 
 children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon 
 us! if we, of this generation, should dishonor these ensigns 
 of the power of the Government and the harmony of the 
 Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy 
 and gratitude. What is to become of the army? W^hat is 
 to become of the navy? What is to become of the public 
 lands? How is each of the thirty States to defend itself? 
 I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, 
 there is to be a Southern Confederacy. 
 
 "■ I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that 
 any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I 
 do not mean that it is true, but I have heard it suggested 
 elsewhere, that that idea has originated in a design to sepa- 
 rate. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, 
 talked of, or dreamed of^ in the wildest flights of human 
 imagination. But the idea must be of a separation including 
 the Slave States upon one side, and the Free States on the 
 other. 
 
 "Sir, there is not — I may express myself too strongly 
 perhaps — but some things, some moral things, are almost 
 as impossible as other natural or physical things; and I 
 hold the idea of a separation of these States — those that are 
 free to form one Government, and those that are slavehold- 
 ing to form another, as a moral impossibility. We could 
 not separate the States by any such line if we were to draw 
 it. We could not sit down here to-day and draw a line of 
 separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. 
 
 "There are natural causes that would keep and tie us 
 together, and there are social and domestic relations which 
 we could not break, if we would, and which we should not 
 break, if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of 
 this country at the present moment — nobody can see where 
 its population is most dense and growing — without being 
 ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long 
 America will be in the valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 " Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthu- 
 
41 
 
 siast lias to say on the possibility of cutting off that river, 
 and leaving Free States at its source and its branches, and 
 Slave States down near its mouth? Pray, sir; pray, sir, 
 let me say to the people of this country, that these things 
 are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. 
 Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the Free States 
 north of the river Ohio. Can anybody suppose that this 
 population can be severed by a line that divides them from 
 the territory of a foreign and alien Government, down 
 somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banlcs 
 of the Mississippi ? 
 
 "What will become of ^Missouri ? Will she join the 
 arondissement of the Slave States? Shall the man from 
 the Yellow Stone and the Platte be connected in the new 
 Republic with the man who lives on the southern extremity 
 of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this 
 line of remark. I dislike it — I have an utter disgust for it. 
 I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, 
 pestilence and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of seces- 
 sion. To break up! to break up this great Government! to 
 dismember this great country! to astonish Europe with an 
 act of folly such as Europe, for two centuries, has never 
 beheld in any Government! No, sir! no, sir! There will 
 be no secession. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk 
 of secession.'" 
 
 The Supreme Court, too, speaking through each of its 
 great chiefs, Marshall and Taney, repels the doctrine. 
 
 In the case of McCulloch and Maryland, the first of 
 these, as the organ of the whole Court, rejected it in clear 
 terms. The very foundation, the only one on which it can 
 for a moment stand, is, that the Constitution is a compact, 
 and not in the usual and sovereign sense of the word, a 
 government. Let me read you how he disposed of this: 
 
 ''Li discussing this question, (the question of compact,) 
 the counsel for the State of Maryland have deemed it of 
 some importance, in the construction of the Constitution, 
 to consider that instrument as not emanating from the 
 people, but as the act of sovereign and independent States, 
 The powers of the General Government, it has been said, 
 G 
 
42 
 
 are delegated by tlie States, who alone are truly sovereign ; 
 and must be exercised in subordination to the States, who 
 alone possess supreme dominion. 
 
 "It would be difficult to sustain this proposition. The 
 Convention which framed the Constitution was indeed 
 elected by the State Legislatures. But the instrument 
 when it came from their hands was a mere proposal, with- 
 out obligation, or pretensions to it. It was reported to the 
 then existing Congress of the United States, with a request 
 that it might 'be submitted to a Convention of Delegates, 
 chosen in each State by the people thereof, under the recom- 
 mendation of its Legislature, for their assent and ratifica- 
 tion.' This mode of ftroceeding was adopted, and by the 
 Convention, by Congress, and by the State Legislatures, 
 the instrument was submitted to the people. They acted 
 upon it in the only manner in which they can act safely, 
 effectively, and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling in 
 Convention. It is true, they assembled in their several 
 States — and where else should they have assembled? No 
 political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking 
 down the lines which separate the States, and of com- 
 pounding the American people into one common mass. Of 
 consequence, when they act, they act in their States. But 
 the measures they adoj)t do not, on that account, cease to be 
 the measures of the people themselves, or become the 
 measures of the State Governments. 
 
 "From these Conventions the. Constitution derives its 
 whole authority. The Government proceeds directly from 
 the people; is ordained and established in the name of 
 the people, and is declared to be ordained, 'in order to 
 form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domes- 
 tic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to them- 
 selves and to their posterity.' The assent of the States, in 
 their sovereign capacity, is implied in calling a Convention, 
 and thus submitting that instrument to the people. But 
 the people were at perfect liberty to accept or reject it; and 
 their act was final. It required not the affirmance, and 
 could not be negatived by the State Governments. The 
 Constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obliga- 
 tion, and bound the State sovereignties, 
 
43 
 
 ''It lias been said tliat tlie people had already surren- 
 dered all their powers to the State sovereignties, and had 
 nothing more to give. But, surely^ the question whether 
 they may resume and modify the powers granted to the 
 Government does not remain to be settled in this country. 
 Much more might the legitimacy of the General Govern- 
 ment be doubted, had it been created by the States. The 
 powers delegated to the States sovereignties were to be 
 exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and independent 
 sovereignty, created by themselves to the formation of a 
 league, such as was the confederation, the State sovereign- 
 ties were certainly competent. But when ^in order to form 
 a more perfect Union,' it was deemed necessary to change 
 this alliance into an effective Government, possessing great 
 sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the 
 necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its 
 powers directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by 
 all. 
 
 "The Government of this Union, then, (whatever may 
 be the influence of this fact on the case,) is emphatically 
 and truly a Government of the people. In form and in 
 substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted 
 by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for 
 their benefit." 
 
 The principle here adjudged was over and over again, 
 under the administration of the same great Judge, main- 
 tained as the settled judgment of the Court, and without a 
 dissenting voice. 
 
 It has with equal clearness, uniformity and force, been 
 upheld since Chief Justice Taney became the presiding 
 ornament of that high tribunal. It was involved in the 
 case of the United States and Booth, in 21st Howard. In 
 that instance the State of Wisconsin, through its Courts, 
 resisted the authority of the United States, and denied the 
 validity of an act of Congress, constitutionally passed. It 
 was the object of the writ of error to have the judgment 
 reviewed. The supremacy of the General Government was 
 again denied. The alleged inherent sovereignty of the 
 State was again asserted, and the conduct of Wisconsin 
 
M 
 
 vindicated ou those grounds. The Court unanimously, 
 through the chief, said what I will read to you : 
 
 ''The Constitution was not formed merely to guard the 
 States against danger from foreign nations, but mainly to 
 secure union and harmony at home, for if this object could 
 be attained, there would be but little danger from abroad ; 
 and to accomplish this purpose, it was felt by the statesmen 
 who framed the Constitution, and by the people ivho 
 adopted it, that it v/as necessary that many of the rights of 
 sovereignty wliich the States then possessed should he ceded 
 to the General Government ; and that in the sphere of action 
 assigned to it, it should he supreme and strong enough to 
 execute its own laws hy its own trihunals ivithout interrup- 
 tion from a State or from State authorities. And it was 
 evident that anytliing short of this would be inadequate to 
 the main objects for which the Government was established, 
 and that local interests, local passions or prejudices, incited 
 and fostered by individuals for sinister purposes, would 
 lead to acts of aggression and injustice by one State upon 
 the rights of another^ which would ultimately terminate in 
 violence and force^ unless there was a common arbiter 
 between them, armed with power enough to protect and 
 guard the rights of all, by appropriate laws, to be carried 
 into execution peacefully by its judicial tribunals. 
 
 "The language of the Constitution by which this power 
 is granted, is too plain to admit of doubt or to need com- 
 ment. It declares that 'this Constitution and laws of the 
 United States which shall be passed in pursuance thereof, 
 and all treaties made, or which shall be made under the 
 authority of the United States, shall be the suiDreme law of 
 the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound 
 thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State 
 to the contrary notwithstanding.' 
 
 "This tribunal, therefore, Avas erected, and the powers 
 of which we have spoken conferred upon it, not by the 
 Federal Government, but by the people of the States, who 
 formed and adopted that Government, and conferred upon 
 it all the powers, legislative, executive and judicial, which 
 it now possesses," 
 
45 
 
 1 will not detain you longer by rel'ei'ring lurtlicr to the 
 authority of our best and greatest men in opposition to the 
 heresy. 
 
 I will but add this further suggestion. 
 
 The obligation of a State whilst in the Union, to submit 
 to the authority of the Union, is admitted by all. She is 
 bound to this, not onl}- because of the powers delegated to 
 the government of the Union, but because of the express 
 restraints uj^on her own. This obligation, created with 
 the consent of herself or of her people, and conceded to be 
 in full force whilst she is in the Union and to be then 
 beyond her power, it is asserted on the strength of the 
 secession heresy, that she can at any time, at her own good 
 pleasure, in the exercise of her own exclusive discretion, 
 and not only Avithout but against the consent of all the 
 other States and their citizens, and of the minority of her 
 own citizens, honorabl}^ legally, constitutionally escape 
 from, by retiring from the Union. 
 
 As long as she is a member, the Constitution and the 
 laws are binding on her, and may bo legally enforced. 
 The moment she ceases to be one, though the cause be only 
 her own will, they are not binding and cannot be so en- 
 ibrced. How idle the careful provisions in the Constitu- 
 tion, to procure obedience to its rightful authority by the 
 citizens individually of all the States, and by the States 
 themselves, where that action is necessary, to the continu- 
 ance of the Government, if all can be avoided and nullified 
 by the single act of State secession. The folly of the pro- 
 position is so gross that it is difficult to see how a sound 
 mind can entertain it, even for a moment. And yet it is 
 entertained by men wise on all other subjects, and as patri- 
 otic as they are wise. It is but another illustration, to the 
 many that history supplies, how the finest intellect and the 
 purest heart at times falls even into mischievous absurdities. 
 But I leave the subject for another. 
 
 A few months since no people were happier than ours — 
 none more prosperous or more respected by the world. In 
 that short period what a sad reverse; all now is apprehen- 
 sion — solicitude fills the land — private enterprise is para- 
 
46 
 
 lyzed — every indiistrioiis pursuit is suffering; individual 
 credit, so vital to prosperity, is almost gone. National 
 credit, yet more vital, almost totally lost; war, civil war, 
 greatl}' imminent; bitter hostility of section disgracefully 
 and dangerously prevailing; and our Government itself, 
 the very citadel of our safety — the chief source of our past 
 countless blessings, in certain quarters despised, reviled 
 and threatened with destruction. 
 
 To what is all this to be referred? Within that time no 
 oppressive or unconstitutional act has been done by Con- 
 gress or the Executive, or any other that even tends to in- 
 jure States or people; and no act has been done by a single 
 State having that tendency. 
 
 The Government of the United States, as such, has com- 
 plied with all its obligations to the States and people. 
 There is not on the statute book a single law affecting the 
 peculiar institution of labor in the Southern States, except 
 for its protection — a fugitive labor act is there, passed for 
 that very purpose, drafted by a Southern Senator, sup- 
 ported, I believe, by every Southern member of Congress, 
 and apparently quite adequate to its end. The United 
 States, in every instance;, have exerted, when called upon, 
 and effectually, their entire force for its faithful execution. 
 The State laws conflicting with it, or designed, or serving 
 to defeat or embarrass it, were all passed long since. There 
 is no present occasion for re-opening the Territorial contro- 
 versy. The status of our existing Territories would seem 
 to be ultimately fixed, even by nature's laws ; and there is 
 no present prospect of future acquisitions. 
 
 Tariff laws, incidentally protecting manufactures, are 
 co-eval with the Government, and have never actually 
 interfered with the welfare of any State. The whole nation 
 has either by their aid^ or in spite of them, prospered 
 throughout its entire limits, as was never paralleled in 
 any other that ever existed. 
 
 Why, then, I again ask, the present dread of disunion? 
 
 Is it the election, in a perfectly Constitutional mode, of 
 a citizen as President^ who is thought to hold principles 
 fatal to Southern rights? Suppose he does; will he not be 
 
47 
 
 impotent for liavm ? His powers for any sucli purpose are 
 subordinate to those of Congress, and the action of both, if 
 illegal, can be revised and annulled by a patriotic Judici- 
 ary, which has ever shown itself capable and willing to 
 uphold, with even hand, the rights of all the States. 
 
 But is the President elect so hostile to Southern rights ? 
 I do not deem it necessary or advisable, in the present ex- 
 cited state of the South, to hunt up what he may have said 
 in an electioneering canvass. One thing I know, the South 
 did not always view him as specially dangerous, for cer- 
 tainly they did not pursue the course the best, if not the 
 only one, even promising to defeat his election. A speech 
 in the Senate, that became at once a Southern and a 
 Northern campaign document, used to defeat in the one 
 section Judge Douglas, and in the other to promote the 
 cause of Mr. Lincoln, was made by Mr. Benjamin, in May, 
 1860, with his specious ability and pleasing eloquence. 
 That gentleman on that occasion endeavored to show that 
 Mr. Lincoln was more conservative and true to the South 
 than Mr. Douglas. 
 
 Keferring to the Senatorial contest which they had re- 
 cently had in Illinois, he said what I read to you. "In 
 that contest tlie two candidates for the Senate of the United 
 States, in the State of Illinois, went before their people. 
 They agreed to discuss the issues ; they put questions to 
 each other for answer ; and I must say here, for I must be 
 just to all, tliat I have been surprised in tlie examination 
 that I made again, luithin the last feio days, of this discussion 
 between 3Ir. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas, to find that 3Ir. Lin- 
 coln IS A FAR MORE CONSERVATIVE MAN, unlcss he has sincc 
 changed his opinions, than I had supjiosed him to he. There 
 was no dodging on his part. Mr. Douglas started with his 
 questions. Here they are witli Mr. Lincoln's answers : 
 
 "Question 1. — I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day 
 stands as he did in ]854, in favor of the unconditional re- 
 peal of the Fugitive slave law ? 
 
 " Answer. — I do not now, nor ever did, stand in fiivor of 
 the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. 
 
 " Question 2. — T desire liini to answor whether lie stands 
 
48 
 
 pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of 
 any more slave States into tlie Union, even if the people 
 want them ? 
 
 "'Answer. — I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged 
 against the admission of any more slave States into the 
 Union. 
 
 "" Question 3. — T want to know whether he stands pledged 
 against the admission of a new State into the Union with 
 such a Constitution as the people of that State may see fit 
 to make ? 
 
 " Answer. — I do not stand pledged against tlie admission 
 of a State into the Union with sucli a Constitution as the 
 people of that State may see fit to make. 
 
 " Question 4. — T want to know whether he stands to-day 
 pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia ? 
 
 " Answer. — I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition 
 of slavery in the District of Columbia. 
 
 " Question 5. — I desire him to answer whether he stands 
 pledged to the prohibition of the slave trade between the 
 different States ? 
 
 " Answer. — I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of 
 tlie slave trade between the different States, 
 
 " Question 6. — I desire to know whether lie stands 
 pledged to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of the 
 United States, North as well as South of the Missouri Com- 
 promise line? 
 
 " Answer. — I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to 
 a belief in the rigid and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery 
 in all tlie United States' Territories, 
 
 " Question 7. — I desire him to answer whether he is op- 
 posed to the acquisition of any new Territory unless slavery 
 is first proliibited therein ? 
 
 " Answer. — I am not generally opposed to honest acqui- 
 sition of Territory, and in any given case I would or would 
 not oppose such acquisition, accordingly as I might think 
 such acquisition would or would not aggravate the slave 
 question among ourselves." — Debates of Lincoln and Doug- 
 las, p. 88. 
 
49 
 
 The distinguished Senator evidently did not then think, 
 he certainly did not even intimate, that these opinions of 
 the President elect were so unconstitutional and violative of 
 Southern rights as to justify revolution on the contingency 
 of his election. On the contrary, they were produced and 
 relied upon to satisfy the South that he would he truer to 
 her than Douglas. And yet, who supposes that if the lat- 
 ter had been the choice of the people, the present troubles 
 could or would have been produced ? 
 
 Nor, in truth, is there anything in his opinions so clearly 
 wrong as to cause alarm. They are, in some particulars, 
 in my judgment unsound and mischievous, but not so mis- 
 chievous as to warrant serious apprehension^ or — before he 
 is even permitted to explain his actual policy — to justify or 
 excuse revolution — the destruction of the Government. 
 Singular idea, that because possibly he may advise and be 
 able to carry measures calculated to destroy it, that the 
 safety and duty of the South warrant them in destroying it 
 themselves, in advance. How men, loyal to the Union and 
 anxious for its preservation, can so reason, is incomprehen- 
 sible. There are, no doubt, in some States enemies of the 
 Government, life-long enemies, resolved at all hazards to 
 effect its ruin, and who have been plotting it for years. But 
 these are not to be found in Maryland. Here, thank God, 
 such disloyalty never obtained even a foothold. 
 
 We may differ now as to the exact course to be pursued, 
 but we differ only as to the best means of accomplishing a 
 common purpose — the Union's safety. In this particular I 
 have differed, and still perhaps differ, with friends whose 
 fealty to the Union is as strong and abiding as it can be in 
 any American heart. Let us, therefore, casting aside all 
 prior differences, mere party controversies, unite together 
 as a band of brothers, and in good faith and with unflinch- 
 ing firmness, rally around our noble State ; noble in her 
 institutions ; noble in her Revolutionary history, noble in 
 the great fame of her illustrious dead^ and resolve by all 
 just and honorable means, by any fair and equitable adjust- 
 ment of sectional controversies, to assist her in efforts to 
 terminate the sad, dreadful strife which now imperils all we 
 hold dear. Finally, is all hope lost — all remedy gone? I 
 7 
 
50 
 
 think not. The danger that is upon us has its origin, I 
 think, in part to wrongs, and to wrongs on all sides. The 
 North is the most to blame, hut the South is not blameless. 
 It would be to no useful purpose to display the particulars. 
 Criminations and recriminations, God knows, to the dis- 
 honor of all, have progressed far enough and produced 
 results bad enough. 
 
 The violence of the press, the desecration of a part of the 
 Northern pulpit, the scurrilous, insulting debates in Con- 
 gress, the insidious and thieving interference with rights 
 of property in the South, the libelous assaults upon the 
 Supreme Court, for having been but faithful to Constitu- 
 tional duty — the avowed purpose when the power should 
 exist, to reconstruct it, for sectional ends degrading to the 
 South and destructive of their rights, and finally the elec- 
 tion of a President and Vice-President by an exclusive 
 sectional vote, have in fact, fastened upon the public mind 
 of most, if not of all the Southern States, a conviction that 
 they owe it to their own honor, their own interests, their 
 own safety, to have now, and at once, such amendments of 
 the Constitution or other measures as they think will for- 
 ever terminate the strife by effectually securing to them the 
 equality of rights which they fully believe the Constitution 
 was intended to secure to them. 
 
 These principally relate to slave property, and an equal 
 participation in the Territories. Is it possible that the 
 North (by the North, I mean the Free States,) can be so 
 wedded to theories, to philanthropical conceits, fanatical 
 opinions, as to be willing to see the Union destroyed which 
 has made them what tliey are, rather than to surrender 
 their evidently abstract opinions for its preservation? Can 
 it be, that they would rather see the President of their 
 choice presiding only over a shattered fragment of this 
 great nation than yield these impressions in a spirit of 
 patriotic brotherhood? Can it be, that rather tliau yield, 
 they will be the instruments of committing "treason against 
 human hope?" 
 
 Can it be, that rather than yield, they will subject to 
 hazard of ruinous loss, if not certain ruin, every one of 
 their industrial pursuits, and with them, in a great measure. 
 
51 
 
 the comfort and happiness of themselves and their children? 
 Can it be, that rather than yield, they would make strangers 
 of friends, aliens of countrymen, common descendants of a 
 boasted ancestry, bound together by every moral tie that 
 the heart knows, enemies, instead of brothers? Can it be 
 that they would rather deluge their native land in blood? 
 No, no, I do not believe that it is in human nature so to 
 act, and hence I do not despair. But how is safety to be 
 obtained? In my judgment by the adoption of some such 
 amendments of the Constitution as are proposed by the 
 patriotic Crittenden, or the equally patriotic Corwin and his 
 Committee. These would, I have the strongest reason for 
 believing, satisfy the whole South, except South Carolina, 
 whilst in her present phrenzy, and perhaps one or two others 
 of the Cotton States equally crazed from over excitement. 
 But the rest content, and the Union continuing with no 
 abatement but of the few States, who doubts that ere long 
 they will gladly come back within its sacred fold? 
 
 They at present believe, or seem to believe, that they 
 could prosper outside of it. Sad delusion — deprived of tlie 
 rest, they would soon realize the fact that in the estimation 
 of the world they were nothing — too feeble to resist aggres- 
 sion, too limited, though left undisturbed, to attain even a 
 partial prosperity. 
 
 This is eminently true of South Carolina — one of the 
 smallest of the States. Without soldiers, without seamen, 
 or the elements with which to make them, without material 
 physical resources, with nothing but the individual gallan- 
 try of lier small population to give her consequence, she 
 would at an early day dwindle into total insignificance. 
 
 It is the Union which she now madly seeks to destroy 
 that has given her all her past consequence. It is the 
 Union that has conferred upon her all her past advantages, 
 and given to her all her past protection. Custom houses, 
 court houses, post offices, forts, light houses, buoys, have 
 been hers through the Union alone, and at an expense far 
 greater than all the revenue received from her, directly or 
 indirectly. Some of these she may, in defiance of gratitude 
 and duty, seize, and in mercy be permitted to hold, but the 
 disbursements for their further use must be hers. And 
 
52 
 
 these, in a short, a very short period, would make her a 
 bankrupt. Already, if reports be true, is she sadly suffer- 
 ing. Can she much longer adhere to the reckless course 
 which produces it? Will the wise, reflecting, loyal part of 
 her people much longer submit to it? No. She will be 
 with us again. 
 
 As Mr. Jefferson, on the 20th of October, 1820, when 
 separation was then apprehended, wrote the late William 
 Kush, "^it (the separation) will be but for a short time — 
 two or three years trial will bring them back like quar- 
 reling lovers, to renewed embraces and increased affection." 
 Some of the sons of these States possibly look to a re-open- 
 ing of the slave trade; some of them, we know, have often 
 recommended it. Vain the hope ! The horrid traffic is 
 condemned by the judgment of the civilized world, and 
 accursed of God. The feeling against it in England and 
 France is too strong to be disregarded by these governments, 
 if they were so disposed, as they certainly are not. They 
 would not permit its revival by these few feeble States, and 
 if persisted in by them, would prohibit and punish it, even 
 by war. 
 
 Nor, unless the United States (for these would still remain) 
 acknowledge their independence, would it be acknowledged 
 by other nations. Their staples they could only ship in 
 American or foreign vessels, sailing with the permission of 
 the United States. Nor could they receive exports in any 
 other mode. A more helpless isolation, or more degrading 
 dependence, can hardly be conceived. It is impossible, 
 therefore, but that these States will, sooner or later, be 
 most happy to return, and be with us again. An early 
 adjustment that will retain all the rest, and bind them 
 even the closer together, would carry joy through the land. 
 
 Even Massachusetts, so much given of late to sentimental 
 politics and mischievous philanthropy, will be glad to 
 adjust on fair terms. Of this I feel satisfied. A reaction 
 of opinion has evidently already begun there. And who is 
 not desirous to retain Massachusetts? Who can, without 
 pain, meditate her possible loss to the Union ? The first 
 blood in our first mighty conflict was shed on her soil, and 
 the first blow there struck for and in the defence of the 
 
53 
 
 rights of all. In the Senate, and in the field, throughout 
 that great period, her sons were among the foremost in 
 stirring eloquence, cheerful sacrifices and matchless daring. 
 Their bones almost literally whitened the soil of every State, 
 and the Stripes and Stars when in their hands were ever 
 the certain pledge of victory or death. Who would sur- 
 render Concord, Lexington, Bunker Hill? 
 
 What American would give up the right to tread within 
 the sacred precincts of Bunker Hill, and there to catch the 
 patriotic. Union spirit, which is the very genius of the 
 place? She may have recently, no doubt she has, gone 
 astray. But her error has been but the excess of her 
 virtue. Her love of freedom has caused her to forget that, 
 unless restrained, it soon runs into licentiousness. Her 
 love of freedom has caused her to forget that with us, and 
 as their fathers taught, and all history teaches, that our 
 freedom can only be truly enjoyed and promoted by observ- 
 ing all the obligations of the Constitution. 
 
 And I doubt not that she sees the danger now, and is 
 prepared to sanction any measure necessary and proper to 
 arrest it, and to make her in heart, as she is in interest and 
 in duty, bound to observe in good faith all its engagements. 
 South Carolina, too. Who is willing to part with her? 
 Her great names, during the same classic period, won for 
 her and for all, an undying fame. Her Moultries, Pink- 
 neys, Kutledges, Haynes, Marions, Lawrences, do not 
 belong to her alone — they are as much ours as hers ; as the 
 fame of Washington is as much the property and pride of 
 the world as of Virginia. She, too, is astray now, as she 
 was once before. She now thinks herself out of the Union. 
 But there is a common tie, however, for a moment imper- 
 ceptible and inoperative, that still makes us hers, and hers 
 ours. The tie of blood, of language, of religion, of love 
 of Constitutional freedom, of a common ancestry, who in 
 battle and in council were ever a band of brothers — deliber- 
 ating, fighting, dying, for our joint liberty and happiness. 
 Time, time, therefore, that great pacificator, can only be 
 necessary to arouse all to duty — to unite us all — to bring 
 us back to each other "to renewed embraces and increased 
 affection." 
 
54 
 
 How is that time to be had? I think we should await 
 awhile longer the action of Congress. The most experienced 
 and wisest of its members are daily, hourly, laboring to 
 restore our peace. Success, I believe, will reward their 
 efforts. But this failing, there is still ground of hope. 
 Let the Border States unite in council and announce to the 
 extremes of either section what they think should be done, 
 for their own protection and the general safety, and in no 
 boasting or disparaging spirit, but with affection and firm- 
 ness, recommend it as the ground on which they are resolved 
 to stand. 
 
 I believe, yes, as firmly as I credit my own existence, 
 that such a recommendation would be hailed every where 
 with approval. That done the danger is over — peace re- 
 stored — the Union, the glorious Union preserved, and all 
 its countless blessings secured forever. 
 
 It cannot be that such a Union can be destroyed. It 
 cannot be that it is not beyond the reach, of folly or of 
 crime. 
 
 If asked when I should be for a dissolution of the Union? 
 I answer as the patriotic Clay once answered, and as I know 
 you will answer, "Never, never, never." 
 
 Asked "when I'd rend the scroll 
 
 Our fathers' names are written o'er, 
 When I would see our flag unroll 
 
 Its mingled stars and stripes no more; 
 When, with worse than felon hand 
 
 Or felon counsels, I would sever 
 The Union of this glorious land? 
 
 I answer — never, never ! never ! ! 
 
 "Think je that I could brook to see 
 
 The banner I have loved so long 
 Borne piece-meal o'er the distant sea; 
 
 Torn, trampled by a frenzied throng; 
 Divided, measured, parcelled out, 
 
 Tamely surrendered up forever, 
 To gratify a soulless rout 
 
 Of traitors? Never, never! never!!" 
 
 Independent of ;the great recollections associated with it, 
 the very country it embraces shows its necessity, and pro- 
 mises and secures its immortality. Its mighty mountains, 
 ranging for hundreds of miles through continuous States; 
 
55 
 
 its noble bays, rivers, lakes, only to be prosperously or 
 safely enjoyed under the protection of a common Govern- 
 ment ; commerce, Avith other nations, and among States, 
 so vital to the welftire of all; differences of climate and soil 
 and labor and productions, each best for itself, and all vital 
 to the whole. The necessity of a power adequate to the 
 protection of all, as well as of each — of a rank in the com- 
 munity of nations so high as to command respect, enforce 
 rights and repel outrage, so important to all, demonstrates 
 that God and nature intended us to be one. 
 
 But whilst these efforts are being made to preserve it, 
 and citizens on all sides are being brought to a sense of 
 reason and duty, what is to be done ? Is civil war to com- 
 mence ? Certainly not, unless it be brought on by further 
 outrages on the clearest Constitutional rights. South Caro- 
 lina has violently and most illegally, and, as loyalty says, 
 traitorously, seized upon fortresses, the admitted property 
 of the United States, bought and constructed with their 
 money, and for their protection, and with her consent, and 
 now threatens to seize the rest. But one other, Fort Sum- 
 ter, is left. It stands protected by the National flag, and 
 its defence, and the honor of the Nation, are, thank God, 
 in the keeping of a faithful and gallant soldier. 
 
 The name of Anderson already enjoys an anticipated im- 
 mortality. Is that fortress to be surrendered? Is he to be 
 abandoned ? Forbid it, patriotism ! Is that flag that now 
 floats so proudly over him and his command — the pledge of 
 his country's confidence, support and power, to succumb to 
 the demands of an ungrateful, revolting State, or to be 
 conquered by its superior accidental power ? I say, no, no — 
 a thousand times no. The fortress must at all hazards be 
 defended — the power of the National Standard preserved, 
 and the national fame maintained. This has been already 
 sadly neglected, no doubt with good motives, but from mis- 
 placed confidence. It recently covered other spots that 
 know it not now. Its place is supplied by one never known 
 to the world, and never to be known. 
 
 The Stripes and the Stars have long achieved a glorious 
 name. They have been significant of power wherever they 
 have waved, and commanded the respect and wonder of the 
 
56 
 
 world. And yet, in a State that owes so much to it — whose 
 sons have so nobly and so often fought under it — it has been 
 torn down, and vainly sought to be disgraced and conquered. 
 Vain thought! Hear how a native poet speaks of it : 
 
 "Dread of the proud and beacon to the free, 
 A hope for other lands — shield of our own, 
 What hand profane has madly dared advance, 
 To your once sacred place, a banner strange, 
 Unknown at Bunker, Monmouth, Cowpens, York, 
 That Moultrie never reared, or Marion saw? " 
 
 If the cannon maintains the honor of our standard, and 
 blood is shed in its defence, it will be because the United 
 States cannot permit its surrender without indelible disgrace 
 and foul abandonment of duty. I have now done, and in 
 conclusion I ask you to do what I am sure you will cheer- 
 fully and devoutly do — fervently unite with me in invoking 
 Heaven, in its mercy to us and our race, to interpose and 
 keep us one people under the glorious Union our fathers 
 gave us till time itself shall be no more. 
 
 LETTER FROM HON. J. J. CRITTENDEN. 
 
 United States Senate, January 2d, 1861. 
 Gentlemen, — I have just had the honor to receive your letter of the 
 31st ultimo, inviting me to address a Union Meeting of your fellow- 
 citizens of Maryland, soon to be held in the City of Baltimore. It is 
 impossible that I could be insensible to the honor done me by such an 
 invitation— and I thank you, gentlemen, for the very kind and com- 
 plimentary terms in which you have urged my acceptance of that 
 invitation. 
 
 Yet it is not in my power to accept it. My health is not just now 
 very good, — that I could disregard, — but my duties so occupy me that 
 I feel I ought not to withdraw myself from them for a day, while such 
 vital questions are pending. 
 
 You will be pleased, gentlemen, to make my excuse acceptable to 
 your Union Meeting, and assure them of my sympathy, — my warm 
 and cherished sympathy, — in all their sentiments. 
 
 I have the honor to be, very respectfully, yours, &c. 
 
 J. J. CRITTENDEN. 
 Messrs. Wm. H. Collins, Wm. McKim, B. Deford, 
 Wm. E. Hooper and Jos. Gushing, Jr. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRP<;<: 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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