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 THE GREAT CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 HON. CLEMKNT J.AIHl) VALLANDIGIIAM, 
 
 OF OHIO, 
 
 IN T»E HOUSE OF REPRESKNTATI VES, JANUARY 14, 1863. 
 
 Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Mr. SiH-akcr, in- .^ 
 dors- d ;U til.' r> i-eiit tli<riioii within llic finmo dis- i! 
 :rii!t fi)i whiih I still hold a scat mi this floor, ijy It 
 a majotity four times greater than Rver before, I 
 speak to-day in the name and by tlioaulhoriiy of 'j 
 :ho people who, for six years, have intrusted m>' 
 with the office of a Representative. Loyal, in tlif 'i 
 true and hijrhesit sense of the word, to the Con- '' 
 stituiion and the Union, they have proved tliem- ,1 
 Kelves devotedly attached to and worthy of the 
 liberties to secure which the Union and the Con- 
 Mtitution were estai)lish««l. With candor and free- 
 dom, therefore, as their Rtpnsentative, and tmicli 
 plainness of speech, but with the dignity and de- 
 cency due to this presence, I propose to consider 
 the STATE OF TICK Ukion to-day, and to inquire 
 what the duty i.s of every public man and every I' 
 citizen in this the very crisis of the Great Revo- j 
 iution. jj 
 
 It is now two years, sir, since Con;^res8 assem- 
 bled soon after the Presidential election. A sec- '| 
 tiotial anti-slavery party had then just succeeded !I 
 ihrough the forms of the Constitution. For the first , 
 time a President hud been chosen ypon a platform 
 of avowed hostility to an institution peculiar to '■} 
 nearly one half of the States of the Union, and : 
 •ifho had himself proclaimed that there was an ir- 'i 
 repressihie co'nflict because of tiiat institution be- " 
 tween the States; and that the Union could not '' 
 endure "part slave and part free." Conjjress i 
 met, therefore, in the midst of the firofoundf st 
 agitation, not liere only but throuj^hout the entire 
 South. Revolution glared upon us. Repeatid j; 
 efforts for conciliation and compromise were at- : 
 tempted in Congress and out of it. All were re- i 
 jectcd by the party just coming into power, except 1 1 
 only the promi.se in the last hours of the session, ; 
 and that, too, against the consent of a majority ;I 
 of that party both in the Senate and Houne; that i 
 Congress — not the Executive — sliould never be ' 
 authorized to abolish or interfere with slavery ( 
 in the Staf's where it existed. South Carolina 'I 
 seceded; Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, | 
 LouisiTna, and Texas speedily fol|f><vrd. The \\ 
 confederate government wr» n.iH'.- -d. T" 
 
 other slave States held back. Virginia demnnffW 
 a peace congress. The commissioners nift, and, 
 after some time, agrei-d upon terms of final adjust- 
 ment. IJut neither in the Senate nor the House 
 were they allowed even a respectful consideration. 
 The President elect left his home in Februarv^ 
 and journeyed towards this capital, jesting as he 
 came; proclaiming that the crisis was only arti- 
 ficial, and that *' nobody was hurt." He entered 
 this city undtr cover of night and in disgoise. On 
 the 4ih of March he was inaugurated, surrounded 
 by soldiery; and, swearing to support the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, announced in the 
 .lame breath that the platform f)f his party should 
 be the law unto him. From that moment all hope 
 of peaceable adjustment fled . But for a fittlo" while, 
 eitiierwithunsteadfastsincerityorin premeditated 
 deceit, the policy of peace was proclaimed, even 
 to the evacuation of Sumter and the other Federal* 
 forts and arsenals in the seceded Statrs. Why 
 that policy was suddenly abandoned , time wiw 
 fully di.sclose. But just after the spring elections,, 
 and the secret meeting in this city of the Qot- 
 ernors of several northern and western States, 
 fleet carrying a large number of men 'was sci 
 Aiwn ostensibly to provision Fort Sumter. T( 
 authorities of South Carolina eagerly accepted tKV*.^ 
 challenge, and bombarded the fort into 8urre^nder„ 
 while the fleet fired not a gun, b.it, just so soon 
 as the fliig was struck, bore away and returned U> 
 tiie North. It was Sunday, the 14th of April,. 
 18C1: and^that day the President, in fatal hasto 
 and without the advice or corsent of Congress^ 
 issued his proclamation, dated the next day, call- 
 ing out seventy-five thousand militia for three • 
 months, to repossess the for'.s, pMces, and prop- 
 erty .seized from the Uni'od States, and com- 
 manding the insurgents to disperse in twenty days. 
 •Again the gage was taken up by the South, and 
 thus the flames of a civil war, the grandest, 
 bloodiest, and saddest in history, liErhted uf» 
 th« whole heavens. Virginia forthwith seceded. 
 North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkah.«as M- 
 lo'Vfd; Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Mis- 
 j/ere in a blaze of agitation, and within • 
 
.3 
 .Vl7 
 
 week from the proclamation, tlio line of the Con- 
 federate States was transftrred from tlie cotton 
 States to the Potomac, and almn.st to the Oliio and 
 the Missouri, and their population and fighting 
 men doiil>K>d. • 
 
 In tiie North and West, too, tiie storm raged 
 with the fury of a hurricane. Never in history 
 was anything eoual to it. Men, women, and chil- 
 dren, native anil. foreign born, Ciinrch and State, 
 clergy and laymen, were ail swept along with the 
 current. Distinction of age, sex, station, party, 
 perished in an instant. Thousands l)ent before the 
 tempest; and here and there only was one found 
 bold "noiigh, toolhardy enough it may have been, 
 to bend rmt, and him it smoie as a consuming fire, 
 ''he spirit of persecution for opinion '.s sake, al- 
 
 ost extinct in the Old World, now, by some 
 sterious transmigration, appeared incarnate in 
 ■Vew. Social relation.s were di.ssolvcd; friend- 
 snips bioken up; the ties of family and kindred 
 snapped asunder. Stripe^ and hanging were every 
 where threatened, sometimes executed. Assas- 
 sination was invoked; slanil-rsharpened his tooth; 
 falsehood crushed truth to the earth; reason fled; 
 madness reigned. Not justice only escaped to the 
 •kies, but peace relumed to the bosom of God, 
 whence she came. Tlie gospel of love peiished; 
 hate sat enthroned, and the .sacrifices of blood 
 smoked upon every altar. 
 
 But the reign of the mob was inaugurated only 
 to be sup[)lanted by ihe iron domination iif arbi- 
 trary [lower. Constitutional limitation was broken 
 down; habeas corpus fell; liberty of the press, of 
 speech, of the person, of mails, of travel, of one's 
 own house, and of religion; the right to beararms, 
 due process of law, judicial trial, trial by jury, 
 trial at ail; every badge and muniment of free- 
 dom in republican government or kingly govern- 
 ment — Vll went down at a blow; and the chief law 
 officer of the crown — 1 beg |iardon, sir, but it is 
 easy novif to fall into ihiscnurtly language — the At- 
 torney Gftncral, first of all men, proclaimed in the 
 Uni ted Siaies the max iniur[li>man servility: IFhal- 
 ewer pleaseklhe President, thai is law! Pri.soners 
 of State we»e then fir.-st heard of here. Midnight 
 and arbitrary arrests commenced; travel was in- 
 terdicted ;|lrude embars^cied; passports demanded; 
 Imstiles wi-re introduced; strange o.iihs invented; 
 a secret plolice organi/.ed; " piping" bt^gan; in* 
 formers muliiplieii; spies now first appeared in 
 
 Ainericii. ' The ri;;hl to declare war, to raise and 
 
 support armies, and to provide and maintain a 
 navy was iisur|)i i by the E.xeeulive; and in a lit- 
 tle mon; than two months a land and naval force 
 of over three hundred thiiu.<aiid men was in the 
 field or upon the sea. An army of |.uljlic plun- 
 derers followed, and coirupiion sirngglcd with 
 power in tViendly strifi- for the inasti'ry at home. 
 
 On the 4ih «f* July Congrtss met, not to seek 
 pevce; not to n-buke u.'<ur|<aiion nor to restrain 
 power; not certainly i.Mleliberate; not even to le- 
 jjislnle, but to rejjisier and ratify the edicts and 
 at.'! of the lix< 1 uiiv. : and in your lan'jiiage,. sir, 
 upon the first day of the session, lo invoke a uni- 
 Tcrsal bajuism of fire and blond amid the roar of 
 cannon and the din of battle. F'rce spcich was 
 had only at the risk of a prison; possibly of life. 
 <3ppusilion wu» silenced by the fittrce clamor of 
 
 " disloyalty." All business not of war was votetl 
 out of order. Five hundred thousand men, an im- 
 mense navy, and twoand hundred fifty millions of 
 money were speedily granted. In twenty, at most 
 in sixty days, the rebellion was to be crushed out. 
 To doubt it was treason. Abject submission was 
 demanded. Lay down your arms, sue for peace, 
 surrender your leaders — forfeiture, death — this 
 was the only language heard on this floor. The 
 galleries responded; the corridors echoed; and 
 contractors and placemen and other venal patriots 
 everywhere gnashed upon the friends of peace as 
 they passed by. In five weeks seventy-eight pulj- 
 lic and private acts and joint resolutions, with de- 
 claratory resolutions, in the Senate anil House, 
 quite as numerous, all full of slaughter, were hur- 
 ried through without delay and almost without 
 debate. 
 
 Thus was CIVIL wak inaugurated in America. 
 Can any man to-day see the end of it.' 
 
 And now pardon me, sir, if I pause here a mo- 
 ment to define my own positional this time upon 
 this greai question. 
 
 Sir, I am one of that number who have opjiosed 
 abiditionism, or the political di-velopmeiit of the 
 anti-slavery sentiment of the" North and West, 
 from the beginning. In school, at colli-ge,at the 
 liar, in jiublic assemblies, in the Legislature, in 
 Congress, boy and man, as a private citiziii and 
 in public life, in time of pence and in time of war, 
 at all times and at every sacrifice, I have fought 
 against it. It cost me ten years' exclusion from 
 ofllce and honor, at that period of life when honors 
 are sweetest. No matter: 1 learned early to do 
 right and to wail. Sir, ^l is but the develop- 
 ment of the .spirit of intermeddling, whose chil- 
 dren are strife and murder. Cain troubled him- 
 self about the .sacrifices of Abel, and slew him. 
 Most of the wars, contentions, litigation, and 
 bloodshed, from the beginning of time, have been 
 its fruits. The spirit of non-inlerveniion is the 
 very sjiirit of peace and coiicortl. I do not be- 
 lieve that if slavery hail never existed here we 
 would have had no sectional controversiis. This 
 very civil war might hiive hapiieoed fifty, per- 
 haps a hundred years later. Other and stronger 
 causes of discogtent and of disunion, it may be, 
 have existed betwien other Stales and sections, 
 and are now being developed every day into ma- 
 turity. The spirit of intervention assumed the 
 form of abolitionism because slavery was oil ions 
 in name and by associatiim to the northern mind, » 
 and because it was that wllich most ol)viously 
 marks the difl'eient civilizations of the two sec- 
 lions. The South her.'elf, in her early mid later ^ 
 1 florts to rid herself of it, had exposed llie weak 
 and oflensivi; parts of slavery to the world. Abo- 
 lition inlerim ddling taught hur ni last to .search 
 for and defend the assumed social, economic, and 
 political meriianil values of the institution. Ijut 
 there never was an hour from the beginning wht-n 
 it did not .serin lo me as clear as tin; siin at broad 
 noon, that the agitation in any form in the North 
 and VVt.st of Ihe slavery question must sooner or 
 later end in disunion niid'civil war. This wus 
 th.' opinion and prediction for yais of Whig and 
 I.Vmocratii- siaiesmeii alike; and after the unfor- 
 tunate dissolution of the Whig|)ariy in 1854, and 
 
the organization nf the present Repul>lican party 
 upon iin I'xclusivfly aiiii-slavory and sectiDiiiil 
 i)asis, the <!vcnt was in('vital)l<'; hrcausp, id tlie 
 then existing temper of tht; pulilic mind, and af(iT 
 the education tlirouich ihc press and by ihi; pul- 
 pit, the U'cture and ilic pnliiical canvass for iwmty 
 years, of a generation taught to liale shivery and 
 the Stiuih, tiie success nf that party, possessed, 
 as it was, of every en;;ine of political, liiisiiiess, 
 social, and rciiijious infltieiice, was certain. It 
 was (inly a i^ni'.siion of time, nnd short lime. 
 Such was its stren;;tli, indeed, that I do not lie- 
 lieve that the union of tiic Democratic party in 
 1860 on any candidate, even though he had lieen 
 supported also liy ilie entire so-called conserva- 
 tive or anti-Lincoln vote of the ci>untry, would 
 have avaiji'd to defeat it; and if it had, the suecess 
 of the abolition party would only have bei'O post- 
 poned four years longer. The disease had fnst- 
 '■iied too strongly upon the system to be In aled 
 until it had run its course. The doctrine of the 
 " irrepressible conflict" had been taught too long 
 and acci'pted too widely and earnestly to die out, 
 until it should culminate in secession and dis- 
 union; and, if coercion were resorted to, then in 
 civil war. I believed from the first that it was 
 the purpose of some of the njiostles of that doc- 
 trine to force a collision between the North and 
 thf South, either to bring about a separation or 
 to find a vain but bloody pretext for abolishing 
 slavery in the States. In any event, 1 knew, or 
 thought I knew, that the end was certain collision, 
 and death to the Union. 
 
 Believing thus, I have for years past denounced 
 those who tauijiil that doctrine with all the ve- 
 hemence, the lutterness, ifyouchoosi! — I thought 
 ila righteous, a patriotic bitterness — of anearnest 
 and impassioned natiiie. Thinking thus, I fore- 
 warned all who believed the doctrine, or followed 
 the party which taught it, with a sincerity and n 
 depth of conviction as profound as ever |>cnelrated 
 the heart of man. Anil when, for eight years past, 
 over and over again, I have proclaimed t<i the 
 people that the success of a sectional anti-slavery 
 [tarty would be the b>'^inniii^ of disunion and civil 
 war in America, I believed it. I did. I had read 
 history, and studied human nature, and meditated 
 for years upon the character of our institutions 
 and form of government, and of the people South 
 as well as North; and I could not doulu the event. 
 Rut the people did not believe me. nor those older 
 and wiser and greate^than 1. They rejected the 
 prophecy, and stoned the prophets. The candidate 
 of the Ri'publican party was chosen President. 
 Secession ijegan. Civil war was imminent. It was 
 no petty insurrection; no temporary combination 
 fo obstruct the execution of the lawB in certain 
 Slates; but a iiKVot.imov, systematic • deliberate, 
 determined, and with the consent of ^majority 
 of the people of each Slate which seeded. Cause- 
 less it may have been; wicked it may have been; 
 but there it was; not to he railed et, still less to 
 be laughed it, but to be dealt with by statesmen 
 as a fact. Nodisplay of visoror force alone, hdW- 
 cver sudden or^reat, could have arrested it even 
 at the outset. It was' disunion at last. Til's wolf 
 had come. But civil war had not y. t followed. 
 In my deliberate and most solemn judgm' nt. 
 
 there was but one wise and masterly mode ofdeal- 
 
 !! ing with if. Non-coercion would avert civil war, 
 t| and compromise crush out both aliolitionisni and 
 I seetsHion. The parent and the child would thus 
 
 I both perish. But a resort to force would at once 
 
 I precipitate war, hasten secession, ex tend disunion, 
 i! and, while it lasted, utterly cut iilV all hopeofcom- 
 !l jiromise. I believed that war, if long enough con- 
 
 ' linued, would be final, eternal disunion. I said 
 'I it; I meant it; and, accordingly, to the utmo.st of 
 Ij my ability and influence, I exerted myself in lie- 
 |l half of the policy of non-coercion. It was adopted 
 j' by Mr. Buchanan's Administration, with tin- al- 
 ij most unanimous consent of the Democratic and 
 
 II itonstitulional Union parties in and out of Con- 
 !| gress; and, in February, with the concurrence of 
 jl a majority oflhe llepiiblican party in the Senate 
 ]' and this lloiise. But that p'lrty, most disastrously 
 
 ! for the country, refused all compromise. }l«w>. 
 •| indeed, could th.-y accept any .' That which the 
 I' South demanded nnd the Democratic and con- 
 ': servative parties of the North and West Wf-re 
 I' willing to grant, and which alone could avail to 
 Ij keep the peace and save the Union, implied a 
 
 I I surrender of the sole vital element of tlie party 
 !' and its platform— of the very principle, in fact, 
 !1 upon which it had just won the contest for the 
 II Presidency; not, indeed, by a majority of the 
 I popular vote — the majority was nearly a million 
 M against it — but under the forms of the Constitu- 
 tion. Sir, the crime, the "high crime" of the 
 Republican parly was not so much its refusal to 
 compromise, as its original organization upon a 
 basis and doctrine wholly incoiisisleiit with the 
 stability oflhe Constitution and the pence of the 
 Union. 
 
 But to resume: the session of Congress expired. 
 
 The President elect was inaugurated; and now, 
 
 if only the policy of non-coercion could be main- 
 
 tainetl, and war thus averted, time would do its 
 
 j work in the North and the South, and final peace- 
 
 ■ able adjustment and reunion be secured. Some 
 
 ! time in March it was announced that the Presi- 
 
 I dent had resolved to continue the policy of his 
 
 predecessor, and even go a step further, and evac- 
 
 jl uate Sumter and the other Federal forts and ar- 
 
 ! senals in the seceded Stales. His own party ac- 
 
 !; quiesced; the whole country rejoiced. The policy 
 
 I of non-cr)ercion had triumphed, and for once, sir, 
 
 ! in niylifi- 1 found myself in an immense majority. 
 
 j No man then' pretended thai a Union founded in 
 
 I consent could b<' cemented by force. Nay, more, 
 
 ; the President and the Secretary of Slate wentfur- 
 
 I ther. Said Mr. Seward, in an official diplomatic 
 ! letter to Mr. Adams: 
 
 I I " Forllicst fp:isoii<i li^[tlii' Presicteiit] would not In- ill- 
 ' posed Ki ri'ject a cardinal dojima ot" theirs, [the ceecHiiion 
 
 l<H,] namely, tliai ilie Federal (Jiiveniiiieiil poald not reduce 
 llie HccedliiK Static to olieilieiice by c(>iii|ik't'(, allliou:;!! h<f 
 jl were disposi-d ln<|ue>liiiii tli.'U |ir'ipo«ilinii. ISiil ri/.i'.i/tv 
 Pitiiilent wi'.tiii^ly acrritli it as true. Only nn imii. rial ot 
 Je^iiolic (ioi-m<mriit could ml'j'.izatf Ikorouihly iii%ii]}e(tti 
 and imurreitionary mi-mbrrt ujlhe Stair.'' 
 
 Pardon me, sir, but I hi g to know whether th'S 
 ccnviriion of the President and his Secretary, is 
 not the philosophy of the persistent and most 
 vigorous* fTorl.s made by tlii** Administration, ;\nr? 
 fir.^t nf all ihroi'gh this -^ame Secretary, the mo- 
 m<nt war broke out ami ever since till the late 
 
elections, to convert tlie United States into an 
 imperial or despotic Government .' But Mr. Sew- 
 ard adds, and I agree with liiin: / 
 
 '•This FoiJcral Uepublican system of ours is, of all forms 
 of govtTiiment, tlie very one wliicli is most unfitted for such 
 a labor." 
 
 This, sir, was on the lOih of April, and yet that 
 very day the fleet was under sail for Ciiarh'ston. 
 The policy of peace had been a|jaiidoned. Col- 
 lisi(jn followed; the militia were ordered out: civil 
 war lieijan. 
 
 Now, sir, on the 14th of April, I hclieved that 
 coercion would bring on war, and war di.sunion. 
 More than that, I believed, what you ail in your 
 hearts believe to-day, that the South could never 
 be concfuered — never. And not that only, but I 
 was satisfied — and you of the abolition party have 
 now proved it to the world — that the secret but 
 real jjurpose of the war was to abolish slavery 
 in the Slates. In any event, I did not doubt that 
 whatever might be the momentary impulses of 
 those in power, and whatever pled<:es they might 
 make in the midst of the fury for tlie Constitution, 
 the Union, and the flag, yet the natural and inex- 
 orable logic of revolutions would, sooner or later, 
 drive them into that policy, and with it to its final 
 but inevitable result, tlie change of our present 
 democratical form of government into an imperial 
 despotism. 
 
 These were my convictions on the 14tli of April. 
 Had I changed them on the loth, when I read 
 the Pre.sident'd proclamation, and become con- 
 vinced that I had been wrongall my life, and that 
 all history was a faljle, and all human nature false 
 in its development from the beginning of time, I 
 would have changed my public conduct also. But 
 my conviciiiMus ilid not change. 1 thought that if 
 war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was 
 equally disunion on the loth, and at all times. 
 Believing this, I could not, as an honest man, a 
 Union man and a patriot, lend an active support 
 to the war; and I did not. I had rather my right 
 arm w.ere plucked from it.s socket, and cast into 
 eternal burnings, ih.an, with my convictions, to 
 have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral 
 perjury. Sir, I was not taught in that school 
 which proclaims that " all is fair in politics." 1 
 loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable nia.vim. 
 1 siainp upon it. No Slate can endure a single 
 generation whose public men practice it. Who- 
 ever teaches it is a corrupter of yoyth. Wiiat 
 we most want in these times, and at all times, is 
 lionest and independent public men. That man 
 who is dishonest in politics is not honest, at heart, 
 • n any thing; and sometimes moral CO ward ice is dis- 
 honesty. Do right; and trust to God, and Truth, 
 and the People. Perish office, perish honors, 
 iierish life itself; but do the thing that is right, and 
 do it like a man. 1 did it. Certainly, sir, i could 
 not doubt what he must suft'er who dare defy the 
 opinions and the passions, not to say the mad- 
 •loss, of twenty millions of people. Had I not 
 r( ad history? bid I not know human nature? But 
 I appealed to Timf., and right nobly hath the 
 A VI nger answered me. 
 
 I did not sunport the war; and to-day I bless 
 God that n(;t tlie 9r ^11 .'f kt ;iiuch a.? one drop^f 
 ltd I' ' ii» ' • Sir, 1 censure 
 
 no brave man who rushed palrioiieally into this 
 war; neither will I quarrel with any one, here or 
 elsewhere, who gave to ii an honest sup|)ort. Had 
 their convictions been mine, I, too, would doubt- 
 less have done as they did. AVith my convic- 
 tions 1 could not. 
 
 But I was a Representative. War existed — by 
 whose act no matter — not mine. The President, 
 the Senate, the House, and the country, all said 
 that there should be war — war for the Union; a 
 union of consent and goodwill. Our soulliern 
 l)iethren were to be whipped back into love and 
 fellowship at the point of the bayonet. Oh, mon- 
 strous delusion ! I can comprehend a war to com- 
 pel a people to accept a master; to change a form 
 of government; to give up territory; to abolish a 
 domestic institution — in short, a war of conquest 
 and subjugation; but a war for Union ! Was the 
 Union thus made? Was it ever thus preserved.' 
 Sir, history will record that after nearly six thou- 
 sand years of folly and wickedness in every form 
 and administration of government, theocratic, 
 democratic, monarchic, oligarchic, despoiie, and 
 mixed, it was reserved to American siat>sinan- 
 ship in the nineteenth century of the Christian era 
 to try the grand experiment on a scale the most 
 costly and gigantic in its proportions, of creating 
 love by force, and developing fraternal nflTiction 
 by war; and history will record, too, on the same 
 page, the utter, disastrous, and most bloody fail- 
 ure of the experiment. 
 
 But to return: the country was at war; and I 
 belonged to that school of politics which«teaches 
 that when we are at war, the Government — I do 
 not mean the E.xecutive alone, but the Govern- 
 ment — is entitled to demand and have, without 
 resistance, such number of men, and such amount 
 of money and supplies generally, as may be ne- 
 cessary for the war, until an app<al can be had to 
 the peo])le. Before that tribunal alone, in the first 
 instance, must the question of the contiiniance of 
 the war be tried. This was Mr. Calhoun's opin- 
 ion, and he laid it down very broadly and ."^trnngly 
 in a speech on the loan bill, in 1841. Speaking 
 of supplies, he said: 
 
 " I hold that there is a disiiiiction in this respect between 
 a state of peace and war. In the laller, the riu'ht uf wilh- 
 lioldiii!: supplies oui^iii ever lo Ix^ held .-ubordinate to the 
 eneru'i'tic and suceesslul pro.^eeution of the war. I go fur- 
 ther, and repanl llie waliliolding .>-nppljes, in'/A a rieif of 
 foTcim; the countrii into a diikonorahlc jieacc, as nut only to 
 be what it has been callid, moral ireas(ni, but very litllo 
 short of actual treason iUself." 
 
 Upon this principle, sir, h$ acted afterwards in 
 the Mexican war. Speaking of that war in 1847, 
 he said: 
 
 '■ Every Senator knows that I wa-s opposed to the war; 
 but none knows but myself the depth of ilint oppoaiUvii. 
 With my conception of it.i chunicter nnd consequence*, Ic 
 was impossible lor me lo vote for it.'' 
 
 And again, in 1848: 
 
 " Hut, after the war was declared, by authority of the Go» 
 crnment, I acquiactd in trhat I could uot prrvent,an(l uKiek 
 it u-as imfiotsibli: fur me to arrest ; and I then It-It It lo be mf 
 duty to limit niy'ell'oris to gite stu/i itireclion lo the uar aa 
 would, as far as po>sible, jtrevcnl the eiils nnd ilantrr$wUh 
 xrhich it t/ireatened the eountry and its ittstUutions." 
 
 Sir, I adopt all this as my own position and 
 my defense; though, perhaps, in a civil war, I 
 might fairly go further in opposition. I could not. 
 
:<i I10I.I 
 ,M.«,.le 
 
 wilh my convictions, vote 
 this wnr, nnd I would n 
 volt; 115,'aiii'U thini. I nuiint llmt, will 
 siiion, ilie Pitsidtnt nii^lil laki- all the 
 nil llu- mnmy Ik' slionid di-mnnd, and llit 
 him to n strict arrounialiilily l)tfi>re tli 
 for iho nanlts'. Not bi'lifvlng tin;- stddii-rs rt- 
 sponsibli! for tin- war, or its piir|)osi's, or itscon- 
 aequences, 1 luivu ncvi-r withlnld my vote wlurc 
 their spparnte inicri-sts were conrcrnrd. Hut 1 
 have denonnced from the beginning the usiir|>n- 
 tions nod the iiitVactionfi, one and all, of law and 
 Constitution, liy the Presiilent and those under 
 him; their repeated and poraislenl nrhiirary ar- 
 rests, the suspension of httbean corpus, the viola- 
 lion of iVeedom of the ninia, of the privat«! house, 
 
 )te men and money for | tarnished. Your erf«l '>»''< 
 <it, as n Ilrpresiiiiative, \' nuHeriihly , ns it (h «erved t< 
 
 tional loon bubble fulled 
 fail; but llo- bankers 
 nd mereliant.s of I'hiladelpliia, New York, and 
 Hosion lent you more than their entire bankine 
 rnpital. And when that failed too, you f"reei| 
 cr. (lit by declnrinu: your paper promiseM to pay 
 a h )jal tend«r for all debts. Was money wnnn d ? 
 You had nil the revi nues of the Unii.d Slates, 
 diminislied indeed, but still in gold. The whole 
 wealih of the country, to the last dollar, lay al your 
 feet . Private individuals, municipal corporauons, 
 the State governments, all in their frm/.v gave 
 you miiney or means with reckless prodi^'jility. 
 The great eastern cities lent you S150,000,IK>0. 
 C'f.OL'ress voted, first, S--J.'JO,OUO,On<), and n-xt 
 J,.")0(l,On(),0(lO more in Icians; and then, fir^i. 
 
 of the press and of s| luand all the other mul- i: §o(),Ol)0,(Hl(), then ^10,000,000, next $90,(XJO,(KJO, 
 
 liplied wronjrs and oiiira;;es upon pulilie liberty i and, in July last, §150,000,000 in Treasury iioi's; 
 
 and private rit;!it, which have made this e 
 one of the worst despoli.sms on earth for the past ' 
 twenty months; and I will continue to rebuke 1 
 and denounce them to the end; and tin- people, j 
 thank God, have nl last heard and beed> d, anil .: 
 rebuk'-d them, too. To the lecord and to lime I 
 appeal n»ain fcir my justification. , 
 
 And now, sir, I recur to the state of the Union i 
 to-day. What is it? Sir, twenty months have ji 
 elapsed, but" the rebellion is not crushed out; its 
 military power has not been brnken; the insnr- 1 
 gents have not dispersed. The Union is ni>t re- 1 
 stored; nor the Consiitniion maintaineii; nor the ' 
 lawsenfiirctd. Twenty, sixty, niiniy, three Imn- [ 
 dred.six hundn-d dnys liive passed; a thousand 1 
 millions been expended; and ihnc bundled thou- j 
 sand lives lost or bodiis mangled; and to-duy tin- 1 
 confedt-rate fla^ is still near the Potomac and the ' 
 Ohio, and the eonfed-raie government stronger, 
 many times, than at tin- beginning. Not a Slate 
 has been restored, not any part of any State has 1 
 voluntarily returned to the Union. And has any- ■ 
 thing been wanting that Crnijrress, or the Stales, 
 or the people in their most generous enthusiasm, ' 
 their nnjst impassioned patriotism, could bestow.' \ 
 Was it power? And did not the parly of ihe ex- 
 eCHtive contrid the entir«! Federal tiovi rninent, 
 every State government, every county , every city, ; 
 lowii, and villagi- in the Norih and West? Was 
 it paironnge? All belon^'ed to it. ' Was it inflii- 1 
 ence? What more ? Diil not the school, the col- j 
 lege, the church, the press, the secret orders, ; 
 the munici|iality, the corporation, railroads, tele- j 
 graphs, express companies, the volunturv nsso- | 
 ciation, all, all yield it to the inmost? Was it 
 unanimity? Nevi-r wasan Administration sosiij)- 
 porled in England or America. Five men ami half ^ 
 a score of newspapers made up the opposition. 
 Was it enihusi!\sin? Tin; entliiisiasm was faiiui- 
 icnl. There has been lioihing like it since ihe 
 Crusades. Was it ccmfidence? Sir, tht faith of 1 
 the people ex.^eeded thai of ih.' patriarch. They 
 gave up Constitution, law, right, liberty, all at 
 your demand for arbitrary power that the rebel- ^ 
 lion might, as you promised, be crushed out in I 
 three months and the Unii>n resl<ired. Was credit j 
 needed ? You took control of a country, young, : 
 vigorous, and inexhaustible in wijilth ant! ri - j 
 sources, and of a Government olmosl free from ; 
 public debt, and whose good faith had never been I 
 
 1 the Secretary has issued also a paper " pom- 
 a^e currency," in sums as low as five cents, lim- 
 ited in amount only by his discretion. Nay, more: 
 already since the 4th of July, 18G1, this House has 
 appropriated §0,017,8G4,(M')0, almost every dollar 
 without debati', and without a recorded vote. A 
 thousand millions have been expended since ihe 
 ].">ih of April, IHfil; and a public debt or liability 
 of §,1,500,000,000 already incurred. And to sup- 
 port all this stupendous outlay and indebtedness, 
 a system of ta.xation, direct and indirect, has been 
 inaugurated, the most onerous and nnjusi ever 
 imposed upon any but a conquered people. 
 
 \loney and credit, ihen, you have had in prod- 
 igal prolusion. And were men wanted? More 
 than a million rushed to arms ! Seventy-five thou- 
 sand first, (and the coninry stood aghast at ihe 
 multiinde,) then eighty-three ihou.sand more were 
 deinaiided; and three hundred and ten thou!«nnd 
 re.-jpr,nded to the call. The President in xt asked 
 for four hundred thousand, and Congress, in its 
 generous confidence, gave him five hundred thou- 
 sand; and, not to be outdone, he took six hundred 
 and thirty-seven thousand. Half of ihes.- melted 
 away in theirfirstcampnign; and the President de- 
 manded three hundred thousand more for the war, 
 and then drafted yet another three hundred ihtiu- 
 sand for nine months. The fabled hosts ol Xerxi e 
 have been oiitiuimbered. And yet victory siianKc- 
 Iv follows the standards of the foe. From Great 
 liethel to Vicksbui •:, the battle hfcs noi been lo ihe 
 strong. Yet every disaster, except ihe last, has.been 
 followed by a call for more troops, and every time 
 so far they have been promptly furnished. From 
 the beginning the war has beeii conducted like a 
 politieal campaign, and it has been the folly of the 
 party in power that they have assumed that num- 
 bers'alone winild win the field in aconlest not with 
 ballots but wilh musket and sword. I'ait numbers 
 you Imve had almost without number — the largest, 
 best appointed, best armed, fed, and clad host of 
 bravemen.wellorgunizedand we!Mi?!fi-'!ioed,e'er 
 marshaled. A Navy, too, not ' .liable 
 
 perhaps, but the most nnmer' '. and 
 
 the costliest in the world, ami liinosi 
 
 without n navy al all. Thus urii iv.iny mil- 
 lions of people, and every elenieiilof sirensih nod 
 ftnce nl command — power, patronage, inlluencc, 
 unanimity, enthusiasm, confidence, credit, money, 
 n>en, an Army and a Navy the largest and lue 
 
6 
 
 noblest eveH set in the field or afloat upon the sea; 
 wiili the support, almost servile, of every State, 
 cnnity.and municipality in the North and \V<st; 
 with .1 Con;2^ress swift to do the bidding of the Ex- 
 ecutive; without opposition anywhere at home, 
 and with an arbitrary power which neither the 
 Cziir i>f P».URsia nor the Emperor of Austria dare 
 eX'Tcise; yet after nearly two years of more vig- 
 orous prosecution of war than ever recorded in 
 ir. history; after more skirmisln^s, combats and 
 buttles than Alexander, Cjcsar, or the first Niipo- 
 leon ever fought in any five years of their military 
 career, you liave utterly, signally, disastrously — 
 I will not say ignomii'iiously — failed to subdue 
 tt II millions of " rebels," whom you had taught 
 the people of the North and West not only to hate 
 bill to despise. Rebels, did I say? Yes, your 
 tathers were rebels, or your grandfathers. He 
 who now before me on canvas looks down so sadly 
 u|ion us, the false, degenerate, and imi)ecile guar- 
 dians of the great Republic which he founded, 
 was ;\ rebel. And yet we, cradled ourselves in 
 rebellion, and who have fostered and fratornized 
 with every insurrection in the nineteenth century 
 everywhere throughout the ^lobe, would now, 
 forsooth, make the word " rebel " a reproach. 
 Rebels certainly they are; but all the persistent 
 and stu[iendous efforts of the most gigantic war- 
 lue of moilern times have, through your incom- 
 petency and folly, availed nothing to crush them 
 out, cut off though they jiave been by your block- 
 ade from all the world, and dependent only upon 
 their own courage and resources. And yet they 
 were to be utterly conquered and subdued in six 
 v.eeks, or three months! Sir, my judgment was 
 made up and expressed from the first. I learned 
 it from Chatham: "My lords, you cannot con- 
 quer America." And you have not conquered 
 the South. You never will. It is not in the na- 
 t.ire of things possible; much less under your au- 
 spices. I]ut money you have expended without 
 limit, anil blood poured out like water. Defeat, 
 debt, iaxati(in,sepulchres, these are your trophies. 
 In vain the people gave you treasure and the sol- 
 dier yielded up his life. " Fight, tax, em:uicipate, 
 let these," said the gentleman frotn Maine, [Mr. 
 Pike,] at the last session, "be the trinity of our 
 salvaiioi>." Sir, they have become the trinity of 
 your deep damnation. The war for the Uuion 
 IS, in your hands, a most bloody and costly fail- 
 ure.- The President confessed it on the 22d of 
 September, .solemnly, ofFieially, and under the 
 broad seal of the United States. And he has now 
 repeated the confession. The priests and rabbis 
 of al)oliii()n taught him that God would not pros- 
 per such a cause. War for the Union was aban- 
 doned; war for the negro openly begun, and with 
 sirnn'^er battalions than befofe. With what suc- 
 cess.' Let the dead at Fredericksburg and Vicks- 
 burg answer. 
 
 And now, sir, can this warconlinue.' Whence 
 the money to carry it on? Where tin; men? Can 
 you borrow? From whom? Can you tax more? 
 Will the people bear it? Wait (ill you have col- 
 lected what is iilready levied. Ilnvv nuiiiy mil- 
 lions more of "legal tender" — to-day forty-seven 
 per cent, below the par of guld — can you float? 
 Will men enlist now at any price ? Ah, sir, it is 
 
 easier to die at home. 1 beg pardon; hut I trust I 
 am not" discouraging enlistments." If I am, then 
 first arrest Lincoln, Stanton, and Halleck, and 
 some of your other generals; and I will retract; 
 yes, I will recant. But can y<)U draft again ? Ask 
 New England — New York. Ask Massachusetts. 
 Where are the nine hundred thousand ? Ask not 
 Ohio — the Northwest. She thought you were in 
 earnest, and gave you all, all — more than you 
 demanded. 
 
 " The wife wlios^e balie first smiled tliat day, 
 I'lie fair, fond liride of ye^le^ eve. 
 And asjed sire and matron gray. 
 Saw the loved warriors liiu<t«'away, 
 And deemed it .<in iti grieve." 
 
 Sir, in blood she hasatoned for her credulity; 
 and now there is mourning in every house, and 
 distress and sadness in every heart. Shall she 
 give you any more? 
 
 But ought this war to continue? I answer, no — 
 not a day, not an hour. What then? Shall we 
 separate? Again 1 answer, no, no, no! What 
 then? And now, sir, I come to the grandest and 
 most solemn problem of statesmanship fr(»m the 
 beginning of time; and to the God of Heaven, 
 Illumincr of hearts and minds, I would humbly 
 appeal for some measure, at least, of light and wis- 
 dom and strength to explore and reveal the dark 
 but possible future of this land. 
 
 CAN THE UNION' OF THESE STATES BE RESTORED? 
 HOW SHALL IT BE DO.VE? 
 
 And why not? Is it historically impossible? 
 Sir, the frequent civil wars and conflicts between 
 the States of Greece did not prevent their cordial 
 union to resist the Persian invasion; nor did even 
 the thirty years Peloponnesian war, springing, in 
 |iart, from the abduction of slaves, and embittered 
 and disastrous as it was — let Thucidides speak — 
 wholly destroy the fellowship of those States. 
 The wise Romans ended the three years social war 
 after many bloody battles, and much atrocity, by 
 admitting the Slates of Italy to all the rights and 
 privileges of Roman citizenshi|) — the very object 
 to secure wiiich these States liad taken up arms. 
 The border wars between Scotland and England, 
 running through centuries, did not prevent the final 
 union, in peace and by adjustment, of the two king- 
 doms untler one monarch. Compromise did at last 
 what ages of coercion and attempted conquest had 
 failed to effect. England kept the crown, while 
 Scotland save the king lo wear it; and the mem- 
 ories of Wallace and the Bruce of Bannockburn, 
 becamt; part ol" the glories of British history. I 
 pass by the union of Ireland with England — a 
 union of force, which God and just men abhor; 
 and yet [irccisely " the Union as ii should be" of 
 the abolitionists of America. Sir, the rivalries 
 of the houses of York and Lancaster filled all 
 England with cruelly and slaughter; yet compro- 
 mise and intermarriage ended the strife at last, and 
 the white ro.se and the red were blended in one. 
 Who dreamed a month before the death of Crom- 
 well that in two years the people of England, 
 after twenty years of civil war and usurpation, 
 would, with gre.ii uitaniinity, restore the hou.^e of 
 Stewart in the person of its most wor'hie.ss prince, 
 whose father but eleven years before they had 
 beheaded? And who could have foretold in the 
 
beginniii* of 1812, that within ■omo three ycnin, 
 Napolfiin WKiilil hu in rxi!"- iijion h clrdi-rt iMlnnJ, 
 and till' MnirliDiis nstoiitl r AiiiK-d fnrci^n in- 
 tervi-t)li<iii liiii it; l)ut it is n 8(i-aii!;i: liiatory- <)i° 
 who tlioii fxporti-d to pp.' !« nc|)hi'Wor Nnniil<''»n, 
 thiriy-fivc yars hiler, wilii tlic coiimMil of the [>.ii- 
 pli', Hti|>nl)iiii till- B"iiiil)oii and n-i^fii Emperor of 
 Frniicer Sir, miliiy Stuli-s mid pcopli-, onrr fn-p- 
 nintf, iiavi" bct'oiiD! (iiiilt-d in llir course of ii'^i-k 
 througli natural catiscN and wnhmil (•••iirjiii'Sl: Inii 
 i n'mt-mijcr a siii^jle iiiHtaini' tmly in iiisiory, of 
 Slatts or pt'opli- oiir<> united, and Hpcakiii'^ iht- 
 eanielaiisua-;!', wlio havcliccn forci-d pcrniaiicnlly 
 asuiidcr l>y <ivil strife or war, uitkss ihry \vi\r 
 sepnrati-d l>y ilistniirc or vast natural Ijoundarirs. 
 Tno secession of the Ten Trihcs is tiie i-xeepiion : 
 liu'si- parted witlioul actual war; and iheir Mul>He- 
 <|ueiii history is not ♦■nrcMiia^iii^ to seression 
 but wlien MoscH, the a;reatest of all Btatesraeii, 
 would secure a distinct nationality and govern- 
 ment to the Hebrews, he left H<ypl and estab- 
 lished his people in a distant country. In modern 
 times, the Netherlands, three centuries ago, won 
 their independence by the sword; bill France and 
 the English Channel separated them from Spain. 
 So did our Thirteen Colonie.s; but the Atl.iniic 
 ocean divorced us from Kiijiland. So did Mex- 
 ico, and oilier Spanish mlonies in America; but 
 the same ocean divided tliein from Spain. Cuba 
 and the ( 'aiiadas still adhere to the parent Govern- 
 oieiit. And who now. North or South, ill Europi' 
 or America, lookinv into history, shall presump- 
 tuously say that because of civil war the reunion 
 of these Stales is impossible .' War, indeed, while 
 it lasts, i.s disunion, and, if il lasts loni; cnou|,'li, 
 will be final, eternal separation first, and anarchy 
 and despotism afterward. Hence I would ha.sien 
 peace now, to-day, by every honornble appliance. 
 Are there physical causes which render reunion 
 impracticalile .' Non--. Where other causes do 
 not control, rivers unite; but mountains, deserts, 
 and great bodies of water — oceani dissociabiles — 
 separate a people. Vast forests originally, and 
 the lakes now, also divide us — not very widely 
 or wiiolly — from the ('.uiadas, though wc speak 
 llie same laiisrunge, and are similar in manners, 
 laws, and instiiuiions. Our chief navi«rable rivers 
 run from North to South. Most of our bays and 
 arms of the sea lake the s:ime direction. So do 
 our ranges of mountains. Natural causes all lend 
 to Union, except as betwo-n the Pacific const 
 and the country east of the Rocky mountains to 
 the Atlantic. It is '• inaiiifist destiny." Union | 
 is enifiire. Hence, hitherto we have continually I 
 e.xtendiul our territory, and the Union with it, 
 South and West. The Louisiana |)urchasc, Flor- ; 
 ida, and Texas all atti at it. We passid di-sert 
 and lorest. and scaled even the Rocky mountains, 
 to extend the Union to the Pacific. Sir, there is no 
 dntiiral boundary between the North and the 
 South, aotl no line of latitude upon which to seji- 
 anite; and if ever a lini- of lon«:itinle shall be es- 
 tablished. It will beenst of the Mississippi valley. 
 The Ailesrliaiiies are no loii<^er a barrier. Hi«ii- 
 ways ail-end them everywhere, and the railroad i 
 now climbs theirsummiis and spans their chasms, 
 or penetrates their rockiest sides. The electric | 
 lelegrapii follows, and, stretching its connecting | 
 
 ■' wires along the clouds, there mingles ill VOW 
 ^ l!'^htiiin!rH with the fires of heaven. 
 
 Ijiit il'disuiiioiii.>«tH III the East will force n scp- 
 i| ariuion of any of these States, and a bmuidary 
 {> purely conventional, is nt last in be marked out, 
 |l It inUHt and il will be either from Lak>- Kile upon 
 I the shortest line to the Ohio river, or from iMnii 
 'l hatian to iheCanndas. 
 
 And, now, sir, is theri? any ditTerence of race 
 
 iiere, so radical as to forbid reiininn > | do not 
 
 refer Id the neirro race, styled now, in unctuoo* 
 
 official [ihrase by the President, •• Americj»iiii of 
 
 African descent." Certainly, sir, there are two 
 
 white races in the United States, both from the 
 
 same common stock, ami yet so distinct — one of 
 
 them so peculiar — ilial ihey <|evelop dift'erent 
 
 [ forms ofcivilization,and might belong, almost, to 
 
 I different ty|)es of mankind. Hut the boiindnry of 
 
 I these two races is not at all marketl by the linr 
 
 whiclidividestheslaveholdiiigfrom thenon slav*- 
 
 '; holding States. If race is to be the geographical 
 
 I limit of di.-mnion, then Mason and Dixon's caa 
 
 I never be the line. 
 
 M Next, sir, do not the causes which, in the begin- 
 ning, impelled to Union mill exist in their utmost 
 1' force and extj^it? What were they.' 
 
 First, the common descent — and therefore co»i- 
 sangiiiiiity — of the great mass of the people from 
 till! Anglo-Saxon stock. Had the Canadas beea 
 settled grisrinally by the English, they would 
 doubtless have followed the fortunes of the thir- 
 teen colonies. Next, a common language, oneof 
 the strongest of the ligaments which bind a people 
 Had wc been contiguous to Great Britain, either 
 the ciiiises which led to a separation would hare 
 never existed, or else been speedily removed; or, 
 afterwards, we would long since have been reuni- 
 ted asequalsand with all the rightsof Englishmen. 
 A nd along with these were similar, at least not ea- 
 seiitially dissimilar, manners, habits, laws, reh- 
 irion, and institutions of all kinds, except one 
 ; The common di-fense was another powerful i»- 
 I cenlive, and is named in the Constitution as one 
 amonic tlie objects of the '* more perfect Union" 
 of 17si7. Stronger yet than all these, perhaps, 
 but made upofall of them, wasacommon interest. 
 Variety of climate and soil, and tlierefore of pro- 
 duction, implyingalsoextent of country, isnotaa 
 ' element of separation, but, added to contiguity, 
 becomes a part of the ligament of interest, and ia 
 I one of its toughest strands. Variety of protluction 
 ! is the parent of the earliest commerce and trade; 
 I and these, in theirfiilldevelopment, are, as between 
 ] foreiirn nations, hostages for peacj-; and betweea 
 I Slates and people united, tliey are the firmeat 
 ! bonds of Union. Hut, after all, the Htronjest of 
 j the many original impelling causes to the Union, 
 I was the securin? of domestic tranquillity. The 
 I statesmen of 17H7 well knew that between thirt<-«a 
 I independent but contiguous Stales without • 
 natiirul boundary, and with nothing to separate 
 them except the machinery of similar govern- 
 meniK, there must lie a perpetual, in fact an '• ir- 
 ! repressible conrticl" of jurisdiction and interest, 
 I which, there being no other ci>mmon arbiter, could 
 I only be terminated by the conflict of the sword. 
 ' And the staiesmeii of It^ti'i ought to know that two 
 i or more confederate governments, made up af 
 
8 
 
 similHr States, having no natural boundary either, 
 and separated only by difTerent governments, can- 
 not endure long together in peace, unless one or 
 B»ore of iheni be either too pusillanimous for 
 rirairy, or top insignificant to provoke it, or too 
 weak to resist aggression. 
 
 These, sir, along with the establishment of jus- 
 tice, and the securing of the general welfare, and 
 of the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
 posterity, made up the causes and motives which 
 impelled our fathers to the Union at first. 
 
 And now, sir, what one of them is wanting? 
 What one diminished .' On the contrary, many 
 of them are stronger to-day than in the beginning. 
 Migration and intermarriage have strengthened 
 the ties of consanguinity. Commerce, trade, and 
 production have immensely multiplied. Cotton, 
 almost unknown here in ]7d7, is now the chief 
 product and export of the country. It has set in 
 motion tliree fourths of the spindles of New Eng- 
 land , and given employment, directly or remotely, 
 lo full half the shipping, trade, and commerce of 
 the United States. More than that: cotton has 
 kept the peace between England and America for 
 thirty years; and had the people of the North been 
 as wise and practical as the statesmen of Great 
 Britain, it would have maintained Union and peace 
 here. IJut we are being taught in our first cen- 
 tury and at our own cost, the lessons which Eng- 
 land learned through the long and bloojy expe- 
 rience of eight liundred years. We shall be wiser 
 next time. Let not cotton be king, but peace- 
 maker, and inherit the blessing. 
 
 A common interest, then, still remains to us. 
 And union for the common defense, at tin; end of 
 this war, t<ixed, indebted, impoverislied, exhaust- 
 ed, as both sections must be, and with foreign fleets 
 and armies around us, will be filty-fbid more es- 
 Hcntial than ever before. And finally, sir, without 
 union, our domestic tranquillity must forever re- 
 main unsettled If it cannot be maintained within 
 the Union, how then outside of it, without an 
 exodus or colonization of the people of one section 
 or the other to a distant country ? Sir, i repeat 
 that two governments so interlinked and bound 
 together every way by physical and social liga- 
 iiient.s, cannot exist in peace without a common 
 arbiter. Will iiealies bind us .' What better treaty 
 than the Con.siitniion ? What more solemn, more 
 durabl.? Sh.ill we settle our disputes, then, by 
 irbitration and compromise.' Sir, let us arbitrate 
 Mud compromise now, inside of the Union. Cer- 
 luinly it will be quite as easy. 
 
 And now, sir, to all these original causes and 
 motives which imi>ei|.(l to union at first, must be 
 added certain ariifieial ligaments, which eighty 
 years of association under a common Govern- 
 ment have most fully developed. Chief among 
 these are canals, steam navisaiion, railroads, ex- 
 pn-ss companies, the post ot1i( c, the miwspaper 
 press, and I hat terrible agent of good and evil mixed 
 — " spirit of health, and yet goblin damned"— if 
 free, the gentlest minister of iruth and liberty; 
 when enslaved, the supplest instrument of false- 
 hood and tyranny — ihe magnetic lelet;raph. All 
 these liavc mnliiplied the speed or the quantity 
 of trade, travel, communication, migration, and 
 intorcoiirscofall kinds between the dill'erent Stales 
 
 and sections; and thas, so long as a healthy con- 
 dition of the body-politic continued, they became 
 po^verful cementing agencies of union. The nu- 
 merous voluntary associations, artistic, literary, 
 charitable, social, and scientific, until corrupted 
 and maile fanatical; the various ecclesiastical or- 
 ganizations, until they divided; and the political 
 parties, so long as they remained all national and 
 not sectional, were also among the strong ties which 
 bound us together. Andyetall of these, perverted 
 and abused for some years iA the hands of bad or 
 fanatical men, became still more powerful instru- 
 mentalities in the fatal work of disunion; just as 
 the veins and arteries of the human body, de- 
 signed to convey the vitalizing fluid through every 
 part of it, will carry also, and with increased ra- 
 pidity it may be, the subtle poison which takes life 
 away. Nor is this all. It was through their agen- 
 cy that the imprisoned winds of civil war were all 
 let loose at first with such sudden and appalling 
 fury; and, kept in motion by political power, they 
 have ministered to that fury ever since. But, 
 potent alike for good and evil, they may yet, un- 
 der the control of the people, and in the hands of 
 wise, good, and patriotic men, be made the mo-st 
 eftective agencies, under Providence, in the re- 
 union of these States. 
 
 Other ties also, less material in their nature, but 
 hardly less persuasive in their influence, have 
 grown U|i under the Union. Long association, 
 a common history, national reputation, treaties 
 and diplomatic intercourse abroad, admission of 
 new States, a common jurisprudence, great men 
 whose names and fame are the patrimony of the 
 whole country, patriotic music and songs, common 
 battle-fields, and glory won under the same flair. 
 These make up the poetry of Union; and yei,a8 in 
 the marriage relation, and the family with similar 
 influences, they are stronger than liooks of ste<l. 
 He was a wise statesman, though he may never 
 have held an oflice, who said, " Let me write liie 
 songs of a people, and I care not who makes their 
 laws." Whv is the Marseillaise prohibited in 
 P'rance.' Sir, Hail Columbia and the Star Spansied 
 Banner — Pe niisv I van ia gave us one, and Maryland 
 the other — have done more for the Union than all 
 the legislation and all the debates in this Capitol for 
 forty years; and they will do more yet again than 
 all your armies, though you call out another mil- 
 lion of men into the field. Sir, I would add "Yan- 
 kee Doodle;" but first let me be assured that Yan- 
 kee Doodle loves the Union more than he hates 
 the slaveholder.* 
 
 And now, sir, 1 propose to briefly consider the 
 causes which leil to disunion and the present civil 
 war; and to inquire whether they are eimial and 
 ineradicable in their nature, and at the same limn 
 jinwerful enough lo overcome all the causes and 
 considerations which impel to i-eunion. 
 
 Having two years ago discussed fully and elab- 
 orately the more abstruse and remote causes 
 whence civil comnmiions in all Governments, and 
 those also which are peculiar to our coinph'X and 
 Federal system, such as the consolidating tenden- 
 cies of the General Government, because of exee- 
 
 * In trinh, the sniig w.is wrillrii in (lcri;<inn, by a Brllisli 
 otliccr, and not by an Atneiican. 
 
utive power and pntronn^.nnd of the tnriflT, and 
 
 taxation anil disl)iirM>>nu-n(<;i-nornlly,nlliihjus(nntl 
 l)urdeiisonic to iho West iqnally wiili tin: South, 
 I pass llii'iii l<y now. 
 
 What, then, 1 a.sk, i.i tlu! immrdiatt!, direct 
 cause of disunion mid this civil war? Slavory, 
 it isanswcn d. Sir, that is ihi- pliiK)8opliy of ihf 
 rustic in the phiy — " that n {jrcal cause of tlir 
 night, is h»<U t)f thcsun." Ccrininly slavery was 
 in one sense — very (d)S( iire indeed — tlie cause of 
 the war. Had tlure been no .slavery here, tiiis 
 particular war about slavery would never liave 
 been waited. In a like sense, the Holy Sepuleher 
 was the cause of the war of the Crusades; and had 
 Troy or Carih.i^e never existed, there never would 
 have been Trojati or Carthaginian war, and no 
 such personages as Hector and Hannibal; and no 
 Iliad or ..l-^niid would ever have been written. 
 Rut far better s;\y that the ne^ro is the cause of 
 tiie war; for had there been no ne^ro here, there 
 woulil be no war ju.st now. What then.' Exter- 
 minate him r Wlio demands it? Colonize him ? 
 How? Where? When? .At whose cost ? .Sir, 
 let us have an end of this folly. 
 
 But slavery is the cause ol' the war. Why? 
 Because the South obstinately and wickedly re- 
 fused to restrict or abolish it at the demand of the 
 |>hilosophnrs or fanatics ami dema'j;oi;ue3 of the 
 North and West. Then, sir, it was ubidilion, 
 the purpose toal)olish or interfere with and hem 
 in slavery, which caused disunion and war. Sla- 
 very is only the gubjeel, but abolition the cause, 
 of this eivil war. ft was the per.sislent and de- 
 termined n^itatioai in the free Slates of the ques- 
 tion of abolishing slavery in the South, because 
 of the alleged "irrepressible conflict" bctw'een 
 tbr forms of labor in the two s>-clions, or in (he 
 fiise and mischievous rant of ihi; ilay, between 
 freedom and slavery, that forced u collisi<»n of 
 arms at last. Sir, that conflict was not confined 
 to the Territories. It was expiessly proclaimed 
 by its apostlc.a.as between the Statesalso, against 
 the in.stitution of ilomesiic slavery cv<-ry where. 
 But, assuminir the platforms of the Ilepublican 
 party as the standard, and siatini; the case most 
 strongly in favor of tiiat party, it was the refusal 
 of tht; South to consent that slavery should be ex- 
 cluded from the Terriiori< s that led to the con- 
 tinued asrilation, North and South, of that ques- 
 tion, and finally to disunion and civil war. Sir, 
 I will not be answered now by the old clamcM- 
 about "the aggressions of the slave power." 
 That miserable specter, that unreal mockery, has 
 been exorcised and expelled by debt and taxation 
 and blood. If that power did govern this coun- 
 try for the sixty years precedin^j this terrible rev- 
 olution, then the sooner this Administniiion and 
 Government return to the principles and policy of 
 southeriistalesmanship, the butter for the conn iry; 
 and that, sir, is already, orsoon will be, the judi;- 
 ment of the people. But I deny that it was tli- 
 " slave power" that governed for so many yeai . 
 and so wisely and well. It was the Democrat, 
 party, :ind its principles and policy, molded aiul 
 eoiitrolled, indeed, largely by southern statesmen. 
 Neiilnr will I be stopped by that oiher cry of 
 mingled fanaticism and hypocrisy, about the sin 
 and barbarism of African slavery. .Sir, I see 
 
 more of bnrbarism and ain, a thouannd timea, in 
 
 the continuance of this war, the disa<«luiion of 
 the Union, the breakin;; up of ihis (Jovi rnmeiit, 
 and the enslavement of the- while race by dibt and 
 taxes and arbitrary power. Tlie day of fanat- 
 ics and so|diisl.« ami enthusiasls, thank God, is 
 gone at last; and thoui;li the iif^c of chivalry may 
 not, the a'.;e of practical statesmanship is about to 
 return. Sir, I accept lh<; lanf;iin£;e and intent of 
 the i|yliana resolution to the full — "that in con- 
 siderine terms of settlement we will look only to 
 the W)|irure, peace, and safety of the while race, 
 witho|||refeience to theeflecl that settlement may 
 have tipon the condition of the African." And 
 when we have done this, my word for it, the 
 safety, peace, and wclfanj of the African will 
 have been best secured. Sir, tlierc is fifi v-f'ld less 
 of anti-slavery si-ntimeiit to-day in the VVest than 
 there was two yearsn^o; and if this war be con- 
 linmd, there will be still less a year hence. The 
 people there b«jjin, at hrst, to comprehend that do- 
 mestic slavery in the South is a question, not of 
 morals, or rclii^ion, or humanity, but a form ol 
 labor, perfectly etmipatibk- with the disrnity of 
 free white labor in the same community, and with 
 national vigor, power, and prosperity, ond espe- 
 cially with mililary strength. They have learned, 
 or be-rin to harn, that the evils of the system af- 
 fect the mn.sler alone, or the community and Slate 
 in which it exists; and that wc of the free Statca 
 partake of all the material benefits of the insti- 
 tution, unmixed with any part of its mischiefs. 
 They beli'.ve also in the .subordination of the ii«- 
 j^ro race to the white wlnre they both exist to- 
 gether, and thai the condition of subordination, 
 as established in the South, is far better every 
 way for tin- iie;;ro than the hard servitiideof pov- 
 erty, deijradtition, and crime to which lie is sub* 
 jected in the free Slates. All this, sir, may be 
 " pro-slavtryism," if there be such a word. Per- 
 haps it is; but the people i»f the West b.gin now 
 to think it Wisdom and good sense. We will nol 
 eslablish slavery in our own midst; neither will 
 we abolish or interfere with it outside of our own 
 limits. 
 
 Sir, an rtnti-slavery paper in New York, (the 
 Tribune,) the most influential, and, therefore, 
 most dangerous of all of that class— it would 
 exhibit more of dignity, and command more 
 of influence, if it were always to discuss public 
 cpiistions and public men wiili a decent resiieci — 
 laying oside iniw the epithets of "secessionist" 
 and " traiii>r," has returned to itsancient political 
 nomenclature, and calls certain members of thia 
 House " |iro-slavery.'*" Well, sir, in the old senw 
 of the lerm as applied to ihe Democratic party, I 
 will not object. 1 said years ago, and it is u fitting 
 lime now lo repeat it: 
 
 " II 111 love iiiy rnuiilo'; W cherish Ihe fiiion : to rcvri* 
 Ihe (.'iiii!<iltuiioii ; ir lo .ilihur the ininliiiix .incl liaie the tr««- 
 -..:, ui,:. Ii u.MiM Ii:| 1.;,., ■:irriI.-i....-li.oi.! ..-,il,. t .-Uljcr, 
 
 r . I!.;- .: I. ' il t!.' ■ It 1 : 'I I. • ;■•" ■ wry 
 
 IiiTVe. liliiT. vein, hour. Ii'tiitoii. jm ■ 'rorti 
 
 the iniuiiont h.ilr lit' the henil to lli th» 
 loot, I ;iiii all ovcrniiil allo^elJK.'f a |>:' 
 
 And now, sir, I come lo the gn:aland coiurolling 
 
10 
 
 question within which the whole issue of union or 
 disunion is bnund up: is there "an irrepressible 
 conflict" between the tjlHveluildins; and non-slave- 
 holdiii'^ Stales? Must " the cotton and rice fields 
 of South Carolina and the sujjnr planttuions of 
 Louisiana," in the language of Mr. Seward, " be 
 ultimately tilled by free labor, ami Cliarlesion and 
 New Orleans become marts for Ifsi'i'Tiate nuT- 
 rhandise alone, or else the rye fiilds and wheat 
 fields of Massachusetts and New York agnin be 
 surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and ! 
 the production of slaves, and Boston aujii New | 
 York become once more markets for tra^jjl in the | 
 bodies and souls of men?" tf so, then diere is 
 anendof all union and forever. You cannotabol- i 
 ish slavery by the sword; still less by proclania- | 
 tions, thou^it the President w(.'re to " proclaim" i 
 every month. Of what possible avail was his 
 proclamatiini of September? Did the South sub- 
 mit? Was she even alarmed? And yet he has 
 now fulmined another " bull against the comet" — 
 brutumfulinen — and, ihreatenino; servile insurrec- 
 tion with all its hoirors. has yet coolly appealed 
 to the judgment of mankind, and invoked the bless- 
 ing of the God of peace and love I But declaring 
 it a military necessity, an essential measure of 
 war to subdue the rebels, yet, with admirable wis- 
 dom, he expressly exempts from its operation the 
 only States and parts of States in the South where 
 he lias the military power to execute it. 
 
 Neither, sir, can you abolish slavery by argu- 
 ment. As well aitem|)l to abolish marriage or the 
 relation of paternity. The Soutli is resolved to 
 maintain it at every hazard and i)y every sacrifice; 
 and if" this Union cannot endure part slave and 
 part free," then it isalreaily and finally dissolved. 
 Talk not to me of" West Virginia." Tell me not 
 of Missouri, trampled under the feet of your sol- 
 diery. As well talk to me of Ireland. Sir, the 
 destiny of those States must abide the ilsue of the 
 war. But Kentucky you may find tougher. And 
 Maryland — * 
 
 " E'en in hera.'^lins live their wonied llres." 
 
 Nor will Delaware be found wanting in the day : 
 of trial. I 
 
 But I iU'uy the doctrine. It is full of disunion 
 and civil war. It is disunion itsilf. Whoever 
 first taught it ought to be dealt with as not only 
 hostile to the Union, but an enemy of the human 
 race. Sir, tiie fundamental idea of the Constitu- 
 tion is the perfect and eternal compatibility of a 
 union of States " part slave and part free;" else 
 the Constitution never would have been framed, 
 nor the Union fninded; and seventy years ofsuc- 
 cessful exjieriment have approved the wisdom of 
 the plan. In my deliberate judgment, a confed- 
 eracy made up of slaveholding" and non-slave- 
 holding Smtes is, in the nature of things, the 
 Btrongesl of all popular governmeiit.s. African 
 slavery lias bcen,(and is, eminently conservative. 
 It makes the absolute [toliiical eipialiiy of the 
 wiiite race (ivcrywhere |>iaeti(able. It dispenses 
 with the English orderof nobility, and leavesevery 
 white man. North and South, owning slaves or 
 owning none, the equal of every other white man. 
 It has reconciled universal suflVage throughout 
 the free States with the stability of government. 
 
 1 speak not now of its material benefits to the 
 North and West, which are manj'- and more ob- 
 vious. But the Siiulh, too, has profiled many 
 waysby aunion witii the non-slaveholdiiig States. 
 Enterprise, industry, self-reliance, perseverance, 
 and the other hardy virtues of a people living in a 
 higher latitude and without hereditary servants, 
 she has k'arned or received from the North. Sir, 
 it is easy, I know, to denounce all this, and to 
 revile him who utters it. Be it so. The English 
 is, of all languages, the most copious in words of 
 bitterness and reproach. "Pour on: I will en- 
 dure." 
 
 Then, sir, there is not an " irrepressible con- 
 flict" between slave labor and free labor. There 
 is no conflict at all. Both exisl*togt.tlier in perfect 
 harmony in the South. The master and the slave, 
 the white laborer and the lilack, work too;etlier in 
 the same field or the .same shoj), and wiihont the. 
 si igli test sense of degradation. Tiiey are not etpials, 
 either socially or politically. And why not, then, 
 cannot Ohio, havirij; only free labor, live in har- 
 moiiy with Kentucky which has both slave and 
 free ? Above all, why cannot Massachusetts allow 
 the same righr of choice to South Caridina, sep- 
 arated as they are a thousand miles, by other States 
 who would keeji the peace and live in good will ? 
 Why this civil war? Whence disunion? Not 
 from slavery — not because the South diooses to 
 have two kinds of labor instead of one; but from 
 sec/jono/ism, always and everywhere a disiiitrgra- 
 tingprinciple. Sectionaljealousy and hate — these, 
 sir, are the only elementsof conflict between these 
 Slates, and though powerful, they are yet not at 
 all irrepressible. They exist between' families, 
 cortimunities, towns, cities, counties, and States: 
 and if not repressed would dissolve all society 
 and government. They exist also between other 
 sections than the North and South. Sectionalism 
 East, many years ago, saw the South and West 
 united by the ties of geographical position, migra- 
 tion, intermarriage, and interest, and thus strong 
 enough to control the power and policy of the 
 Union. It found us divided only by diflTerent forms 
 of labor; and, with consummate but most guilty 
 sagacity, it seized upon the question of slavery as 
 the surest and most powerful instrumentality by 
 which to separate the West from the South, and 
 bind her wholly to the North. Eiicourag.d every 
 way from abroad by those who were Jealous of 
 our prosperity and greatness, and who" knew the 
 secret of our strength, it proclaimed the " irn'pres- 
 sible conflict" between slave labor and fi-ee labor. 
 It taught the people of the North to forset both 
 their duty and their interests; and aided by ihe 
 artificiiil ligamentsand influence which money and 
 enterprise had created between the sea-board and 
 the Northwest, it persuaded the peo|deoflhnt sec- 
 lion, also, to yielci up every lie which binds thrm 
 to the great valley of the Mississippi, and to join 
 their political forlunese.tpecially, wlmlly, with tin 
 East. It resisted the fugitive slave law, iiiul de- 
 manded the exclusion ofslavery from all the Terri- 
 tories and from this District, and clamored against 
 the admission of any more slave Slates into the 
 Union, llorjrnnizedasectionalanti-.slavery party, 
 and thus drew to its aid as well political umliitiioi 
 and interest as fanaticism; and after twenty-five 
 
11 
 
 years of incessant and vehen^nl agitation, it ob-j 
 taiiicd pnaspsHJon finally, iiiul upon tlial issue, ofil 
 the Ft;iJ(-rnl Goveiiimciil nnd nf every StHte pov- ' 
 einmeiit Noiih Hiid Wtsi. And to-day, we mo || 
 in till' midst ortjje i^realesi, most crui'l, n»o.sid(-|| 
 sfniciivc civil war ever wa^ed. lUu two years, 
 sir, of blood and debt and taxation and iiicipi'iit 
 roninitrcial ruin are teacliiii{j the peojije of the | 
 West, and I trust of tlie North also, the folly and ,i 
 madness of tins crusade against African slavery, | 
 and the wisdom and necessity of a unicni of the i 
 Slates, as our fathers made it, "part slave and I 
 part free." |] 
 
 What, then, sir, with so many causes impelling i 
 to reuniini, keeps us apart to-day ? Hale, passion, j 
 anlai^onism, reven<je,all heated si.'Ven times hotter 
 by war. ISir, these, while they last, are tin- most 
 powerful of all motives with a people, and with 
 the individual nnin; but foitunately they are llie 
 least duratde. They iiold a divided sway in the 
 same bosoms with the nobler qualities of love, 
 justice, reason, placability; and, except when at 
 their height, are weaker than the sense of interest, 
 and always, in States at least, give way to it at;, 
 last. No statesman who yield.s himself up to them ' 
 can govern wisely or well; and no Stale whosi; , 
 policy is controlled by them can either prosoeror 
 endure. But war is both their olVsprinjr and their 
 aliment, and while it lasts, all otlier motives are ,\ 
 subordinate. The virtues of peace cannot flour- i 
 ish, cannot even find development in the midst of,' 
 figlitin;^; and this civil war keeps in motion the 
 centrifugal forces of the Union, and gives to them j 
 increased strength and activity every day. But 
 such, and so many and [lowerful, in my judgment, 
 are the cementing or centrijietal agencies impelling ,, 
 us together that nothing but perpetual war and ]'; 
 strife can keeps us always divided. l| 
 
 Sir, 1 do not under-eslimale the power of the | 
 prejudices of section, or, what is much stronger, [i 
 of race. Prejudice is colder, and, therefore, more M 
 durable than the passions of hale and revenge, or ii 
 the spirit of antagonism.. But, as I have already j 
 saitl, iis boundary in the United States is not Ma- j 
 son and Dixon's line. The long standing mu-l 
 tual jealousies of New England and the South do | 
 not primarily grow out of slavery. They are , 
 deip.r, and will always be the chief obstacle in [ 
 ihe way of full and absolute reunion. 'I'hey are j 
 founded in difference of manners, habits, and j 
 social life, and difl'erent notions about politics, i 
 morals, and religion. Sir, after all, this whole 
 war is not so much one of sections — least of all 
 belwieii the sluveholdiiig and non-slaveholding 
 sections — as of races, repre.seiiting not dilferejice , 
 in blood, but mind and its development, and dil'- \ 
 feri'iil types of civilization. It is the old conflict 
 of the Cavalier and the Roundhead, the Liiieralist 
 and the Puritan; or rather it is a conflict upon new \ 
 iss(i.s, of the ideas and eleimnls njiresented by , 
 Ihiise names. It is a war of the Yankee and the 
 Southron. Said a FJxston wriiir the otiier day, ' 
 eulogizing a New Kngland otlict-r who fell at., 
 Friclifricksburg: "This is .Massachusetts's war; 
 Massachusetts wid South Carolina made it." But i 
 in the beginnij^, the Roundheud outwitted the,) 
 Cavalier, and by a skillful r.se of slavery and the j 
 negro united all New England first, and after- • 
 
 ward the entire North and West, und finally aeiit 
 out to battle ii!;nin.st him Celt und Saxon, Ger- 
 man unit Knickerbocker, Catholic and Episco- 
 palian, ami < yen a part of iiis own liKUSi-linhl and 
 of tin: descendants «if his own stock. Said Mr. 
 Jeflerson, whi-n New Enghmd threatened tteces- 
 sion some sixty years n-n,; " No, let us keep the 
 Yankics to rpiurn I with." Ah, sir, he forg«»t 
 that e|uarreling is always a hii/.urdous experi- 
 mi^ni; and after some lime, the eonntrymen of 
 Adams proved ihemselves too sharp at that work 
 for till! countrymen of JefTerson. B>a every day 
 the contest now tends again to its naiuial and ori- 
 ginal eliMnents. in many parts of ihe Noriliwst — 
 I might add of I'.nnsylvnnia, New JorKey, and 
 New York city — liie prtjudice against tlie " Yan- 
 kee" has always been almost s.s hitler as in the 
 South. Suppressed fur a liith- while by the anti- 
 slavery sentiment and the war, it threatens now 
 to break forth in one of those great but unfortu- 
 nate popular uprisings, in the midst of wlncii rea- 
 son and justice are for thi; time iiilerly silenced, 
 i speak advisidly; and let New Eiii:iand lieed, 
 else she, and the whole Ea.st, too, in/llieir strug- 
 gle for power, may learn yet from the West tlie 
 same lesson which civil war taught to Kom<-, thai 
 evulgaln imperii arcano, jwshc priitciptin alibi, qitam 
 Roinmfieri. The peopleof the Westdemand peace, 
 and they bej^iii to more than suspect that New 
 England is in the way. The storm rag. s; and 
 they believe that she, not slavery, is the cause. 
 The ship is sore tried; and passeng'-r.-j and crew 
 are now almost ready to propitiate the waves by 
 throwing the ill-omened prophet overl<oard. In 
 plain English — not very classic, but most eX|>ro38- 
 ive — they threaten to "set New England out in 
 the cold." 
 
 And now, sir, I, wlio have not a drop of New 
 England blood in my veins, but was born in Ohio, 
 and am wholly ofsouthern ancestry — withaslighl 
 cross of Pennsylvania Scotch-Irish — would speak 
 a word to the men of the West and the S<tuik, in 
 behalf of New England. Sir, some years a|p, 
 in till- midst of high sectional controversies, and 
 speaking as a western man, I said sonte things 
 harsh of the North, wliicli now, in a more catholic 
 spirit as a United States man, and for the sake of 
 reunion, I would recall. My prejudices, indeed, 
 upon this suliject are as strong as any man's; but 
 in this, the diiy of great national liumiliaiion and 
 calamity, let the void- of prejudice be husli*d. 
 
 Sir, tliey who would exclude New England in 
 any reconstruction of tlie Union, assume that ail 
 New Eiiglttndersare"Yankees"aiidPurilan9;aijd 
 tlwit the Puritan or pragmatical element, or tyjw 
 of civilization, has always lield undis|Mited sway. 
 Well,sir,Y«iikees,certainly,thevare III on. sense; 
 and so to Old England we are all Yankees, N.irlh 
 and South; and to the South just now, or a little 
 wliih: ago, we of the middle and western States, 
 also, are, or were, Yankees, too. Hut then is really 
 a viry largi», and most liberal and conser v. iiive non- 
 Puritan element in the population of New Eng- 
 land, which, for many years, struggled for the 
 mastery, and sometimes held it. itdividtd Maine, 
 New li.im|>shire,and Connecticut, and one.- con- 
 trolled Ilhode island wholly. k held the sway 
 during the lie volution, und at the period when the 
 
12 
 
 Constitution was founded, and for some years 
 afterward. Mr. Callioun said very justly, in 1847, 
 tlitU to ilic wisdom and enlargi^d patriotisiTi of 
 Shennnii and Ell.'fworth on the slavery question 
 we were iii(l<btt-d for this admirable Government; 
 and thr.i, along with Paterson, of New Jersey, 
 " their names ought to beeneraven on brass, and 
 live forever." And Mr. Webster, in 1830, in one 
 of those grand historic^vord-paintin^s, in which 
 he was so great a master, said of Massachusetts 
 and Soutli Carolina: •' Hand in hand they stood 
 around iho Administration of Washington, and 
 felt his own great arm lean on them for support." j 
 Indeed, sir, it was not till some thirty years ago | 
 that the narrow, presumptuous, intermeddling,] 
 and fanatical spirit of the old Puritan element be- 
 gan to reappear in a form very much more aggres- 
 sive and destructive than nt first, and threatened 
 to obtain absolute mastery in church, and school, 
 and Slate. A little earlier it had struggled hard, 
 but the conservatives proved too strong for it; and 
 so long as the great statesmen and jurists of the 
 Whig and Democratic parties survived, it made 
 small prog(ess, though John Q,uincy Adams gave 
 to it the strength of his great name. But after 
 their death it broke in as a flood, and sweptaway 
 the last vestige of the ancient, liberal, and toler- 
 ating conservatism. Then every form qnd devel- 
 opment of fanaticism sprang up in rank and most 
 luxuriant growth, till abolitionism, the chief fungus 
 ofall, overspread the whole of New England fii'st, 
 and tli.n the middle States, and finally every State 
 in the Northwest. 
 
 Certainly, sir, the more liberal or non-Puritan 
 element was mainly, though not altogether, from 
 the old Puritan stock, or largi-ly crossed with it. 
 iJut even within the first ten years after the land- 
 ing of the Pilgrims, a more enlarged ami tolerating 
 eivilizati(ui was introduced. Roger Williams, 
 not of the Mayflower, though a Puritan himself, 
 and ihoroughiy imbued with all its peculiarities 
 of caul and creed ami form of worship, seems yet 
 u^have had naturally a more liberal spirit; and, 
 first perhaps of all men, some three or more years 
 before the Ark and the Dove touched the shores 
 of the St. Mary's, in Maryland, taught the sub- 
 lime doctrine of freedom of opinion and practice 
 in religion. Threatened first with banishment to 
 EnglamI, so as to " remove as f\r as possible the 
 infection of his principles;" and afterwards ac- 
 tuallf banished beyond the jurisdiction of Mas- 
 sac.husiiis, because, in the language of the sen- 
 tence of the General Court, "he broached and 
 divulged divers new and strange doctrines against 
 the authority of magistrates" over the religious 
 opinion.s of men, thereby disturbing the peace of 
 the cohuiy, he lueame the founder of Rhode Isl- 
 and, and, indeed, of a large part of New England 
 society. And, whether from his leaching and 
 example, and in the persons of his ilescendants 
 ami those of his associnles, or from oilier causes 
 and another stork, there has always been a large 
 infusion throughout New England of what may 
 be called the Rns;tr WUliams rlrment, as distin- 
 guished from the extreme Puritan or .Uni^y/oirrr 
 and Plijiiuintli Rock type of the New Engiander; 
 and its influence, till late years, has always been I 
 powerful. I 
 
 The SPEAKEft. The gentleman's hour has 
 
 ' Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. I ask for a short 
 lime lon^i-r. 
 
 Mr. POTTER. I hope iherejivill be no objec- 
 tion from this siile of the House. 
 
 The SPEAKER. If there be no objection the 
 gentleman will be allowed further time. 
 
 There was no objection; and it was ordered 
 accordingly. 
 
 Mr. VALLANDIGHAM. Sir, I would not 
 deny or disparage the austere virtues of the old 
 Puritans of England or America. But I do believe 
 that, in the very nature of things, no community 
 could exist long in peace, and no Government 
 endure long alone, or become great, where thai 
 element in its earliest or its more recent form 
 holds supreme control. And it is my solemn con- 
 viction that there can be no jiossible or durable 
 reunion of these Slates until it shall have been 
 again subordinated to other and more liberal and 
 con-servative elements, ajid, above all, until its 
 worst and most mischievous development, aboli- 
 tionism, has been utterly extinguished. Sir, the 
 peace of the Union and of this continent demands 
 it. Rut, fortunately, those very elements exist 
 al)undantly in New England herself; and to h<^r I 
 I look with confidenci! to secure to them the mas- 
 I lery within her limits. In fact, sir, the true voice 
 ; of New England has for some years past been but 
 ! I'arely heard hire or elsewhere in public affairs. 
 Men now control her politics and are in high 
 ■ places, Stale and Federal, who, twenty years ago, 
 I could not iiave been chosen selectmen in oh! 
 Massachusetts. Rut let her remember at hist her 
 ancient renown; let her turn from vain-glorious 
 admiration of the stone monuments of her heroes 
 and patriots ofafoiiner age, to generous emulation 
 of the noble and manly virtues which they were 
 ilesisned to commeinorate. Let us hear less from 
 her of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower and 
 of Plymouth Rock, and more of Roger Williams 
 and his compatriots, and his toleration. Let her 
 banish nowand forever herdreamers and hcrsoph- 
 ists and her fanatics, and call back again into her 
 Stale administraiioh and into the national councils 
 " her men of might, her grand in soul" — some of 
 Ihem still live — and she will yet escape the dan- 
 gers which now threaten her with isolation. 
 
 Then, sir, while lam inexorably hostile to Puri- 
 tan domination in religion or morals or literature 
 or politics, I am not in favor of the proposed exclu- 
 sion of New En^rland. I would have the Union 
 as it was; and first. New England as she was. 
 But if New England will have no union with 
 slaveholders; if she isnotconieni with " the Union 
 as it was," then upon her own head be the re- 
 siionsibility for secession. And there will lie no 
 more coercion now. F, at least, will be exa<'.tly 
 consistent. 
 
 And now, sir, can the central Stales, New York, 
 New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, consent. i<i sep- 
 aration? Can New York city? Sir, the trade of 
 the South made her largely what she is. She 
 was the factor and banker of th^Soulh — coiuui 
 filled her harbor with shipping a»nrlier banks with 
 i,'(dd. Rut in an evil hour the fo<dish, I will uoi 
 say bi\d, " men of Golhem" persuaded her mer- 
 
13 
 
 chant princi-8 — tigitinyt their fiidllcasnii in business . 
 — that she could n-inin or force hark thi- snuiliern | 
 tratk- hy war. War, indcid, lias fjiven her, just > 
 now, II new biisinrss and tradt- prejit(;r and nuuf ^ 
 profitabh.' tlian the old. Hut with disunion thai,] 
 too, must perisli. And lut not Wall siifct, or any ! 
 othergrciU interest, nierc.antik', maimfaf.lmiiijr.or 
 comniercial, imugiiu! that it shall have powir, 
 enough or wealth t-nough to Bland in the way of, 
 reunion through peace. Lei tluni learn, one and 
 all, that a public man wlui has tin- people as his 
 support, is slron^ir than tliey, though he may 
 not be worth a million, nor even one dollar. A 
 iillle whilt.-agolhe banks said that they were king, 
 but President Jackson speedily tausht them iheir 
 mistake. Next, railroads assumed to be king; 
 and cotton once vaunted largely liis kingship. Sir, 
 these arc only of the royal family— princes of the . 
 blood. There is but one king on earth. Politics , 
 is king. I 
 
 Huttoreturn: New Jersey, loo, is bound closely j 
 to the Siiuih, and the South to her; and more audi 
 longer than any other State, she remembered both i 
 iu r duty to the Constitution and her interi st in | 
 till- Union. And Pennsylvania, a sort of middle 
 ground, just between the North and the South, 
 and extending, also, to tiie West, fs united by 
 nearer, if not stronger ties, to every section, tiian ', 
 any other one Stale, unless it be Ohio. She was : 
 — s!ie is yet — the keystone in the great but now 
 crumbling arch of the Union. She is a border | 
 State; and, more tluiii that, she has less within 
 her of'the fanatical or disturbing element than I 
 any of the Slates. The people of Pennsylvania i 
 are quiet, peaceable, practical, and enterprising,' 
 without being aggressive. They have more of the 
 lionest old English and Geiiiian thrift than any 
 other. No peoi>le mind more diligently their; 
 own business. They have but one idiosyncrasy 
 or specially — ll>e tanlT; and even that is really j 
 far more a matter of tradition than of substantial ! 
 interest. The industry, enterprise, and thrift of 
 Pennsylvania are abundantly able to take care of 
 iheiriselvesagainstanycompelition. In any event, j 
 the Union is of more value, many times, to her , 
 than any local interest. j 
 
 But other ties also bind these States — Pennsyl-j 
 raiiia and New Jersey, especially — to the South, 
 and the Soulh to them. Only an imaginary lino 
 separates the former from Delaware atid Mary-| 
 land. The Delaware river, common to both Peiin- 
 sj'lvaniaand New Jersey, flowsintoDelawarebay. 
 The Susquehanna emfUies its water.s, through 
 Pennsylvania and Maryland, into the Chesa- 
 peake. And that great watershed itself, extending 
 to Norfolk, and, ihcrefure, almost to the North 
 Carolina line, does belong, and must ever belong, 
 in common to the central and soutiiern States, 
 under one Government; or else the line of separa- 
 tion will be the Potomac to its head waters. All 
 of Delaware and Maryland, and the counties of 
 Accomac and Northampton, in Virginia, would,' 
 in that event, follow the fortunes of the northern 
 confederacy. In fact, sir, disagreeable as the idea 
 may be to many within ti-.eir limit* on bothside.s, 
 no man who looks at the map and then reflects 
 upon history and the fjic; of natural causes, and 
 considers the present at-tual und tlio future proba- 
 
 |eiiner sine c.innot coniroi 
 lyiii-j between the iniuitli 
 llhe l{ud.soii. And if till 
 
 bic posiiiuii of the hostile armies and navies at the 
 I end of this war, ought for a moment i<> doubt that 
 'either the Slates and counties which I have named 
 I must go with the North, or Pennsylvania and 
 j New Jersey with thi; South. Military force on 
 r side c.innot conirol the destiny of iheStateH 
 f the Chesapeakt; and 
 bay were itself made 
 the line, Delaware, and the Kastern .Shore of 
 1 Maryland and Virginia, would biloiig to tlif 
 i Ninth; while Norfolk, the only cupacinus harbor 
 I on the souihiiistem coast, must be coiumanded by 
 I the guns of some luw fortress u|>on Ca[ie Charles; 
 I and Baltimore, the now queenly city, seated then 
 I upon the very boundary of two rival, yes, hostile, 
 I confederacies, would rapidly fall into decay. 
 
 And now, sir, I will not ask whether the Norlh- 
 i west can consent to separation from the South. 
 I Never. Nature forbids. We are only a part of 
 1 the great valley of the Mississippi. There is no 
 I line oflatitutle upon which to separate. Neither 
 party would desire the old line of 3(P 3U' on both 
 .sides of the river; and there is no natural bound- 
 |ary east and west. The nearest to it are the 
 Ohio and Missouri river.-*. But that line would 
 I leave Cincinnati and St. Louis, as bitrder cities, 
 I like Baltimore, to decay, and, extending fifteen 
 I hundred miles in length, would become the scene 
 of an eternal border warfare without example even 
 in the worst of times. Sir, we cannot, ought not, 
 j will not, separate from the South. And if you of 
 j the East who have lound this war against the 
 Soulh and for the negro, gratifying to your hate or 
 I profitable to your purse, will continue it till a sep- 
 aration be forced betsveen the slavehohling and 
 your non-slaveholding States, then, believe int, 
 and accept it, as you did not the other solemn 
 { warnings of years jiasi, the day trliich ilMdes the 
 A'oW/t/roiJi the Soulh, thai self-same day decrees eter- 
 nal ditorce between the fl'est and the East. 
 ! Sir, our destiny is fixed. There is not one drop 
 of rain which descending from the heavens, and 
 I fertilizing our soil, causes it to yield an abundant 
 I harvest, but flows into the Mississippi, und there, 
 I mingling with the waters of that mii:hiy river, 
 finds its way, at la.si, to the Gulf of Mexico. And 
 J we must and will follow it with travel and trade, 
 I not by treaty but by right, freely, peaceably, and 
 j without restriction or tribute, under the same Gov- 
 I ernment and flag, to its home in the bosom of that 
 I Gulf. Sir, we will not remain after separation 
 j from the South, a province or appanage of the 
 I East, to bear her burdens and pay her taxes: nor 
 hemmed in and isolated as we are, and without a 
 sea-coast, could we long remain a distinct confed- 
 : eracy. But whcrt-ver we go, married to the South 
 I or the East, we bring with us three fourths of the 
 j territories of that valley to the Rocky mountains, 
 land it may be to the Pacific — the grandest and 
 I most magnificent dowry that bride ever had to 
 I bestow. 
 
 ! Then, sir. New England, freed at last from the 
 I domination of her sojihisters, areamers and big- 
 I ots, and restored to the control once more of her 
 former liberal, tolerant, and conservative civiliza- 
 ; tion, will not stand in ihc way of the reunion of 
 these States upon terms of fair and honoraH. ad- 
 jiiaiment. And in thia great wo.k il" •■ :.-i' f -x; 
 
14 
 
 and ijorilei^l.Hve States, too, will unite heart and; 
 liHnd. T«i till' West, it is a necessiiy, and she de- i 
 niands it. And lot not thu States now called con- i 
 fi'ileraie insist upon separation and independence. || 
 What did they demand at first? Security against! 
 aljojitionipni within the Union. Pniteclion from i 
 " the irrepressiiil'- conflict" and the domination of ' 
 the nli.solnte numerical majority. A change of 
 piihlie opinion, and con.«iequently of [loliiical par- i 
 li'-s in the North and West, so that their local in- j 
 stitiitions and domestic peace shonid no longer be j 
 nidaniriTfd. And, now, sir, after two years of| 
 persisli'ht .Tnd most gigantic effort on the part of ' 
 tliis .Administration to compel them tosnbmit,but 
 with utter and signal failure, the people of the free h 
 Slates nr<r now or are fast becoming sati.sfied that ; 
 the price of the Union is the titter 8Uj>pression of | 
 abolitionism or anti-slavery as a political element, ;' 
 and the complete subordination of the spirit l| 
 of t'lnaticism and intermeddlin? wliich gave it j 
 bind. In any exent, th^y are ready now, if I have I 
 notgreatly mi.'»rea<l the signs of the limes, to re- ' 
 turn to the old constitutional and actual basis of!! 
 fifty years ago — thn-e fifths rule of representation, j! 
 .speedy return of fugitives from labor, equal rights*' 
 ill the 'I'erritorie.'', no more slavery agitation any- H 
 where, and transit and temporary sojourn with'j 
 slaves, without molestation, in the free Slates. I 
 Without all the.se there could be neither peace nor ' 
 p»-rmaiifnci? to a reston-d union of Slates "parti 
 slave and part I'reo." With it, the South, in aJdi- h 
 tion to all the other grent and multiplied benefits j| 
 of union, would be far more secure in her slave Ij 
 properly, In-r domestic institutions, than under a{| 
 Bi parate government. Sir, let no man North or'| 
 West, tell me that this would perpetuate African |i 
 slavery. Iknowit. Butsodoes iheConslitution. '' 
 I repeat, sir, it is the price of ilip Union. Whoever!; 
 hates iifgro slavery more than he loves the Union, | 
 must demand separation at last. I think that you ! 
 can never abolish slavery by fijljling. Certainly {| 
 you never can till you liave first destroyed the '\ 
 South, and then, in theIangunge,firstofiVIr. Dou^- : 
 las ar.d afterwards of Mr. Seward, convened this'! 
 (iovernment into an imperial dtspotism. And, sir, !' 
 whenever I am forced to a choice between the loss ' 
 lo my own country and race, of jiersonal and polit- '' 
 ieal liberty with all its bli-.ssings,and the invoiiin-' 
 tary domestic servitude of the negro, I shall not '| 
 hesitate one moment to choose the latter niter- '| 
 native. The sole question to-day is between ihe 
 Union with slavery, or final disunion, and, I think, 
 anarchy and despotism. I am for the Union. It ' 
 WiiH good enough for my. fathers. It is good 
 I nough for ns and our children after us. | 
 
 And, sir, let no man in the South tell me that 
 sh" has lieen invaded, and that all the horrors im- 
 j>lied in those most terrible of words, civil war, ' 
 have bei-n visited upon her. I know that, too. ' 
 Hut we, also, of the North and West, in every I; 
 •St.'iie and by thousands, who have dared so much 
 as lo question the i^ificiples and policy, or doubt 
 the honesty, of this Adminisiraiion and its party, 
 have aniTered everything that tlie worst desfiotism 
 could inflict, except only li.as of life itself uprin 
 liie sciitlold. Some even have died for the cause 
 by the hand of the assassin. And can wc forget? 
 Wever, never. Time will but burn the memory 
 
 of these wrongs deeper into our hearts. But shall 
 we break up the Union? Shall we destroy the 
 Government because usurping tyrants have held 
 [>ossession and perverted it to the most cruel of 
 oppressions? Was it ever so done in any other 
 country? In Athens? Rome? England? Any- 
 where? No, sir; let us expel the usurper, and 
 restore ilie Constitution and laws, the rights of 
 the States, and the liberties of the people; and 
 then, in the country of our fathers, uniler the 
 Union of our fathers, and tlie old fl:ig — the sym- 
 bol once again of the free and the brave — let us 
 fulfill the <rrand mission which Providence has 
 apjiointed for us among the nations of the earth. 
 
 And now, sir, if it be the will of all sections to 
 unite, then upon what terms? Sir, between the 
 South and most of the States of the North, and 
 all of the West, there is but one subject in con- 
 troversy — slavery. It is the only question, said 
 Mr. Calhoun twenty-five years ago, of sufficient 
 mfl|;nitude and potency to divide this Union; and 
 divide it it will, he added, or drench the country 
 in blood if not arrested. It has done both. But 
 settle it on the original basis of the Constitution, 
 and give to each section the power to protect itself 
 within the Union, and now, after the terrible les- 
 sons of the past two years, the Union will be 
 stronger than before, and, indeed, endure forages. 
 Woe to the man. North or South, who, to the 
 third or the fourth generation, should teacii men 
 disunion. 
 
 An^j now the way to reunion: what so easy' 
 Behold to-day two separate governments in one 
 country, and without a natural dividing line; 
 with two presidents and cabinets, and a double 
 Congress; and ytl each under a constiiuiion so 
 exactly similar, the one to the other, that a stran- 
 ger could scarce discern the difference. Was 
 ever folly and madness like this? Sir, it is not 
 in the nature of things that it should so continue 
 long. 
 
 But why speak of ways or terms of reunion 
 now? The will is yet wanting in both sections. 
 Union is consent and good will and fraternal 
 affection. War is force, hate, revenge. Is the 
 country tired at last of war? Has the experiment 
 been tried long enough ? Has sufficient blood 
 been shed, treasure expended, and misery inflicted 
 in both the North and the South? What then? 
 Stop fighting. Make an armistice — no formal 
 treaty. Withdraw your army from the seceded 
 Slates. Reduce both armie.s to a fair and suffi- 
 cient peace establi.shment. Declare absolute free 
 trade between the North and South. Buy and^ 
 sell. Agree upon a zojlverein. Recall your 
 fleets. Break up your blockade. Reduce your 
 navy. Restore travel. Open up railroads. Re- 
 establish the telegraph. Reunite your express 
 companies. No more Monitors and iron-ilnds, 
 but set your friendly steamers and steamships 
 again in motion. Visit the North and West. 
 Visit the South. Exchange nt wspapers. Mi- 
 grate. Inlermarry. Let slavery alone. Hold 
 elections at the appointed times. Let ns choose 
 a new President in sixty-four. And when the 
 gospel of peace shall have descended again from 
 heaven into their hearts, and the gospel of aboli- 
 tion and of hate been expelled, let your clergy 
 
16 
 
 subjects it) controversy l>c n-fcrrcd to SwitKerlund , 1 1 
 or RiiKsia, or nny otlu-r ittipaitiul and incorriipli- ;; 
 hie Power or Stiite ill Euroiir. liiilul lust, sir, the i' 
 |ieo|ile i)f tliest; suvcrai Slates here, ul iiitiui?, iniist i , 
 lie tli'' fina! arl)iter(irilii.sgreat(iiinrrel in America; '; 
 Hiul the pe(i|>le and Slates of Hie Northwest, ilie ' 
 ■|nt:di,itors who shall stand, like the |iro|ih»'l, be-' 
 twixi the li villi; and the dead, that tin plague of 
 (lisiiiiion niiiy be 8lav'.'<l. 
 
 Sir, this w.tr, horrible a.s it iti, has tniii;lit u.saii 
 some ol"lhe moat iinporlani and salutary lessons 
 which tver a people learned. 
 
 First, it has annihilated, in twenty monihH,all 
 the false and pernicious theoiiis and teachin!;sof 
 .iboliiionism for thirty years, iind which n mere 
 appeal to facts and arLjiinu nt conld not have un- ; 
 tauijht in half a century. We have learned that ' 
 the South is not weak, dependent, unenterprising;, 
 or corrupted by .slavery, luxury, and idleness; 
 l>ut piiwerful, earnest, warlike, enduring, self- , 
 supporting:, full of enersiy, and inexhausiibl j in ji 
 resonrces. We have been lau'^ht, and now con-! 
 fess II openly, that African slavery, instead of 1 
 bein^ a source of weakness tt) the South, is one ' 
 of lor main elfmeiils of slrcnsth; and hence tin? i 
 " military necessity," we are told, of abolishiiifj ; 
 slavi ry in order to suppress the nb' llion. We 
 have learned, also, that the noii-shiveluddini; while ; 
 men of the South, millions in number, are im- 1 
 movably allaehed to the iiisiilulion, and are its 
 ciiief support; and abolitionists iiave found out, i 
 to ih.ir infinite surprise and di.-Jgusl, that the slave I 
 is not «' panting for freedom," nor piniii'i; in silent 
 but leveiigt ful grief over cruelly and oppres- 1 
 siou iiirticied upon him, but happy, contented, | 
 atiHohed deeply to his master, and unwilling — at j 
 least not eager — to accept the precious boon of 
 freedom wliieh tliey have profiered liiin. lajipeal : 
 to the Prcaideiit for the pniof. I appeal to the fact ; 
 thill fewer ."lavus have escaped, even from Vir- 
 piiiia, in now nearly two years, than Arnold and j 
 Cornwallis carried away in six months of iiiva- , 
 sion in 1781. Finally, sir, we have learned, and | 
 the South, loo, what the history of the world | 
 ages ago, and our own history might have taught 1 
 us, that servile insurrection is the least of the dan- i 
 gers to wiiicli she isexposed. Hirnce.in my dulib- j 
 erate judgment, African slavery, as an institution, i 
 will com-.' out of this conflict fifty-fofd stronger! 
 than when the war bes;an. i 
 
 The South, too, sir, has learned most important j 
 lessons; and among them, that personal cnurage ^ 
 is a quality common to all sections, and that, in ■ 
 battle, the men of the North, and especially of the i 
 West, are their equals. Hitherto there has been j 
 a mutual and most mischievous mistake upon both j 
 sides. The South overvalued iis own personal i 
 courage, and undervalued ours, and we too readily | 
 consented; but at the same time she exaggerated 
 our aggregate strength and resources, and uiider- 
 
 CMtimated herown;«nd we fell into the aame error; 
 and hence the original and fatal mistake or vice of 
 the. military poliey of ihe North, ami which has 
 already broken down tin- war by it.s own weight — 
 the belii-f thai wecoiihl bring overwhilming num- 
 bers and power into tin' (iehl anil upon the sea, 
 and crush out the South at a Idow. Rut twenty 
 months of terrible warfare have corn cod many 
 errors, and lau<;ht lis the wiHdom of a century. 
 .\iiil now, sir, every om-of liieRe lessons will profit 
 us all for agi's i<i come; and if we do laic reunite, 
 will bind IIS in a closer, firmer, (flore durable union 
 than ever liefore. 
 
 1 ha \e now, Mr. Speaker, finished what I desired 
 to say at this time, upon the great question of the 
 n union of tljese States. I hnvi> spoken freely and 
 boldly — not wisely, it may be, for the present, or 
 for myself perHonally, but most wis<ly for the 
 future and for my country. Not couriing cen- 
 sure, 1 yet do not shrink from it. My own im- 
 mediate personal iiiteresiN, and my chances Just 
 now for the more material rewards of ambition, 
 I again surrender as ho.niages to that gueat iikrk- 
 AFTtn, the echo of whose fooipit ps ;;lready I hear 
 along the highway of lime. Whoever, here 
 or els'.'where, beliiives that war can restore the 
 Uniomif these States; whoever would have a war 
 '■ for the abolition of shivery, or disunion; and he 
 ! who demands southern independence and final 
 separation, let him speak, for hiiu I have offended. 
 Devoted to the Union from the beginning, I will 
 not desert it now in this the hour of its sorest trial, 
 i Sir, it was the day-dream of my boyho.id, the 
 cherished desire of my heart in yoiiili,ihat 1 might 
 ' live to see the hundredih anniversary of our na- 
 tional independence, and, as orator of the day, 
 exult in the expanding glories and greatness of 
 the siill United Stales. That vision lingers yet 
 1 botbre my eyes, obscured indeed by the clouds 
 i and thick darkness and the blood of civil war. 
 I But, sir, if the men «»f this generation are wise 
 ; enough to profit liy the h ird experi»ne< «if ihc|v 
 1 two years, and will turn their hearts now f 
 i bloody intents lo the words and arts of peace, (. 
 I day will find us again the United States. And It 
 not earlier, as 1 would desire and believe, al hast 
 ! upon that day let the great work of reunion becon- 
 I summated; that thenceforth, for ages, the States 
 and the people who shall fill up this mighty con- 
 I liiient, united under one Constitution, and in one 
 I Union, and the .sam«. destiny, shall celebrate it as 
 the birthday both of Independence and of the Groal 
 Restoration. 
 I Sir, 1 repeal it, we art; in the midst of the Very 
 I crisis of this revolution. If, to-day, we secure 
 peace and bigiii the work of reunion, we shall 
 yet e.'-cape; if not, I see nothing before us but uni- 
 versal political and social revolution, anarchy, 
 and bloodshed, compared with which the Reign of 
 Terror in France was a merciful visitation. 
 
15 
 
 and iho cluirclies meet again in Clirislian inter- 
 ciiurf!!', Nniili and South. Lft the stcret orders 
 and voliminry associations iverywhere reunite as 
 breilirt-n once more. In short, give to all the 
 natiiial and all the artificial causes which impel 
 us loj^fthi-r, their fullest sway. Let time do his 
 office — drying tear.*i, dispelling sorrows, mellow- 
 ing pa.ssio'n, and making herb and grass and tree 
 to grow again upon thi; hundred battle-field.s of 
 tliis ii irible war. 
 
 "Hut this is recognition." It is not formal rec- 
 ognition, to whicini will not consent. Recogni- 
 tion nil w, and attempted permanent treaties ai)out 
 boundary, travel, and trade, and partition of Ter- 
 ritories, would end in a war fiercer and more dis- 
 astrous than before. Recognition is absolute dis- 
 union; and not between tlie slave and the free 
 Slates, but with Delaware and Maryland as part 
 of the North, and Kentucky and Missouri part 
 of the West. Rut wherever the actual line, every 
 evil and mischief uf disunion is implied in it. And 
 for similar reasons, sir, I would not at this time 
 press hastily a convention of the States. The 
 men who now would hold seals in such a conven- 
 tion, would, upon both sides, if both agreed to 
 attend, come together full of the hale and bitter- 
 ness inseparable from a civil war. No, sir; let 
 passion have time to cool, and reason to resume 
 its sway. It cost thirty years of desperate and 
 most wicked patitMice and industry to destroy or 
 imjiair the magnificent temple of this Union. Let 
 us be content if, within three years, we shall be 
 abb' to restore it. 
 
 But certainly what I propose is informal, prac- 
 tical recognition. And that is precisely what ex- 
 ists to-day, and has existed, more or less defined, 
 from the first. Flags of truce, exchange of pris- 
 oners, and all your other observances of the laws, 
 forms, and courtesies of war are acts of recogni- 
 tion. Sir, does any man doubt to-day that there 
 is a confederate government at Richmonil, and 
 that it is a " belligerent?" Even the Secretary of 
 Stale has discovered it at last, though he has writ- 
 ten pofulerous fidios of polished rhetoric to prove 
 that it is not. Will continual war, then, without 
 . xtended and substantial success, make the con- 
 federate Stales any the less a government in fact.' 
 
 " But it confesses disunion." Yes, just as the 
 surijeon, who sets your fractured limb in splints, 
 in order that it may be healed, admits that it is 
 broken. But the Government will have failed to 
 " crush out the rebellion." Sir, it has failed. You 
 Went to war to prove that we had a Government. 
 With what result.' To the peojile of the loyal 
 Stnti's it has, in your hands, been the Government 
 «)f King Stork, but to the confederate States, of 
 King Log. " But the rebellion will have tri- 
 umphed." Belter triumph to-day than ten years 
 hence. Bull deny it. The rebellion will at last 
 be crushed out in ihe only way in which it ever 
 was possible. " Hut no one will be hung at the 
 end of war." Neither will there be, though the 
 war should last half a century, except by the mob 
 or iIk- hand of arbitrary power. But really, sir, 
 if there is to be no hanging, let this Administra- 
 tion, and all who have done its liidding every- 
 where, rejoice and be exceeding glad. 
 
 And now, sir, allow me a word upon a subject 
 
 Jl of very great interest at this moment, and most 
 i important il may be in its influence upon the fu- 
 I lure — FOREIGN MEDIATION. I speak not of armed 
 •and hostile intervention, which 1 would resist as 
 : long as but one man was left to strike a blow .1'. 
 the invader. But friendly mediation — the kiiuHy 
 ofler of an impartial Power to stand asailaysman 
 ,. betweenlheconlendingpartiesin ihis mosibloody 
 I and exhausting strife — ought to be met in n spirit 
 as cordial and ready as that in which it is prof- 
 Ifered. Ii would be churlish to refuse. Certainly, 
 .'it is not consistent with the former dignity of this 
 I Government to ask for mediation; neither, sir, 
 would it befit its ancient magnanimity to reject ii . 
 ; As proposed by the Emperor of France, 1 would 
 ] accept It at once. Now is the auspicious moment. 
 j It is the speediest, easiest, most graceful mode of 
 ; suspending hosiilities. Let us hear no more of 
 the mediationof cannon and the sword. The day 
 ; for all that has gone by. Let us be staiesnien 
 ! at last. Sir, I give thanks that some, ai least, 
 among the Republican party serm ready now lo 
 ' lift ihem.selves up to the height of ihisgieat argu- 
 ment, and to deal with it in the spirit of the ])a- 
 ' triots and great men of other countries and ages, 
 i'and of the belter days of the United States. 
 i; And now, sir, whatever may have bci 11 the 
 I motives of England, France, and the other grea: 
 ■' Powers of Europe, in withholding recognition s<> 
 
 I long from the confederate States, the South and the 
 
 I I North are both indebted to them for an immense 
 '[ public service. The South has proved her aliility 
 \[ to maintain iierself by her own strength and re- 
 sources, without foreign aid, moral or material. 
 
 ! And the North and West — the whole country , iii- 
 I deed — these great Powers have served incalcuabl y , 
 i'by holding back a solemn proclamation to ilic 
 ' world that the Union of these States was finally 
 iland formally dissolved. They have left to us 
 1; every motive and every chance for reunion; and 
 j \ if that lias been the purpose of England especially 
 I — our rival so long; interested more than any other 
 I in disunion and the consequent weakening of our 
 ! great naval and commercial power, and suflering, 
 loo, as she has suffered, so long and severely be- 
 cause of this war — I do not hesitate to say thai 
 I she has performed an act of unselfish heroism 
 I without example in history. Was such indeed 
 i her purpose.' Let her answer before the impar- 
 ;■ tial tribunal of posterity. In any event, after the 
 great reaction in public sentiment in the North 
 land West, lo be followed after some time by n 
 ; like reaction in the South, foreign recognition now 
 of the confederate Stales could avail Mule to delay 
 or prevent final reunion; if, as I firmly believe, re- 
 union be not only possible but inevitable. 
 
 Sir, I have not spoken of foreign arbitration. 
 That is quite another question. 1 think it im- 
 practicable, and fear it as dangerous. The very 
 I Powers — or any oilier Power — which have hesi- 
 tated to aid disunion directly or by force, might, 
 as authorized arbiters, most readily pronounce 
 
 for it nl last. V 
 
 ery gi 
 
 Tiid, indeed, would be tl 
 
 tribunal before which the great quesliijn of the 
 Union of tliese Slates and the final destiny of ili!."* 
 continent for age^, should be luard, and hisKuir 
 through all lime, the enibassjadors who .vLmiiil 
 argue it. And if boih belligercnla consent, Ici tli*- 
 
 LIBRORV OF CONGRESS 
 
 L ni9 P\71 037 • 
 
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