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 HON. H. WINTER DAVIS, 
 
 OF MARYLAND, 
 
 THE RESOLUTION OFFERED BY MR. COLFAX PROPOSING 
 ^ THE EXPULSION OF MR. LONG. 
 
 
 . - ... — . , . 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 11, 1864. 
 
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 The House having under consideration the resolution offered by Mr. Colfax, pro- 
 posing the expulsion of Mr. Long, Mr. DAVIS said : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : A singular disposition has been manifested to avoid the ques- 
 tion before the House, I desire to call your attention to that question before I 
 follow the gentlemen on the other side in the rather irrelevant discussion in 
 which they have indulged. 
 
 It is nut whether in the House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America freedom of opinion is secured by law, nor whether the free- 
 dom of speech and of the press in the constitutional right of the Ameri- 
 can citizeD, but whether the gentleman who delivered the speech now in 
 question is a fit and worthy member of this House ; not whether, out of doors, 
 in his private capacity, he would be entitled to entertain and as an individual 
 to express the opinions which he has uttered here, but whether as a legislator 
 charged to protect the interests of the people, sworn to maintain the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, he has not avowed a purpose inconsistent with those 
 duties, a resolution not to maintain but to destroy ; a determination not to de- 
 fend but to yield up undefended to the enemies of the United States what he 
 was sent heie to protect. That is the question: — and that is the only question 
 which has not been discussed by the defenders of the gentleman from Ohio. 
 
 They tell us words cannot be the subject of animadveision under the rules of 
 this House, nor under the Constitution of the United States! What becomes 
 of the resolution declaring the member from Maryland [Mr. Harris] to be an 
 unworthy member of this House, adopted by their votes on Saturday ? WJial 
 becomes of the solemn adjudication as far back as 1842, when a majority of 
 this House asserted the right to censure Joshua R. Giddings, nor for introduc- 
 ing a petition to dissolve the Union, but for offering resolutions for the con- 
 sideration of this House declaring that the mutineers of the Creole were not 
 responsible for any criminal act under the laws of the United States, interpreted 
 by the resolution of censure into a justification of mutiny and murder ? 
 
 It is the judgment of this House, and therefore not necessary to be argued by 
 me, that words mav prove criminality when they reveal a criminal purpose; 
 and, if they are sufficiently criminal, that they may be visited first by ceusure, 
 and, if they judge it necessary to the public safety, by expulsion from the 
 House. I do not envy the gentlemen who refused to expel the gentleman from 
 Maryland for language uttered in the presence of us all, which they immediately 
 after voted to declare tended and was designed to give aid and encouragement 
 

 to the public enemies of the nation, and therefore he was an unworthy member 
 of the House. Sir, it would seem to have been the logical conclusion that if he 
 is an unworthy member of the House he ought not to be suffered to remain in 
 it, and that gentlemen who so thought would have so said on the first vote for 
 expulsion. How gentlemen will reconcile that glaring inconsistency to their 
 constituents, how they who have declared the gentleman from Maryland an 
 unworthy member but that he should remain a member, who asserted the 
 right to punish by inflicting punishment but refused the only adequate penally 
 for the offense of which they voted him guilty, will justify themselves in the face 
 of their own votes, it is for them to consider. It would be cruel to aggravate 
 their embarrassments by any observations. Ah hac scabie tenectjnus ungues. 
 
 But it remains conceded by the votes of our opponents that in spite of the 
 Constitution of the United States, in spite of the conceded freedom of opinion, 
 in spite of the conceded freedom of speech, words are and may be here, not out 
 of doors, but here in this House, here upon a subject before the House for con- 
 sideration, here where everybody has the right to express his views upon every 
 measure before the House, words are and have been adjudged by the votes of 
 our opponents to be criminal, to be punishable, and they have been punished 
 within two days. 
 
 The measure of judgment is a matter of discretion. The Constitution says 
 that with the consent of two-thirds either House may expel a member: that 
 means not capriciously but for some wrong, for misconduct, for acts, for words, 
 for purposes, for avowals inconsistent with his duty on this floor, tending to 
 show that he is not a safe depositary of the great powers of a Representative ; 
 and the only constitutional criterion of what is and what is not adequate cause 
 of expulsion is the judgment of two thirds of this House. 
 
 If that be so, the only further question we have to ask is, whether the' gen- 
 tleman from Ohio, respectable as he is in his private relations, respectable as 
 has been his conduct in this House, honesty as his convictions may be enter- 
 tained, has not placed himself beyond the pale of that protection which this 
 House accords to freedom of speech, not by speaking as he ought not to have 
 spoken, but by avowing himself in favor of the destruction of the nation. 
 
 Now, what is the charge against him? That his judgment is that there are 
 but two alternatives : one, the extermination of the enemies of the United 
 States, and the other the destruction of the United States itself, which he puts 
 in the form of a recognition of the southern States as an independent Govern- 
 ment. And not resting on that mere declaration of opinion, and the alterna- 
 tive resting in his own mind, he goes further and says that of the two he pre- 
 ferred the latter. That means, " 7, here a Representative, charged and sworn 
 to the extent of my whole influence in the legislation of this House to protect 
 and maintain the integrity of the nation, have come to the conclusion, in the 
 midst of a great war, when the existence of the nation is at stake, that, rather 
 than exterminate the enemies of the nation, I will exterminate the nation." 
 He proclaims himself the friend of the enemies of the nation, and an enemy 
 himself of the United States. He avows it his purpose to destroy it at the first 
 opportunitv, to the extent of his vote. The rebel chiefs proclaim independence 
 or extermination the only alternatives. The gentleman from Ohio declares ex- 
 termination or independence the only alternatives. The rebel chiefs prefer the 
 recognition of their independence to their extermination. The gentleman from 
 Ohio avows himself for recognition and against extermination ; and recognition 
 of the southern confederacy means the dissolution of the United States. The 
 Constitution proclaims the perpetuity of the Union ; and that Constitution re- 
 cognizes no dissolution, no end of its existence. Sworn to maintain that Constitu- 
 tion, he now says: "In violation of a solemn oath, in spite of the duty I am 
 sent here to discharge, rather than maintain it to the extent of exterminating its 
 enemies, I will destroy it." 
 
Now, that is the case stated in plain language. It has not been stated here 
 before to day. And the question which we are bound as gentlemen and as legis- 
 lators to determine is, whether a gentleman, acknowledged to be respectable, be- 
 lieved to be sincere, entertaining and avowing purposes which do not differ from 
 those of the chief of the rebel confederacy, or of the men in armed array beyODcl 
 the Potomac bent on ejecting us from this Hall, is the fit companion of gentlemen 
 here, a fit depositary of his constituents' vote, a safe person to be intrusted here 
 with the secrets of the United States, a worthy guardian of the existence of the 
 Republic. Are we to be seriously told that the freedom of speech screens a 
 traitor because he puts his treasonaole purposes in words ? Does the Constitu- 
 tion secure the right of our avowed enemies to vote in this Hall? May a man 
 impudently declare that his purpose here is so to vote as to promote the success 
 of the rebellion, to embarrass and paralize the Government in its suppression, to 
 secure its triumph and our overthrow, to bring the aimed enemy to Washing- 
 ton, or arrest our army lest it exterminate that enemy ? Then why do not the 
 congress at Richmond adjourn to Washington, push us from our stools, 
 and by parliamentary tactics, under the Constitution, arrest the wheels of 
 Government ? You could not expel them ? Sir, that picture is history, recent 
 history. In 1860 that side of the House swarmed with the avowed enemies of 
 the Republic. One after one, as their stars dropped from the firmament of the 
 Union, they went out; some with tears in their eyes over the miseries they 
 were about to inflict; some of them with exultation over the coming calamities; 
 some of them with contemptuous lectures to the members in the House ; some 
 stayed behind to do the traitor's business in the disguise of honest legislators in 
 both Houses as long as they dared. One disgraced the Senate for one long 
 session after armed men were soaking their native soil with their blood, and 
 now he is in the ranks of our enemies. 
 
 Are we to be told that gentlemen, entertaining not these opinions but these 
 purposes, resolved to the extent of their power to paralize the Government, and 
 only limited in what they can do by what it may be safe to do, must be allowed 
 not merely to be members of the House, but to rise and insoluntely fling in our 
 faces the avowal of their enemity, and invoke the Constitution of the United 
 States in order that they may stab it to the heart ? Shall men rise here and be 
 allowed to express, whether in one form of phraseology or another, as may best 
 aid the public enemy, their desire for the triumph of the rebel cause, and that, 
 being too tender-hearted to wish that the enemies of the Unites States may be 
 exterminated, they prefer our ruin? And is it to be said that that comes within 
 the sacred shield of the freedom of public opinion, the right of debate, the 
 freedom of speech ? Why, sir, it is not opinion that we complain of. It is not 
 liberty of speech that we wish to restrict. On the the contrary, I thank the 
 gentleman [Mr. Long] for his speech, for it revealed an enemy, and an avowed 
 is a more respectable than a concealed foe. He is more frank than the gentle- 
 man from New York, [Mr. Fernando Wood,] who, with similar seutiments, 
 conceals them. He is more manly than that gentleman from New York, who 
 on Saturday rose before the House with a paper in his hand, declaring it to be 
 the identical sheet from which the gentleman from Ohio read, read it rlaunt- 
 ingly in the face of the House, and declared that he concurred in every word 
 of it, and that if the House expelled the gentleman from Ohio it must expel 
 him also : — but to-day, frightened by the .explosion of the indignation of the 
 House on the head of the gentleman from Maryland, was careful to say that he 
 did not at all agree with the opinions for which the gentleman from Ohio is 
 called in question, Commend me, sir, to an open adversary. I can respect the 
 one ; I cannot have so much respect for the other. It is cot for the freedom of 
 the avowal, it is the entertaining the purpose which he does avow ; it is not 
 that he violated the order of the House, it is because he violates the law of the 
 country by his purpose to destroy it, that the gentleman from Ohio is arraigned. 
 
Wc do not punish him for saying •what he did, we piraish him for meaning 
 what he declared he does mean to . do. And that is what we are called 
 upon to do by the highest considerations of public policy, the plainest dictates- 
 of patriotic duty. 
 
 Oh ! but wc are told that it touches the rights of his constituents. Let his 
 constituents have an opportunity to pass upon that, after this declaration of 
 purpose. But we must have mutual consideration for each other! Why, cer- 
 tainly, sir. But how far? Is there no end to patience? Is there no avowal 
 showing criminal intent which wisdom requires we should guard against before- 
 hand? What do you suppose would be the fate of a man sitting in the capitol 
 at Richmond who should arise there and propose to recognize the supremacy 
 of the United States? Do you suppose that the freedom of debate which gen- 
 tlemen have enjoyed on this floor would have been tolerated, even if desired by 
 anybody \ Is it not certain that he would have been expelled, if he lived long 
 enough for the vote of expulsion to be taken ? Suppose that in the French 
 Assembly, when the life of France was at stake, as the life of this nation is now 
 at stake, and when heroic men were struggling to maintain it, some one had 
 arisen and proposed to call back the Bourbons, and place the reins of Govern- 
 ment in their hands — how long would he have remained a member of that 
 body? Suppose that the day before the battle of Culloden, or the day after 
 the battle of Preston Pans, some Jacobite had arisen in the House of Commons 
 of England and declared himself of the opinion that the Pretender could not 
 be expelled without the extermination of the Jacobites, and that therefore they 
 should place him on the throne of Eugland! Do you think the traditional liberty 
 of speech in England would have saved him from summary expulsion ? Do you 
 think there is any law in England that could have stood between him and, not 
 expulsion, but death ? Would not the act have been considered a crime, and 
 the declaration of it in Parliament have been considered an aggravation of 
 the crime, demauding his expulsion ? Would not the vote of that body have 
 been instantaneous, and his execution swifter than that vote? 
 
 Are we to be told here that men are to rise in this Hall, where the guns of the 
 impending battle will echo in our ears, when we sit here only because we have 
 one hundred and fifty thousand bayonets between us and the enemy; when 
 Washington is a great camp, the centre of thirty miles of fortifications stretch- 
 ing around us for our protection ; are we to be told that here, within this citi- 
 del of the nation, an enemy may beckon with his hand to the armed foe, assur- 
 ing him of friends within the people's Hall, at the very centre of power, and 
 we cannot expel him ? 
 
 Sir, let me say to this House that if it were a constitutional right so to speak, 
 in my judgment this is one of those cases which so far transcends the ordinary 
 rules of law, one of those cases which carries us so near to the original right 
 of self-defense, one of those cases which appeals so directly to the inalienable 
 right of self-protection, that without law and in spite of law the safety of the 
 people- requires his expulsion, and I would be one to do it. But, sir, I do not 
 think the Constitution does confer the right so to speak. I think we are within 
 the limits of written law which the wisdom of our forefathers gave us with 
 which to protect ourselves in every emergency, and this among others. And 
 the only question is whether the patriotism of this House goes to the extent of 
 the two thirds of its members required to rid it of the presence of an avowed 
 public enemy. That, and that alone, is the question. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, wc are told that this is a question of opinion. If it 
 be, it is one of those questions of opinion that nobody in this country 
 has a right to be on more than one side of. On one side is patriotism, 
 duty, and an oath. On the other is treason, crime, and perjury. It is our 
 duty for the protection of a man in his opinion to allow him to destroy the 
 nation we are trying to defend ? Where, in the record of nations, do yor, 
 
find an illustration of that position ? By what examples in history do yon de- 
 fend it? By -what precedent of statesmanship? The great name of Chatham 
 has often, in this debate, been invoked and desecrated to cover this avowal of pre- 
 ference for the enemy over the country. His example is wretchedly misunder- 
 stood. Doubtless his voice was lifted in warning tones against taxation with- 
 out our consent, and still fiercer against war to enforce it. His example might 
 be pleaded for moderation and respect for the rights of our southern fellow- 
 citizens ; but they have not been violated. But never, never to sanction a 
 division of the Republic. His example is the bitterest reproach to those who 
 claim its protection. After years of war unjustly begun and weakly waged, 
 when exhausted England sank before the combined arms of America and 
 France, and the Duke of Richmond rose in the House of Lords to move for 
 peace with America, the patriotic soul of Chatham, was stirred within him at 
 the thought of the humiliation and division of that empire whose limits he had 
 expanded and whose name he had decorated ; and, hail and dying, his legs 
 swathed in flannel, his crutch in his hand, he was borne to the House of 
 Lords in the arms of his great son to lift his last voice in execration of the folly 
 which had brought England to such humiliation, and to enter his dying pro- 
 test against the recognition of American independence, already secured in fact 
 by the sword. His English hea< t had no fear of exterminating the enemies of 
 England in the hoi}" work of maintaining the integrity of her empire. Sir, I 
 accept the example, and I commend it to the consideration of the patriotic 
 o-entlemen on the other side of the House. I bes: them to read a little further 
 than they seem to have done, the. history of the English statesman. Freedom 
 of opinion ! Surely, sir, opinion is the breath of our nation. It is the measure 
 of every right, the guarantee of every privilege, the protection of every bless- 
 ing. It is opinion which creates our rulers. It is opinion that nerves or palsies 
 their arm. It is opinion which casts down the proud and elevates the humble. 
 Its fluctuations are the rise and fall of parties ; its currents bear the nation on 
 to prosperity or ruin. Its free play is the condition of its purity. It is like the 
 ocean, whose tides rise and fall day by day at the fickle bidding of the moon ; 
 vet it is the great scientific level from which every height is measured — the 
 herizon to which astronomers refer the motion of the stars. But, like the 
 ocean, it has depths whose eternal stillness is the condition of its stability. 
 Those depths of opinion are not free, and it is they that are touched by the 
 words which have so moved the House. Men must not commit treason and 
 say its guilt is matter of opinion and its punishment a violation of its freedom. 
 Men cannot swear to maintain the integrity of the nation and avow their in- 
 tention to descioy it, and cover that double crime by the freedom of speech. 
 That is to break up the fountains of the great deep on which all Government 
 is borne, and to pour its flood in revolutionary ruin over the land. To punish 
 that is not a violation of the freedom of opinion or its expression. It is to 
 protect its normal ebb and flow, its free and healthy fluctuations, that we de- 
 sire to relieve it from the opprobrium of being confounded with the declaration 
 of treasonable, purposes- here in the high and solemn assemblage of the Nation. 
 The free expression of opinion! I am at a loss to know how the opinions of 
 Abraham Lincoln, or Horace Grcely, or Wendell Philips, or the gentleman 
 from Ohio, [Mr. Schenck,] or Mr. Chase, if truly quoted, and equally crimi- 
 nal with those now arraigned, can extenuate their guilt or shield their author 
 from the indignation of the House. Their guilt is not his innocence. If he 
 imitated their guilt, let him follow their repentance. The time which they have 
 devoted to atoning for error by patriotic services he has dedicated to indurating 
 his error and accomplishing his unpatriotic purposes. But I am nut concerned 
 to vindicate in them what I condemn in him. I execrate the avowal equally in 
 every mouth ; and if their guilt is beyond my judgment, that of the gentleman 
 from Ohio is not. I can well understand how such examples may serve to screen 
 
6 
 
 the Democratic party or to delude an ill-informed crowd and teach them that trea- 
 son is error of opinion and not a crime ; but they cannot be successfully urged 
 here before the gentlemen of the Uouse of Representatives to exculpate the gen- 
 tleman from Ohio ; nor even, sir, can it vindicate the Democratic party from the 
 ebai ge of more sympathy with the enemies of the country than with the coun- 
 try itself. The people will laugh at this attempt to impeach the loyalty of the 
 friends of the administration. They will see in this zealous defense of the gen- 
 tleman from Ohio only another proof of Democratic sympathy with his views 
 and purposes, hitherto invariably manifested wherever they have been in pow- 
 er. Where have they had power that they have not exhibited their sympathy 
 with the enemies of the Republic? I admit there are houorable exceptions. 
 I admit there are cases of honest delusion. I suppose there are cases of uncon- 
 scious sympathy. I cannot doubt the prevalence of a criminal interest in the tri- 
 umph of the rebels. I shall not discriminate one from the other. I speak of the 
 party and its conduct. Where, since the war broke out, from the time that 
 James Buchanan disgraced the American name by his message declaring, as 
 gentlemen on that side of the House declare now, that this war is waged in 
 violation of the Constitution, that there is no power to coerce a sovereign State, 
 down to this day, is there a Democratic Governor or Legislature which, until 
 warned by the indignant voice of the people, has not tried to embarrass and 
 discredit the Government and to give aid and encouragement to its enemies? 
 The disavowals of individuals cannot extenuate the conduct of Legislatures 
 and Governors. The prudence or cunning of caucuses or Congressmen, since 
 the chastisement of 1863, cannot make the people forget the conduct which 
 provoked it. Will they ever forget the Legislature of Indiana and its votes on 
 the resolutions for armistice and peace, which swarmed before it ; or the Le- 
 gislature of Illinois and the bill to strip the Governor of his just military au- 
 thority ; and the resolutions for an armistice and a convention at Louisville of 
 western and rebel States, to dictate terms to the United States, actually adopt- 
 ed, I think, by one House; or the New Jersey Legislature, which sent Wall of 
 Fort Lafayette to the United States Senate, and was ready to adopt peace reso- 
 lutions, but for an accidental adjournment which enabled the membets to ga- 
 ther the whisperings of their indignant constituents? How have they express- 
 ed their sympathies on the side of the United States, unless by attempting to 
 array the State authorities against the United States, to exeite the prejudices 
 of the people against the necessary suspension of the habeas corpus, to repre- 
 sent the assertion of the supremacy of the Uuited States courts and officers in 
 the enforcement of United States laws as invasions of the rights of the States? 
 What Deniociat in Pennsylvania did not vote for Woodward? What Demo- 
 crat in New York did not vote' for Horatio Seymour? What Democrat in 
 Connecticut did not vote for Seymour of Connecticut ? What Deinocrat in Ohio 
 did not vote for Vallandigham ? It is vain to attempt to conceal it. The his- 
 tory of that party during the war proves the declaration made on this floor that 
 there is no such thing as a Democratic party for the war: its elastic mantle 
 covets equally those who, like the gentleman from New Yoik [Mr. Kernan] 
 have a love for the Union and fail when he comes to vote on it, and those who, 
 like the gentleman from Maryland, [Mr. Harris,] glory in the failure of the 
 armies of the United States to conquer the States in rebellion. 
 
 The gentleman from New York [Mr. Kernan] who last spoke, and whose 
 earnest tones all must have felt, declared himself ready to do all in his power to 
 suppress the insurrection, and yet he failed to vote for the conscription bill, the 
 indispensable condition to the prosecution of the war. That is the type of the 
 war Deinocrat! Very earuest in vague generalities for the war, equally earnest 
 in decrying the policy of the Administration, but, having exhausted their earn- 
 estness on those topics, are so unable on any practical measure to tear them- 
 selves away from party association, so penetrated with valetudinarian views or 
 
perverse judgments on the Constitution of the United States, that their aid is 
 more embarrassing than their opposition. 
 
 But, Mr. Speaker, if it be said that a time may come when the question of re- 
 cognizing the southern confederacy will have to be answered, I admit it; and it is 
 answering the strongest and the extreme case that gentlemen on the other side 
 can present. I admit it. When a Democrat shall darken the White House 
 and the land ; when a Democratic majority here shall proclaim that freedom 
 of speech secures impunity to treason and declare recognition better than ex- 
 termination of traitors; when Yallandigmam shall be Governor of Ohio, 
 and Bright Governor of Indiana, and Woodward Governor of Pennsylvania, 
 and Seymour Governor of Connecticut, and Wall Governor of New Jersey, and 
 the gentleman from New York city [Mr. Wood] sit in Seymour's seat, and thus, 
 possessed of power over the great centre of the country, they shall do what they 
 attempted in vain before in the midst of rebel triumphs — array the authori- 
 ties of the States against those of the United States ; oppose the militia to 
 the Army of the United States; invoke the habeas corpus to discharge con- 
 fined traitors; deny to the Government the benefit of the laws of war, lest 
 it exterminate its enemies; when the Democrats, as in the fall of 1862, shall 
 again, with more permanent success, persuade the people of the country that 
 the war should not be waged till the integrity of the territory of the Union is 
 restored, cost what it might, that such a war violates the spirit of free in- 
 stitutions, which those who advocate it wish to overthrow, that it should 
 stop, for their benefit, somewhere this side of absolute triumph, lest there 
 be no room for a compromise ; when gentlemen of that party in New York 
 shall again, as in November, 18G2, hold illegal and criminal negotiations 
 with Lord Lyons, avow their purposes to him, the representative of a for- 
 eign and unfriendly Power, and urge him to arrange the time of proffering 
 mediation with a view to their possession of power and their preparation of 
 the minds of the people to receive suggestions from abroad; when media- 
 tion shall appear, by the event, to be the first step toward foreign intervention, 
 swiftly and surely followed by foreign armed enemies upon our shores to join 
 the domestic enemies; when the war in the cars shall begiD, whi -h was men- 
 aced at the outbreak of the rebellion, and the friends of Seymour shall make the 
 streets of New York run with blood, on the eve of another Gettysburg less dam- 
 aging to their hopes ; when McClellan and Fitz John Porter shall have agr.in 
 brought the rebel armies within sight of Washington city and the successor of 
 James Buchanan shall withdraw our armies from the unconstitutional invasion 
 of Virginia to the north of the Potomac; when exultant rebels shall sweep 
 over the fortifications and their bomb-shells shall crash against the dome of the 
 Capitol ; when thousands throughout Pennsylvania shall seek refuge on the 
 shores of Lake Erie from the rebel invasion, cheered and welcomed by the op- 
 ponents of extirmination ; when the people, exhausted by taxation, weary of 
 sacrifices, drained of bloood, betrayed by their rulers, deluded by demagogues 
 into believing that peace is the way to union and submission the path to vic- 
 tory, shall throw down their arms before the advancing foe ; when vast chasms 
 across every State shall make apparent to every eye, when too late to 
 remedy it, that division from the South is anarchy at the North, and that 
 peace without union is the end of the Republic — then the independence 
 of the South will be an accomplished fact, and gentlemen may, without treason 
 to the dead Republic, rise in this migratory House, wherever it may then be in 
 America, and declare themselves for recognizing their masters at the South 
 rather than exterminating them ! Until that day, in the name of the Ameri- 
 can nation ; in the name of every house in the land where there is one dead 
 for the holy cause ; in the name of those who stand before us in the ranks of 
 battle ; in the name of the liberty our ancestors have confided to us, I devote 
 
8 
 
 to eternal execration the name of him who shall propose to destroy this blessed 
 Land rather tban its enem 
 
 Bu until that time arrive, it is the judgment of the American people there 
 shall be no compromise; that ruin to ourselves or ruin to the southern 
 rebels are the only alternatives. It is only by resolutions of this kind that 
 nations can rise above great dangers and overcome them in crises like this, 
 It was oplj by turning Fiance into a camp, resolved that Europe might exter- 
 minate, but should not subjugate her, that Fiance is the leading empire of Eu- 
 rope to-day. It is by such a resolve that the American people coercing a 
 reluctant Government) to draw the sword and stake the national existence on 
 the integrity of the Republic, are now anything but the fragments of a nation 
 before the world, the scorn and hiss of every petty tyrant. It is because the 
 people of the United States, rising to the height of the occasion, dedicated 
 this generation to the sword, and pouring out the blood of their children as 
 of no account, and avowing before high Heaven that there should be no end 
 to this conflict but ruin absolute or absolute triumph, that we now are what 
 we are ; that the banner of the Republic still pointing onward floats proudly 
 in the face of the enemy, that vast regions arc reduced to obedience, to the laws, 
 and that a great host in armed array now presses with steady step into the dark 
 regions of the rebellion. It is ouly by the earnest and abiding resolution of the 
 people that whatever shall be our fate, it shall be grand as the American nation, 
 worthy of that Republic which first trod the path of empire and made no peace 
 but under the banners of victory, that the American people will survive in histo- 
 ry. And that will save us. We shall succeed and not fail. I have- an abiding 
 confidence in the firmness, the patience, the endurance of the American people ; 
 and, having vowed to stand in history on the great resolve to accept of nothing 
 but victory or ruin, victory is ours. And if with such heroic resolve we fall, 
 we fall with honor, and transmit the name of liberty committed to our keeping 
 untarnished, to y^o down to future generations. The historian of our decline 
 and fall, contemplating the ruins of the last great Republic, and drawing from 
 its fate lessons of wisdom on the waywardness of men, shall drop a tear as 
 he records with sorrow the vain heroism of that people who dedicated and 
 sacrificed themselves to the cause of freedom, and by their example will keep 
 alive her worship in the hearts of men till happier generations shall learn to 
 walk in her paths. Yes, sir, if we must fall, let our last hours be stained by 
 no weakness. If we must fail, let us stand amid the crash of the falling Re- 
 public ami be buried in its ruins, so that history may take note that men lived 
 in the middle of the nineteenth century worthy of a better fate, but chastised 
 by God for the sins of their forefathers. Let the ruins of the Republic remain 
 to testify to the latest generations our greatness and our heioism. And let 
 Liberty, crown-less and childless, sit upon these ruins, crying aloud in a Bad wail 
 to the nations of the world, "I nursed and brought up children, and they 
 have rebelled against me/' [Great applause on the floor and in the galleries.] 
 
 Piiated by L. Towers & Co., cor. Louisiana avenue and Sixth street, Washington City. 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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