234 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



mind. I could not but reflect that this unani- 

 mous action of those with whom I coincided in 

 general political views might give cause even 

 to men unbiased by the perverting influences 

 of political or personal hostility, who did not 

 know me personally, to doubt, if not to believe, 

 that I declined to take the oath for reasons 

 other than the consideration that, in my judg- 

 ment, it was a dangerous innovation upon 

 fundamental principles of the Constitution. 



" As I believed that the law had been passed 

 without full discussion, and as a decision on its 

 validity by the proper tribunal had been waived 

 at the special session when I was not present, 

 I was content to leave others to their own ac- 

 tion, and govern mine by my convictions of 

 duty. The decision has now, however, been 

 judicially made, after hearing niy objections to 

 the act and the oath it imposes, and that deci- 

 sion, though in my belief a dangerous prece- 

 dent, is obligatory to the extent of taking the 

 oath, as I have already held the seat for nearly 

 one year since my reelection. 



" Sir, I admit that I covet the approbation 

 of the good, the wise, and the reflecting, and 

 would not willingly subject myself to their cen- 

 sure or to reasonable suspicion as to my mo- 

 tives of action ; though I am utterly indifferent 

 to those calumnious, groundless, and vindictive 

 attacks to which every man in public life, even 

 in less excited times, is subjected by personal 

 malevolence or political hostility. But though 

 I desire such approbation, I have never made 

 either opinion or popularity my standard of 

 action, but my own sense of right and duty ; 

 and I owe a respect to my own sincere convic- 

 tions of public .duty which I will never sacri- 

 fice. Many of you are aware that before civil 

 war commenced I expressed fully my views as 

 to the course of action which I thought the 

 welfare and prosperity of the whole country 

 required after the secession of seven States. 

 Those views differed from the course pursued 

 subsequently by the Administration, and its 

 course was approved by a majority of Con- 

 gress, and indeed by the people at large after 

 their passions had become excited by actual 

 war. 



" I told you then that I did not consider 

 secession a constitutional or reserved right of 

 the States, but an act of revolution ; but a 

 revolution by organized communities not re- 

 bellion in the modern sense of the word, but 

 only in its old Eoman sense the revolt of a 

 people. I told you, also, that, in my judgment, 

 conciliation, and the removal of real or even 

 apprehended grievances or 'dangers, and not 

 coercion by arms, was, in such a crisis, the true 

 policy of the statesman ; and that the framers 

 of the Constitution had wisely left such a state 

 of affairs without any provision as one of those 

 ' mortal feuds ' which, in the language of Ham- 

 ilton, ' when they happen, commonly amount 

 to revolutions and dismemberments of empire.' 

 I admitted that secession was a breach of the 

 compact by which the Federal Government 



was established, and that it rested with the 

 United States to determine whether they would 

 and could, by war, compel the seceding States 

 to repair the breach, or whether the act by 

 which they severed their political relations 

 with us should be assented to, and a peaceful 

 separation permitted, in the hope that past 

 memories and the ties of blood and marriage, 

 with continued commercial intercourse, might 

 in a few years restore those seven States to the 

 Union ; similar influences having at the origin 

 of the Government induced North Carolina 

 and Ehode Island, after a year's delay, to be- 

 come members of the Union, though the former 

 had in the first instance rejected the Constitu 

 tion, and the latter had refused to be repre- 

 sented in the Convention. I may be pardoned 

 here for quoting a short extract from a speech 

 I made on the ' condition of the country,' in 

 March, 1861, as illustrative of my opinions be- 

 fore the sword had been drawn : 



You may attempt by war to keep the States united 

 to restore the L) nion ; but the attempt will be futile. 

 Conciliation and concession may reunite us; war, 

 never ! The power may be exercised for the purpose 

 of punishment and vengeance. It may be exercised 

 if you propose to conquer the seceding States, and 

 reduce the nation into a consolidated nation ; but if 

 your intention be to maintain the Government which 

 your ancestors founded that is, a common Govern- 

 ment over separate, independent communities war 

 can never effect such an intention. 



" I preferred then peaceful separation to civil 

 war as the lesser evil, but the Administration 

 and the dominant party decided to resort to an 

 enforcement of the laws by the coercion of 

 arms, as against an insurrection. Civil war 

 has since raged, and its events and conse- 

 quences have strengthened my convictions that 

 the prosperity of my country and the happiness 

 and morals of the people cannot be promoted 

 by its continuance. To these views an over- 

 whelming majority of Congress is opposed, 

 and, so far as the elections of the past year can 

 be accepted as evidence of public sentiment, 

 that majority is sustained by the people. It ig 

 true that new questions have arisen in the 

 progress of war as to its mode of conduct and 

 object, and have produced conflict of opinion 

 among the people. But on the question of 

 peace even by temporary separation if essen- 

 tial the Democratic party with which I have 

 been connected is divided, and many of its lead- 

 ing and most influential adherents indulge in 

 the visionary idea that a common Government, 

 based on 'the consent of the governed,' over 

 separate political communities, with diversified 

 habits, manners, customs, and institutions, can 

 be restored and maintained by the sword, with- 

 out the abandonment of a federal and its con- 

 version into an imperial and centralized Gov- 

 ernment. So thought not the President of the 

 United States or the Secretary of State on the 

 10th of April, 1861, before war had begun, and 

 to my mind such an idea is a delusion and a 

 mere chimera. I have also the fixed opinion 

 and belief that the life of a nation depends upo 



