CONGRESS, II. S. 



great object of our Government should be to 

 develop and cultivate the internal resources of 

 those friendly to its jurisdiction, rather than to 

 extend it over hostile and foreign peoples. It 

 is in that character that true patriotism is to be 

 cultivated and true national glory found. Es- 

 pecially should all republics cultivate the arts 

 of peace, since it is by the war power that free 

 Governments are commonly overturned. 



" The charge has been made that democracy 

 is turbulent, warlike, and aggressive ; but if so, 

 it is a terrible misconception of its true inter- 

 ests, for upon the people fall the awful calami- 

 ties of armed collisions. An eminent poet 

 (Lord Byron) has said that war was a game 

 which, if the people were wise, kings and 

 princes would never play at. The venerable 

 Dr. Franklin, at the close of his illustrious 

 career, remarked that there never was a good 

 war and a bad peace. "We have made, Mr. 

 Chairman, by this war, eight million bitter 

 enemies upon the American continent. While 

 time shall last the recollections of this bloody 

 strife will never fade from the memories of the 

 people, North and South, but will be handed 

 down to the latest generation. The words 

 Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Murfreesboro', 

 Richmond, Vicksburg, and Fort Donelson, are 

 words of division and disunion, and will serve 

 to bring emotions of eternal hate. If it was 

 true, as was suggested by a distinguished Sena- 

 tor from Ohio (Mr. Wade) in a speech in Port- 

 land in 1855, that he believed ' that no two 

 nations on earth hated each other as much as 

 the North and South,' how much more true is 

 the remark now after they have been arrayed 

 in such bloody contests. 



"It is the object of the sword to cut and 

 cleave asunder, but never to unite. What union 

 is there between Russia and Poland, between 

 Austria and Hungary, between England and 

 Catholic Ireland, where the sword and the 

 bayonet for centuries have been employed? 

 Instead of conferring national strength, they 

 are sources of weakness to the countries that 

 hold them in subjection ; and which would 

 this day be stronger without them than with 

 them. 



" Mr. Chairman, these lessons of history are 

 full of warning and example. Much better 

 would it have been for us in the beginning, 

 much better would it be for us now, to consent 

 to a division of our magnificent empire and cul- 

 tivate amicable relations with our estranged 

 brethren, than to seek to hold them to us by the 

 power of the sword. 



" Here let me advert to the common yet per- 

 fectly glaring and apparent error, that to part 

 with our jurisdiction over eleven States involves 

 the destruction of our Government. The state- 

 ment of the proposition demonstrates its absurd- 

 ity. As well might one say, who had a farm 

 of two hundred acres of land, that he had lost 

 1m 4 itle-deed to all of it because by some mis- 

 fortune he had parted with fifty. In losing the 

 Bouth, not one function of our Government 



over us is surrendered. It remains over us ns 

 completely sovereign as it ever did. Here let 

 me say on the experience of my individual be- 

 lief, that if it had been understood in the North 

 as in the South that by the terms of the Fed- 

 eral compact a State had a right to secede from 

 the Union, this disruption would never have 

 occurred. Had the North so understood the 

 matter, there would have been upon its part a 

 forbearance from the exercise of extreme meas- 

 ures, and a desire not to force the Southern 

 States to the wall that would ever have main- 

 tained the confederacy unbroken. It was the 

 prevalence of the idea of the consolidationista 

 in the North, that the Southern States had no 

 right to and would not secede, that tempted 

 them into that fatal policy that has sundered 

 the confederacy. 



" It is said that no confederacy can exist by 

 a recognition of this principle ; but such was 

 not the view of the fathers of the Government. 

 It was not the view of Jefferson and Madison 

 in their immortal resolutions of 1798 and 1799. 



"It has been said, Mr. Chairman, that it 

 would make a confederacy a rope of sand ; but 

 if so, it is strange that the southern confederacy, 

 where it is recognized, should hold together 

 through such a bloody pressure as we have 

 applied to it for the last three years. It is a 

 strange rope of sand that endures all that. 



"But to return, Mr. Chairman. As will be 

 judged, perhaps, by the tenor of these remarks, 

 I am reluctantly and despondingly forced to the 

 conclusion that the Union is lost never to be 

 restored. I regard all dreams of the restora- 

 tion of the Union which was the pride of my 

 life, and to restore which even now I would 

 pour out my heart's blood, as worse than idle. 

 I see, neither North nor South, any sentiment 

 on which it is possible to build a Union. Those 

 elements of Union which Mr. Adams described, 

 have, by the process of time, been destroyed. 

 Worse, yea, worse than that, Mr. Chairman, I 

 am reluctantly forced to the conclusion that in 

 attempting to preserve our jurisdiction over the 

 Southern States we have lost our constitutional 

 form of government over the northern. What 

 has been predicted by our wisest and most 

 eminent statesmen has come to pass ; in grasp- 

 ing at the shadow we have lost the substance ; 

 in striving to- retain the casket of liberty in 

 which our jewels were confined we have lost 

 those precious muniments of freedom. Our 

 Government, as all know, is not any thing re- 

 sembling what it was three years ago ; there is 

 not one single vestige of the Constitution re- 

 maining ; every clause and every letter of it 

 has been violated, and I have no idea myself 

 that it will ever again be respected ; revolutions 

 never go backward to the point at which they 

 started. There has always been a large party 

 in this country favorable to a strong or mon- 

 archical Government, and they have now all 

 the elements upon which to establish one ; they 

 have a vast army, an immense public debt, and 

 an irresponsible Executive. Ambitious to re- 



