342 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



heart, and in uttering it he has made a new 

 epoch in the history of this war he has done 

 a new thing under the sun; he has done a 

 hrave thing. It is oraver than to face cannon 

 and musketry, and I honor him for his candor 

 and frankness. 



"But now I ask you to take away the flag 

 of truce ; and I will go back inside the Union 

 lines, and speak of what he has done. I am 

 reminded by it of a distinguished character in 

 'Paradise Lost.' When he had rebelled against 

 the glory of God, and ' led away a third part 

 of heaven's sons, conjured against the Highest,' 

 when after terrible battles in which mountains 

 and hills were hurled by each contending host 

 ' with 'jaculations dire ; ' when at last the leader 

 and his hosts were hurled down 'nine times 

 the space that measures day and night,' and 

 after the terrible fall lay stretched prone on the 

 burning lake, Satan lifted up his shattered bulk, 

 crossed the abyss, looked down into Paradise, 

 and, soliloquizing, said : 



' "Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell.' 



"It seerns to me in that utterance he ex- 

 pressed the very sentiment to which you have 

 just listened; uttered by one no less brave, 

 malign, and fallen. This man gathers up the 

 meaning of this great contest, the philosophy 

 of the moment, the prophecies of the hour, 

 and, in sight of the paradise of victory and 

 peace, utters them all in this wail of terrible 

 despair : ' Which way I fly is hell.' He ought 

 to add, 'Myself am hell.' 



" But now, when hundreds of thousands of 

 brave souls have gone up to God under the 

 sha low of the flag, and when thousands more, 

 maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly 

 awaiting the deliverance of death ; now, when 

 three years of terrific warfare have raged 

 over us, when our armies have pushed the re- 

 bellion back over mountains and rivers, and 

 crowded it back into narrow limits, until a 

 wall of fire girds it; now, when the uplifted 

 hand of a majestic people is about to let fall 

 the lightning of its conquering power upon the 

 rebellion ; now, in the quiet of this Hall, 

 hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark 

 treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold and pro- 

 poses to surrender us all up, body and spirit, 

 the nation and the flag, its genius and its honor, 

 now and: forever, to the accursed traitors to our 

 country. And that proposition comes God 

 forgive and pity my beloved State! it comes 

 from a citizen of the honored and loyal Com- 

 monwealth of Ohio. 



"I implore you, brethren in this House, not 

 to believe that many such births ever gave pangs 

 to my mother State such as she suffered when 

 that traitor was born. (Suppressed applause 

 and sensation.) I beg you not to believe that 

 on the soil of that State another such growth 

 lias ever deformed the face of nature, and dark- 

 enel the light of God's day. (An audible whis- 

 per ' Vallandigham.') But ah, I am reminded 

 that there are other such. My zeal and love 

 for Ohio have carried me too far. I retract. 



I remember that only a few days since a polit< 

 ical convention met at the capital of my State, 

 and almost decided to select from just such 

 material a Eepresentative for the Democratic 

 party in the coming contest; and to-day, what 

 claim to be a majority of the Democracy of 

 that State say that they have been cheated or 

 they would have made that choice. I there- 

 fore sadly take back the boast I first uttered 

 in behalf of my native State. 



"But, sir, I will forget States. We have 

 something greater than States and State pride 

 to talk of here to-day. All personal or State 

 feeling aside, I ask you what is the proposition 

 which the enemy of his country has just made? 

 What is it ? 



"For the first time in the history of thia 

 contest it is proposed in this Hall to give up 

 the struggle, to abandon the war, and let trea- 

 son run riot through the land ! I will, if I can, 

 dismiss feeling from my heart, and try to con- 

 sider only what bears upon the logic of the 

 speech to which we have just listened. 



" First of all, the gentleman tells us that the 

 right of secession is a constitutional right. I 

 do not propose to enter into the argument. I 

 have expressed myself hitherto upon State sov- 

 ereignty and State rights, of which this propo- 

 sition of his is the legitimate child. 



" But the gentleman takes higher ground 

 and in that I agree with him namely, that five 

 million or eight million people possess the right 

 of revolution. Grant it ; we agree there. If 

 fifty-nine men can make revolution successful, 

 they have the right of revolution. If one State 

 wishes to break its connection with the Fed- 

 eral Government, and does it by force, main- 

 taining itself, it is an independent State. If 

 the eleven Southern States are determined and 

 resolved to leave the Union, to secede, to revo- 

 lutionize, and can maintain that revolution by 

 force, they have the revolutionary right to do 

 so. Grant it. I stand on that platform with 

 the gentleman. 



" And now the question comes, is it our con- 

 stitutional duty to let them do it ? That is the 

 question, and in order to reach it I beg to call 

 your attention, not to an argument, but to the 

 condition of affairs which would result from 

 such action the mere statement of which be- 

 comes the strongest possible argument. What 

 does this gentleman propose ? Where will he 

 draw the line of division ? If the rebels carry 

 into successful secession what they desire to 

 carry, if their revolution envelops as many 

 States as they intend it shall envelop, if they 

 draw the line where Isham G. Harris, the rebel 

 Governor of Tennessee, in the rebel camp near 

 our lines, told Mr. Vallandigham they would 

 draw it along the line of the Ohio and of the 

 Potomac if they make good their statement 

 to him that they will never consent to any 

 other line, then I ask what is this thing that 

 the gentleman proposes to do ? 



"He proposes to leave to the United States 

 a territory reaching from the Atlantic to the 



