CONGRESS, U. S. 



34( 



Pacific, and one hundred miles wide in the cen- 

 tre ! From Wellsville, on the Ohio Eiver, to 

 Cleveland on the lakes, is one hundred miles. 

 I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if there be a man 

 here so insane as to suppose that the American 

 people will allow their magnificent national 

 proportions to he shorn to so deformed a shape 

 as this ? 



" I tell you, and I confess it here, that while 

 I hope I have something of human courage, I 

 have not enough to contemplate such a result. 

 I am not brave enough to go to the brink of 

 the precipice of successful secession and look 

 down into its damned abyss. If my vision 

 were keen enough to pierce to its bottom, I 

 would not dare to look. If there be a man 

 here who dare contemplate such a scene, I 

 look upon him either as the bravest of the 

 sons of women, or as a downright madman. 

 Secession to gain peace ! Secession is the toc- 

 sin of eternal war. There can be no end to 

 such a war as will be inaugurated if this thing 

 be done. 



" Suppose the policy of the gentleman were 

 adopted to-day. Let the order go forth ; sound 

 the 'recall ' on your bugles, and let it ring from 

 Texas to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies 

 to come back. Call the victorious legions back 

 over the battle-fields of blood, forever now dis- 

 graced. Call them back over the territory 

 which they have conquered. Call them back, 

 and let the minions of secession chase them 

 with derision and jeers as they come. And 

 then tell them that that man across the aisle, 

 from the free State of Ohio, gave birth to the 

 monstrous proposition. 



"Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be 

 sent forth through the armies of the Union, 

 the wave of terrible vengeance that would 

 sweep back over this land could never find a 

 parallel in the records of history. Almost in 

 the moment of final victory the 'recall' is 

 sounded by a craven people not deserving free- 

 dom! We ought every man to be made a 

 slave should we sanction such a sentiment. 



"The gentleman has told us there is no such 

 thing as coercion justifiable under the Consti- 

 tution. I ask him for one moment to reflect, 

 that no statute ever was enforced without co- 

 ercion. It is the basis of every law in the uni- 

 verse God's law as well as man's. A law is 

 no law without coercion behind it. When a 

 man has murdered his brother, coercion takes 

 the murderer, tries him, and hangs him. When 

 you levy your taxes, coercion secures their col- 

 lection ; it follows the shadow of the thief and 

 brings him to justice ; it accompanies your di- 

 plomacy to foreign courts, and backs the decla- 

 ration of the nation's rights by a pledge of the 

 nation's power. But when the life of that na- 

 tion is imperilled, we are told it has no coercive 

 power against the parricides in its own bosom ! 

 Again, he tells us that oaths taken under the 

 amnesty proclamation are good for nothing. 

 The oath of Galileo, he says, was not binding 

 upon huii. I am reminded of another oath 



that was taken; but perhaps it too was an 

 oath on the lips alone to which the heart made 

 no response. 



" I remember to have stood in a line of nine- 

 teen men from Ohio, on that carpet yonder, on 

 the first day of the session, and I remember 

 that with uplifted hands before Almighty God 

 those nineteen took an oath to support and 

 maintain the Constitution of the United States. 

 And I remember that another oa l h was passed 

 around and each member signed it as provided 

 by law, utterly repudiating the rebellion and 

 its pretences. Does the gentleman not blush 

 to speak of Galileo's oath ? Was not his own 

 its counterpart? 



" I said a little while ago that I accepted the 

 proposition of the gentleman that the rebels had 

 the right of revolution ; and the decisive issue be- 

 tween us and the rebellion is, whether they shall 

 revolutionize and destroy, or we shall subdue 

 and preserve. We take the latter ground. We 

 take the common weapons of war to meet 

 them ; and, if these be not sufficient, I would 

 take any element which will overwhelm and 

 destroy ; I would sacrifice the dearest and best 

 beloved ; I would take all the old sanctions of 

 law and the Constitution and fling them to the 

 winds, if necessary, rather than let the nation 

 be broken in pieces, and its people destroyed 

 with endless ruin. 



Mr. Long : " Mr. Chairman, I desire but a 

 very few minutes to reply to my colleague who 

 has seen proper to call in question very seri- 

 ously what I have said this afternoon. I stat- 

 ed, sir, very distinctly, when I commenced, 

 that I spoke for myself, and that I alone would 

 be responsible for what I said. I am well 

 aware of all that I did say. I have said it de- 

 liberately. I have said it because my con- 

 science told me it was right, and my judgment 

 approved it. I have said it because when I 

 walked down with my colleague to the front 

 of that desk to take the oath required of me 

 in becoming a member of this House, I held 

 up my hand, as he raised his, before Heaven 

 and took upon myself a solemn oath to support 

 the Constitution of the United States, and so 

 help me God, fearless of all the charges that 

 can be made against me by that gentleman or 

 any other, or by all the minions of power in 

 the land, I never will violate that oath, or 

 shrink from the responsibility which I then as- 

 sumed. 



" I have never, sir, belonged to a party which 

 took that oath with a mental reservation. I 

 never took the oath with a determination not 

 to obey a part of the laws of the land. I re- 

 member the district of country from which my 

 colleague hails, the conventions that have been 

 held there, and the forcible resistance to the 

 enforcement of the law tht have been made 

 there. I remember when the party now in 

 power undertook to set aside a solemn act of 

 Congress, and appealed to the supreme court 

 of our State to override the Constitution of 

 the United States. Sir, I have never been 



