350 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



those who advocate it wish to overthrow, it 

 should stop, for the benefit of the Democratic 

 party, 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, 1862, hold illegal and 

 criminal negotiations with Lord Lyons, and 

 avow their purposes to him, the representative 

 of a foreign and unfriendly Power, and urge 

 him to arrange the time of proffering media- 

 tion with a view to their possession of power 

 and their preparation of the minds of the peo- 

 ple to receive suggestions from abroad; and 

 when mediation 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 begin, 

 which was menaced at the outbreak of the re- 

 bellion, and the friends of Seymour shall make 

 the streets of New York run with blood, on the 

 eve of another Gettysburg less damaging to 

 their hopes; when the people, exhausted by 

 taxation, weary of sacrifices, drained of blood, 

 betrayed by their rulers, deluded by dema- 

 gogues into believing that peace is the way to 

 union and submission the path of victory, 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 in- 

 auguration of 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, with- 

 out treason to the dead Republic, rise in this 

 migratory House, wherever it may then be in 

 America, and declare themselves for recogniz- 

 ing their masters at the South rather than ex- 

 terminating them ! Until that day, in the 

 name of the American 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 oar ancestors have con- 

 fided to us, I devote to eternal execration the 

 name of him who shall propose to destroy this 

 blessed land rather than its enemies. 



"But until that time arrive, it is the judg- 

 ment 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 only by turning 

 France into a camp, resolved that Europe might 

 exterminate, but should not subjugate her, that 

 France is the leading empire of Europe to-day. 

 It is by such a resolve that the American peo- 

 ple 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 point- 

 ing onward floats proudly in the face of the 

 enemy, that vast regions are reduced to obe- 

 dience 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 only 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 Repub- 

 lic which first trod the path of empire and made 

 no peace but under the banners of victory, that 

 the American people will survive in history." 



Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, replied as follows: 

 "The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Davis) 

 told us last night, in terms of eloquence which 

 I cannot emulate, that when Lord Chatham, 

 aged, feeble, wrapped in flannel and suffering 

 from disease, came resting upon the arm of hia 

 still greater son, to address for the last time the 

 British House of Lords, and to die upon the 

 floor, he came to speak against the dismember- 

 ment of the British empire. It is true, and 

 what did he say ? ' I told you this war would 

 be disastrous ; I predicted its consequences ; I 

 told you you could not conquer America; I 

 begged you to conciliate America ; you would 

 not heed my advice. You have exhausted the 

 country ; you have sacrificed its men ; yon 

 have wasted its treasures; you have driven 

 these colonies to declare their independence ; 

 you have driven them into the arms of our 

 ancient and hated enemy, and now, without 

 striking a blow, without firing a shot, cowardly 

 under difficulties as you were truculent in suc- 

 cess, you propose to yield through fear to 

 France what you have refused as justice to 

 America.' Did it not occur to the gentleman 

 from Maryland that possibly at a future day 

 when the history of that civil strife shall have 

 been reproduced in this land, another Chatham 

 may come to this House and hurl against thoso 

 who are now in power these bitter denuncia- 

 tions because they have shown themselves un- 

 able to make an honorable peace even as they 

 have been unable to make a victorious war ? 



" The gentleman from Maryland besought 

 the House never to be swerved from its fixed 

 purpose to prosecute the war ' with the last 

 dollar and the last man.' Sir, his reading told 

 him such stinging exhortation would full soon 

 be needed. In November, 1781, after Corn- 

 wallis had surrendered Yorktown and the last 

 battle of the Revolution had been fought, the 

 House of Commons in its address to the throne 

 assured his Majesty that it would vote all the 

 resources of the empire to suppress rebellion in 

 America. In March of the next year, in the 

 early spring, in less than six months, that same 

 House of Commons voted those were enemies 

 to the realm who advised the further prosecu- 

 tion of the war. And here this House this 



