.-«•' '• **% C^-'X ,/% '^/ /\ \1^*- ^^'% l^*' /"^ • '^ ^^ -trt > , V'^-^-%^'' V^^> V'?-^\o^" ^ 1^ ♦j bV .'^.•^o\. **^'-^\/.. 'i'^'^-?*/ „ **^t^ *r*«5*^T«' *^'3 ,f«V » ? /% ^Z' %/ .*/^^^ ^ ■«*c ^%f/ >-■• %f .^•''o '''^^r ^. THE UNION. SPEECH OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD n IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 12, 1861. The Senate Uaviiig resumed the consideration of the Bpecial message of the President of the United States, comjnunicated on the 9th of January, in reference to the ftitf of the Union— ^I^. SEWARD said: :.ir. Presidcnt: Congress adjourned last sum- iner amid auspices of national abundance, con- ; lentment, tranquillity, and happiness. It has, i-cassemblcd this winter in the presence of de- rangement of business and disturbance of public* «s well as private credit, and in the face of sedi- tious combinations to overthrow the Union. The | niarui is appalling; for Union is not more the body than liberty is the soul of the nation. The American citizen has been accustomed to believe thf. Republic immortal. He shrinksfrom the sight •»f convulsions indicative of its sudden death. The report of our condition has gone over the i seas; and we who have so long and with much coniolacency studied the endless agitations ofi aociiity in the Old World, believing ourselves ex- 1 empt from such disturbances, now, in our turn, | seem to be falling into a momentous and disas-i i.rnns revolution. I I. know how difTicult it is to decide, amid so mn -y and so various counsels,' what ought to be and even what can be done. Certainly, however, It id time for every Senator to declare himsqjf. I vlu refore, following the example of the noble Sen- ator from Tenness.c, [Mr. Johnson,] avow my adh'^rence to the yiiion in its integrity and wuh a'l IIS parts, with my friends, with my party, with my State, with my country, or without either, as they may deteriniiie,.in every event, whether oi peaee or of war, with' every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Although I lament theocciteion, I hail with cheerfulness the duty of lifti'ig up my voice among distracted debates, for ^^ whole country and its inestimable Union. Hitherto the exhibitions of spirit and resolu- tion here, as elsewhere, have been chiefly made on the side of disunion. I do not regret this. Dis- un'.n is so unexpected and unnatural that it must plainly reveal itself before its presence can be lenlized. I like best, also, the courage that pses Bli'.vly under the pressure of severe provocation. If it be a Christian duty to forgive to the stranger even seventy timessevcn offenses, it is the highest patriotism to endure without complaint the pas- sionate waywardness of political brethren so long as there is hope that they may come to a better mind. I think it is easy to pronounce what measures or conduct will not save the Union. 1 agree with the honorable Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Clingman] that mere eulogiums will not save it. Yet I think that as prayer brings us nearer to God, though it cannot move Him toward us, so there is healing and saving virtue in every word of de- votion to the Unionlhat is spoken, and in every sigh that its danger draws forth. I know, at least, that, like irath, it derives strength from every irreverent act that is committed and every blasphemous phrase that is uttered against it. The Union cannot be saved by mutual crinfii- nations concerning our respective shares of re- sponsibility for the present evils. He whose con- science acquits him will naturally be slow to accuse others whose cooperation he needs. His- tory only can adjust the great account. t A continuance of the debate on the constitu- tional power of Congress over the subject of sla- very in the Territories will not save the Union. The opinions of parties and sections on that ques- tion have become dogmatical, and it is this cir- cumstance that has produced the existing alien- ation. A truce, at least during the debate on the Union, is essential to reconciliation. The Union cannot' be saved by proving that secession is illegal or unconstitutional. Persons bent on that fearful step willnot stand long enough on forms of law to be dislodged-, and loyal men do not need such narrow ground to stand upon. I fear that little more will be gained from dis- cussing the right of the Federal Government to coerce seceding States into- obedience. It dis- union is to go on, this question will give place to the more practical one, whether many seceding States have a right to coerce the remaining mem- bers to acquiesce in a dissolution. I dread, as in my innermost soul I abhor, civit war I do not know what the Union would be worth if saved by the use of the sword. Yet, for all this, I do not agree with those wiio, with a desire to avert that great calamity, advise a con- ventional or unopposed separation, with a view to wliat they call a reconstruction. It is enough for nie, first, that in this plan, destruction goe.s before reconstruction; and secondly, that the strength of the vase in which the hopes of the nation arc held consists chiefly in its remaining unbroken. Congressional compromises are not likely to save the Union. I know, indeed, that tradition favors this form of remedy. But it is essential to its success, in any case, that there be found a preponderating mass of citizens, so far neutral on the issue which separates parties, that they can intervene, strike down clashing weapons, and compel an accommodation. Moderate concessions are not customarily asked by a force with its guns in battery; nor are liberal concessions apt to be given by an opposing force not less confident of its own right and its own strength. I think, also, that there is a prevailing conviction that legislative compromises which sacrifice honestly cherished principles, while they anticipate future exigencies, even if they do not assume extra-constitutional powers, are less sure to avert imminent evils than they are certain to produce ultimately even greater dangers. Indeed, Mr. President, I think it will be wise I to discard two prevalent ideas or prejudices,! namely: first, that the Union is to be saved by ! somebody in particular; and secondly, that it is | to be saved by some cunning and insincere com- 1 pact of pacification. If I remember rightly, I said | something like this here so long ago as 1850, and I afterwards in 1854. I The present danger discloses itself in this form. Discontented citizens have obtained political power in certain States, and they are using this authority to overthrow the Federal Government. They delude themselves with a belief that the State power they have acquired enables them to discharge themselves of allegiance to the whole Republic. The President says that no State has a right to secede, but we have no consti- tutional power to make war against a State. The dilemma results from an assumption that those who, in such a case, act against the Federal Government, act lawfully as a Slate; although manifestly they have perverted the power of the State to an unconstitutional purpose. A class of politicians in New England set up this theory and attempted to practice upon it in our war with Great Britain. Mr. JeOerson did not hesitate to say that States must be kept within their consti- tutional sphercby impulsion, if they could not be held there by attraction. Secession was then held to be inadmissible in the face of a public ene- my. But if it is untenable in one case, it is neces- sarily so in all others. I fully admit the origin- ality, the sovereignty, and the independence of the several States within their sphere. But I hold the Federal Government to be equally original, sovereign, and independent within its splierc.' And the government of the State can no more" absolve the people residing within its limits from allegiance to the Union, than the Government of I the Union can absolve them from allegiance to I the State. The Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are the' ' supreme lav/ of the land, paramount to all legis- j lation of the States, whethcrmade under the Con- jstitution, or by even their organic conventions, i The Union can be dissolved, not by secession' j with or without armed force, b«t only by the vol- I untary consent of the people of the United States ) collected in the manner prescribed by the Consti- tution of the United States. Congress, in the present case, ought not to be impassive. It ought, if it can, to redress any real grievances of the offended States, and then it ought to supply the President with all the means necessary to maintain the Union in the full exhi- bition and discreet exercise of its authority. Be- yond this, with the proper activity on the part of the Executive, the responsibility of saving the Union belongs to the people, and they are abun- dantly competent to discharge it. i propose, therefore, with great deference, to address myself to the country upon the moment- ous Subject, asking a hearing, not less from the people within what are called the seceding, than from those who reside within the adhering States. Union isan old, fixed, settled habit of the Amer- ican people, resulting from convictions of its necessity, and therefore not likely to be hastily discarded. The early States, while existingas colo- nies, were combined, though imperfectly, through ti common allegiance to the British Crown. When that allegiance ceased, no one was so presumptu- ous as to suppose political existence compatible with disunion; and, therefore, on the same day that they declared themselves independent, they proclaimed themselves also confederated States. Experience in war and in peace, from 1776 until 1787, only convinced them of the necessity of con- verting that loose Confederacy into a more perfect and a perpetual Union. They acted with a cool- ness very different from the intemperate conduct of those who now on one side threaten, and those who on the other rashly defy disunion. They con- sidered the continuance of the Union as a subject comprehending nothing less than the safety and welfare of all the parts of which the country was composed, and the fixle of an empire in many re- spects the most interesting in the world. I enter upon the subject of continuing the Union now, deeply impressed with the same generous and loyal conviction. How could it be otherwise, when, insteadof only thirteen, the country is now confiposed of thirty-three parts; and the empire embraces, instead of only four million, no less than thirty million inhabitants. The founders of the Constitution moreover regarded the Union as no mere national or Amer- ican interest. On the contrary, they confessed with deep sensibility that it seemed to them to have been reserved for the people of this country to decide whether societies of men are really capa- ble of establishing good government upon reflec- tion and choice, or whether they are forever des- tined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. They feared, therefore, that their failure to continue and perfect the Union would be a misfortune to the nations. How much more, sir, would its overthrow now be a calamity tx) mankind ! Some form of government is indispensable here as elsewhere. Whatever form we have, every individual citizen and every State must cede to it some natural rights, to invest the Government with the requisite power. The simple question, therefore, for us now to decide, while laying aside all pique, passion, and prejudice, is: whether it conduces more to the interests of the people of this country to remain, for the general purposes of peace and war, commerce inland and foreign, postal communications at home and abroad, the care and disposition of the public domain, coloni- zation, the organization and admission of new States, and, generally, the enlargement of empire, one nation under our present Constitution, than it would to divide themselves into separate Confed- eracies or States. Our country remains now as it was in 1787 — composed not of detached and distant Territories, but of one whole well-connected and fertile region lying within the temperate zone, with climates and soils hardly more various than those of France or of Italy. This slight diversity quickens and amplifies manufacture and commerce. Our rivers and valleys, as improved by art, furnish us a sys- tem of higiiways unequaied in the world. The different forms of labor, if slavery were not per- verted to purposes of political ambition, need not constitute an element of strife in the Confederacy. Notwithstanding recent vehement expressions and manifestations of intolerance in some quarters, produced by in tense partisan excitement, we are, in fact, a homogeneous people, chiefly of one stock, with accessiuns well assimilated. We have, prac- tically, only one language, one religion, one sys- tem of Government, and manners and customs common to all. Why, then, shall we not remain henceforth, as hitherto, one people? The first object of every human society is safety or security, for wliich, if need be, they will, and they must, sacrifice every other. This security is of two kinds: one, exemption from foreign aggression and influence; the other, exemption from domestic tyratiny and sedition. ^ Foreign wars come from cither violations of treaties or domestic violence. The Union has, thus fur, proved itself an almost perfect shield against such wars. The United States, continu- allyenlarging their di|ilomaticacquaintance,have now treaties with France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden, Prussia, Spain, Russia, Den- mark, Mexico, Brazil, Austria, Turkey, Chili, Siam, Muscat, Venezuela, Peru, Greece, Sar- dinia, Ecuador, Hanover, Portugal, New Gran- ada, ilcsse Cassel, Wurtemburg, China, Bava- ria, Saxony, Nassau, Switzerland, Mcckienburg- Schwerin, Guatemala, the Hawaian Islands, San Salvador, Borneo, Costa Rica, Bremen, the Argentine Confederation, Loo Choo, Japan, Brunswick, Persia, Baden, Belgium, and Para- guay. Nevertheless, the United States, within their entire existence under the Federal Constitu- tion, have had flagrant wars with only four States, two of which were insignificant Powers, on the coast of Barbary, and have had direct hostilities, amounting to reprisals, against only two or three more; and they are now at peace with the whole world. If the Union should be divided into only two Confederacies, each of them would need to make as many treaties as we have now; and, of course, would be liable to give as many causes of war as we now do. But we know, from the sad experience of other nations, that disintegra- tion, once begun, inevitably continues until even the greatest empire crumbles into many parts. Each Confederation that shall ultimately arise out of the ruin of the Union will have necessity for as many treaties as we now have, and will incur liabilities for war as often as we now do, by breaking them. It is the multiplication of treaties, and the want of confederation, that makes war the normal condition of society in Western Europe and in Spanish America. It is union that, notwithstanding our world -wide intercourse, makes peace the habit of the American people. I will not descend so low as to ask whether new confederacies would be able or willing to bear the grievous expense of maintaining the diplo- matic relations which cannot be dispensed with except by withdrawing from foreign commerce. Our Federal Government is better able to avoid giving just causes of war than several confedera- cies, because it can conform the action of all the States to compacts. It can have only one con- struction, and only one tribunal to pronounce that construction, of every treaty. Local and tempo- rary interests and passions, or personal cupidity and ambition, can drive small confederacies or States more easily than a great Republic into in- discreet violation.s of treaties. The United States being a great and formidable Power, can always secure favorable and satisfac- tory treaties. Indeed, every treaty we have was voluntarily made. Small confederacies or States must take such treaties as they can get, and give whatever treaties are exacted. A humiliating, or even an unsatisfactory treaty, is a chronic cause of foreign war. The chapter of wars resulting from unjustifi- able causes would, in case of division, amplify itself in proportion to the number of new con- federacies and their irritability. Our disputes wirfh Great Britain about Oregon, the boundary of Maine, the patriot insurrection in Canada, and the Island of San Juan; the border strifes be- tween Texas and Mexico, the incursions of the late William Walker into Mexico and Central America; all these were cases in which war was prevented only by the imperturbability of the Federal Government. This Government not only gives fewer causes of war, whether just or unjust, than smaller con- federacies would; but it always has a greater ability to accommodate them by the exercise of more coolness and courage, the use of more vari- ous and more liberal means, and the display, if need be, of greater force. Every one knows how placable we ourselves are in controversies with Great Britain, France, and Spain; and yet how exacting we have been m our intercourse with New Granada, Paraguay, and San Juan de Nic- aragua. Mr. President, no one will dispute our fore- fathers' maxim, that the common safety of all is the safety of eacli of thi^ States. While they re- main united, the Federal Government combines all the materials and all the forces of the several States; organizes their defenses on one general princrple; harmonizes and assimilates them with one system; watches for them with a single eye, which it turns in all directions, and moves all jigenls under the control of one executive head. A nation so constituted is safe against assault or even insult. War produces always a speedy exhaustion of money and a severe strain upon credit. The treasuries and credits of small confederacies would often prove inadequate. Those of the Union are always ample. I have thus far kept out of view the relations which must arise between the confederacies them- selves. They would be small and inconsiderable nations bordering on each other, and therefore, according to all political philosophy, natural ene- mies. In addition to the many treaties which each must make with foreign Powers, and the causes of war which they would give by violating them, each of the confederacies must also maintain treaties with all tlie others, and so be liable to give them frequent oflense. They would necessarily have different interests resulting from their estab- lishment of different policies of revenue, of min- ing, manufactures, and navigation, of immigra- tion, and perhaps the slave trade. Each would stipulate with foreign nations for advantages peculiar to itself and injurious to its rivals. If, indeed, it were necessary that the Union should be broken up, it would be in the last de- gree important that the new confederacies to be formed should be as nearly as possible equal in strength and power, that mutual fear and mutual respect might inspire them with caution against mutual olfense. But such equality could not long be maintained; one confederacy would rise in the scale of political importance, and the others would view it thenceforward with envy and ap- prehension. Jealousies would bring on frequent and retaliatory wars, and all these wars, from the peculiar circumstances of the confederacies, would have the nature and character of civil war. Dissolution, therefore, is, for the peopl^of this country, perpetual civil war. To mitigate it, and obtain occasional rest, what else could they accept but the system of adjusting the balance of power which has obtained in Europe, in which the few strong nations dictate the very terms on which all the others shall be content to live, i When this hateful system should fail at last, for- eign nations would intervene, now in favor of one and then in aid of another; and thus our country, having expelled all European Powers from the ' continent, would relapse into an aggravated form of its colonial experience, and, like Italy, Turkey, India, and China, become the theater of transat- I lantic intervention and rapacity. i If, however, we grant to the new confederacies ' an exemption from complications among each' other and with foreign States, still there°is too much reason to believe that not one of them could \ long maintain a republican form of government. ' Universal suffrage and the absence of a stand- ing army are essential to the republican system. ' The world has yet to see a single self-sustaining State of that kind, or even any confederation of such States, except our own. Canada leans on Great Britain not unwillingly, and Switzerland is guarantied by interested monarchical States. Our own experiment has thus far been successful; be- cause, by the continual addition of new States, the influence of each of the members of the Union is constantly restrained and reduced. No one, of course, can foretell the way and manner of travel; but history indicates with unerring certainty the end which the several confederacies would reach. Licentiousness would render life intolerable; and they would sooner or later purchase tranquillity and domestic safety by the surrender of liberty, and yield themselves up to the protection of md- itary despotism. Indulge me, sir, in one or tv/o details under this head. First, it is only sixty days since this dis- union movement began; already those who are engaged in it have canvassed with portentous free- dom the possible recombinations of the States when dissevered, and the feasible alliances of those re- combinations with European nations; alliances as unnatural, and which would prove ultimately as pestilential to society here as that of the Tlasca- lans with the Spaniard, who promised them re- venge upon their ancient enemies, the Aztecs. Secondly. The disunion movement arises partly out of a dispute over the common domain of the United States. Hitherto the Union has confined this controversy within the bounds of political debate by referring it, with all other national ones, to the arbitrament of the ballot-box. Does any one suppose that disunion would transfer the whole domain to either party, or that any other umpire than war would, after dissolution, be invoked? Thirdly. This movement arises, in another view, out of the relation of African slaves to the domestic population of the country. Freedom is to them, as to all mankind, the chief object of desire. Hitherto, under the operation of the Union, they have practically remained ignorant of the controversy, especially of its bearing on themselves. Can we hope that flagrant civil war shall rage among ourselves in their very presence, and yet that they will remain stupid and idle spec-' tators ? Does history furnish us any satisfactory instruction upon the horrors of civil war among a people so brave, so skilled in arms, so earnest in conviction, and so intent in purpose, as wo are: Is it a mere cliimcra which suggests an aggrava- tion of those horrors beyond endurance when, on either side, there shall occur the intervention of an uprising ferocious African slave population of four, or'six, perhaps twenty million.' The opinions of mankind change, and with them the policies of nations. One hundred years ago all the commercial European States were engaged in transferring negro slaves from Africa to this hemisphere. To-day all those States are firmly set in hostility to the extension and even to the practice of slavery. Opposition to it takes two forms: one European, which is simple, direct ab- olition, effected, if need be, by compulsion; the other American, which seeks to arrest the African slave trade, and resist the entrance of domestic slavery into Territories where it is yet unknown, while it leaves the disposition of existing slavery to the considerate action of the States by which it is retained. It is the Union that restricts the opposition to slavery in this country within these limits. If dissolution pn.'vail, what guarantee shall there be against the full development here of the fearful anil uncompromising hostility to slavery which elsewhere pervades the world, and of which the recent invasion of Virginia was an illustra- tion, and John Brown was the hero.' Mr. President, I have designedlydwelt solong on the probable efTecis of disunion upon the safety of the American people as to leave me little time to consider the other evils which must follow in its train. But practically, the loss of safety in- volves every other form of public calamity. When once the guardian angel has taken flight, every- thing is lost. Dissolution would not only arrest, but extin- guish the greatness of our country. Even if sep- arate. confederacies could exist and endure, they could severally preserve no share of the common prestige of the Union. If the constellation is to be broken up, the stars, whether scattered widely apart or grouped in smaller clusters, will thence- forth shed forth feeble, glimmering, and lurid lights. Nor will great achievements be possible for the new confederacies. Dissolution would signalize its triumph by acts of wantonness which would shock and astound the world. It would provincialize Mount Vernon and give this Capi- tol over to desolation at the very moment when ^the dome is rising over our heads liiat was to be U crowned with the statue of Liberty. After this there would remain for disunion no actof stupen- . ■ dous infamy to be committed. No petty confed- eracy that shall follow the United Slates can pro- long, ore ven renew, the majestic drama of national progress. Perhaps it is to be arrested because its sublimity is incapable of continuance. Let it be so, if we have indeed become degenerate. After Washington, arul the inflexible Adams, Henry, and the peerless Hamilton, Jefferson, and the ma- jestic Clay, Webster, and the acute Calhoun, Jackson, the modijstTaylor, and Scott, who rises in greatness under the burden of years, and Frank- lin, and Fulton, and Whitney, and Morse, have all performed their parts, let ihc curtain fall! While listening to these debates, I have some- times forgotten myself ill marking their contrasted effects upon the page who customarily stands on the dais before me, and the venerable Secretary who sits bchiiul him. The youth exhibits in- tensebut pleased emotion in the excitement, while at every u-reverent word that is uttered against the Union the eyes of the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him weep no more. Rather rejoice, for yours has been a lot of rare felicity. You have seen and been a part of ail the great- ness of your country, the towering national great- ness of all the world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bitterness of anguish, who are just stepping on the threshold of life; for that great- ness perishes prematurely and exists not for you, nor for me, nor for any that shall come after us. The public prosperity! how could it survive the storm.' Its elements are industry in the cul- ture of every fruit; miningof all the metals; com- merce at home and on every sea; material im- provement that knows no obstacle and has no end; invention that ranges throughout the domain of nature; increase of knowledge as broad as the human mind can explore; perfection of art as high as human genius can reach; and social re- finement working for the renovation of the world. How could our successors prosecute these noble objects in the midst of brutalizing civil conflict.' What guarantees will capital invested for such purposes have, that #ill outweigh the premium offered by political and military ambition? What leisure will the citizen find for study, or invention, or art, under the reign of conscription; nay, what interest in them will society feel when fear and hate shall have taken possession of the national mind.' Let the miner in California take heed; for its golden wealth will become the prieeof the na- tion that can command the most iron. Let the borderer take care; for the Indian will again Idrk around his dwelling. Let the pioneer come back into our denser settlements; for the railriui,d, the post road, and the telegraph, advance not orte fur- long farther into the wilderness. With standing armies consuming the substance of our people on the land, and our Navy and our postal steamers withdrawn from the ocean, who will protect or respect, or who will even know byname our petty confederacies.' The American man-of-war is a noble spectacle. I have seen it enter an ancient port in the Mediterranean. All the world won- dered at it, and talked of it. Salvos of artillery, from forts and shipping in the harbor, saluted its flag. Princes and princesses and merchants paid it homage, and all the people blessed it as a har- binger of hope for their own ultimate freedom. I imagine now the same noble vessel again enter- ing the same haven. Theflagof thirty-three stars and thirteen stripes has been hauled down, and in its place a signal is run up, which flaunts the device of a lone star or a palmetto tree. Men ask, "Who is the stranger that thuS steals into our waters.'" The answer contemptously given is, " She comes from one of the obscure republics of North America. Let her pass on." Lastly, public liberty, our own peculiar liberty, must languish for a time, and then cease to live. And such a liberty I free movement everywhere through our own land and throughout the world; free speech, free press, free suffrage; the freedom of every subject to vote on every law, and for or against every agent who expounds, administers, or executes. Unstable and jealous confederacies, constantly apprehending assaults without and treason within, formidable only to eachotherand contemptible to all beside: how long will it be be- fore, on the plea of public safety, they will sur- render all this inestimable and unequaled liberty, and accept the hateful and intolerable espionage of military despotism.' And now, Mr. President, what is the cause for this sudden and eternal sacrifice of so much safety, greatness, happiness, and freedom .' Have foreign nations combined, and are they coming in rage upon us.' No. So far from being enemies, there is not a nation on earth that is not an interested, 6 admiring friend. Even Uie London Times, by no means partial to us, says: I " It is cuiite possiblR that the problem of a democratic ! republic may be .solved by its overthrow in a few days in a spirit of folly, selfishness, and short-sightedness." HastlicFederalGovernmcntbecome tyrannical ' or oppressive, or even rigorous or unsocial? Has the Constitution lost its spirit, and all at once | collap.sod into a lifeless letter.' No; the Federal; Government smiles more benignantly, and works i to day more beneficently than ever. The Consti- tution is even the chosen model for the organiza- tion of the newly rising cdhfederacies. | The occasion is the election of a President of the United States, who is unacceptable to a por- tion of the people. I state the case accurately. There was no movement of disunion before the ballots which expressed that choice were cast. Disunion began as soon as the result was an- nounced. The justification it assigned was that Abraham Lincoln had been elected, while the sus- (^Sfeiof either one of three other candidates would have been acquiesced in. Was the election ille- gal? ^p; it is unimpeachable. Is the candidate personally offensive? No; he is a man of unblem- ished virtue and amiable manners. Is an election of President an unfreqiieiU or extraordinary trans- action? No; we never had a Chief Magistrate otherwise designated than by such election, and that form of choice is renewed every four years. Does any one even propose to change the mode of appointing the Chief Magistrate? No; election by universal sufifrage, as modified by the Consti- tution, is the one crowning franchise of the Ameri- can people. To save it they would defy the world. Is it apprehended that the new President will usurp despotic powers.' No; while he is of all men the most unambitious, he is, by the partial success of those who opposed his election , subjected to such restraints that he cannot, without their consent, appoint a minister or even a police agent, nego- tiate a treaty, or procure the passage of a law, and can hardly draw a musket from tiie public arse- nals to defend his own person. What, then, is the ground of discontent? It is that the disunionisls did not accept as conclusive the arguments which were urged in behalf of the successful candidate in the canvass. This is all. Were their own arguments against him more sat- isfactory to his supporters ? Of course they were not; they could not be. Does the Constitution, in letter or spirit, require or imply that the argu- ments of one party shall be satisfactory to the other? No; that is impossible. What is the con- stitutional remedy for this inevitable dissatisfac- tion ? Renewed debate and ultimate rehearing in a subsequent election. Have the now successful majority perverted power to purposes of oppres- sion ? No; they have never before held power. Alas! how prone we are to undervalue privileges and blessings. How gladly, how proudly, would the people of any nation in Europe accept, on such terms as we enjoy it, the boon of electing a Chief Magistrate every four years by free, equal, and universal suflVagc! How thankfully would they cast aside all their own systems of govern- ment, and accept this Republic of ours, with all its shortcomings and its disappointments, maintain it with their arms, and cherish it in their hearts. Is it not the very boon for which tJiey supplicate God without ceasing, and even wage war, with intermissions only resulting from exhaustion? How strange are the times in which we live ! The coming spring season , on one side of the Atlantic, will open on a general conflict, waged to obtain, through whatever indirection, just such a system as ours; and on this side of the Atlantic, within the same parallels of latitude, it will open on fraternal war, waged in a moment of frenzied : discontent to overthrow and annihilate the same j institutions. Do men, indeed, live only for them- selves, to revenge their own wrongs, or to gratify their own ambition ? Rather do not men live least of all for themselves, and chiefly for pos- terity and for their fellow-men ? Have the Amer- ican people, then, become all of a sudden unnat- ; ural, as well as unpatriotic? and will they disinherit their children of the precious estate held only in ' trust for them, and deprive the world of the best hopes it has enjoyed since the human race began ! its slow and painful, yet needful and wisely- J appointed progress? j Here I might close my plea for the American 1 Union; but it is necessary, if not to exhaust the I argument, at least to exhibit the whole case. The disunionists, consciously unable to stand on their ; mere disappointment in the recent election, have attempted to enlarge their ground. More than j thirty years there has existed a considerable — though not heretofore a formidable — mass of citi- zens in certain States situate near or around the^.. 'delta of the Mississippi, who believe that the** I Union is less conducive to the welfare and great- ness of those States than a smaller confederacy, embracing only slave States, would be. This I class has availed itself of the discontents result- jing from the election to put into operation the ■machinery of dissolution long ago prepared and I waiting only for occasion. In other States there is a soreness because of the want of sympathy in the free States with the efforts of slaveholders for the recapture of fugitives from service. In all j the slave States there is a restiveness resulting ■from the resistance which has been so determ- inedly made within the last few years, in the free States, to the extension of slavery in the common I Territories of the United States. The Republican i party, which cast its votes for the successful pres- idential candidate on the ground of that policy, has been allowed, practically, no representation, i no utterance by speech or through the press, in I the slave States; while its policy, principles, and sentiments, and even its temper, have been so misrepresented as to excite apprehensions that it denies important constitutional obligations, and aims even at interference with slavery and its over- ; throw by State authorities or intervention of the i Federal Government. Considerable masses even in the free States, interested in the success of these misrepresentations as a means of partisan strat- I egy, have lent their sympathy to the party claim- ling to be aggrieved. While the result of the election brings the Republican party necessarily i in to the foreground in resisting disunion, the preju- dices against them which I have described have deprived them of the cooperation of many good ;/ and patriotic citizens. On a complex issue be- of persons, or any others recently coming from tween the Republican party and the disunionists, jor resident in other States, and which laws coh- although it involves the direst national calamities, | travene the Constitution of the United States, or the resliltmight be doubtful; for the Republican M any law of Congress passed in conformity thereto, party is weak in a large part of the Union. But ; ought to be repealed. on a direct issue, with all who cherish the Union on one side, and all who desire its dissolution by force on the other, the verdict would be prompt and almost unanimous. I desire thus to simplify the issue, and for that purpose to separate from it all collateral questions, and relieve itof all par- tisan passions and prejudices. I consider the idea of the withdrawal of the Secondly. Experience inpublicaffairshascon- firmed my opinion, that domestic slavery, exist- ing in any State, is wisely left by the Constitu- tion of the United Slates exclusively to the care, management, and disposition of that State; and if it were in my power, I would not alter the Con- stitution in that respect. If misapprehension of my position needs so strong a remedy, I am \yill- Gulf States, and their permanent reorganization j| ing to vote for an amendment of theConstilution with or without others in a distinct Confederacy i; declaring that it shall not, by any future amend- as a means of advantage to themselves, so cer- ment, be so altered as to confer on Congress a tainly unwise and so obviously impossible of ex- j power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any ecution, when the purpose is understood, that I j State. dismiss it with the discussion I have already jj Thirdly. While I think that Congress has incidentally bestowed upon it. 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