And when these schemes of robbery become so numerous, atrocious, and unendurable that they can no longer be reconciled "in the halls of national legislation," by "surrendering" some of them, "postponing" others, and "abandoning" others, you assume--for such has been the prevailing opinion, and you say nothing to the contrary--that it is the right of the strongest party, or parties, to murder a half million of men, if that be necessary,--and as we once did,--not to secure liberty or justice to any body,--but to compel the weaker of these would-be robbers to submit to all such robberies as the stronger ones may choose to practise upon them. SECTION X. Sir, your idea of the true character of our government is plainly this: you assume that all the natural, inherent, inalienable, individual, _human_ rights of fifty millions of people--all their individual rights to preserve their own lives, and promote their own happiness--have been thrown into one common heap,--into hotchpotch, as the lawyers say: and that this hotchpotch has been given into the hands of some four hundred champion robbers, each of whom has pledged himself to carry off as large a portion of it as possible, to be divided among those men--well known to himself, but who--to save themselves from all responsibility for his acts--have secretly (by secret ballot) appointed him to be their champion. Sir, if you had assumed that all the people of this country had thrown all their wealth, all their rights, all their means of living, into hotchpotch; and that this hotchpotch had been given over to four hundred ferocious hounds; and that each of these hounds had been selected and trained to bring to his masters so much of this common plunder as he, in the general fight, or scramble, could get off with, you would scarcely have drawn a more vivid picture of the true character of the government of the United States, than you have done in your inaugural address. No wonder that you are obliged to confess that such a government can be carried on only "amid the din of party strife"; that it will be influenced--you should have said _directed_--by "purely partisan zeal"; and that it will be attended by "the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph." What gang of robbers, quarrelling over the division of their plunder, could exhibit a more shameful picture than you thus acknowledge to be shown by the government of the United States? Sir, nothing of all this "din," and "strife," and "animosity," and "bitterness," is caused by any attempt, on the part of the government, to simply "do equal and exact justice to all men,"--to simply protect every man impartially in all his natural rights to life, liberty, and property. It is all caused simply and solely by the government's violation of some men's "_rights_," to promote other men's "interests." If you do not know this, you are mentally an object of pity.