A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention: For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861Chittenden, L. E. (Lucius Eugene)
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A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention: For Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, Held at Washington, D.C., in February, A.D. 1861
Chittenden, L. E. (Lucius Eugene)
Conference Convention (1861 : Washington, D.C.); United States -- Politics and government -- 1857-1861
You have always fared well enough there. If that is not enough we will
leave the whole subject, amendments and all, to a General Convention.
That we now propose. We propose it fairly, not for any purpose of
delay or postponement. Call the convention as early as it can be done.
We will aid you. We will go home and in good faith urge our people to
go into the convention, and there patiently and fairly consider all
your claims, all your complaints. We would urge them to concede all
they can without a sacrifice of principle. We will do this as a party,
and with all our strength. Now, this does not quite come up to what
you want, but is it best for you to insist upon breaking up the
Government on that ground? That is neither sensible nor safe. We are
like two lobes in the same skull; one cannot outlive the other.
Destroy one and you destroy the other. I do not believe this Republic
can stand without the Union which our fathers made. But it will
stand--it must stand. Wise counsels will yet prevail. You will yet
believe us sincere in our desires to relieve you. The end of the
Union has not come--it is not coming. The Union will yet outlive us
and our posterity.
Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN:--In rising to express briefly my views, I feel
oppressed and embarrassed in view of the magnitude of the subjects we
are discussing, and in the presence of this distinguished auditory. I
cannot claim to represent an Empire State with its four millions of
people, nor a Bay State, which we are told, with its wealth, its
enterprise, and its commerce, can settle a new State every year. But
with my colleagues, I represent a State which performed her part in
the dark night of the Revolution--her share in that great struggle for
our priceless institutions--a State which has ever since been faithful
in the discharge of all her constitutional obligations. In that bloody
conflict, upon her own soil, New Jersey joined hands with the North
and South. There is scarcely a church spire within her borders beneath
whose shadows does not lay the remains of some of the entombed
patriots in that great conflict from both these sections, commingled
with those of her own sons!
New Jersey was true to the Union in that great struggle--she has
always since been true; and under the favor of Providence she always
will be faithful to the Union and its memories, so inseparably
connected with the glory and honor of her sons. Other States may have
done as much, may have as good a record, may be entitled to equal
credit with her. But in all her past history, I can point to her
fidelity to the Union and her sister States with no blush of shame
upon my brow. Other States might be wanting! New Jersey never! She has
always been true to her constitutional obligations; she has always
kept--never sought to avoid them.
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