American Eloquence, Volume 3: Studies In American Political History (1897)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 3: Studies In American Political History (1897)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
I say that is the way it seems to me, as a lawyer. I see no power in the
Constitution to release a Senator from this position. Sir, if there
was any other, if there was an absolute right of secession in the
Constitution of the United States when we stepped up there to take our
oath of office, why was there not an exception in that oath? Why did
it not run "that we would support the Constitution of the United States
unless our State shall secede before our term was out?" Sir, there is
no such immunity. There is no way by which this can be done that I can
conceive of, except it is standing upon the Constitution of the United
States, demanding equal justice for all, and vindicating the old flag
of the Union. We must maintain it, unless we are cloven down by superior
force.
Well, sir, it may happen that you can make your way out of the Union,
and that, by levying war upon the Government, you may vindicate your
right to independence. If you should do so, I have a policy in my mind.
No man would regret more than myself that any portion of the people of
these United States should think themselves impelled, by grievances or
anything else, to depart out of this Union, and raise a foreign flag and
a hand against the General Government. If there was any just cause
on God's earth that I could see that was within my reach of honorable
release from any such pretended grievance, they should have it; but
they set forth none; I can see none. It is all a matter of prejudice,
superinduced unfortunately, I believe, as I intimated before, more
because you have listened to the enemies of the Republican party and
what they said of us, while, from your intolerance, you have shut out
all light as to what our real principles are. We have been called and
branded in the North and in the South and everywhere else, as John Brown
men, as men hostile to your institutions, as meditating an attack upon
your institutions in your own States--a thing that no Republican ever
dreamed of or ever thought of, but has protested against as often as the
question has been up; but your people believe it. No doubt they believe
it because of the terrible excitement and reign of terror that prevails
there. No doubt they think so, but it arises from false information,
or the want of information--that is all. Their prejudices have been
appealed to until they have become uncontrolled and uncontrollable.
Well, sir, if it shall be so; if that "glorious Union," as we call it,
under which the Government has so long lived and prospered, is now about
to come to a final end, as perhaps it may, I have been looking around to
see what policy we should adopt; and through that gloom which has been
mentioned on the other side, if you will have it so, I still see a
glorious future for those who stand by the old flag of the nation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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