Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1859-12-30

terests of n0n-slaveholders in the slavehold-
ing States. Unless such arguments are mn
lawful there, / gee nothing in the book but
what is just, right, and proper, for the consid-
Grafton of all men who take sA interest in
these matters. Why, sir, has it come to this,
in free America, that there must be- censor
ship of the press instituted that a man can
not give currency to a book containing argu-
ments that he thinks essentially affect the rights
of whole classes of the free population of this
nation? l hope not, and believe not.
Why, sir, the great body of the statistical
information in that book, as l read it, is drawn
from the census of the United States, from
your public documents, and from the archives
of the nation. Is it improper that arguments
deduced from those sources should be address
cd to the free people of this country anywherel
If they may not be, it is the hardest argument
against the spirit of this institution that | have
seen yet. If We really have among us an in
%stitution that we arc cherishing and seeking to
spread broadcast over the land so delicate in
its texture that the free people cannot have the
information that they themselves claim, / say
again, it is fraught with an inference more fatal
to that institution than any I have heard Of
yet.
Mr.. President, I have pursued this subject
much further than l intended when / arose.
| have heard the muttering thunder of disunion
greeting my ears through all the Southern
hemisphere. All your principal papers have
already fixed upon a contingency when this
Union shall end. In some of the Southern
States, if l read Alright, proceedings are pend
ing now. having for their object an overturn-
-. 90 H. - IL o.n.ksz- -s~.
its ruins of a southern confcderacy and this
idea is brought into the halls of Congress, and
VIC are compelled to listen by the hour to
speeches filled with denunciations CT our party,
telling us that the Union is to be dissolved if
the people elect as President an honorable man,
of great predominant party, holding to princi-
pies precisely such as the old fathers of the
Government held. The Republican platform
is nothing more nor less than tie old platform,
making the landmarks of the Government as
laid down by them ; we claim to live up to
those doctrines we claim not to harm the hair
Of the head of any section of this Union and
yet we are to be told by the hour that il We
succeed in wrestling this government from
your hands, and placing a constitutional maj
in that great Office, according to the forms of
the Constitution, you will nevertheless make
this a contingency on which you will disrupt
and destroy the Government. ,7flE3
1 say to gentlemen on the other side, these
are very harsh doctrines to preach in our ears.
What, sir, are you going to play this game of
craftsmanship with us? Will you 60 into the
election with us, with q settled purpose and
design that if you win you will take all the
honorS and the e%moluments and Offices Of the
Government into your own clutes but if we
win, you will break up the establishment and
turn your backs on us? Is that the fair deal
ing to which We arc invited ? | am happy to
know that you propose to make that eOntin-
gency turn upon an event that will make it
impossible to be consummated. The Govern
mcnt, to-day, IS al in your hands, it has been
in your hands for years you are pnrtaking
of all its e~molumcnts, al its measures you
have nodded, and you have designated
the men who receive its honors.4 Year after
year youha I've done this, and men have
come here from the free States, mon holding
our opinions, we have sat here patiently, sbut
we have been deprived of all the honors Iand
e~moluments that flow from this Government,
as though we were its enemies but did We
ever complain? Not at all. I'VE did not ex-
pact that we Should share any of those favors,
unless it should be SO that our glorious princi-
pies should commend themselves to a large
majority of the people of these United States.
But, sir. if it should turn out so-and Hca-
ven only knows whether it will or nOt-I give
gentlemen now to understand, this Union will
not easily be disrupted. Gentlemen tax a.
bout it in a very busincss-like way, as though
it were a magaz,ne TO he blown up whenever
yol touch the fire to it as ii, on a given day,
at a moments warning, at your owH election,
ut any time, and in any event. you can dissolve
The bonds of this great Union DO you know,
sr, that this great fabric has been more than
eighty years in b~uiltling. and do you believe
you can destroy il in a day? l tell you. may,
sir, when you talk 50 coolly about diss0lying
2 this Union, do you know the difficulties through
: which you will lave 10 wade before that end
can be ~consummatcd? Have you reflected
th.; be:wte Ell The North and the South there are
10 mountain ranges that are impossible, and
no desert wastes which comm only divide great
nations one from another? Do you not know
that, whether we love one another or not, we
are from the same stock, speaking the same
language, and Attic ugh institutions have made
considerable difference between us. the great
Anglo-SaXon type pcrvades the whole. We
are bopnd together by great navigable rivers,
intcr,acing and linking together all the States
of this Union. I%nnumerable railroads also con-
meet Us, and an immence amount of m
binds all the parts, beside domestic relations
in a thousand ways And do you believe you
can rcnd all this assander without a struggle?
l tell you, sir, you will search history in vain
for a precedent there has been no such Gov
ernment rs this that was ever rent assunder by
any internal commotion. ] know that Poland
was broken up and divided, but it was by ex-
ternal force. We are found in the same ship T;
we are married forever, for better or for worse.
We may make our condition very uncomforta-
bic by chickering's if we will, but nevertheless
there can be no enforcement between US. There
is no way by which either one section or the
other can get out of The Union. l do not say
whether il is desirable or not. There is no
way by which it can be effected, but least Of
all on the contingency that you have spoken
of. / tell the Senator from Georgia, If you
wait until a Republican President is elected,
you will wait a day too late. Why do not you
do it now, wher, / say again, you have the
Government in your own hands Why tell
us that it is to be done when our man is elect
cd? l say TO you, Mr.. President, he would be
but a sorry Republican who, elected by a ma
jority of the votes of the American people, and
consequently backed by them, should fail to
vindicate his right to the Presidential chair
He will do it. No man at the North iseto be
intimidated by these threats Of dissolution that
are thrown into our teeth daily, and 7 ask SEN
ators on the other side, why do you do II? 1
know not what motive you can have in preach
ing the dissolution of this Union day by day.