Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-09-20

word OF tna6 speech, ana when the South
ern people came to be of the opinion that
their interest and safety required them to
withdraw from the UniOn-when they did
make that terrible blunder, as l think it
was, when they did come to that opinion
and, therefore, were inclined to shake of
the existing government and establish one
that suited them better. what right had
they to suppose that Mr.. Lincoln would
take back what he had said. and make their
land one sea of blood, devastation and
death? [Applause.l Why, my friends,
tell you that speech of Mr.. Lincoln's gave
the Southern people more encouragement
to go out of the Union than all that every
Democrat that ever lived in the State ol
Ohio ever said in the whole course of their
lives. So much for their President.
MR.. wADE's RECORD.
Now, let us come down to this gentleman
they call the Acting Vice President of the
United States, who, in this city, a few
weeks ago, was crying out for more blood.
as If this country, heaven defend us, had
not enough blood shed in the past few
years This man, who says that every
Southern leader ought to have been hung.
and that their Northern sympathiZers
ought 10 have been hung, too, and that it
was weakness on the part of the Govern
ment that they were not. What kind of a
man is he to talk that way? In 1855 in the
Senate of the United States, under the So
lemnity othiS oath, he declared, in the pres
ence of the Southern leaders-in the pres
ence of JEFF. Davis, and Toombs, and Ma
son, and the whole of them, that he, Ben
jamin F. Wade, believed at all times in the
wisdom, the econstitutionality and the pro-
priety of the Virginia resolutions of 1898
aud 1899, and put upon them, in that
speech, precisely the Calhoun interpreta-
tion-the Interpretation that in the last re-
sort each State must judge for itself both
as to whether the Constitution had been
violated, and ''of the remedy in such case"
That was precisely the platform of CAL
hOun. 1t was precisely upon that plat
torn that the South defended her
right OF secession. What did he say at the
next session of Congress? He said, that
he had before him a message of the Gov
ernor of South Carolina, and resolutions
introduced into that Legislature, as pre-
liminary steps toward dissolving the
Union. Did he raise his voice to remon-
Carolina to reconsider what she was doing,
and to stay in the Union, or did he
threaten her with the vengeance of the
General Government If she went on with
her disunion steps? Not one word of any
such thing as that, but he told her and he
told the world, these are his identical
words, THAT is action - that is, these
steps to dissolve the Union, and 81 do not
object to it," What stronger words than
these could he have used? He didn't OBJ
ject to dissolution of the Union when he
had the evidence of the steps to dissolve it
right before him in the Senate, and he was
speaking under the obligations OF his oath.
He declares before God and his country,
that he does not object to these efforts to
dissolve the Union. But now he is for
hanging all the men who took him at his
word.
And in the same speech he said:
II assail no mans motives. have pom
dered enough on the human mind and hu-
man action to know that circumstances
have much more to do with our opinions
and actions than we are generally willing
to avow. l am now Black Republican,
as you call me, imbued, l hope, with
the principles ofuniversal freedom and real
democracy-its advocate on all occasions
but if had been born OH the other side of
the line, if | had been nurtured by those
who hold principles Numerically opposite
to those | now profess, no doubt l should
have principles Numerically opposed to
those / now hold"
That is, that if he had been born in the
South he would have been just as good a
Southern man as JEFF. Davis. Again, in
that same speech, he said:
"Iet us, if we can, reconcile the Union
with the best interests of all sections and
all parties, so that thus it may endure for
ever, as l believe it may and ought. But
if other sections think otherwise, if they
find it can not be done consistently with
their interests, do not expect them to act
in opposition to their well settled convic-
tiOns of interest"
In the same speech, he said:
THAT there is a great controversy be-
tween the different States OF this Union
can not be denied. 1 do not stand here
to upbraid any man for being the advocate
of either side of that great controversy. l
know very well that it has risen among
us, Independently of the will or action of
any man of any section. It is not under
the control of any man of any section"
Then, after stating that his party had
adopted the old Declaration of Iudepend-
ence as the basis of its political movement,
aud after referring to the doctrine of the
declaration that people have the right
to throw off their ancient government and
establish one more conducive to their well
fare. and applying this to the people of the
South and their threats to dissolve the
Union, he said:
81 hold that they have this right. I will
not blame any people for exercising it
whenever they think the contingency has
come."
Thus he told JEFF. Davis to his face,
Toombs to his face, Wigfall to his face,
Mason MS IdC0-0Very one Oh GQ6Se
leaders to his face.
81 will not blame you tor destroying this
Government and erecting another more
conducive to your interests, whenever you
Not when / think, not when the Gov
thinks, not when the people think,
but whenever you think that the contiu-
gency has come. And yet this man, who
.old them he assailed no mans motive, that
if he had been born South he would have
been Just like them, who told them that they
could erect on the ruins of their Govern
nent another more conducive to their well
are,-he is the very man that, when these
people followed his advice, was the loudest
n his cries for blood, tor plumber, for con-
iscation, and for Punishment; and he is
he man whose appetite for blood is not yet
atiated. but he still goes on crying like
amished tiger for his prey, and not only
.busing those men who followed his advice,
,ut abusing the eighteen hundred thousand
Democrats of the North who never had
my opinions at all inconsistent with the
preservation of the Union.
Now, my friends, the time did come
vhen the South thought the contingency
spoken of by Mr.. Wade had arrived; that its
interests required that it should 90 out of
the Union. 1t was great mistake; fear
full blunder. 1 do not justify it. 1 never
did justify it. But the time came when
they thought so, and when they had
right to expect Mr.. Wade to stand up to his
word. They had heard him make that dec
laration, and they believed he spoke his
real sentiments. They believed that if they
seeded there would be at least one man in
the Senate of the United States, Benjamin
F. Wade, who would say, "TheY have a
right to go out. Let them depart in peace"
That is what the South thought. They had
Lincoln on their side, according to his
speech, and they had Wade ON their side, |
and they had Chief Justice Chase, and they
had Mr.. Edwin M. Stanton, who, accord |
ing to ALBERT G. Brown, of Mississippi,
even after Mississippi had seeded, told him
she had done right, and not to let her back
down. They had all these men, all these