Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1871-03-15

states.
It may be that some newspaper serib-
bier may say that am a seeessionist
becouse am suggesting legal question
to legal minds. / do not know, sir,
whether your habits Of life or thought
have led you to deeply study the prinei.
pies of law, but know that Mr.. JefEer-
son offered the Attorney GeneTalship Of
the United States 10 man who distinct
| " snd broadly laid down the doctrine
| in the first treatise that was ever writ
ten upon the Constitution of the United
States, that State had the right to Sc
cede, and that there was no power in
That was the recognized doctrine Of this
country for the first twenty years Of its
existRnee. But the same commentator
when we announced the principle,
warned his countTymen against ever at
tempting the exercise of such q power,
az I, in my humble sphere, warned my
fellow-citizens. By no act or word did
I ever encourage the exercise Of such a
power, real or presumptive.
But, sir, il shows how nice are the
lines dividing Federal and State author
| ity, and it is fot that reason that cite it.
/ As for those Southern men who after
their State had seeded, followed the
banner of their States into war, give it
as my deliberate judgment, hoping
nothing, expecting nothing, that it
would require twelve butchers for jury
and Jeffreys for judge 70 try them
] for so doing. Sir, protection and duty
are reciprocal; and when you did not
| afford protection to those Southern peO-
pie, when they were living under gov
ernment having the power to compel
their obedience and to punish their dis
/ obedience, and you had not the power
to relieve them from the consequences
of disobedience, they were no traitors.
/ They are not traitors in God Almighty's
ehancery. They are not traitors accord
/ ing to American law. They are not
traitors according to the instincts Of hu-
man nature. It was so decided by the
English courts before you were the Uni
ted States of America; and within less
than year after Pennsylvania had dis
solved her allegiance to the British
crown it was decided by the courts that
the man who adhered to Pennsylvania
against the king was not a traitor
What, hang man if he does, and hang
man II he does not! There
is no such principle Of law; there is no
such principle in moral ethics,
AKA now, in this the last time, al
though it be an imprOmptu address that
make to my brother Senator, that
expect to address them, beg them, I
beg the American people, I beg the
great engine of public opinion which
controls and governs to a great extent
public sentiment, Danish from your
minds the idea that the men Of the
S1sn you sre, sir. Their States went
out. Their States had the power to
compel obedience and to punish disobe-
dience. You did not protect them when
they were defenceless. / stand here
now, in the last mpments Of my Senator
ial life, to proclaim throughout the
length and breadth of this whole c0un-
try, North and South, 80 far as my feeble
Utterances can reach, that those gallant !
noble people were not traitors.
''Such graves as theirs are pilgrim shrines,
shrines to no code or creed confined,
The Delphian wales the Palestines,
The Meccas Of the mind"
And when your rude soldiery drive
away the humble vOtaFy who brings /
flowers to deck the graves Of the Con- /
federate soldiers, who sleep side by side 1
with your own hOnOred dead, the man /
by whose order that was done was q
traitor against the instincts of nature,
a tlaitor against the promptings which
the Almighty himself has put into his
heart; and when he stands before the
grea1 and eternal tribunal before which
we must all stand, will be adiudged BY
the eternalGod, TO be a heartless wretch.
II ne Is living now, whom he dies let
him be buried in dung-hill, and over
it let there be inscribed the words,
Here lies iDfamVp
Sir, do not say this because I was
in favor of secession. There WIS no
man here more panied and more griev-
Ell, and who disapprOved it more than
did. ] saw then the Wretehedness. and
ruin that secession was going TO bring,
not only upon their country, but particu-
larry upon the border States. But sir,
when you tell me that the descendants
Of the noble old Virginians, who did
more TO lay the foundations of this Gov
erment deep in the principles Of cOnsti-
tutional liberty, regulated by law, than
all others, are traitors, protest against
1t in behalf of the hOnOred dead, their
patriotic siTes. In behalf of their living
protest against It. In the
name of God Almighty's eternal mercy,
which is vOuchsafed in eXuberant abun-
dance to mankind, protest against
it.
Sir, not far from this place is a ceme-
terry where lie the bones ofmany of your I
soldiers; and ard did any one who ever {
visited that place read the inscription
over the gate through which he passed ? !
lhe very inscription over the gate of I
the cemetery iHRFhich you entered to &
decorate the graves Of your own dead {
was in these words: II
tOu Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread !
And GLORY guar5s v-ffF, ,soIa,,- -,,rz