Year: 1861

and unanimous preparation for war. Ire.
mendous applause. The greater the una.
nimity the less blood will be shed. Much
applause. The more prompt and energetic
the movement, and the more important it is
in numbers, the shorter will be the struggle.


Every friend of freedom. every champion
and advocate of constitutional liberty
throughout the land must feel that this
cause is his own, and that there is and
should be nothing that ought to be disa.
greeable or humiIiating to men who have
differed 10 times of peace on every question
that could divide fellow men, to rally in un.
ion in defence of the country and against
all assailants. While all the States of this
Union, and every citizen of every State
has priceless legacy dependent upon the
success of our efforts to maintain this gov
ernment, we, in the great valley of the Mis-
sissippi, have peculiar interests and induce
ments to the struggle. What is the at.
tempt now being made? Seven States of
this Union chose to declare that they will
no longer obey the behest of the United
States, that they will withdraw from the
government established by our fathers, that
they will dissolve, without our consent, the
bonds that have united us together. But,
not content with that, they proceed to in.
wade and obstruct our dearest and most in
alienable rights, secured by the Constitu-
tion. One of their first acts is to establish
a battery of cannon upon the banks of the
Mississippi, on the dividing line between
the States of Mississippi and Tennessee,
and require every steamer that passes down
the river to come under gun, to receive
custom house officer on board, to prescribe
where the boat may land, and upon what
terms it may put out barrel of -four or
cask of bacon-upon the river and upon
the borders of these States to cut of our
freedom of trade.


We are called upon to sanction this
policy. Before consenting to their right to
commit such acts, implore you to consider
that the same principle which will allow the
Cotton States to exclude US from the ports
of the Gulf, would authorize the New Eng
land States and New York and Pennsyl-
vania to exclude US from the Atlantic, and





ports OF that ocean. Whenever you sanction
this doctrine of secession, you authorize the
States bordering upon the Atluntlc and
Pacific oceans to withdraw from US, form
alliances among themselves, and exclude US
from the markets of the world and from
communication with all the rest of Christen.
dom. Not only this, but there follows a
tariff on imports, levying of taxes on every
pound of tea and coffee and sugar, and every
yard of cloth that we may import for our
consumption the levying too, ofany export
duty upon every pound of meat we may
choose to send to the markets of the world
to pay for our imports.


Bear in mind that these very cotton
States, who in former times have been so
boister0us in their demands for free trade,
have among their first acts established an
export duty on cotton for the first time in
American history.


1t is historical fact, we known to every
man who has read the debates of the con-
vention which framed the constitution, that
the southern states refused to become par
ties to the constitution unless there was an
express provision in the constitution pro-
bibiting Congress to levy an export duty on
any product of the earth. No sooner have
these cotton states seeded than an export
duty is levied ; and if they will levy it on
their cotton do you not think they will levy
it on our pork, and our beef. and our corn,
and our wheat, and our manufactured arti-
cles, and all we have to sell? Then what
is the proposition? 1t is to enable the tier
of states bordering on the Atlantic and the
Pacific, and on the Gulf, surrounding us on
all sides, to withdraw from our Union
form alliance among themselves and then
levy taxes on US without our consent, and
collect revenue without giving us any just
proportion or part of all of the amount
collected. Can we submit to taxation
without representation Can we permit
nations foreign to US to collect revenues off
our products-the fruits of our industry
l ask the citizens OF Illinois ask every
citizen in the great basin between the Rocky
Mountains and the Alleghanies; in the val~
leys of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri,
to tell me whether be is willing to sanction
line of policy that may isolate US from the
markets of the world and make us depend
ent provinces upon powers that thus choose
to isolate us? Many voices "no," and
never"


warn you, my countrymen, whenever
you permit this to be done in the Southern
States, New York will very soon follow
their example. New York, that great port,
where two.thirds of all our revenue is COL
lected, and whence two. thirds of our goods
are exported, will not long be able to resist
the temptation Of taxing fifteen millions of
people in the great West when she can
monopolize the resources and release her
own people thereby. from any taxation
whatsoever. Hence l say to you, my coun-
trymen, from the best consideration have
been able to give to this subject, after the
most mature reflection and thorough inves-
tigation, have arrived at the conclusion
that, come what may, war, if it must be,
although deplore it as great calamity,
yet, come what may, the people OF the Mis-.