Year: 1864




tifcation, growing out of defeat in a partisan
struggle, and the elevation of a party to power
that we firmly believed to be dangerous to the
/ country-dO not let that convert you from pa
triots into traitors to your native land. Long
continued applause.] Whenever our govern
ment is assailed-when hostile armies march,
ing under new and odious banners against the
government of our country, the shortest way to
peace is the most stupendOus preparation for
war. Tremendous applause. The greater
! the unanimity the less blood will be she'd
! Much applause. The more prompt and ener-
| getic the movement and the more imposing 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 causeis his own. There
is and should not be anything disagreable or
humiliating to men who have differed, in times
Of peace, on every question that could divide fell
/ lOW-men, to rally in concert in defence of the
country and against all assailants. While all
the States of the UniOn and every citizen of eY-
/ cry State has priceless legacy dependent upon
! the success ofOur efforts to maintain this Gov
ernment, we in the great Valley of the Mssssp-
| pi have peculiar interests and inducements to
/ the struggle What is the attempt now being
made? Seven States of the Union chose to de-
clare that they will no longer obey the constitu-
| ton Of the United States that they will with
| draw from the government established by our
]
| sent, the bonds that have united US together
But, not content with that, they proceed to in
wade and Obstruct our dearest and most inalien-
able rights secured by the constitution. One of
their first acts is to establish battery of canon
upon the banks of the Mississippi, on the divi-
ding line between the States of Mississippi and
Tennessee, and require every steamer that passes
/ down the river to come to under their guns to
| receive custom house officer on board to pre-
scribe where the boat may land, and upon what
terms it may put out barrel Of -four and a cask
of bacon.


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 au-
thOrize the New England States and New York
and Pennsylvania to exclude us from the Allan
tic, and Pacific States to exclude us from the
ports of that ocean. Whenever you sanction
this doctrine Ofsecessiony you authorize the States
bordering upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
to withdraw from US, form alliances among them
selves and exclude us from the markets of the
world and from communication with all the rest
of Christendom Not only this butthere follows
tariff on imports, leYying taxes upon every
pound of tea and coffee and sugar, and every
yard of cloth that we may import for our con-
sumption; the levying, too, of an export duty
upon every bushel of corn and 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 boisterons in
their demands for free trade, have, among their
first acts established an export duty on cotton
for the first time in American history


It is historical fact, well knowntO every man
VINO has read the debates of the Convention which
framed the constitution, that theSouthern States
refused to become parties to the constitution un-
[ was IN in ha cfi
tuition prohibiting Congress to levy an export
duty on any product of the country. No sooner
had these cotton States seeded than an export
duty is levied; and if they will levy it on their
own cotton do you not think they will levy it on
our pork, aud our beef and our corn, and our
wheat and Ourmanufac articles and all we
have to SELF Then what is the prOpOsitiOn2 It
is to enable the tier Of States bordering on the
Atlantic and the Pacific, and on the Gulf, sur
rounding US on all sides, to withdraw from our
Union-form alliances among themselves and
then levy taxes upon US without our consentand
collect revenue without giving US any just pro-
portion or any portion Of the amount collected.
Can we submit to taxation without representa-
tation7 TSeveral voices, emo Can we per-
init 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
basin Of the Rocky Mountains and the Alegha-
nies, in the valleys of the Ohio, Mississippi and
Missouri to tell me whether he is willing to sane
tion a line of policy that may isolate us from the
markets Of the world, and make us dependent
provinces upon powers that thus choose to sur
round and hem us in2 Many voices "nO" and
f'neTer."1


warn you, my countrymen, whenever you per-
nit 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 our
products are expOrted-Will not long be able to
! Iraqi qicff 1n of of
people in the great West when she can mOnopO-
lie the resources and relaese her own people
thereby from any taxation whatsoever. Hence
say to you, my countrymen, from the best con-
sideratiOn have been able to give to this sub
ject, after the most mature reflection and thor
ough investigation, have arrived at the conclu-
sion that, come what may, war, If it must be-
although deplore it as a great calamity yet,
come what may, the people of the Mississippi
Valley can never consent to be excluded from
free access to the ports of the Atlantic, the Pa
cifc and the Gulf Of Mexico. Great applause.


Hence repeat that Whileam not prepared to
take up arms OF to sanction war upon the rights
of the Southern States, upon their domestic in
stitutiOns, upon their rights ofperson and prop
erty, but on the contrary, would rush to their de-
fense and protect them from assault, l will new
er cease to urge my countrymen to take up arms
and fight to the death in defense of our indefeas-
ible rights. (Long gcontinuedapplause. Hence
if war does come, it viii be war OF self defense
of our own just rights in defense of the govern
ment which we have inherited as a priceless le-
gacy from our patriotic fathers in defense of
those great rights Of the freedom Of trade, COM
merce, transit and intercourse from the center
to the circumference of our great continent
These are rights we can never surrender.


1 have struggled almost against hope to avert
the calamites Of warand to effect reunion and
a reconciliation with our brethren of the South
yet hope it may be done, but am unable to
T point out how it may be effected. Nothing
short Of Providence can reveal to us the issue of
this great struggle. Bloody-calamitous- fear
it will be. May we so conduct it If collision
must come, that we may stand justified in the
eyes of Him who knows our hearts, and who will
Judge our every act. We must not yield to SEN
timents, nor to the spirit Of vengeance much less
to the desire for conquest or ambition.


! see no path of ambition open in a bloody war
for triumph over my own countrymen. There
is no path for ambition open for me in divided
country, after having so longserved unitedand
glorious country. Hence whatever we may do
must be the result of conviction, of patriotic du-
! ty-the duty that we owe to ourselves, to our
posterity and to the friends of constitutional
] liberty rtyandselfgOvernmentthroughoutthe and world.