Year: 1859

We invite the earnest attention of our reaC


ers to the following extracts from the speec


recently made by Senator Hale in reply to tn
threats Of the fre-eaters that they would dis


solve the Union if Republican should b


elected President in 1860. Mr.. Hale handle
/ them without gloves, and replies as freeman


should to such dastardly brow-beatihg. Reat


his remarks


We are not union of States the FREE
States are subject provinces, and our people dt


not choose President They but perform al


idle ceremony. You sit there, according tt
| the enunciation made this morning, the repre-


sentatives of fifteen States, and you proclaim
+! to majority of this Union that if they dare


to exercise their prerogative and choose a Pres
ident representing the views which they enter
tains land the supposition presupposes they are
the-Sfews of majority of the people of these
| United States, or else they could not elect a
President,) you will dissolve the Union. You
substantially, by this declaration, declare that


this is an idle mockery, delusion, and de-


ception. 1t is no choice you people of the


free States or of the non-slavehoding States


if that is phraseolOgy suiting any ear better
you are not part of the sovereign power


of this Confederacy you occupy to US the po-
sition that the old French parliament did their
monarch. He made the DEGREES the preroga-
tive of the parliament was to register them
that was all. They call that parliament
They call that government of law. The
Senator from California speaks to us as if there
had been an appeal to us. I do not consider
it so. l rather consider it as forewarning of
Of E,o4 I.f
known and cannot be known too soon


This is the remedy, sir. | am glad to hear
it. The remedy is that a majority of these
United States must surrender, give up their
convictions, forbear, in the exercise of the high
est functions with which God ever endowed
freemen, to let their ballots speak the senti-
ments of their understandings and of their
hearts; stiie everything that is manly in them,
if by chance they ever got anything of that
sort there, and go to the polls next fall and to
go through the idle ceremony of voting when
it is already foregone conclusion, that if they
do not register your DEGREES, the Union is to
be dissolved. Sir, it is dissolved now, if that
is the state of the case; it is not Uuion we
are not co-States, we are not here the represell-
tatives of sovereign States, or of States having
any political right we ere here simply to reg
lister your DEGREES no, sir, not that, but our
people are to come together in the fall of 1860
and register the solemn DEGREES that shall be
made for them by the slaye-holding states of
the Union.


- X Il


1t seems that it was a fiction, then-a pleas
ant political fiction. which has been indulged
in by some writers and speakers-that this is
Il C6nfederaey of e9aHi States. Why, sir how
idle is the idea of any equality, when we are
told beforehand that if we exercise the right
guaranteed 10 us by the Constitution in all its
forms and in all its parts, and vote for the man
whom we prefer, and succeed in consummating
our wishes through the forms of the Constitu-
ton, then the Government is at an end So
be ii, sir, so be it.


] recollect an eastern tale which may serve
as an illnstration and TRUST that the story is
not below the dignity of the occasion. 1t Is I
said that eastern monarch, distrusting his |
physician, had determined to put him to death. /
The physician begged hard for his life, but it |
was of no avail. AT last he said . If YOU
insist upon putting me to death, | have only !
Dne request to make, and that is that my dis
severed head may be put in basin of water.
and then it will answer any question that you |
NAV put to it, The monarch replied "If !
| had any doubt about taking your life before, |
I have none now, for 1 want to try that exper-
iment." Sir, want to try that experiment,
and l want to see whether | am the represen- /
tative on this floor of such craven slaves that !
they can be driven from their convictions, and i
The exercise of their high franchise, by the an
nur citation that if they do it this Union is to
be dissolved Sir, it is no Union to them
this Government is nothing but badge of op-
precision and degradation and of humiliation, !
if such be the tenure by which We hold our
places in this conlederacy.


Is this an appeal that is made to us? 1t is
not an appeal to us as freemen, not repre-
of free States, not as men. If you
us or our constituents, you could not
make such an appeal. 1t is not an appeal to
be made to men, or to freemen. 1t does not
address itself to our reason, but to our fears.
l know it has been said, sometimes repreach-
fully, that the only way to appeal to us, is Ell
ther to address our fears or our pockets. This
declaration to-day, made upon the floor of the
Senate, is based upon the idea that there is
nothing manly, nothing patriotic, nothing that
spurns degradation, in ourselves or in the peo-
pie whom we represent


Sir, if Senators think that is the way this
difficulty is to be solved, it is not for me to
thank them for the warning; and
l ask them if they felt any sort of interest to
know how it is received by the people of the
free States, to read the returns that will come
from the next election and ascertain how many


-
called. 1t is not for to stand here and
make professions, because they are discredited
just as fast as they are made, and l have none
to make but, l will say this-I do not know
whether l shall get credit for my sincerity in
it-I have declared again and again that de-
sire the Union of these States to be perpetual.
desire it to be perpetual as a Union of equal
States but if l stand here representing peo-
pie who will quail before the announcement
that the exercise of their honest convictions is
to work a dissolution of the Union, and if
thought that such an intimation as that would
frighten one of our women from the course of
her duty in the approaching crisis, which is to
be solved by the result of the next presidential
election, would scorn to represent them.


X X


But, sir, if l could without arrogance or
presumption make an appeal to gentlemen who
believe that dark clouds hang over us. and that
the future is portentous of evil, l would ask
them if they really believe that this is the
way to deal with such state Of things. Gen
telnen have told us, over and over again, that


the danger of a dissolution of this Union is
imminent. Sir, if it is not only imminent, but
desirable, beg gentlemen not to indulge in
this strain of remark. think, and believe


history justifes me in it-other gentlemen can


speak for themselves-that l represent a peo-


pie that cannot be driven. They are few but


when they were much fewer than they are now,


when they were not one half in number what