Year: 1861

ject of slavery in the Territories, will not
save the Union. The opinions of parties
and sections on that question have become
dOgmatical, and il is this circumstance that


has produced the existing alienation. A
truce, at least during the debate on the I'm
ion, is essential to reconciliation.


The Union cannot be saved by proving
that secession is illegal or unconstitutional.
Persons bent on that fea ul step will not
stand long enough on forms of law to be
dislodged, and loyal men do not need such
narrow ground to stand upon.


fear that little more will be gained from
discussing the rights OF the Federal Gov
ernment to coerce seeding States into
obedience. If disunion is to go on, this
question will give place TO the more prac-
tical one, whether many seeding States


have right to cOerce the remaining men,


bers to acquiesce in dissolution.


| dread, as i'll my inmOst soul abhor,
/ civil war. l do not know what the union
/ would be worth if saved by the use Of the
sword. Yet, for all this, l do not agree
/ with those who, with desire to avert the
/ great calamity, advise a conventional or
! unopposed separation, with a view to what
| they call a reconstruction and secondly,
/ that the strength of the vase in which the
/ hopes of the nation are held consists chiefly
in its remaining unbroken.


/ Congressional compromises are not likely
to save the Union. | know, indeed, that


tradition favors this form of remedy. But
! it is essential to success, in any case, that
there be found a preponderating mass of
citizens, so far neutral on the issues that
separate parties, that they can intervene,
strike down clashing weapons, and compel
an accommodation. Moderate concessions
q 20 rjl V ra1 bU n
its guns in battery nor are liberal conces-
sions apt to be given by an opposing force
not less confident of its own right and its
own strength. l think, also, that there is a
prevailing conviction that legislative COM
promises which sacrifice honestly cherished
principles, while they anticipate future
exigencies even if they do not assume ex-
Unconstitutional powers, are less sure to
avert imminent evils than they are certain
to produce ultimately even greater dangers.


Indeed, Mr.. President, I think it will be
wise to discard two prevalent ideas or pre-
judices namely: first, that the nion is to
be saved by anybody in particular, and sec
ondly, that it is to be saved by some cum
ming and insincere compact Of pacihcation.
If remember rightly, said something like
this here SO long ago as 1850, and after
wards in 1854.


The present danger discloses itself in this
form. Disseminated citizens have obtained
political power in certain States, and they
are using this authority to overthrow the
Federal Government They delude them
selves with the belief that the State power
they have acquired enables them to dis
charge themselves of allegiance to the whole
Republic. The honorable Senator from
Illinois (Mr. Douglas) says we have g right
to coerce a State, but we cannot. The
President says that no State has a right to
secede. bus we have no constitutional power
to make war against State. The dilem-
ma results from an assumption that those
who, in such a case, act against the Federal
Government act lawfully as a State; al
though, manifestly, they have perverted the
power of the State to an unconstitutional
purpose. y class of politicians in New
England set up this theory aud attempted to
practice upon it in our war with Great
Britain. MIR Jefferson did not hesitate to
say that States must be kept within their
constitutional sphere by impulsion, if they
could not be held there by attraction. Sc
cession was then held to be inadmissble in
the face of public enemy. But if it is un-
tenable in one case, it is necessarily so in
all others. fully admit the originality,
the sovereignty, and the independence of the
several States within their sphere But |
hold the Federal Government to be equally
original, sovereign, and independent within
its sphere. And the government of the
State can no more absOlved the people
siding whiting it's limits from allegiance to
the Union, than the Government of the I'M


ion can absolve them from allegiance to the
State. The Constitution of the United
States and the laws made in pursuance
thereof, are the supreme law of the land,
paramount to all legislation of the States,
whether made under the Constitution, or
even by their organic conventions. The
Union can be dissolved not by secession,


with or without armed force, but only by
the voluntary consent of the people of the
United States, collected in the manner pre-
scribed by the Constitution of the United
States.


Congress, in the present case, ought not
to be impassive. 1t ought if it can, to re-
dress any real grievances of the offended
States, and then it ought to supply the Pres
ident with all the means necessary to main
tain the Union in the full exhibition and
discreet exercise of its authority. Beyond
| this, with the proper activity on the part of
the Executive, the responsibility of saving


the Union belongs to the people, and they


are abundantly competent to discharge it.
l propose, therefore, with great Difference,


10 address myself to the country upon the


momentous subject, asking hearing, not
less from the people within what are called
the seeding, than from those who reside


within the adhering States.


Union is an old, fixed, settled habit of the


American people, resulting from convictions


of its necessity, and therefore not likely to
be hastily discarded. The early States,


while existing as colonies, were combined,


though imperfectly, through a common al
| legiance to the British Crown. When that
allegiance ceased, no one was SO presump-


tuous as to suppose political existence COM


patible with disunion aud, therefore, on


the same day that they declared themselves
independent, they proclaimed themselves
also confederated States. Experience in


war and ia peace from l776 until 1889,
/ only convinced them of the necessity of con-


verting that loose Confederacy into more


perfect and perpetual Union. They acted


with a GOODNESS very different from the in


temperate conduct of those who now on one
side threaten, and those who on the other