llification which he proclaimed to be
peaceful and within the limits of State power.

"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time
when none denied it. The phrase 'to execute the laws' General Jackson
applied to a State refusing to obey the law while yet a member of the
Union. You may make war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of
gentlemen--"

He paused and again his eagle eye swept the tiers of Northern Senators.

"You may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union;
but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the
limits of a seceded State--"

Seward leaned forward in his seat and shook his head in grave dissent.
The speaker bent his gaze directly upon his great antagonist and spoke
with strange regretful tenderness.

"A State finding herself in a condition in which Mississippi has judged
she is--in which her safety requires that she should provide for the
maintenance of her rights out of the Union--surrenders all the benefits
(and they are known to be many), deprives herself of all the advantages
(and they are known to be great), severs all the ties of affections (and
they are close and enduring) which have bound her to the Union; and thus
divesting herself of every benefit--taking upon herself every
burden--she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of
the United States within her limits.

"When Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate for her
refusal to permit the execution of the laws of the United States within
her borders, my opinion was the same then as now. Her State is
sovereign. She never delegated to the Federal Government the power to
drive her by force. And when she chooses to take the last step which
separates her from the Union, it is her right to go!--"

Another electric wave swept the crowd that burst into applause. The
speaker lifted his long arm with an impatient gesture.

"And I would not vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back into
unwilling submission. I would say to her--'God speed in the memory of
the kind associations which once existed between her and her sister
States.'

"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity--a belief that we are to
be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed
us--which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.

"You have invoked the sacred Declaration