been seized; no doubt, sir,
that act after act of war has been repeated.

"I ask you, as the representative of a brave people, what shall we
do? The question is not, shall we coerce a state? but shall we
not defend the property of the United States against all enemies,
at home and abroad, here or wherever the flag of our country floats?
Must this government submit to insult and indignity? Must it
surrender its property, its flag, its nationality? Do you, gentlemen
from Virginia, whose great statesman had so large a share in laying
the foundations of our government, desire to see it thus dishonored?
Are you ready to join excited men, who will not listen to reason;
who even spurn your patriotism as timidity; who reject your counsels,
and who would drag you as unwilling victims at the heel of their
car of juggernaut, crushing under its weight all hope of civil
liberty for ages to come? Are you aroused into madness by political
defeat?

"Sir, it was but the other day that I was told by a distinguished
citizen of an absolute monarchy--and the remark made a deep impression
on my mind--that he deplored the events now transacting around us;
that he deplored what he considered the inevitable fall of this
republic, but, said he, one good will result from it; it will stop
forever the struggle for free institutions in Europe; it will
establish upon a secure basis the existing governments of the Old
World. I felt that the remark was true. If this government cannot
survive a constitutional election; if it cannot defend its property
and protect our flag; if this government crumbles before the first
sign of disaffection, what hope is there for free institutions in
countries where kings and nobles and marshals and hereditary
institutions and laws of primogeniture have existed for ages? Sir,
when the masses of any people, inspired by the love of country,
have demanded in modern times the right of self-government, they
have been pointed to France with its revolution of 1798, to South
America, where changing republics rise and disappear so rapidly
that not ten men in this House can tell me their names, and also
to Mexico. God forbid that the despots of the Old World should
ever adorn their infernal logic by pointing to a disrupted Union
here! It is said, with a poet's license, that--

'Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell.'

"But, sir, freedom will die with the fall of this republic, and
the survivors of the calamity will fi