f years had this Government in their own
keeping. They belong to the dominant majority.... Therefore, if
there is anything in the legislation of the Federal Government
that is not right, you and not we are responsible for it.... You
have had the legislative power of the country, and you have had
the executive of the country, as I have said already. You own the
Cabinet, you own the Senate, and I may add, you own the President
of the United States, as much as you own the servant upon your own
plantation. I cannot see then very clearly why it is that Southern
men can rise here and complain of the action of this
Government.... Are we the setters forth of any new doctrines under
the Constitution of the United States? I tell you nay. There is no
principle held to-day by this great Republican party that has not
had the sanction of your Government in every department for more
than seventy years. You have changed your opinions. We stand where
we used to stand, That is the only difference.... Sir, we stand
where Washington stood, where Jefferson stood, where Madison
stood, where Monroe stood. We stand where Adams and Jackson and
even Polk stood. That revered statesman, Henry Clay, of blessed
memory, with his dying breath asserted the doctrine that we hold
to-day.... As to compromises, I had supposed that we were all
agreed that the day of compromises was at an end. The most solemn
compromises we have ever made have been violated without a
_whereas_. Since I have had a seat in this body, one of
considerable antiquity, that had stood for more than thirty years,
was swept away from your statute books.... We nominated our
candidates for President and Vice-President, and you did the same
for yourselves. The issue was made up and we went to the people
upon it; ... and we beat you upon the plainest and most palpable
issue that ever was presented to the American people, and one that
they understood the best. There is no mistaking it; and now when
we come to the capitol, I tell you that our President and our
Vice-President must be inaugurated and administer the government
as all their predecessors have done. Sir, it would be humiliating
and dishonorable to us if we were to listen to a compromise [only]
by which he who has the verdict of the people in his pocket should
make his way to the Presidenti