disposed to reject a
cardinal dogma of theirs (the secessionists), namely, that the Federal
Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience by
conquest, although he were disposed to question that proposition. But
in fact the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial
or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and
insurrectionary members of the State." * * * This Federal republican
system of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is
most unfitted for such a labor. This, sir, was on the 10th of April, and
yet on that very day the fleet was under sail for Charleston. The
policy of peace had been abandoned. Collision followed; the militia were
ordered out; civil war began.

Now, sir, on the 14th of April, I believed that coercion would bring on
war, and war disunion. More than that, I believed what you all believe
in your hearts to-day, that the South could never be conquered--never.
And not that only, but I was satisfied--and you of the Abolition party
have now proved it to the world--that the secret but real purpose
of the war was to abolish slavery in the State. * * * These were my
convictions on the 14th of April. Had I changed them on the 15th, when I
read the President's proclamation, * * *

I would have changed my public conduct also. But my convictions did not
change. I thought that, if war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was
equally disunion on the 15th, and at all times. Believing this, I
could not, as an honest man, a Union man, and a patriot, lend an active
support to the war; and I did not. I had rather my right arm were
plucked from its socket and cast into eternal burnings, than, with
my convictions, to have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral
perjury. Sir, I was not taught in that school which proclaims that "all
is fair in politics." I loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable maxim.
* * * Perish office, perish honors, perish life itself; but do the thing
that is right, and do it like a man.

Certainly, sir; I could not doubt what he must suffer who dare defy the
opinions and the passions, not to say the madness, of twenty millions of
people. * * * I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God that not
the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is upon my garments. Sir,
I censure no brave man who rushed patriotically into this war; neither
will I quarrel with any one, here or elsewhere, who gave to it an honest
support. H