se to
do? They will have their courts still; they will have their ballot-boxes
still; they will have their elections still; they will have their
representatives upon this floor still; they will have taxation and
representation still; they will have the writ of _habeas corpus_ still;
they will have every privilege they ever had and all we desire. When the
confederate armies are scattered; when their leaders are banished from
power; when the people return to a late repentant sense of the wrong
they have done to a Government they never felt but in benignancy and
blessing, then the Constitution made for all will be felt by all,
like the descending rains from heaven which bless all alike. Is that
subjugation? To restore what was, as it was, for the benefit of the
whole country and of the whole human race, is all we desire and all we
can have.

* * * * *

I tell the Senator that his predictions, sometimes for the South,
sometimes for the Middle States, sometimes for the Northeast, and then
wandering away in airy visions out to the far Pacific, about the dread
of our people, as for loss of blood and treasure, provoking them to
disloyalty, are false in sentiment, false in fact, and false in loyalty.
The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. Five hundred million
dollars! What then? Great Britain gave more than two thousand million
in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at one time
almost single-handed against the world. Five hundred thousand men! What
then? We have them; they are ours; they are the children of the country.
They belong to the whole country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and
there are many of us who will give them all up before we will abate one
word of our just demand, or will retreat one inch from the line which
divides right from wrong.

Sir, it is not a question of men or of money in that sense. All the
money, all the men, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause.
When we give them, we know their value. Knowing their value well, we
give them with the more pride and the more joy. Sir, how can we retreat?
Sir, how can we make peace? Who shall treat? What commissioners? Who
would go? Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line? Where
the end of the principles we shall have to give up? What will become of
constitutional government? What will become of public liberty? What
of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall we sink into the
insign