faction to your people; and to reconcile them to each
other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which
reconciles them to British government.

The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. I mean
to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a
material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply
concession on the one part or on the other. In this state of things I
make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate
from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect
or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power
may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such a
power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak
are the concessions of fear. When such an one is disarmed, he is wholly
at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those
chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and
resources of all inferior power.

The leading questions on which you must this day decide, are these two:
First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession
ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained some ground.
But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed,
Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these
great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be
necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar
circumstances of the object which we have before us; because after all
our struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according
to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our own
imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right.

America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth
fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of
gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of
means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the
military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who
wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the efficacy
of arms. But I confess my opinion is much more in favor of prudent
management than of force. The use of force alone is but temporary. It
may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of
subduing again; and a nation is not go