JOHN PARKER HALE,
OF NEW HAMPSHIRE (BORN 1806, DIED 1873.)
ON SECESSION; MODERATE REPUBLICAN OPINION;
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, DECEMBER 5, 1860.
MR. PRESIDENT:
I was very much in hopes when the message was presented that it would be
a document which would commend itself cordially to somebody. I was not
so sanguine about its pleasing myself, but I was in hopes that it would
be one thing or another. I was in hopes that the President would have
looked in the face the crisis in which he says the country is, and that
his message would be either one thing or another. But, sir, I have read
it somewhat carefully. I listened to it as it was read at the desk; and,
if I understand it--and I think I do--it is this: South Carolina has
just cause for seceding from the Union; that is the first proposition.
The second is, that she has no right to secede. The third is, that we
have no right to prevent her from seceding. That is the President's
message, substantially. He goes on to represent this as a great and
powerful country, and that no State has a right to secede from it; but
the power of the country, if I understand the President, consists in
what Dickens makes the English constitution to be--a power to do nothing
at all.
Now, sir, I think it was incumbent upon the President of the United
States to point out definitely and recommend to Congress some rule
of action, and to tell us what he recommended us to do.
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