PRESIDENT AND SENATORS:
The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the
Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have
for long years been sowing dragons' teeth, and have finally got a crop
of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact
in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of your
confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly, confronted public
danger, and she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her
greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sister
States, under like circumstances, consider her cause as their cause; and
I charge you in their name to-day, "Touch not Saguntum." It is not only
their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy and will
receive the support of tens and hundreds of thousands of honest
patriotic men in the non-slave-holding States, who have hither-to
maintained constitutional rights, and who respect their oaths, abide by
compacts, and love justice. And while this Congress, this Senate, and
this House of Representatives, are debating the constitutionality and
the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious
authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large
portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly
and calmly voting what you call revolution--ay, sir, doing better than
that: arming to defend it.
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