Opis: Speech of Hon. - Benjamin J. P.

Excerpt from Speech of Hon.: J. P, Benjamin, of Louisiana, on the Right of Secession, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, Dec, 31, 1860

I say her sword, because I am not one of those who believe in the possibility of a peaceful disruption of the Union. It cannot conic until all possible means of conciliation have been exhausted; it cannot come until every angry passion shall have been rinsed; it cannot come until brotherly feeling shall have been converted into deadly hate; and then, sir, with feelings embittered by the consciousness of injustice, or passions high-wrought and inflamed, dreadful will be the internecine war that must ensue.

"Mr. President, among what I consider to be the most prominent dangers that now exist, is the fact that the leaders of the Republican party at the North have succeeded in persuading the masses of the North that there is no danger. They have finally so wrought upon the opinion of their own people at home by the constant iteration of the same false statements and the same false principles, tiiat the people of the North cannot be made to believe that the South is in earnest, not withstanding its calm and resolute determination which produces the quiet so ominous of evil if ever the clouds shall burst. The people of the North are taught to laugh at the danger of dissolution. One honorable Senator is reported to have said, with exquisite amenity, that the South could not be kicked out of the Union. The honorable Senator from New York says:

"The slaveholders, in spite of alt their threats, are bound to it by the same bonds, and they are bound to it also by a bond peculiarly their own - that of dependence on it for their own safety. Three million slaves are a hostile force constantly in their presence, in their ter'y midst. The servile war i9 always the most fearful form of war. The world without sympathizes with the servile enemy. Against that war the American Union is the only defence of the slaveholders - their only protection. If ever they shall, in a season of madness, recede from that Union, and provoke that war, they will - soon come back again.'

"The honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] indulges in the repetition of a figure of rhetoric that seems peculiarly to please bis ear and tickle his fancy. He represents the southern mother as clasping her infant with convulsive aud closer embrace, because the black avenger, with uplifted dagger, would be at the door, and he tells 113 that is a bond of Union which we dare-not violate."

Mr. President, no man can deny that the words uttered four years and a half ago form a faithful picture of the state of things that we see around us now. "Would to God, sir, that I could believe that the apprehensions of civil war, then plainly expressed, were but the vain imaginations of a timorous spirit. Alas, sir, the feelings and sentiments expressed since the commencement of this session, on the opposite side of this floor, almost force the belief that a civil war is their desire; and that the day is full near when American citizens are to meet each other in hostile array; and when the hands of brothers will be reddened with the blood of brothers.

Mr. President, the State of South Carolina, with a unanimity scarcely with parallel in history, has dissolved the union which, connects her with the other States of the confederacy, and declared herself independent. We, the representatives of those remaining States, stand here to-day, bound either to recognize that independence, or to overthrow it; either to permit her peaceful secession from the confederacy, or to put her down by force of arms. That is the issue. That is the sole issue. No artifice can conceal it. No attempts by men to disguise it from their own consciences, and from an excited or alarmed public, can suffice to conceal it. Those attempts are equally futile and disingenuous. As for the attempted distinction between coercing a State, and f

Szczegóły: Speech of Hon. - Benjamin J. P.

Nazwa: Speech of Hon. J. P, Benjamin, of Louisiana, on the Right of Secession, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, Dec, 31, 1860 (Classic Reprint)
Autor: Benjamin J. P.
Wydawnictwo: FB &c Ltd
Kod paskowy: 9781330924723
Języki: angielski
Ilość stron: 22
Format: 15.2x22.9cm
Oprawa: Miękka

Recenzje: Speech of Hon. - Benjamin J. P.