Surely this mighty river will not be compelled again to wear chains.

But Nature and civilization, by solemn decree, have fixed it otherwise, marking this broad land, from Northern lake to Southern gulf, for one Country, with one Liberty, one Constitution, and one Destiny.

Exulting Rebels, whose new empire is founded on the corner-stone of Slavery, will naturally exact promises for the rendition of fugitive slaves.

Are you, who have just emancipated yourselves from this obligation, ready to renew it, and to commit again an inexpiable crime?

If you think that Rebels, flushed with success, and scorning their defeated opponents, will come to any practical terms, any terms which will not leave our commerce and all engaged in it victims of outrage, you place trust in their…

Long before the war, and especially in the discussions which preceded it, these Rebels were fiery and most unscrupulous.

The moral sense which they wanted when it began has not been enkindled since.

With such a people there is no chance of terms and conditions, except according to their lawless will.

The first surrender on our part will be the signal to a long line of surrenders, each a catastrophe.

Suppose the shameful sacrifice consummated, the impossible boundaries adjusted, and the illusive terms and conditions stipulated, do you imagine that you have obtained peace?

You may call it peace; but it will be war in disguise, ready to break forth in perpetual, chronic, bloody battle.

Such an extended inland border, over which Slavery and Liberty scowl at each other, will be a constant temptation, not only to enterprises of smuggling, but to hostile incursions, so that our country will be obliged to sleep on its arms…

The national character will be changed, and this hospitable continent, no longer the prosperous home of the poor and friendless, thronging from the Old World, will become a repulsive scene of confusion and strife, while “each new day a…

Are you so enamored of funerals, where the order of Nature is reversed, and parents follow their children to the grave, that you are willing to keep a constant carnival of Death?

But it remains to be seen whether there are not decisive considerations, distinguishing this case from every other, which will justify our Government, while recognizing the violation of Brazilian territory, and making all proper apologies…

I began by allusion to the reckless judgments of British journals, tending to excite a cry against our country; and my present object will be accomplished, if I exhibit those historic precedents which must close the British mouth, whenever…

Besides helping us to understand the government, they afford suggestions of practical importance in any future organization.

The agents of the factories, and their subordinate officers, influenced by humor or interest, decide everything arbitrarily.” And this arbitrary power seems to have prevailed wherever a factory was established.

It was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth that England began to contest the supremacy of the seas; and it was in this same reign that this domineering power began those pretensions under which neutral rights of all kinds were set at nought.

As early as 1567, Hawkins, fresh from a slave-trading voyage in the ship “Jesus,” fired at a Spanish ship in the harbor of Plymouth, and forced her to lower her flag.

The Spanish ambassador said indignantly to Elizabeth: “Your mariners rob my master’s subjects on the sea; they plunder our people in the streets of your towns; they attack our vessels in your very harbors.

Not long afterwards Admiral Drake entered the harbor of Cadiz, where he scattered, sunk, and burned an immense fleet of Spanish transports, and then did the same thing in the harbor of Lisbon.

In similar defiance of unquestionable right, the Dutch East India fleet, in 1665, which had put into Bergen in Norway, was attacked by the English in this neutral port.

Throughout the seventeenth century numerous incidents illustrate the pretensions of Great Britain; and so also in the next century. Émérigon, the famous French authority on the Law of Insurance, mentions one which deserves notice.

In 1757, a French bark, La Victoire, chased by a British privateer, sought refuge in the neutral waters of Majorca, where she anchored within pistol-shot of the shore.