De Alexander

Union is not more the body than liberty is the soul of the nation.

I feel sure that the hour has not come for this great nation to fall.

Whatever sacrifices, private or public, shall be needful for the Union, they will be made.

Still my faith in the Constitution and in the Union abides.

He discussed the fallacies of secession, showing that it had no grounds, or even excuse, and declaring that disunion must lead to civil war.

Is there one who will deny that we have equally paid in their purchases, and equally bled in their acquisition in war?

Is there a senator upon the other side who to-day will agree that we shall have equal enjoyment of the territories of the United States?

I prefer it, as I prefer an open to a secret foe.

I prefer direct to indirect hostile measures which will produce the same result.

You elect a candidate upon the basis of sectional hostility; one who, in his speeches, now thrown broadcast over the country, made a distinct declaration of war upon our institutions....

You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union.

Finally, turning to the Republicans, he said: "Your platform on which you elected your candidate denies us equality.

I believe that the cause of secession was as strong, on the night of November 6, when the President and Vice President were elected, as it has been at any time.

He understood the value of silence and the necessity of thought before utterance.

The Republican party to-day is as uncompromising as the secessionists in South Carolina.

It is strange enough that the man who wrote as a dictator of public opinion in the Tribune on the 9th of November could write two days later the letter to Seward, dissolving the political firm of Seward, Weed, and Greeley.

It desired peace, was quick to co-operate, and ready to conciliate, but its purpose to preserve free territory for free labour remained fixed and unalterable.

For months it must have been apparent to every one that the party of Lincoln would not yield the cornerstone of its principles.

So faded and died the last great effort for compromise and peace.

Chief among these principles is the restriction of slavery within State limits; not war upon slavery within those limits, but fixed opposition to its extension beyond them.

We must have the arbitration of reason, or the arbitrament of the sword." Amaziah B.

I am not prepared to humble the general government at the feet of the seceding States.

Why should we love a government that has no dignity and no power?

Why should we preserve it, if it would be the thing these gentlemen would make it?

I have venerated Andrew Jackson, and my blood boiled, in old time, when that brave patriot and soldier of Democracy said--'the Union, it must and shall be preserved.' (Loud applause.) Preserve it?