I can join heartily with all those who made that pledge, whatever else they may think or believe about the questions that divide our people.

If we can stand by each other, if our constituents will stand by us in that emphatic declaration, I do believe the good ship that has borne us thus far on a prosperous voyage will outlive the storm.

No section and no state can, because the presidential election has gone against it, say, 'We will have this change in the constitution, or we will fire upon your flag; we will have that change in the constitution, or we will seize upon…

It is the duty of the government to suppress insurrection in a state; but in this event the military power can only be used in strict subordination to the civil authority.

If the civil authority refuse to call for such aid, or suppress the courts, the military power cannot interfere.

I know that all the gentlemen around me must deeply deplore a civil war, especially if that war shall involve the fate of this capital and the disruption of the government.

No man can contemplate the inevitable results of such a war without the most serious desire to avert it.

Let not physical force be arrayed in civil war until the last hope of peace and conciliation has been exhausted; then let each branch of the government, acting in concert with each other, perform its respective duties, though the heavens…

Let us compromise, and we will preserve the Union; civil war will be averted.' This, I know, is the earnest appeal of patriotic men in the southern states, who would gladly give their lives to stop the march of treason in those states.

How useless it is to talk about compromises, concessions, conciliation, adjustment, when, if everything was conceded, the integrity of the government may be broken up by a majority of a single state.

If we hold this Union, and all the rights it secures to us, and all the hopes we have upon it, upon the whim or will of a single state, then, indeed, it is the weakest government ever devised by man.

If a single state may destroy our nationality, then, indeed, is the wisdom of our fathers the wisdom of babes.

If it now fortifies itself by sectional animosities, if it rises from party rebellion to sectional and civil war, still it must, and will, be met with determined resistance.

Again, I say, what is the use of concession, conciliation, or compromise, when, if we yield everything you demand, you cannot say to us 'It will save us from disunion or war?' Are we not in danger of quarreling about terms of conciliation…

Can you expect this 'black Republican party,' as you please to call it, will yield to you what your northern Democratic associates dare not?

It is utterly idle to talk about any such terms of concession.

I do not believe any terms which our people could yield, and preserve their own self-respect, would satisfy South Carolina, Florida, or some of the other southern states, because they are bent upon disunion.

All the concessions we might make, all the compromises we could agree to, all the offerings of peace we could make for the salvation of the Union, would not be able to secure the desired end, if South Carolina could prevent it.

Speeches have been distorted, single sentences have been torn from their context and made to deceive and mislead.

Seward has been construed as the statement of a settled purpose to overthrow slavery in the states, although in the very paragraph itself all idea of interference by the people of the free states with slavery in the slave states is…

Nearly all of you gave birth, vitality, and victory to the Republican party, by adopting a policy you now join in condemning.

We might answer all you say by declaring that the Republican party does not propose to interfere with your constitutional rights.

Yet the baptism of misrepresentation, through which this Republican party has thus far advanced, does not excuse us from doing all in our power to produce conciliation, harmony, peace, quiet, a fair and honest adjustment of all the…

I tell you that this whole controversy was fought and won by us two years ago, and all you have to do now is to admit Kansas.

I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune.