John Sherman

This was done, not for fear of Lincoln, but to protect the institution of slavery, threatened by the growing sentiment of mankind.

This pretense for secession would not have been concurred in by any of the states north of South Carolina, but for the previous agitation of slavery, which had welded nearly all the slaveholding states into a compact confederacy.

If this was conceded to be a just cause for secession, our government would become a rope of sand; it would be worse than that of any South American republic, because our country is more populous, and sections of it would have greater…

It would appear that as in 1860 the exclusion of slavery from Kansas was definitely settled by the people of that state, and that as the only region open to this controversy was New Mexico, from which slavery was excluded by natural…

The gross injustice to me personally, and the irritating language of southern Members in the speakership contest, aroused my resentment, so that in the campaign of 1860 I was ready to meet the threats of secession with those of open war.

Buchanan, and the infamy of the Dred Scott decision, appeared to me conclusive evidence of the subserviency of the President and the Supreme Court to the slave power.

I felt that this insult to the north should be resented by the renewed exclusion, by act of Congress, of slavery north of the line of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes.

In a retrospect of my six years as a Member of the House of Representatives, I can see, and will freely admit, that my chief fault was my intense partisanship.

That is all we ask, and what we demand at all hazards.

If it does not do right, you will find thousands--ay, millions--in the northern states who will stand by you.

Why not let the Republican administration be inaugurated in peace and quiet?

Let us go on with the administration of the government kindly, harmoniously, hopefully, trusting in that providence of Almighty God which has thus far guided and guarded us, until this nation has become a marvel to the world.

If I have, I beg every man's pardon; because I think that violent language, calculated to stir up excitement and agitation, ought not be used in a deliberative assembly.

I know there has been a great deal of intemperance of language on this subject; but I ask, if it has been used upon our side, has it not been used upon yours?

Let us live together like a band of brothers.

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 have given my views, speaking for no other man, frankly and fearlessly, and I will stand by them now and in the future.

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…

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

You have all contributed, more or less, in perverting the public mind as to our principles and purposes.

Some of you broke down the only political organization that could compete with us, and thus gave us an easy victory.

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

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…

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

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.