over the country. There would be the Confederacy of the Lakes-perhaps the Confederacy of New England and of the Middle States.

But, sir, the veil which covers these sad and disastrous events that lie beyond a possible rupture of this Union is too thick to be penetrated or lifted by any mortal eye or hand.

Mr. President, I am directly opposed to any purpose of secession, of separation. I am for staying within the Union, and defying any portion of this Union to expel or drive me out of the Union. I am for staying within the Union and fighting for my rights-if necessary, with the sword-within the bounds and under the safeguard of the Union. I am for vindicating these rights; but not by being driven out of the Union rashly and unceremoniously by any portion of this Confederacy. Here I am within it, and here I mean to stand and die; as far as my individual purposes or wishes can go-within it to protect myself, and to defy all power upon earth to expel or drive me from the situation in which I am placed. Will there not be more safety in fighting within the Union than without it?

Suppose your rights to be violated; suppose wrongs to be done you, aggressions to be perpetrated upon you; cannot you better fight and vindicate them, if you have occasion to resort to that last necessity of the sword, within the Union, and with the sympathies of a large portion of the population of the Union of these States differently constituted from you, than you can fight and vindicate your rights, expelled from the Union, and driven from it without cercmony and without authority?

I said that I thought that there was no right on the part

t14-Vol. VI.-Orations

of one or more of the States to secede from this Union. I think that the Constitution of the thirteen States was made, not merely for the generation which then existed, but for posterity, undefined, unlimited, permanent, and perpetualfor their posterity, and for every subsequent State which might come into the Union, binding themselves by that indissoluble bond. It is to remain for that posterity now and forever. Like another of the great relations of private life, it was a marriage that no human authority can dissolve or divorce the parties from; and, if I may be allowed to refer to this same example in private life, let us say what man and wife say to each other: "We have mutual faults; nothing in the form of human beings can be perfect. Let us then be kind to each other, forbearing, conceding; let us live in happiness and peace.'

Mr. President, I have said what I solemnly believethat the dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; that they are convertible terms.

Such a war, too, as that would be, following the dissolution of the Union! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so furious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating, from the wars of Greece down, including those of the Commonwealth of England, and the Revolution of France-none, none of them raged with such violence, or was ever conducted with such bloodshed and enormities, as will that war which shall follow that disastrous event-if that event ever happens-of dissolution.

And what would be its termination? Standing armies and navies, to an extent draining the revenues of each portion of the dissevered empire, would be created; exterminating wars would follow-not a war of two nor three years, but of interminable duration-an exterminating war

would follow, until some Philip or Alexander, some Cæsar or Napoleon, would rise to cut the Gordian knot, and solve the problem of the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the dissevered portions of this Union. Can you doubt it? Look at history-consult the pages of all history, ancient or modern; look at human nature-look at the character of the contest in which you would be engaged in the supposition of a war following the dissolution of the Union, such as I have suggestedand I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that the final but perhaps distant termination of the whole will be some despot treading down the liberties of the people?— that the final result will be the extinction of this last and glorious light, which is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, to cherish hope and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner or later be advanced throughout the civilized world? Can you, Mr. President, lightly contemplate the consequences? Can you yield your self to a torrent of passion, amid dangers which I have depicted in colors far short of what would be the reality, if the event should ever happen? I conjure gentlemenwhether from the South or the North, by all they hold dear in this world-by all their love of liberty-by all their veneration for their ancestors-by all their regard for posterity-by all their gratitude to him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings-by all the duties which they owe to mankind, and all the duties they owe to themselves-by all these considerations I implore them to pause -solemnly to pause at the edge of the precipice before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken in the yawning abyss below, which will inevitably lead to certain and irretriev able destruction.

And, finally, Mr. President, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me on earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heartrending spectacle.

WEBSTER

DANIEL WEBSTER was born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, in 1782. His

father had risen to the rank of captain in the "French and Indian War." After an imperfect preparation, he graduated at Dartmouth College in 1801, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in Boston four years later. Out of regard for his father, the young man began practice near his early home, but he subsequently removed to Portsmouth, and there took a leading place in his profession. In May, 1813, he entered Congress as a Representative from New Hampshire, but being a Federalist, he was unable to exert much influence. In 1816 he gave up political life for some years, and removed to Boston, where his reputation as a lawyer soon became national. The foundation of his fame as an orator, in contradistinction to his legal eminence, may be said to have been laid by his address at Plymouth in 1820, on the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. He next delivered the address at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument in 1825, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, and then that which commemorated in 1826 the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the coincident deaths of Jefferson and John Adams. His finest subsequent speeches, outside of legislative halls, were made on the completion of the Bunker Hill monument in 1843 and at the laying of the cornerstone of the addition to the Capitol at Washington in 1851. In December, 1823, Webster returned to Congress as a Representative from Massachusetts, and his earliest speech was held to have made him the first of Congressional speakers. In 1827 he was sent from Massachusetts to the United States Senate, wherein he remained until his death, with the exception of the period of his service in the Cabinet. In January, 1830, he delivered the speech known as the "Reply to Hayne," which made him illustrious, and put him forward for twenty years as the champion of Northern sentiment regarding the nature of the Union. Throughout those decades he was continually pitted against John C. Calhoun. When the Whig party came into power in 1841, Webster was appointed Secretary of State, and he retained the post under Tyler, after his colleagues had broken with the new President and resigned. It was he who settled the boundary of Maine by the treaty negotiated with Lord Ashburton in 1842. He opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican war. The speech delivered by him on the 7th of March, 1850, in which he advocated the compromise measures proposed in that year by Henry Clay, stamped him, in