“I will not pretend to justify, because I think there is much to be forgiven on either side.  But if anything can palliate the act, it is that system of determined hostility which for years has been levelled against an institution which they believe to be righteous and founded upon divine precept.  But I think this is not the hour for justification or for crimination.  I am convinced that the integrity of the Union can only be preserved by withholding the armed hand at this crisis.  And pray Heaven, our government may forbear to strike!”

“Would you, then, have our flag trampled upon with impunity, and our government confessed a cipher, because, forsooth, you have a constitutional repugnance to the severities of warfare?  Away with such sickly sentimentality!  Such theories, if carried into practice, would reduce us to a nation of political dwarfs and puny drivellers, fit only to grovel at the footstools of tyrants.”

“I could better bear an insult to our flag than a deathblow to our nationality.  And I feel that our nationality would not survive a struggle between the sections.  There is no danger that we should be dwarfed in intellect or spirit by practising forbearance toward our brothers.”

“Is treason less criminal because it is the treason of brother against brother?  If so, then must a traitor of necessity go unpunished, since the nature of the crime requires that the culprit be your countryman.  How hollow are your arguments when applied to existing facts!”

“You forget that I counsel moderation as an expediency, as even a necessity, for the public good.  It were poor policy to compass the country’s ruin for the sake of bringing chastisement upon error.”

“That can be but a questionable love of country that would humiliate a government to the act of parleying with rebellion.”

“My love of country is not confined to one section of the country, or to one division of my countrymen.  The lessons of the historic past have taught me otherwise.  If, when a schoolboy, poring over the pages of my country’s history, I have stood, in imagination, with Prescott at Bunker Hill, and stormed with Ethan Allen at the gates of Ticonderoga, I have also mourned with Washington at Valley Forge, and followed Marion and Sumter through the wilds of Carolina.  If I have fancied myself at work with Yankee sailors at the guns, and poured the shivering broadside into the Guerriere, I have helped to man the breastworks at New Orleans, and seen the ranks that stood firm at Waterloo wavering before the blaze of Southern rifles.  If I have read of the hardy Northern volunteers on the battle-plains of Mexico; I remember the Palmetto boys at Cherubusco, and the brave Mississippians at Buena Vista.  Is it a wonder, then, that my heartstrings ache when I see the links breaking that bind me to such memories?  If I would have the Government parley awhile for the sake of peace, even although the strict law sanction the bayonet and cannon, I