During the period of greatest adversity, in the hour of gloom and defeat, the State Rights Democracy had no cause to complain of my fealty.  We struggled together, fell together, rose together, and to them I am indebted for whatever of consideration or position I possess.  Endeared to me by our common suffering; grateful to them for the steadfast support with which they have honored me, accustomed to refer with pride to my identity with them, it would have been strange indeed, if when separated from them under circumstances which turned any eyes, with more than ordinary anxiety towards my home, I should then have sought an occasion to heap reproachful language upon them.

Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who sought to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their own, and to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction of the government we inherited.  As one of the State Rights party, I deny that the language published is a picture of me or my class, and I have as little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate myself from the body of the party, with which I have so long acted, which I rejoice to see in power at home, and daily more and more respected in the other States.

I have thus defined who were not meant, and will now tell who were meant.  Firsts they were the noisy agitators who were constantly disturbing the public peace and proclaiming that slavery is so great an evil, that the preservation of the Union is subordinate to the purpose of abolishing it.  They who object to any protection, on the high seas or elsewhere, being given to slave property by the government of the United States; who would rejoice in any insult offered to the national flag if borne by a vessel sailing from a Southern port; and who have been for some time back circulating petitions for a dissolution of the Union on the ground of the incompatibility of the sections.  And to these may be added the few, the very few of Southern men who fancying that they would have advantages out of the Union which they cannot possess within it, however fully the compact should be observed and State Equality maintained, desire its dissolution, and taking counsel of their passions, decry the labors of all who seek to preserve the government as our fathers formed it, and to develop the great purposes for which it was ordained and established.

The other phrase which has been the subject of comment was, “and this great country will remain united.”  How “united” is set forth in the language to which this clause was a conclusion, “united to protect our national flag whenever a foreign power, presuming on our domestic dissention, should dare to insult it.”  The unanimity with which men of all parties in the two houses of Congress rallied to support the executive in maintaining the rights of our flag, had been the subject of my commendation.  Upon that fact the idea expressed rested.  At worst it could but have evinced too much credulity, and I trust I may die believing that whenever the honor of our flag shall demand it, every mountain and valley and plain, will pour forth their hardy sons, and that shoulder to shoulder they will march against any foreign foe which shall invade the rights of any portion of the United States.