Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 2.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[434] them in their own Constitution and the Constitution of the United States; yet we hear no complaints here of violations of the Constitution in this respect. We ask the Government to interpose to secure us this constitutional right. We want the passes in our mountains opened, we want deliverance and protection for a down-trodden and oppressed people who are struggling for their independence without arms. If we had had ten thousand stand of arms and ammunition when the contest commenced, we should have asked no further assistance. We have not got them. We are a rural people; we have villages and small towns — no large cities. Our population is homogeneous, industrious, frugal, brave, independent; but now harmless, and powerless, and oppressed by usurpers. You may be too late in coming to our relief; or you may not come at all, though I do not doubt that you will come; they may trample us under foot; they may convert our plains into graveyards, and the caves of our mountains into sepulchres; but, they will never take us out of this Union, or make us a land of slaves — no, never! We intend to stand as firm as adamant, and as unyielding as our own majestic mountains that surround us. Yes, we will be as fixed and as immovable as are they upon their bases. We will stand as long as we can; and if we are overpowered and liberty shall be driven from the land, we intend before she departs to take the flag of our country, with a stalwart arm, a patriotic heart, and an honest tread, and place it upon the summit of the loftiest and most majestic mountain. We intend to plant it there, and leave it, to indicate to the inquirer who may come in after times, the spot where the Goddess of Liberty lingered and wept for the last time, before she took her flight from a people once prosperous, free, and happy.

We ask the Government to come to our aid. We love the Constitution as made by our fathers. We have confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. We have lived entertaining these opinions; we intend to die entertaining them. The battle has commenced. The President has placed it upon the true ground. It is an issue on the one hand for the people's Government, and its overthrow on the other. We have commenced the battle of freedom. It is freedom's cause. We are resisting usurpation and oppression. We will triumph; we must triumph. Right is with us. A great and fundamental principle of right, that lies at the foundation of all things, is with us. We may meet with impediments, and may meet with disasters, and here and there a defeat; but ultimately freedom's cause must triumph, for--

Freedoms battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.

Yes, we must triumph. Though sometimes I cannot see my way clear in matters of this kind, as in matters of religion, when my facts give out, when my reason fails me, I draw largely upon my faith. My faith is strong, based on the eternal principles of right, that a thing so monstrously wrong as this rebellion cannot triumph. Can we submit to it? Is the Senate, are the American people, prepared to give up the graves of Washington and Jackson, to be encircled and governed and controlled by a combination of traitors and rebels? I say, let the battle go on — it is freedom's cause — until the Stars and Stripes (God. bless them!) shall again be unfurled upon every cross-road, and from every house-top throughout the Confederacy, North and South. Let the Union be reinstated; let the law be enforced; let the Constitution be supreme.

If the Congress of the United States were to give up the tombs of Washington and Jackson, we should have rising up in our midst another Peter the Hermit, in a much more righteous cause — for ours is true, while his was a delusion — who would appeal to the American people, and point to the tombs of Washington and Jackson, in the possession of those who are worse than the infidel and the Turk who held the Holy Sepulchre. I believe the American people would start of their own accord, when appealed to, to redeem the graves of Washington and Jackson and Jefferson, and all the other patriots who are lying within the limits of the Southern Confederacy. I do not believe they would stop the march until again the flag of this Union would be placed over the graves of those distinguished men. There will be an uprising. Do not talk about Republicans now; do not talk about Democrats now; do not talk about Whigs or Americans now: talk about your country and the Constitution and the Union. Save that; preserve the integrity of the Government; once more place it erect among the nations of the earth; and then if we want to divide about questions that may arise in our midst, we have a Government to divide in.

I know it has been said that the object of this war is to make war on Southern institutions. I have been in free States and I have been in slave States; and I thank God that, so far as I have seen, there has been one universal disclaimer of any such purpose. It is a war upon no section; it is a war upon no peculiar institution; but it is a war for the integrity of the Government, for the Constitution and the supremacy of the laws. That is what the nation understands by it.

The people whom I represent appeal to the Government and to the nation to give us the constitutional protection that we need. I am proud to say that I have met with every manifestation of that kind in the Senate, with only a few dissenting voices. I am proud to say, too, that I believe Old Kentucky (God bless her!) will ultimately rise and shake off the stupor which has been resting upon her; and instead of denying us the privilege of passing through her borders, and taking arms and munitions