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[464] never said, any more. If it be slavery that men should obey the Constitution their fathers fought for, let it be so. If it be freedom, it is freedom equally for them and for us. We propose to subjugate rebellion into loyalty; we propose to subjugate insurrection into peace; we propose to subjugate confederate anarchy into Constitutional Union liberty. The Senator well knows that we propose no more. I ask him, I appeal to his better judgment, now, what does he imagine we intend to do, if fortunately we conquer Tennessee or South Carolina--call it “conquer,” if you will, sir — what do we propose to do? They will have their courts still, they will have their ballot-boxes still, they will have their elections still, they will have their representatives upon this floor still, they will have taxation and representation still, they will have the writ of habeas corpus still, they will have every privilege they ever had and all we desire. When the Confederate armies are scattered, when their leaders are banished from power, when the people return to a late repentant sense of the wrong they have done to a Government they never felt but in benignancy and blessing, then the Constitution made for all will be felt by all, like the descending rains from heaven which bless all alike. Is that subjugation? To restore what was, as it was, for the benefit of the whole country and of the whole human race, is all we desire and all we can have. Gentlemen talk about the North-east. I appeal to Senators from the North-east, is there a man in all your States who advances upon the South with any other idea but to restore the Constitution of the United States in its spirit and its unity? I never heard that one. I believe no man indulges in any dream of inflicting there any wrong to public liberty; and I respectfully tell the Senator from Kentucky that he persistently, earnestly — I will not say wilfully — misrepresents the sentiment of the North and West when he attempts to teach these doctrines to the Confederates of the South. Sir, while I am predicting, I will tell you another thing. This threat about money and men amounts to nothing. Some of the States which have been named in that connection, I know well. I know, as my friend from Illinois will bear me witness, his own State very well. I am sure that no temporary defeat, no momentary disaster, will swerve that State either from its allegiance to the Union, or from its determination to preserve it. It is not with us a question of money or of blood; it is a question involving considerations higher than these. When the Senator from Kentucky speaks of the Pacific, I see another distinguished friend from Illinois, now worthily representing one of the States on the Pacific, (Mr. McDougall,) who will bear me witness that I know that State too, well. I take the liberty — I know I but utter his sentiments in advance — joining with him, to say that that State, quoting from the passage the gentleman himself has quoted, will be true to the Union to the last of her blood and her treasure. There may be there some disaffected; there may be some few men there who would “rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.” There are such men everywhere. There are a few men there who have left the South for the good of the South; who are perverse, violent, destructive, revolutionary, and opposed to social order. A few, but a very few, thus formed and thus nurtured, in California and in Oregon, both persistently endeavor to create and maintain mischief; but the great portion of our population are loyal to the core and in every chord of their hearts. They are offering through me — more to their own Senators, every day from California, and, indeed, from Oregon--to add to the legions of this country by the hundred and the thousand. They are willing to come thousands of miles with their arms on their shoulders, at their own expense, to share with the best offering of their heart's blood in the great struggle of Constitutional liberty. I tell the Senator that his predictions, sometimes for the South, sometimes for the middle States, sometimes for the North-east, and then wandering away in airy visions out to the far Pacific, about the dread of our people, as for loss of blood and treasure, provoking them to disloyalty, are false in sentiment, false in fact, and false in loyalty. The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. Five hundred million dollars! What then? Great Britain gave more than two thousand millions in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at one time almost single-handed against the world. Five hundred thousand men! What then? We have them; they are ours; they are the children of the country. They belong to the whole country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and there are many of us who will give them all up before we abate one word of our just demand, or will retreat one inch from the line which divides right from wrong. Sir, it is not a question of men or money in that sense. All the men, all the money, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause. When we give them we know their value. Knowing their value well, we give them with the more pride and the more joy. Sir, how can we retreat? Sir, how can we make peace? Who shall treat? What commissioners? Who would go? Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line? Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up? What will become of constitutional government? What will become of public liberty? What of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave — a degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened by the results of one battle, and scared at the visions raised by the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky upon this floor? No, sir; a thousand times, no, sir! We will rally — if, indeed, our words be necessary — we will rally the people, the loyal people, of the whole

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