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[73] remedy for a sectional President was in the Union and under the Constitution. We knew we had a Senate against him, and hoped that we had the House against him; and there would have been if all men had stood at their posts as Kentucky has stood. But certain States chose to take the remedy into their own hands, and dissolve their connexion with the Union; South Carolina first, and then seven other States followed. They have organized a separate Government, and one exercising governmental authority. Louisville spoke early, decidedly, and firmly against a sectional party in the Union, and under the Constitution. We had a Legislature called; we have had a Peace Conference at Washington, and both failed; the result of the deliberations of both Houses of Congress failed to find a remedy for secession. The Peace Conference at Washington was equally unsuccessful in solving this dangerous question. Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. He gave us his inaugural. It was construed as an inaugural of peace and as an inaugural of war. His chosen friends did not know how to take it, and his opponents were divided as to its meaning. I suspected it; for, like the serpent, it spoke with a forked tongue! [Cheers.] Then the troops were to be withdrawn from Fort Sumter, and then not, but were to be furnished with supplies only. Now, in the action of the Southern Confederacy and that of Mr. Lincoln, the friends of both parties find excuses for them; but when it was the peace of the country, and the saving it from war and bloodshed, then there should have been no interference of etiquette to prevent such a dreadful calamity. Kentucky spoke as her statesmen have always spoken, of conciliation, peace, harmony, and a final settlement. But war has been inaugurated; Fort Sumter has fallen. The President has issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 men; but he has not told us what he was going to do with them! Is he going to retake Fort Sumter? Is he going to defend Fort Pickens? If so, why does he congregate them at Washington? I was at Washington when Lincoln came, and it was like a beleaguered city. We heard sounds of martial music, the tramp of armed men, and the roll of artillery! And now Lincoln wants 75,000 men, where every other President has lived like an American citizen, as we have lived, and walked, in perfect security among his fellow-citizens. We learn from the telegraph that State after State is tendering men and money. Is the party now in possession of the Government going to conquer the seven seceding States, and hold them as subjugated provinces? If they are, Lincoln should, like an honest man, have told us in his inaugural, and some say he is an honest man. In all these free States sending men and money, we hear no voice of peace, and after his legions have drowned the South in carnage, is there to be no peace? What is the end of all wars — peace! No free people were ever conquered until they were exterminated. Why shall not the people of America have peace before, rather than after war, when its desolating influence has blighted the land? I want Kentucky to take her stand for peace--[Cheers,]--and appeal to that still small voice in the North crying for peace. There are religious men from habit, education and from profession, whose hearts, when Kentucky calls for peace, will be reached, and whose voice will reach the powers that be, and we will have peace. What a spectacle we present! A people that have prospered beyond example in the records of time; free and self-governed, without oppression, without taxation to be felt, are now going to cut each other's throats; and why? Because Presidents Lincoln and Davis couldn't settle the etiquette upon which the troops were to be withdrawn from Fort Sumter. Kentucky is a State in this matter, on the border of the Ohio, with six or seven hundred miles of coast bordering upon Ohio, Indiana and Illinois--States with whom we have ever lived in peace and good fellowship. We have no quarrel with them, and they must have none with us. We have asked the South to stay their hands, for we had a great stake in this Government, and they have not. We plead with Lincoln for peace, and have not been hearkened to. Shall we be hearkened to in the din of arms? There will be a time when Kentucky's voice, if she stands firm on her own soil, fighting with neither section — will be heard by millions of people of the free States, who will hearken to us and say: “Why should there be strife between us and you?” I have always counselled against inconsiderate measures. We are not situated to meet even our border friends in arms. How long would it take to make the northern bank of the Ohio bristle with men and bayonets and cannon hostile to us? Let us stand boldly and fearlessly, as is characteristic of Kentuckians, and cry peace! Hold fast to that we know to be good, and let these men who want to make the experiment of secession go as individual amateurs and find congenial spirits for their work. [Cheers.] I will leave to other gentlemen to dilate upon all those subjects. We have men who want us out at once. Does not that inaugurate war? Does not that begin to create men of the Northern border into foes? Keep up your relations of trade and commerce and good fellowship; stand firm by the cause and heed the counsels of men who have ever counselled peace and harmony and attendant prosperity. This thing of breaking the links of a Government under which we have prospered, is a hard thing to do. It prostrates the labor of the husbandman as it has prostrated the business of merchants. How much better will the business be if war is inaugurated? I tell you that you need not believe the telegraphic reports. I know the hearts and sentiments and feelings that will come forth and battle in the free States for us! If the North comes to ravage our land, we will meet them as Kentuckians always meet their foes. We will meet them as Kentuckians should meet them, so long as there is a tree for a fortification, or a foot of land for a freeman to stand upon. [Applause.] I am for holding fast to that she knows to be good, and for her standing firm for right, and for abiding events as heroes should do. Why should a man be scared by the first danger and fly into still greater peril? You were startled at the reports from Cincinnati; last evening Louisville was excited; to-day you are reconciled, for there was nothing in the reports. You will hear of great battles, but you will often hear of great battles that were never fought. Now, I don't believe that the overruling Providence that was with us through the Revolution, in the councils of the framers of this Government, and has been with us ever since, has deserted us, and I hope He has chosen Kentucky to be the great mediator for the restoration of peace and the preservation of our country. The Hon. Nat. Wolfe, from the Committee on Resolutions, reported the following preamble and
Van Nostrand. New York, New York. 1862.
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