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Page 52
In this state of feeling, divided as we are by interest, by a
geographical feeling, by every thing that makes two people separate and
distinct, I ask why we should remain in the same Union together? We have
not lived in peace; we are not now living in peace. It is not expected
or hoped that we shall ever live in peace. My doctrine is that whenever
even man and wife find that they must quarrel, and cannot live in
peace, they ought to separate; and these two sections--the North and
South--manifesting, as they have done and do now, and probably will ever
manifest, feelings of hostility, separated as they are in interests and
objects, my own opinion is they can never live in peace; and the sooner
they separate the better.
Sir, these sentiments I have thrown out crudely I confess, and upon the
spur of the occasion. I should not have opened my mouth but that the
Senator from New Hampshire seemed to show a spirit of bravado, as if
he intended to alarm and scare the Southern States into a retreat from
their movements. He says that war is to come, and you had better take
care, therefore. That is the purport of his language; of course those
are not his words; but I understand him very well, and everybody else,
I apprehend, understands him that war is threatened, and therefore the
South had better look out. Sir, I do not believe that there will be any
war; but if war is to come, let it come. We will meet the Senator
from New Hampshire and all the myrmidons of Abolitionism and Black
Republicanism everywhere, upon our own soil; and in the language of a
distinguished member from Ohio in relation to the Mexican War, we will
"welcome you with bloody hands to hospitable graves."
BENJAMIN WADE,
OF OHIO, (BORN 1800, DIED 1878.)
ON SECESSION, AND THE STATE OF THE UNION; REPUBLICAN OPINION;
SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 17, 1860.
MR. PRESIDENT:
At a time like this, when there seems to be a wild and unreasoning
excitement in many parts of the country, I certainly have very little
faith in the efficacy of any argument that may be made; but at the
same time, I must say, when I hear it stated by many Senators in this
Chamber, where we all raised our hands to Heaven, and took a solemn oath
to support the Constitution of the United States, that we are on the
eve of a dissolution of this Union, and that the Constitution is to be
trampled under foot--silence under such circumstances seems to me akin
to treason itself.
I have listened to the complaints on the other side patiently, and with
an ardent desire to ascertain what was the particular difficulty under
which they were laboring. Many of those who have supposed themselves
aggrieved have spoken; but I confess that I am now totally unable to
understand precisely what it is of which they complain. Why, sir, the
party which lately elected their President, and are prospectively to
come into power, have never held an executive office under the General
Government, nor has any individual of them. It is most manifest,
therefore, that the party to which I belong have as yet committed no act
of which anybody can complain. If they have fears as to the course that
we may hereafter pursue, they are mere apprehensions--a bare suspicion;
arising, I fear, out of their unwarrantable prejudices, and nothing
else.
I wish to ascertain at the outset whether we are right; for I tell
gentlemen that, if they can convince me that I am holding any political
principle that is not warranted by the Constitution under which we live,
or that trenches upon their rights, they need not ask me to compromise
it. I will be ever ready to grant redress, and to right myself whenever
I am wrong. No man need approach me with a threat that the Government
under which I live is to be destroyed; because I hope I have now, and
ever shall have, such a sense of justice that, when any man shows
me that I am wrong, I shall be ready to right it without price or
compromise.
Now, sir, what is it of which gentlemen complain? When I left my home in
the West to come to this place, all was calm, cheerful, and contented.
I heard of no discontent. I apprehended that there was nothing to
interrupt the harmonious course of our legislation. I did not learn
that, since we adjourned from this place at the end of the last session,
there had been any new fact intervening that should at all disturb the
public mind. I do not know that there has been any encroachment upon
the rights of any section of the country since that time; I came here,
therefore, expecting to have a very harmonious session. It is very true,
sir, that the great Republican party which has been organized ever since
you repealed the Missouri Compromise, and who gave you, four years ago,
full warning that their growing strength would probably result as it
has resulted, have carried the late election; but I did not suppose that
would disturb the equanimity of this body. I did suppose that every man
who was observant of the signs of the times might well see that things
would result as they have resulted. Nor do I understand now that
anything growing out of that election is the cause of the present
excitement that pervades the country.
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