would have come forth as
witnesses against the deadly infliction, and the destruction of the
fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the States in violation of
the Constitution, and the breaking down of the ties that bind the
States, and the violation of the rights and liberties of the white men
and white women of America.

"If you pass this bill, you will allow the negroes of this country to
compete for the high office of President of the United States. Because
if they are citizens at all, they come within the meaning and letter
of the Constitution of the United States, which allows all
natural-born citizens to become candidates for the Presidency, and to
exercise the duties of that office if elected.

"I am afraid of degrading this Government; I am afraid of danger to
constitutional liberty; I am alarmed at the stupendous strides which
this Congress is trying to initiate; and I appeal in behalf of my
country, in behalf of those that are to come after us, of generations
yet unborn, as well as those now living, that conservative men on the
other side should rally to the standard of sovereign and independent
States, and blot out this idea which is inculcating itself here, that
all the powers of the States must be taken away, and the power of the
Czar of Russia or the Emperor of France must be lodged in the Federal
Government.

"I ask you to stand by the law of the country, and to regulate these
Federal and State systems upon the grand principles upon which they
were intended to be regulated, that we may hand down to those who are
to come after us this bright jewel of civil liberty unimpaired; and I
say that the Congress or the men who will strip the people of these
rights will be handed down to perdition for allowing this bright and
beautiful heritage of civil liberty embodied in the powers and
sovereign jurisdiction of the States to pass away from us.

"I am willing to trust brave men--men who have shown as much bravery
as those who were engaged on battle-fields against the armed legions
of the North; because I believe that even when they were fighting
against the flag, of their country, the great mass of those people
were moved by high and conscientious convictions of duty. And in the
spirit of Christianity, in the spirit which Jesus Christ exercised
when he gave up his own life as a propitiation for a fallen world, I
would say to those Southern men, Come here in the Halls of Congress,
and participate with us