agents abroard is clearly from the Free States,
from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal
embassies, so as to secure the world's markets for our cotton, tobacco,
and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the
higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the
soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks,
auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive department, the records
show for the last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we
have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of
the white population of the republic. Again, look at another item, and
one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that
of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we
learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the
support of government has uniformly been raised from the North. Pause now
while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these
important items. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless
millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of
thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as
sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition--and for what? we ask again. Is
it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on
the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must
declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by
the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands,
that it is the best and freest government--the most equal in its rights,
the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the
most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun
of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a
government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters
of a century--in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a
nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us,
with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and
rights unassailed--is the height of _madness_, _folly_, and _wickedness_,
to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

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