with the wrongs of Ireland, and her struggles for
independence. Yet there is now a greater difference between the people
of the South and of the North than between those of England and
Ireland, and greater antagonism of opinion and feeling. Nevertheless,
it is proposed to hold the South in political subjection to the North,
and for that purpose to employ naval and military force.

Sir, I might mention many other cases: the subjection of Greece to
Turkey; of Poland to Russia; of the Netherlands to Spain; Italy to
Austria. In all these cases we have sympathized with, and, in many of
them aided, the secession from the common government, by contributions
and individual service. Yet those Governments were not founded on
consent, and there was no compact conceding the right of secession.

Sir, in conclusion, whether the course the seceding States have seen
fit to take be right or not, is a question which we must leave to
posterity, and the verdict of impartial history. Our time will
probably be more profitably employed in considering how we shall deal
with secession than in discussing the causes which have produced it.
Secession, right or wrong, justifiable or unjustifiable, is an
accomplished fact; and it presents to us no less an alternative than
that of peace or war. Sir, I believe that, in the general ruin which
would follow coercive measures against the seceding states, all
sections, all classes, all the great interests of the country,
without any exception, would be involved. How much better, Mr.
President, that, in so fearful a crisis as the present, instead of
passing "force bills," and preparing for war, instead of "breathing
threatenings and slaughter," and preparing implements of destruction
to be used against our brethren of the South, how much better, I say,
for ourselves, for posterity, for the cause of civil liberty
throughout the world, that our thoughts should be turned on peace?
Peace, not war, has brought our country to the high degree of
prosperity it now enjoys. The energies of the people up to this time
have been directed to the development of our boundless resources, to
the mechanic arts, to agriculture, mining, trade, and commerce with
foreign nations. Banish peace, turn these mighty energies of the
people to the prosecution of the dreadful work of mutual destruction,
and soon cities in ruins, fields desolate, the deserted marts of
trade, the silent workshops, gaunt famine stalking through the land,