ur own people, to go counter to their convictions and sentiments? We
cannot do it! You would not respect us if we did! I am very sure that
if this Conference is to attain any beneficial result, it must abandon
all idea of coercion or intimidation as applied to the friends of the
Union.

It is said we are contending for a party platform--that we are letting
party stand between us and the Union. I could trample parties and
platforms under foot to preserve the Union, but I cannot understand
how honest men can abandon principles because a party has adopted them
into its platform. Do not tell us that by adhering to the Union and
the Constitution, we are simply adhering to a party platform. Our
principles are at least as dear to us, as yours are to you; you must
not expect us to sacrifice them either to promote our own material
interests or to promote yours.

Let us then sink the question of slavery in the Territories. Let the
courts take care of it if need be, or let it be dealt with when it
properly comes up. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." In
that direction lays the path of peace.

But perhaps it may be suggested that such a course would really leave
no plan to be adopted. Perhaps so. Is it, then, not true that we are
having all this trouble over a contingency that may or may not arise?
That the Constitution is sufficient for all purposes but this, you
aver; and yet you say in the same breath that the Court has settled
this question entirely and finally in your favor. Why not be
satisfied, then, with the settlement? Can you make it more of a
finality in the way you propose? No, gentlemen; believe me when I tell
you that the true remedy does not consist in endeavoring to humiliate
the people of one section for the benefit of another. Remember we are
dealing with the _American_ people; I would not throw the Constitution
into the vortex of disunion that is opening before us; I would
preserve it rather as a rock on which we can all safely stand. Do not
throw away the compass by which alone we can safely be guided!

If I were to suggest a suitable remedy, what I think a wise plan, it
would be the one adopted on a similar occasion, when one of the States
set itself up in opposition to the General Government, with such very
beneficial results; and that would be, to have the Government appeal
to the people for support--to throw itself into the arms of the
people. The result then has become historical. It is reme