language which are likely to inspire our
children with the love of union, to enlarge their patriotism, or to
teach them, and to make them feel, that their destiny has made them
common citizens of one great and glorious republic? A principal object
in his late political movements, the gentleman himself tells us, was to
_unite the entire South_; and against whom, or against what, does he
wish to unite the entire South? Is not this the very essence of local
feeling and local regard? Is it not the acknowledgment of a wish and
object to create political strength by uniting political opinions
geographically? While the gentleman thus wishes to unite the entire
South, I pray to know, Sir, if he expects me to turn toward the polar
star, and, acting on the same principle, to utter a cry of Rally! to the
whole North? Heaven forbid! To the day of my death, neither he nor
others shall hear such a cry from me.

Finally, the honorable member declares that he shall now march off,
under the banner of State rights! March off from whom? March off from
what? We have been contending for great principles. We have been
struggling to maintain the liberty and to restore the prosperity of the
country; we have made these struggles here, in the national councils,
with the old flag, the true American flag, the Eagle, and the Stars and
Stripes, waving over the chamber in which we sit. He now tells us,
however, that he marches off under the State-rights banner!

Let him go. I remain. I am where I ever have been, and ever mean to be.
Here, standing on the platform of the general Constitution, a platform
broad enough and firm enough to uphold every interest of the whole
country, I shall still be found. Intrusted with some part in the
administration of that Constitution, I intend to act in its spirit, and
in the spirit of those who framed it. Yes, Sir, I would act as if our
fathers, who formed it for us and who bequeathed it to us, were looking
on me; as if I could see their venerable forms bending down to behold us
from the abodes above. I would act, too, as if the eye of posterity was
gazing on me.

Standing thus, as in the full gaze of our ancestors and our posterity,
having received this inheritance from the former, to be transmitted to
the latter, and feeling that, if I am born for any good, in my day and
generation, it is for the good of the whole country, no local policy or
local feeling, no temporary impulse, shall induce me to yield my
foot