pect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love
justice.

And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives
are debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from
the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are
showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men
of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you
call revolution--aye, sir, doing better than that: arming to defend it.
They appealed to the Constitution, they appealed to justice, they
appealed to fraternity, until the Constitution, justice, and fraternity
were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of their country,
and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword; and now
you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from
your capitol to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and
cheers the hearts of other millions ready to second them. Inasmuch, sir,
as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to
avert this necessity so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I
heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty
to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized
world.

Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have
demanded no new Constitution. Look to their records at home and here
from the beginning of this national strife until its consummation in the
disruption of the empire, and they have not demanded a single thing
except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States;
that constitutional rights shall be respected, and that justice shall be
done. Sirs, they have stood by your Constitution; they have stood by all
its requirements, they have performed all its duties unselfishly,
uncalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a party sprang up in this
country which endangered their social system--a party which they
arraign, and which they charge before the American people and all
mankind with having made proclamation of outlawry against four thousand
millions of their property in the Territories of the United States; with
having put them under the ban of the empire in all the States in which
their institutions exist outside the protection of federal laws; with
having aided and abetted insurrection from within and invasion from
without with the view of subverting those institutions, and desolating
their homes