as good a Union man as
any of you. [Laughter.] I am a better Union man than any of you!
[Great Laughter.] * * * I look upon War as Disunion."
After declaring that, if the principle of the expulsion Resolution was
to be carried out, his "friend," Mr. Long, "would be a martyr in a
glorious cause"--he proceeded to announce his own candidacy for
expulsion, in the following terms:
"Mr. Speaker, in the early part of this Secession movement, there was a
Resolution offered, pledging men and money to carry on the War. My
principles were then, and are now, against the War. I stood, solitary
and alone, in voting against that Resolution, and whenever a similar
proposition is brought here it will meet with my opposition. Not one
dollar, nor one man, I swear, by the Eternal, will I vote for this
infernal, this stupendous folly, more stupendous than ever disgraced any
civilized People on the face of God's Earth. If that be Treason, make
the most of it!
"The South asked you to let them go in peace. But no, you said you
would bring them into subjugation. That is not done yet, and God
Almighty grant that it never may be. I hope that you will never
subjugate the South. If she is to be ever again in the Union, I hope it
will be with her own consent; and I hope that that consent will be
obtained by some other mode than by the sword. 'If this be Treason,
make the most of it!'"
An extraordinary scene at once occurred--Mr. Tracy desiring "to know
whether, in these Halls, the gentleman from Maryland invoked Almighty
God that the American Arms should not prevail?" "Whether such language
is not Treason?" and "whether it is in order to talk Treason in this
Hall?"--his patriotic queries being almost drowned in the incessant
cries of "Order!" "Order!" and great disorder, and confusion, on the
Democratic side of the House.
Finally the treasonable language was taken down by the Clerk, and, while
a Resolution for the expulsion of Mr. Harris was being written out, Mr.
Fernando Wood--coming, as he said, from a bed of "severe sickness,"
quoted the language used by Mr. Long, to wit:
"I now believe there are but two alternatives, and they are either the
acknowledgment of the Independence of the South as an independent
Nation, or their complete subjugation and extermination as a People; and
of these alternatives I prefer the former"--and declared that "if he is
to be expelled for the utterance of that sentiment, you may include me
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