than we are in
shipping it. You may lock up every bale of cotton within the limits of
the eight Cotton States, and not allow us to export one for three years,
and we shall not feel it further than our military resources are
concerned. Exhaust the supply of cotton in Europe for one week, and all
Europe is in revolution.

"These are facts. You will blockade us! Do you suppose we shall do
nothing, even upon the sea? How many letters of marque and reprisal
would it take to put the whole of your ships up at your wharves to rot?
Will any merchant at Havre, or Liverpool, or any other portion of the
habitable globe, ship a cargo upon a New England, or New York, or
Philadelphia clipper, or other ship, when he knows that the seas are
swarming with letters of marque and reprisal? Why the mere apprehension
of such a thing will cut you out of the Carrying Trade of the civilized
World. * * * I speak not of the absurdity of the position that you can
blockade our ports, admitting at the same time that we are in the Union.
Blockade is a remedy, as all writers on International law say, against a
Foreign Power with whom you are at War. You cannot use a blockade
against your own people. An embargo even, you cannot use. That is a
remedy against a Foreign Nation with whom you expect to be at War. You
must treat us as in the Union, or out of it. We have gone out. We are
willing to live at peace with you; but, as sure as fate, whenever any
flag comes into one of our ports, that has thirty-three stars upon it,
that flag will be fired at. Displaying a flag with stars which we have
plucked from that bright galaxy, is an insult to the State within whose
waters that flag is displayed. You cannot enforce the laws without
Coercion, and you cannot Coerce without War.

"These matters, then, can be settled. How? By withdrawing your troops;
admitting our right to Self-government clearly, unqualifiedly. Do this,
and there is no difficulty about it. You say that you will not do it.
Very well; we have no objection--none whatever. That is Coercion. When
you have attempted it, you will find that you have made War. These,
Senators, are facts. I come here to plead for Peace; but I have seen so
much and felt so much, that I am becoming at last, to tell the plain
truth of the matter, rather indifferent as to which way the thing turns.
If you want War, you can have it. If you want Peace, you can get it;
but I plead not for Peace."

Mea