n three
hundred towns; I have seen and conversed with her men and her women;
and I know there is not a man within her borders who would not to-day
gladly lay down his life for the preservation of the Union.

Massachusetts has made war upon slavery wherever she had the right to
do it; but, much as she _abhors_ the institution, she would sacrifice
everything rather than assail it where she has not the right to assail
it.

Can it be denied, gentlemen, that we have elected a President in a
legal and constitutional way? It cannot be denied; and yet you tell
us, in tones that cannot be misunderstood, that, as a precedent
condition of his inauguration, we must give you these guarantees.

Massachusetts hesitated, not because her blood was not stirred, but
because she insisted that the government and the inauguration should go
in the manner that would have been observed had Mr. Lincoln been
defeated. She felt that she was touched in a tender point when invited
here under such circumstances.

It is true, and I confess it frankly, that there are a few men at the
North who have not yielded that support to the grand idea upon which
this confederated Union stands that they should have yielded; who have
been disposed to infringe upon, to attack certain rights which the
entire North, with these exceptions, accords to you. But are you of
the South free from the like imputations? The John Brown invasion was
never justified at the North. If, in the excitement of the time, there
were those to be found who did not denounce it as gentlemen think they
should, it was because they knew it was a matter wholly outside the
Constitution,--that it was a crime to which Virginia would give
adequate punishment.

Gentlemen, I believe--yes, I know--that the people of the North are as
true to the government and the Union of the States now as our fathers
were when they stood shoulder to shoulder upon the field, fighting for
the principles upon which that Union rests. If I thought the time had
come when it would be fit or proper to consider amendments to the
Constitution at all, I believe that we should have no trouble with you,
except upon this question of slavery in the Territories. You cannot
demand of us at the North anything that we will not grant, unless it
involves a sacrifice of our principles. These we shall not sacrifice;
these you must not ask us to abandon. I believe, further,--and I
speak in all frankness, for I wish to delude no