in war by the citizens of
Maine, to the privations so cheerfully endured while the restrictive
measures of the Government were prostrating the most important interests
of this commercial people, or to the support of the Union so cordially
given through every vicissitude up to the present hour, such a
suspicion, if it could arise, would be sufficiently refuted by merely
adverting to the forbearance with which they have so long endured the
aggressions by a foreign government upon their sovereignty, their
citizens, and their soil.

It would be easy to prove that the territory of Maine extends to the
highlands north of the St. John; but that point, having been not only
admitted, but successful; demonstrated, by the Federal Government,
needs not now to be discussed. Candor, however, requires me to say that
this conceded and undeniable position ill accords with the proceedings
in which the British authorities have for many years been indulged, and
by which the rightful jurisdiction of Maine has been subverted, her
lands ravaged of their most valuable products, and her citizens dragged
beyond the limits of the State to undergo the sufferings and ignominies
of a foreign jail. These outrages have been made known to the Federal
Government; they have been the subject of repeated remonstrances by the
State, and these remonstrances seem as often to have been contemned. It
can not be deemed irrelevant for me here to ask, amid all these various
impositions, and while Maine has been vigorously employed in sustaining
the Union and in training her children to the same high standard of
devotion to the political institutions of the country, what relief has
been brought to us by the Federal Government. The invaders have not been
expelled. The sovereignty and soil of the State are yet stained by the
hostile machinations of resident emissaries of a foreign government. The
territory and the jurisdiction of 6,000,000 acres, our title to which
the Government of the United States has pronounced to be perfect, have,
without the knowledge of Maine, been once put entirely at hazard. Grave
discussions, treaty arrangements, and sovereign arbitration have been
resorted to, in which Maine was not permitted to speak, and they have
resulted not in removing the fictitious pretensions, but in supplying
new encouragements to the aggressors. Diplomatic ingenuity, the only
foundation of the British claim, has been arrayed against the perfect
right. In the mean