crifices,
when they do that which is required by the common welfare?"[652]

[Footnote 652: Albany _Argus_, February 1, 1861.

William H. Russell, correspondent of the London _Times_, who dined
with Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden and George Bancroft, wrote that
"the result left on my mind by their conversation and arguments was
that, according to the Constitution, the government could not employ
force to prevent secession, or to compel States which had seceded by
the will of the people to acknowledge the federal power."--Entry March
17, _Diary_, p. 20.]

It remained for George W. Clinton of Buffalo, the son of the
illustrious DeWitt Clinton, to lift the meeting to the higher plane of
genuine loyalty to the Union. Clinton was a Hard in politics. He had
stood with John A. Dix and Daniel S. Dickinson, had been defeated for
lieutenant-governor on their ticket, and had supported Breckenridge;
but when the fateful moment arrived at which a decision had to be made
for or against the country, his genius, like the prescience of Dix,
guided him rightly. "Let us conciliate our erring brethren," he said,
"who, under a strange delusion, have, as they say, seceded from us;
but, for God's sake, do not let us humble the glorious government
under which we have been so happy and which will yet do so much for
the happiness of mankind. Gentlemen, I hate to use a word that will
offend my Southern brother, but we have reached a time when, as a
man--if you please, as a Democrat--I must use plain terms. There is no
such thing as legal secession. The Constitution of these United States
was intended to form a firm and perpetual Union. If secession be not
lawful, then, what is it? I use the term reluctantly but truly--it is
rebellion! rebellion against the noblest government man ever framed
for his own benefit and for the benefit of the world. What is it--this
secession? I am not speaking of the men. I love the men, but I hate
treason. What is it but nullification by the wholesale? I have
venerated Andrew Jackson, and my blood boiled, in old time, when that
brave patriot and soldier of Democracy said--'the Union, it must and
shall be preserved.' (Loud applause.) Preserve it? Why should we
preserve it, if it would be the thing these gentlemen would make it?
Why should we love a government that has no dignity and no power? Look
at it for a moment. Congress, for just cause, declares war, but one
State says, 'War is not for me--I secede.' And so