If, through a life, now
not a short one, a large portion of which has been spent in the public
service, I have given no better proof of my affection for this Union
than by declarations, I have lived to little purpose, indeed. I think I
have given evidence, in every form in which patriotism is ever subjected
to a test, and I trust, whatever evil may be in store for us by those
who wage war on the Constitution and our rights under it, that I shall
be able to turn at least to the past and say, "Up to that period when I
was declining into the grave, I served a Government I loved, and served
it with my whole heart." Nor will I stop to compare services with those
gentlemen who have fair phrases, while they undermine the very
foundation of the temple our fathers built. If, however, there be those
here who do really love the Union, and the Constitution, which is the
life-blood of the Union, the time has come when we should look calmly,
though steadily, the danger which besets us in the face.
Violent speeches, denunciatory of people in any particular section of
the Union, the arraignment of institutions which they inherited and
intend to transmit, as leprous spots on the body-politic, are not the
means by which fraternity is to be preserved, or this Union rendered
perpetual. These were not the arguments which our fathers made when,
through the struggles of the Revolutionary War, they laid the foundation
of the Union.
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