"
Now, sir, we are confusing language very much. Men speak of revolution;
and when they say revolution they mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing
of the sort. When they spoke of revolution they meant an unalienable
right. When they declared as an unalienable right the power of the
people to abrogate and modify their form of government whenever it did
not answer the ends for which it was established, they did not mean that
they were to sustain that by brute force. They meant that it was a
right; and force could only be invoked when that right was wrongfully
denied. Great Britain denied the right in the case of the colonies, and
therefore our revolution for independence was bloody. If Great Britain
had admitted the great American doctrine, there would have been no blood
shed; and does it become the descendants of those who proclaimed this as
the great principle on which they took their place among the nations of
the earth, now to proclaim, if that is a right, it is one which you can
only get as the subjects of the Emperor of Austria may get their rights,
by force overcoming force? Are we, in this age of civilization and
political progress, when political philosophy had advanced to the point
which seemed to render it possible that the millennium should now be
seen by prophetic eyes--are we now to roll back the whole current of
human thought, and again to return to the mere brute force which
prevails between beasts of prey, as the only method of settling
questions between men?
If the Declaration of Independence be true (and who here gainsays it?),
every community may dissolve its connection with any other community
previously made, and have no other obligation than that which results
from the breach of an alliance between States.
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