Lord North asserted the right
to collect the revenue, and insisted on collecting it by force. He sent
troops to Boston Harbor and to Charlestown, and he quartered troops in
those towns. The result was, collision; and out of that collision came
the separation of the colonies from the mother-country. The same thing
is being attempted to-day. Not the law, not the civil magistrate, but
troops, are relied upon now to execute the laws. To gather taxes in the
Southern ports, the army and navy must be sent to perform the functions
of magistrates. It is the old case over again. Senators of the North,
you are reenacting the blunders which statesmen in Great Britain
committed; but among you there are some who, like Chatham and Burke,
though not of our section, yet are vindicating our rights.
I have heard, with some surprise, for it seemed to me idle, the
repetition of the assertion heretofore made, that the cause of the
separation was the election of Mr. Lincoln. It may be a source of
gratification to some gentlemen that their friend is elected; but no
individual had the power to produce the existing state of things. It was
the purpose, the end, it was the declaration by himself and his friends,
which constitute the necessity of providing new safeguards for
ourselves. The man was nothing, save as he was the representative of
opinions, of a policy, of purposes, of power, to inflict upon us those
wrongs to which freemen never tamely submit.
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