John Alexander Logan

“ You cannot use a blockade against your own people. An embargo even, you cannot use. That is a remedy against a Foreign Nation with whom you expect to be at War. You must treat us as in the Union, or out of it. We have gone out. We are willing to live at peace with you; but, as sure as fate, whenever any flag comes into one of our ports, that has thirty-three stars upon it, that flag will be fired at. Displaying a flag with stars which we have plucked from that bright galaxy, is an insult to the State within whose waters that flag is displayed. ”

“ Men, Sir, North and South, who love themselves far better than their Country, have brought us to this unhappy condition. * * * Let me say to gentlemen, that I will go as far as any man in the performance of a Constitutional duty to put down Rebellion, to suppress Insurrection, and to enforce the laws; but when we undertake the performance of these duties, let us act in such a manner as will be best calculated to preserve and not destroy the Government, and keep ourselves within the bounds of the Constitution. * * * Sir, I have always denied, and do yet deny, the Right of Secession. ”

“ Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed Secession? Plainly, the central idea of Secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by Constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a Free People. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy, or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible ”

“ I will not believe that, in the madness of popular folly and delusion, the most benignant Government that ever blessed humanity is to be broken up. I will not believe that this great Power which is marching with giant steps toward the first place among the Nations of the Earth, is to be turned 'backward on its mighty track.' There are no grievances, fancied or real, that cannot be redressed within the Union and under the Constitution. ”

“ Lincoln "can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in the majority against him. In the Senate he will also be powerless. There will be a majority of four against him." He also cogently said: "Many of us have sworn to support it (the Constitution) . Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the Presidency—and that too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the Constitution—make a point of resistance to the Government, and, without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves, withdraw ourselves from it? ”

“ Sir, is not this a remarkable spectacle? * * * How does it happen that not even a bare majority here, when the Country trusted to our hands is going to ruin, have been competent to devise any measure of public safety? How does it happen that we have not had unanimity enough to agree on any measure of that kind? Can we account for it to ourselves, gentlemen? We see the danger; we acknowledge our duty, and yet, with all this before us, we are acknowledging before the world that we can do nothing; acknowledging before the world, or appearing to all the world, as men who do nothing! ”

“ I have been taught to believe that the preservation of this glorious Union, with its broad flag waving over us, as the shield for our protection on land and on sea, is paramount to all the Parties and platforms that ever have existed, or ever can exist. I would, to-day, if I had the power, sink my own Party, and every other one, with all their platforms, into the vortex of ruin, without heaving a sigh or shedding a tear, to save the Union, or even stop the Revolution where it is. ”

“ Such noble acts of patriotism and concession, on your part, would cause posterity to render them illustrious, and pause to contemplate the magnitude of the events with which they were connected. * * * In the name of the patriotic sires who breasted the storms and vicissitudes of the Revolution; by all the kindred ties of this Country; in the name of the many battles fought for your Freedom; in behalf of the young and the old; in behalf of the Arts and Sciences, Civilization, Peace, Order, Christianity, and Humanity, I appeal to you to strike from your limbs the chains that bind them! ”

“ Whether this black cloud that drapes in mourning the whole political heavens, shall break forth in all the frightful intensity of War, and make Christendom weep at the terrible atrocities that will be enacted—or, whether it will disappear, and the sky resume its wonted serenity, and the whole Earth be irradiated by the genial sunshine of Peace once more—are the alternatives which this Congress, in my judgment, has the power to select between. ”

“ I hold that, in contemplation of Universal Law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all National Governments. It is safe to assert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever—it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. ”

“ He can appoint his Cabinet, and have it confirmed. The Congress will then be Republican, and he will be able to pass such laws as he may suggest. The Supreme Court will be powerless to protect us. We implore you to stand by us, and by our friends in the Free States; and let us all, the bold, the true, and just men in the Free and Slave States, with a united front, stand by each other, by our principles, by our rights, our equality, our honor, and by the Union under the Constitution. ”

“ Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, replied to Secretary Cameron: "Your dispatch is received, and, if genuine—which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt—I have to say in reply that I regard the levy of troops made by the Administration, for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution and a usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this War upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina. ”

“ To those, if such there be, who desire the destruction of the Republic, the presence of these troops is necessarily offensive; but those who sincerely love our Institutions cannot fail to rejoice that, by this timely precaution they have possibly escaped the deep dishonor which they must have suffered had the Capital, like the Forts and Arsenals of the South, fallen into the hands of the Revolutionists, who have found this great Government weak only because, in the exhaustless beneficence of its spirit, it has refused to strike, even in its own defense, lest it should wound the aggressor. ”

“ The merchants and capitalists throughout the North proffered to the Government their wealth and influence and best services. The press and the people responded as only the press and people of a Free land can respond—with all their heart and soul. "Fort Sumter," said one of the journals, "is lost, but Freedom is saved. Henceforth, the Loyal States are a unit in uncompromising hostility to Treason, wherever plotted, however justified. Fort Sumter is temporarily lost, but the Country is saved. Live the Republic!" ”

“ But I do not believe that the course of the Legislature is a fair expression of popular feeling. In the East, at least, the great majority believes in the right of Secession, and feels the deepest sympathy with Carolina in her opposition to measures which they regard as she does. But the West—Western Virginia—there is the rub! Only 60,000 slaves to 494,000 whites! When I consider this fact, and the kind of argument which has been heard in this body, I cannot but regard with the greatest fear the question whether Virginia would assist Carolina in such an issue. ”

“ Let us overcome Party passion and error; allow virtue and good sense in this fateful hour to be triumphant; let us invoke Deity to interpose and prepare the way for our Country's escape from the perils by which we are now surrounded; and in view of our present greatness and future prospects, our magnificent and growing cities, our many institutions of learning, our once happy and prosperous People, our fruitful fields and golden forests, our enjoyment of all civil and religious blessings—let Parties die that these be preserved. ”

“ Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United States—Mr. Wigfall thought proper, in the United States Senate, to sneer at him as "an ex-rail-splitter, an ex-grocery keeper, an ex-flatboat captain, and an ex-Abolition lecturer"—and proceeded to scold and rant at the North with furious volubility.
"Then, briefly," said he, "a Party has come into power that represents the antagonism to my own Section of the Country. It represents two million men who hate us, and who, by their votes for such a man as they have elected, have committed an overt act of hostility. That they have done." ”

“ We are at the end of the insane revel of partisan license which, for thirty years, has, in the United States, worn the mask of Government. We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The Nations of the World look anxiously to see if the People, ere they tread that measure, will come to themselves. ”

“ Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. ”

“ We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad Land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. ”

“ All means, to thwart and delay the carrying out of the Government's purposes, that the excuses of routine and red-tape admitted of, would be used by the Traitors within the camp, to aid the Traitors without.
No one knew all this, better than Mr. Lincoln. With no Army, no Navy, not even a Revenue cutter left—with forts and arsenals, ammunition and arms in possession of the Rebels, with no money in the National Treasury, and the National credit blasted—the position must, even to his hopeful nature, have seemed at this time desperate. ”

“ The earnest endeavors made by men known to be devoted to the Revolution, to hurry Virginia and Maryland out of the Union, were regarded as preparatory steps for the subjugation of Washington. This plan was in entire harmony with the aim and spirit of those seeking the subversion of the Government, since no more fatal blow at its existence could be struck than the permanent and hostile possession of the seat of its power. ”

“ It wanders through every land. It is a genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it touches, whatever it surrounds. Sir, upon its borders, there grows every flower of Grace and every fruit of Truth. I am not here to deny that that Stream sometimes becomes a dangerous Torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon its bank; but I am here to say that without it, Civilization, Humanity, Government, all that makes Society itself, would disappear, and the World would return to its ancient Barbarism. ”

“ New York, the Empire State, by her Governor and her Legislature placed all her tremendous resources at the service of the Union; and the great State of Pennsylvania, through Governor Curtin, did the same. Nor were the other States at all behind.
The Loyal North felt that Law, Order, Liberty, the existence of the Nation itself was in peril, and must be both saved and vindicated. Over half a million of men—from the prairies of the West and the hills and cities of the East—from farms and counting houses, from factories and mines and workshops—sprang to arms at the Call, and begged to be enrolled. ”

“ There never was half the unanimity among the people before, nor a tithe of the zeal upon any subject, that is now manifested to take Washington. From the mountain tops and valleys to the shores of the sea, there is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington City at all and every human hazard. ”

“ Crittenden, speaking before the Resolution was agreed to, well sketched the situation when he said in the Senate: "It is an admitted fact that our Union, to some extent, has already been dismembered; and that further dismemberment is impending and threatened. It is a fact that the Country is in danger. This is admitted on all hands. It is our duty, if we can, to provide a remedy for this. We are, under the Constitution and by the election of the People, the great guardians, as well as the administrators of this Government. ”