This step (of secession) once taken, can never be recalled; and all the
baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the
convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our
lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will
inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvests
shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war
sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the
horrors and desolations of war upon us; who, but this Convention will be
held responsible for it? and but him who shall have given his vote for
this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall
be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation,
and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for
the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now
propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment
what reason you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer
moments--what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in this
calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the
nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate
judges in the case? and what cause or one overt act can you name or point,
on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North
assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has
been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been
withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong
deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which
the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the
other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not
here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend
and lover of the South and her institutions; and for this reason I speak
thus plainly and faithfully--for yours, mine, and every other man's
interest--the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge;