in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at one time
almost single-handed against the world. Five hundred thousand men! What
then? We have them; they are ours; they are the children of the country.
They belong to the whole country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and
there are many of us who will give them all up before we will abate one
word of our just demand, or will retreat one inch from the line which
divides right from wrong.

Sir, it is not a question of men or of money in that sense. All the
money, all the men, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause.
When we give them, we know their value. Knowing their value well, we
give them with the more pride and the more joy. Sir, how can we retreat?
Sir, how can we make peace? Who shall treat? What commissioners? Who
would go? Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line? Where
the end of the principles we shall have to give up? What will become of
constitutional government? What will become of public liberty? What
of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall we sink into the
insignificance of the grave--a degraded, defeated, emasculated people,
frightened by the results of one battle, and scared at the visions
raised by the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky upon this floor?
No, sir; a thousand times, no, sir! We will rally--if, indeed, our words
be necessary--we will rally the people, the loyal people, of the whole
country. They will pour forth their treasure, their money, their men,
without stint, without measure. The most peaceable man in this body may
stamp his foot upon this Senate-Chamber floor, as of old a warrior and
a senator did, and from that single stamp there will spring forth armed
legions. Shall one battle determine the fate of an empire? or, the loss
of one thousand men or twenty thousand, or $100,000,000 or $500,000,000?
In a year's peace, in ten years, at most, of peaceful progress, we can
restore them all. There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered