plucked from its socket and cast into eternal burnings, than, with
my convictions, to have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral
perjury. Sir, I was not taught in that school which proclaims that "all
is fair in politics." I loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable maxim.
* * * Perish office, perish honors, perish life itself; but do the thing
that is right, and do it like a man.

Certainly, sir; I could not doubt what he must suffer who dare defy the
opinions and the passions, not to say the madness, of twenty millions of
people. * * * I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God that not
the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is upon my garments. Sir,
I censure no brave man who rushed patriotically into this war; neither
will I quarrel with any one, here or elsewhere, who gave to it an honest
support. Had their convictions been mine, I, too, would doubtless
have done as they did. With my convictions I could not. But I was a
Representative. War existed--by whose act no matter--not by mine. The
President, the Senate, the House, and the country all said that there
should be war. * * * I belonged to that school of politics which teaches
that, when we are at war, the government--I do not mean the Executive
alone, but the government--is entitled to demand and have, without
resistance, such number of men, and such amount of money and supplies
generally, as may be necessary for the war, until an appeal can be had
to the people. Before that tribunal alone, in the first instance,
must the question of the continuance of the war be tried. This was Mr.
Calhoun's opinion * * * in the Mexican war. Speaking of that war in
1847, he said: "Every Senator knows that I was opposed to the war; but
none but myself knows the depth of that opposition. With my conception
of its character and consequences, it was impossible for me to vote for
it. * * * But, after war was declared, by authority of the government,
I acquiesced in what I could not prevent, and what it was impossible for