The Great Conspiracy, Volume 2 by John Alexander Logan
page 98 of 145 (67%)
page 98 of 145 (67%)
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judgment, has the power to select between."
In this same broad spirit, Mr. Seward, in his great speech of January 12th, had said: "Republicanism is subordinate to Union, as everything else is and ought to be--Republicanism, Democracy, every other political name and thing; all are subordinate-and they ought to disappear in the presence of the great question of Union." In another part of it, he had even more emphatically said: "I therefore * * * avow my adherence to the Union in its integrity and with all its parts, with my friends, with my Party, with my State, with my Country, or without either, as they may determine, in every event, whether of Peace or War, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Although I lament the occasion, I hail with cheerfulness the duty of lifting up my voice among distracted debates, for my whole Country and its inestimable Union." And as showing still more clearly the kindly and conciliatory attitude of the great Republican leader, when speaking of those others who seemed to be about to invoke revolutionary action to oppose--and overthrow the Government--he said: "In such a case I can afford to meet prejudice with Conciliation, exaction with Concession which surrenders no principle, and violence with the right hand of Peace." In the House of Representatives, too, the voice of patriotism was often heard through the loud clamor and disorder of that most disorderly and Treason-uttering session--was heard from the lips of statesmen, who rose high above Party, in their devotion to the Union. The calm, dispassionate recital by Henry Winter Davis (of Maryland), of the successive steps by which the Southern leaders had themselves created that very "North" of whose antagonism they complained, was one of the best of these, in some respects. He was one of the great Select Committee of Thirty-three, and it was (February 5th) after the |
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