The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6 by John Alexander Logan
page 63 of 100 (63%)
page 63 of 100 (63%)
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incompetence, failure, tyranny, and all sorts of barbarous actions and
harsh intentions, toward the Rebels--which led him to the indignant exclamation: "Will they throw down their arms and submit to the terms? Who shall believe that the free, proud American blood, which courses with as quick pulsation through their veins as our own, will not be spilled to the last drop in resistance?" Warming up, he proceeded to say: "Can the Union be restored by War? I answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never; 'War is final, eternal separation.'" He claimed that the War was "wrong;" that it was waged "in violation of the Constitution," and would "if continued, result speedily in the destruction of the Government and the loss of Civil Liberty, and ought therefore, to immediately cease." He held also "that the Confederate States are out of the Union, occupying the position of an Independent Power de facto; have been acknowledged as a belligerent both by Foreign Nations and our own Government; maintained their Declaration of Independence, for three years, by force of arms; and the War has cut asunder all the obligations that bound them under the Constitution." "Much better," said he, "would it have been for us in the beginning, much better would it be for us now, to consent to a division of our magnificent Empire, and cultivate amicable relations with our estranged brethren, than to seek to hold them to us by the power of the sword. * * * I am reluctantly and despondingly forced to the conclusion that the |
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