10 quenccs that prove our theory; that we have no occasion to carry on the fight for the Constitution as it was. , I beg your pardon, the Constitution as it is. Who is interfering with the Constitution as it is! Who makes any attacks upon the Constitution ! We are fighting with those who have gone out andrepudiated the Constitution, and made another Constitution for themselves. [Cheers.] And, now, my friends, I do not know but I shall use some heresy, but as a Democrat, as an Andrew Jackson Democrat, I am not for the Union as it was. [Great cheering. “ Good 1” w Good!”] I say, as a Democrat, and an Andrew Jackson Democrat, I am not for the Union to be again as it was. Understand me; I was for Union, because I saw, or thought I saw, the troubles in the future which have burst upon us ; but having undergone those troubles, having spent all this blood and this treasure, I do not mean to go back again and be cheek by jowl with South Carolina as I was before, if I can help it. [Cheers. “ You’re right.”] Mark me, now, let bo man misunderstand me, and I repeat, lest I may be misunderstood—there are none so slow to understand as.those who do not want to—mark me, I say I do not mean to give up a single inch of the eoil of South Carolina. If I had been alive at that time, and had had.the position, the will, and the ability, I would have dealt with South Carolina as Jackson did, aud kept her in the Union at all hazards, but now she has gone out, and I will take care that when she comes in again, she comes in better behaved [cheers], that she shall no longer be the firebrand of the Union—aye, and that she shall enjoy what her people never yet have enjoyed—the blejsings of a Republican form of Government. [Applause.] Therefore, in that view, I am not for the reconstruction of the Union as it was. I have spent treasure and blood enough upon it, in conjunction with my fellow-citizens, to make it a little better. [Cheers.] I think we can have a better Union the next time. It was good enough if it had been left alone. The old house was good enough for me, but as they have pulled down all the L part, I propose, when we build it up, to build it up with all the modern improvements. [Prolonged laughter and applause.] Another of the logical sequences, it seems to me, that follow with inexorable and not to-be-shunned sequence upon this proposition, that we are dealing with alien enemies, is with regard to our duties as to the cun- fi scat ion of their property, 'and that question would seem to me to be easy of settlement under the Constitution, and without any discussion, if my first proposition is right. Has it not been held from the beginning of the world down to this day, from the time the Israelites took possession of the Land of Canaan, which they got from alien enemies—has it not been held that the whole property of those alien enemies belonged to the conqueror, and that it has been at his mercy and his clemency what should be done with it! For one, I would take it and give the loyal man who was loyal in the heart of the South, enough to make him as well as he was before, and I would take the balance of it and distribute it among the volunteer soldiers who have gone— —[the remainder of the sentence was drowned in a tremendous burst of applause.] And so far as I know them, if we should settle South Carolina with them, in the. course of a few years I would be quite willing to receive her back into the Union. [Renewed applause.] That leads us to deal with another proposition : What shall be done with the slaves ? Here again the laws of war have long settled, with clearness and exactness, that it is for the conqueror, for the government which has maintained or extended its jurisdiction over the conquered territory, to deal with slaves as it pleases, to free them or not as it chooses. It is not for the conquered to make terms, or to send their friends into the conquered country to make terms for them. [Applause ] Another' corollary follows from the proposition that we are fighting with alien enemies, which relieves us from another difficulty which seems to trouble some of my old Democratic friends, and that is in relation to the question of arming the negro slaves. If the seceded States are alien enemies, is there any objection that you know of, and if so, state it, to our arming one portion of the foreign country against the other while they are fighting us J [Applause, and cries of “No!” “No!”] Suppose that we were at war with England. Who would get up here in New York and say that we must not arm the Irish, lest they should hurt some of the English! [Applause.] And yet at one time, not very far gone, all those Englishmen were our grandfathers’ brothers. Either they oe we erred; but we are now separate nations. There can be no objection, for another reason, because there is no law of war or of nations,—no rule of governmental action that 2
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