Our Country Before Party

3 Mr. Blake. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman will find if he looks at the Globe, for I have examined it, that he retained his speech against the protest of the reporters for the Globe, and because of that protest, he maintained that he bad a right to keep it as long as he pleased. He rose to a question of privilege upon this floor, and claimed that he had a right to keep it back, and he did keep the speech for revision, and did revise it. Mr. Vallandigham. And so, also, I kept a speech which I read on the 3d of July, 1862, (the only one I ever did read here,) for a few days, in order to prepare it for publication. I want no more forgeries read to the House. Mr. Blake. This is not a forgery, sir. Mr. Vallandigham. It is. It is a false report absolutely. Mr. Blake. I heard the gentleman make that speech, and there are many present who heard It. ' Mr. Vallandigham. Not a member present. You did not heat* it. It never was uttered. Mr. Blake. I did hear it, and it was uttered as is known by many members now here. Mr. Vallandigham. It is absolutely false. When you come td quote my speech, take the record. Mr. Blake. I may take the record, and I find precisely the same Bentiment uttered in the Globe as is uttered here; and where the lan-r guage does not agree with the report in the Herald, it is a false record made by the gentleman himself. Sir, I said my colleague had been consistent, but truth compels me to say that a man holding such sentiments, would appear far more consistent in the rebel Congress at Richmond, than in this Hall. Again, my colleague in the speech from which I have quoted said : “Do you ask me when the hour of disunion will come ? 1 tell you never, never while it is possible to prevent ir—never while we can secure the just, constitutional rights which the Union was made to secure—never, at least, till5 the time shall come wherein to vindicate the glorious rights of revolution. Do you ask me when that hour will come I Of that every State and every people must judge for themselves, before God and the great tribunal of history.’’ What Southern rebel ever claimed more than this? It is the very doctrine of secession and revoluion which South Carolina has asserted ever since 1832, and upon which she and the other rebel States, are now acting in their efforts to destroy the Government of the United States. This speech, then, of my colleague, was to misrepresent the people of the free States on the subject of slavery, its only tenden y to precipitate the Nor and the South into a conflict; and now that the conflict has come, the only result of his efforts will be to prolong the war, and endanger the lives of our gallant men in the field confronting the rebel army. Sir, it was in the direct line of my colleague’s [Mr.Vallandigham] consistency, that he a few days since, said in a speech at Newark, New Jersey : “Shall the Democratic party be induced for one moment to strike hands with those who desire to change the purposes of the Administration, and bring it back again to a war for the Union, when the whole people united cannot accomplish anything before the 4th of March, 1865 ? Will the war continue that long ? ['Never, never !’ from al! parts of the room.] Will you send your sons again to the battle-field ? [Overwhelming, enthusiastic, and unanimous cries, ‘No, no !' Wever, never S' ‘God forbid /’ ‘Not if I know myself!’] Shall they

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