54 parts of this country are violent; they mistake loud and violent talk for eloquence and for reason. They think that he who talks loudest reasons best. And this we must expect, when the press is free, as it is here, and I trust always will be; for, with all its licentiousness, and all its evil, the entire and absolute freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of government on the basis of a free constitution. Wherever it exists, there will be foolish paragraphs and violent paragraphs in the press, as there are, I am sorry to say, foolish speeches and violent speeches in both Houses of Congress. In truth, sir, I must say that, in my opinion, the vernacular tongue of the country has become greatly vitiated, depraved, and corrupted by the style of our congressional debates. [Laughter.] And if it were possible for those debates to vitiate the principles of the people, as much as they have depraved their taste, I should cry out “ God save the Republic!” Well, in all this I see no solid grievance, no grievance presented by the South, within the redress of the Government, but the single one to which I have referred; and that is, the want of a proper regard to the injunction of the Constitution, for the delivery of fugitive slaves. There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted the Constitution, recognising the existence of slavery in the States, and recognising the right, to a certain extent, of representation of the slaves in Congress/ under a state of sentiment and expectation, which do not now exist; and that, by
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