“Can any man say to us that, although this outrage has been perpetrated at Harper's Ferry, there is no danger of its recurrence? Sir, is not the Republican party still embodied, organized, confident of success, and defiant in its pretensions? Does it not now hold and proclaim the same creed as before the invasion? Those doctrines remain the same. Those teachings are being poured into the minds of men throughout the country by means of speeches and pamphlets and books, and through partisan presses. The causes that produced the Harper's Ferry invasion are now in active operation. * * * Mr. President, the mode of preserving peace is plain. This system of sectional warfare must cease. The Constitution has given the power; and all we ask of Congress is to give the means, and we, by indictments and convictions in the Federal Courts of the several States will make such examples of the leaders of such conspiracies as will strike terror into the hearts of others; and there will be an end of this crusade. Sir, we must check it by crushing out the conspiracy and combination; and then there can be safety.”
I confess that, when I read that speech and the resolution in defence of which it was made, I stood horror-struck—not as though I feared that a Congress could be found so degenerate as to pass such a law, but because a Senator had been found who had the effrontery to advocate it in the open halls of an American Legislature. [Loud applause.] This is not a mere figure of speech. I do not exaggerate. Only look at it. A treasonable attempt has been committed. The offenders are punished. Mr. Douglas introduces a proposition for a law intended to prevent a repetition of the attempt. He pretends to discover the origin of the treasonable attempt in the opinions and doctrines of a great national party. He charges that party with waging a sectional warfare and
