gentleman might have left out that imputa-
tion upon our possible motives.
And now, in conclusion, I desire to say
that there was one thing I regret most deeply
in connection with the remarks of the gen-
tleman from Prince George's (Mr. Clarke.)
it is that with all the eloquence with which
the gentleman expressed his views yesterday,
I heard not one single expression of hope
that, aside from any question of the original
cause of this war; aside from any question
of right or wrong, even on his very doctrine
of States rights, as a citizen of Maryland: I
heard not one single expression of hope that
the side on which the State of Maryland has
arrayed herself should succeed; that he did
not say before this Assembly—God be with
my country right or wrong; that there was
no expression of hope that the side to which
his State has looked for help and protection
might be triumphant. The gentleman told
us that this war is waged for the oppression
of one party; that it is one waged to deprive
them of their rights and their property. But
the gentleman should remember that for three
years his State has arrayed herself with the
party he thus charges with improper pur-
poses; and he might have remembered that
he is here to-day as a representative of that
State. And he might, I think—following
the example of chivalry of old, whatever the
original wrong-doer—have held that so long
as he was a representative of that State, he
would sustain her be she right or wrong.
And while appealing to us eloquently on
the score of the black man, and the heinous
offence of taking away slave property, could
he not have allowed to fill from his eloquent
lips, one word of pity for the brave men,
who by thousands and hundreds of thousands
have offered up their lives and all they hold
most dear, in defence of that great principle
of universal liberty and freedom under which
the gentleman lives to-day: that watchword
of the nations, that all men are created
equally free; could he not have indulged us?,
and gratified the kindliest sentiments of his
own heart, and by his eloquence have excited
our kindly emotions for the thousands who
have died on the field of battle, and the many
thousands now suffering in our hospitals?
The gentleman might have walked to that
hospital almost within the sound of his voice,
and seen the helpless piers and feeble there, and
have reflected what an institution must be
that which has induced men—I call them
men, because I know not by what other term
to describe them, unless I said they were
beasts that do walk upright—what that insti-
tution must be that could induce them to so
abuse and persecute unarmed prisoners in
their power that the feeble shrunken frames
of the few who have survived their tortures
to return here are daily, aye, hourly, de-
scending to the grave, if the gentleman's
room had been near mine, he might day after |
day, as I have so often done, have heard the
funeral dirge of the brave men who in the
pride of their youth and strength would have
counted it no pain to have died upon the field
of battle for their country, but who had been
taken prisoners, trusting to the generosity of
the foe into whose merciless hands they had
fallen, and had come hack here but the mere
skeletons of former days, with hardly the
power to drag their weary bodies to this
place, here to die, far from friends and home,
the victims of a cruelty that could feel no
admiration for bravery, no compassion for
the helpless condition of those in their power.
I think, had the gentleman heard that funeral
dirge day after day, had he seen the bodies of
his country's brave defenders borne to their
last resting place, and reflected upon what
had brought them there, their dying moments
unsoothed by any ministration of love and
kindness except from strangers, his heart
would have bled with pity; his pulse would
have throbbed with indignation, as lifting
his band to Heaven, he would have sworn
that under no circumstances could he ever
uphold or believe in a doctrine which sympa-
thized, in the remotest degree, with the doc-
trines of a class of men who would do these
things.
I have not followed the gentlemen through
all his arguments, through all his quotations;
I did not intend to do so, I had no elaborate
speech to make to this Convention. I rose
simply to say the words that occurred to me
while I spoke. But I do wish to protest once
for all against the practice of selecting some
single sentence from the record of a whole
political life like that of Daniel Webster, and
using it. in contravention of the whole testi-
mony of his life. It is easy to pick out here
a blot and there a blemish in the life of a
great man, but it is hardly fair argument.
If the gentleman can find that the whole tes-
timony of Webster's career sustained him in
the doctrine of States' rights, then it would
be fair for him to quote him for that purpose.
If he can find that the decisions of the Su-
preme Court, from the earliest days of the re-
public until now, sustain the doctrines he
advocates, then it would be fair for him to
claim them as authority. But I deny the
right of the gentleman to quote Jefferson as
authority in one instance, and deny him as
authority in ninety-nine; to quote one decis-
ion of the Supreme Court as authority, and
deny the authority of the nine hundred and
ninety-nine other decisions; to refer to Web-
ster and other great men as authority upon
one point, and deny their authority ninety-
nine times out of a hundred on other points.
it is not fair, and the gentleman cannot ex-
pect us to he governed by such quotations
and such arguments.
I have now but to say that one of the
proudest moments of my career as a member
of this Convention, will be that when I shall |
