You have your own Minister just returned to
Washington. Is this hypocrisy? Are you, because you can cavil at certain
things which the North, the United States Government, has done or has
not done, are you eagerly to throw the influence of your opinion into a
movement which is to dismember the great Republic?
Is there a man here that doubts for a moment that the object of the war
on the part of the South--they began the war--that the object of the war
on the part of the South is to maintain in bondage four millions of
human beings? That is only a small part of it. The further object is to
perpetuate for ever the bondage of all the posterity of those four
millions of slaves. [A few cries of 'No! No!'] You will hear that I am
not in a condition to contest vigorously anything that may be opposed,
for I am suffering, as nearly everybody is, from the state of the
weather, and a hoarseness that almost hinders me from speaking. I could
quote their own documents till midnight in proof of what I say; and if I
found a man who denied it, upon the evidence that had been offered, I
would not offend him, or trouble myself by trying further to convince
him.
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