Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/205

 YANCEY honor of families, the lives, perhaps, of all of us. It all rests upon what your course may ulti- mately make out of a great heaving volcano of passion. Bear with us then, while we standi sternly upon what is yet a dormant volcano, and say that we can yield no position until we are convinced that we are wrong. We are in a posi- tion to ask you to yield. What right of yours, gentlemen of the North, have we of the South ever invaded ? What institution of yours have we ever assailed, directly or indirectly? What laws, have w^e ever passed that have invaded, or in- duced others to invade, the sanctity of your homes, or to put your lives in jeopardy, or that were likely to destroy the fundamental institu- tions of your States ? The wisest, the most learn- ed and the best among you remain silent, be- cause you can not say that we have done this thing. If your view is right and ours is not out strictly supported by the compact, still the con- sequence, in a remote degree, of your proposi- tion, may bring a dreaded result upon us all. If you have no domestic, no municipal peace at stake, and no property at stake, and no funda- mental institutions of your liberties at stake, are we asking any too much of you to-day when we ask you to yield to us in this matter as broth- ers, in order to quiet our doubts? For in yield- ing you lose nothing that is essentially right. Do I state that proposition, gentlemen, any stronger than your own intellects and your own judgment 195