Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/81

 WEBSTER secession. Peaceable secession is an utter im- possibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost un- observed, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, sir, I see, as plainly as I see the sun in heaven, what the disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character. Peaceable secession ! — peaceable secession I The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary ^ separation, with alimony on one side and on the ij other. Why, what would be the result? Where kjiJ is the line to be drawn? What States are to se- *^ cede ? What is to remain American ? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other House of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? — or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground ? Why, sir, our ancestors — our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us, with prolonged lives — would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our 71