I Should Be Glad If I Could

I Should Be Glad If I Could Flatter Myself That I Came As Near The Central Idea Of The Occasion, In Two Hours, As You Did In Two Minutes.

God Bless The Union; - It Is Dearer To Us For The Blood Of Brave Men Which Has Been Shed In Its Defence.

The Evil, Sir, Is Enormous; The Inevitable Suffering Incalculable. Do Not Stain The Fair Fame Of The Country. . . . Nations Of Dependent Indians, Against Their Will, Under Color Of Law, Are Driven From Their Homes Into The Wilderness. You Cannot Explain It; You Cannot Reason It Away. . . . Our Friends Will View This Measure With Sorrow, And Our Enemies Alone With Joy. And We Ourselves, Sir, When The Interests And Passions Of The Day Are Past, Shall Look Back Upon It, I Fear, With Self-reproach, And A Regret As Bitter As Unavailing.

And What I Should Do, By The Grace Of God, I Will Do.

A Great Character, Founded On The Living Rock Of Principle Is, In Fact, Not A Solitary Phenomenon, To Be At Once Perceived, Limited, And Described. It Is A Dispensation Of Providence, Designed To Have Not Merely An Immediate, But A Continuous, Progressive, And Never-ending Agency. It Survives The Man Who Possessed It; Survives His Age,--and Perhaps, His Country, His Language.