At that crisis Mr. Pendleton delivered and sent forth a speech bearing this significant motto: "But, sir, armies, money, blood, can not maintain this Union--justice, reason, peace, may." The speech was according to its motto. Accustomed as he is to speak cautiously, and in a scholarly and moderate way, we can not be mistaken as to his drift. On the authority of the National government he says:
"Now, sir, what force of arms can compel a State to do that which she has agreed to do? What force of arms can compel a State to refrain from doing that which her State government, supported by the sentiment of her people, is determined to persist in doing.... Sir, the whole scheme of coercion is impracticable. It is contrary to the genius and spirit of the Constitution."
These extracts sufficiently and fairly show Mr. Pendleton's notion of the duty and authority of the Nation in that great crisis. He held the States rights doctrines of Calhoun and Breckenridge, and not the National principles of Washington and Jackson.
As to the treatment of rebels already in arms, and as to the "demands" of the slave power, consider this advice which he gave to Congress and the people:
"If these Southern States can not be conciliated; if you, gentlemen, can not find it in your hearts to grant their demands; if they must leave the family mansion, I would signalize their departure by tokens of love; I would bid them farewell so tenderly that they would be forever touched by the recollection of it; and if in the vicissitudes of their separate existence they should desire to come together with us again in one common government, there should be no pride to be humiliated, there should be no wound inflicted by my hand to be healed. They should come and be welcome to the places they now occupy."
Thus we see there were those who, with honeyed phrases and soft words, would have looked smilingly on, while the great Republic--the pride of her children, the hope of the ages--built by the fathers at such an expense of suffering, of treasure, and of blood, was stricken by traitors' hands from the roll of living Nations, and while an armed oligarchy should establish in its stead a nation founded on a denial of human rights, and under whose sway south of the Potomac more than half of the territory of the old Thirteen Colonies--soil once fertilized by the best blood of the Revolution--should, for generations to come, continue to be tilled by the unrequited toil of slaves.
