The Art of Debate

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Allyn and Bacon, 1922 - 461 pages

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Page 307 - ... unsullied sanctity of their lawn ; upon the learned judges to interpose the purity of their ermine to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of...
Page 314 - I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with mу short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below...
Page 266 - ... of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. — It is peace sought in the spirit of peace ; and laid in principles purely pacific.
Page 301 - I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in...
Page 307 - That God and Nature have put into our hands ! " What ideas of God and Nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not ; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! — to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering...
Page 299 - The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole system.
Page 266 - The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented from principle in all parts of the empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts — it is peace sought in the spirit...
Page 309 - Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our...
Page 257 - My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government, they will cling and grapple to you ; and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance.
Page 257 - If then the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient, what way yet remains? No way is open, but the third and last — to comply with the American spirit as necessary; or, if you please to submit to it, as a necessary evil.

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