Chittenden:
SPEECH IN PEACE CONVENTION
I have not been at all clear in my own mind as to when, and to what
extent, Massachusetts should raise her voice in this convention. She
has heard the voice of Virginia, expressed through her resolutions, in
this crisis of our country's history. Massachusetts hesitated, not
because she was unwilling to respond to the call of Virginia, but
because she thought her honor touched by the manner of that call and
the circumstances attending it. She had taken part in the election of
the 6th of November. She knew the result. It accorded well with her
wishes. She knew that the government whose political head for the
next four years was then chosen was based upon a Constitution which she
supposed still had an existence. She saw that State after State had
left that government,--seceded is the word used,--had gone out from
this great confederacy, and that they were defying the Constitution and
the Union.
Charge after charge has been vaguely made against the North. It is
attempted here to put the North on trial. I have listened with grave
attention to the gentleman from Virginia to-day; but I have heard no
specification of these charges. Massachusetts hesitated, I say: she
has her own opinion of the Government and the Union. I know
Massachusetts; I have been into every one of her more than three
hundred towns; I have seen and conversed with her men and her women;
and I know there is not a man within her borders who would not to-day
gladly lay down his life for the preservation of the Union.
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