I would have changed my public conduct also.  But my convictions did not change.  I thought that, if war was disunion on the 14th of April, it was equally disunion on the 15th, and at all times.  Believing this, I could not, as an honest man, a Union man, and a patriot, lend an active support to the war; and I did not.  I had rather my right arm were plucked from its socket and cast into eternal burnings, than, with my convictions, to have thus defiled my soul with the guilt of moral perjury.  Sir, I was not taught in that school which proclaims that “all is fair in politics.”  I loathe, abhor, and detest the execrable maxim. * * * Perish office, perish honors, perish life itself; but do the thing that is right, and do it like a man.

Certainly, sir; I could not doubt what he must suffer who dare defy the opinions and the passions, not to say the madness, of twenty millions of people. * * * I did not support the war; and to-day I bless God that not the smell of so much as one drop of its blood is upon my garments.  Sir, I censure no brave man who rushed patriotically into this war; neither will I quarrel with any one, here or elsewhere, who gave to it an honest support.  Had their convictions been mine, I, too, would doubtless have done as they did.  With my convictions I could not.  But I was a Representative.  War existed—­by whose act no matter—­not by mine.  The President, the Senate, the House, and the country all said that there should be war. * * * I belonged to that school of politics which teaches that, when we are at war, the government—­I do not mean the Executive alone, but the government—­is entitled to demand and have, without resistance, such number of men, and such amount of money and supplies generally, as may be necessary for the war, until an appeal can be had to the people.  Before that tribunal alone, in the first instance, must the question of the continuance of the war be tried.  This was Mr. Calhoun’s opinion * * * in the Mexican war.  Speaking of that war in 1847, he said:  “Every Senator knows that I was opposed to the war; but none but myself knows the depth of that opposition.  With my conception of its character and consequences, it was impossible for me to vote for it. * * * But, after war was declared, by authority of the government, I acquiesced in what I could not prevent, and what it was impossible for me to arrest; and I then felt it to be my duty to limit my efforts to give such direction to the war as would, as far as possible, prevent the evils and dangers with which it threatened the country and its institutions.”

Sir, I adopt all this as my position and my defence, though, perhaps, in a civil war, I might fairly go farther in opposition.  I could not, with my convictions, vote men and money for this war, and I would not, as a Representative, vote against them.  I meant that, without opposition, the President might take all the men and all the money he should demand, and then to hold him to a strict responsibility before