Excerpt from Shall the Government Surrender to the Rebellion?: Speech of Hon. John A. Bingham, of Ohio, in Reply to Hon. C. L. Vallandingham; Delivered in the House of Representatives, Jan, 14, 1863

Constitution and the laws. He himself would have repeated the cry, all is well, till your capital had fallen without a gun being fired, and the Republic had been blotted from the map of nations - the gen himself' proclaiming that it perished because it was unconstitu tional to defend it; that to coerce rebels who struck at its lite was a The gentleman has the candor to say that was his opinion, declared by himself at the beginning, and that he is of that mind still; he says to -day to coerce by fonce rebels in arms is uncon 1 utional. Hence it is that the gentleman comes here to day and tells us that ought to stop that it should not continue a day nor an hour. He is for the Union he tells us, and against the employ ment of the only means by which the Union can be this day main tained, the armed power of the people themselves. There can be no Union as it was, unless by arms you sustain, over all the republic, the Constitution as the supreme law' of the land; and yet the gentleman says the war ought to stop that it should not continue a day nor an hour. The other half of his speech is devoted to the task of satisfy ing the people that he is for the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was. Let us see He tells us frankly - and I believe his statement 18 precisely according to the record - that he voted neither men nor money to carry on the war. Suppose all the representatives in this Hall had followed his example, had acted as he declares he has acted in the cause of the Union, what would have. Been the resultl No bill authorizmg the enlistment of volunteers in defence of your flag, no appropriation of money for arming, equipping, and keeping in the field six hundred thousand defenders of the Union, no arm lifted to support the tottering pillars of the Republic, shaking in this wild storm of rebellion. All would have been abandoned. The gentleman who says he is for the Union as it was, would have abandoned all to' the 'tender mercies of this armed rebellion, which has multiplied those graves all over the land to which the gentleman refers with so much tenderness, and. So much regret for those who fill them; fallen as he says, by reason of this unconstitutional war. The gentleman could not find it in his heart to denounce the rebellion as unconstitutional, but only the on the part of the Government for the suppression of that rebellion is unconstitutional.

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