Download or read book The Crisis, and What It Demands! Speech of Hon. written by Trusten Polk and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-05 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Crisis, and What It Demands! Speech of Hon.: T. Polk, of Missouri, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 14, 1861 What is the condition of things all over the entire Confederacy, both North and South? Universal panic, prostration of credit, public and private. Why, Mr. President, our Government has just advertised for a loan of $5,000,000, and she could only get half of it bid for; nor even that except at usurious rates of interest, running up to the extreme of thirty-six per centum per annum. Failures and bankruptcies, stagnation and embarrassment everywhere and among all classes. Business languishing; trade crippled; commerce curtailed; industry paralyzed; artisans and mechanics idle for the want of employment; factories stopped and operatives discharged; suffering among the laboring poor; and families without necessaries even now, and want and perhaps starvation, just before them in the future; and this glorious fabric of our Union even now tottering to its fall. Four of the pillars that sustained the lowering edifice are already removed; and among them, one of the original thirteen upon which it first reposed. Six others are on the point of being removed; soon to be followed, it may be, by half of the residue, including among the slaveholding States, the first and the last to come into the Union. Mr. President, the circumstances which surround us are enough to force us to pause and to ponder. And if we do so, we shall perceive the cold shadow of events still more startling coming upon us in the future. Even now a vision of civil war begins to rise up before us; but we are not yet able to discern the form thereof. Sir, I feel, for one, that we are in the midst of a crisis unprecedented in our history. It may be the very crisis of our country's fate. Some affect to ignore it all; as for instance, the Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade, ] who first addressed the Senate. Some, again, try to argue against it. That is the wisdom of the ostrich, which thinks to escape his pursuers by hiding his head in the sand. Others, still, strive to allay apprehension. "Be still," they say; "there is no sufficient cause for danger." Grant it; and the danger is not thereby removed. What concerns us, and what we ought to be concerned about, is the magnitude of the evil. It matters not how trifling and insignificant the cause. A very small leak will sink a line-of-battle ship: and when the noble craft has gone down forever, it will not relieve the disaster to point out the smallness of the cause. You may tell me never so eloquently how she was able to battle with the storm-king on his own element, and to vanquish him; but the fact still remains that the gnawings of an insect has sunk her into the abyss. The American Revolution, says Mr. Webster, was fought on a preamble. Is it not wiser and better to admit the truth, and look the danger full in the face? Then we may hope to prevent, or at least to avoid it. "The prudent man forseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the fool passeth on and is punished." But there are causes, Mr. President, for the perilous condition of affairs which is upon us. I know Senators say, "state your grievances; draw up your bill of indictment;" implying that there are no grievances, and that no bill of indictment can be drawn up. They are in error. They say, "you complain of the Government; and yet the Government has been, for most of the time, in the hands of the Democratic party." Here they are in error again. The complaint is not against the Government. To assume that it is, is a great mistake. To be sure, the action of the Government affecting the institution of slavery has been prejudicial to the South, and violative of its constitutional rights. That was the case when the admission of my State was resisted, and the Missouri restriction was enacted into a law. The South has borne the weight of that unconstitutional restrictio