And,
from the two propositions, a third is deduced, which is, that the
gentlemen composing the meeting are resolved on doing their part to
maintain our common government and country, despite the folly or
wickedness, as they may conceive, of any administration. This position
is eminently patriotic, and, as such, I thank the meeting, and
congratulate the nation for it. My own purpose is the same, so that the
meeting and myself have a common object, and can have no difference,
except in the choice of means or measures for effecting that object."
Later on followed some famous sentences:--
"Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the
Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, with some
effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertion from
the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force
to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the
political prospects of the administration or the personal interests of
the commanding general, but because he was damaging the army, upon the
existence and vigor of which the life of the Nation depends....
"I understand the meeting whose resolutions I am considering to be in
favor of suppressing the rebellion by military force, by armies. Long
experience has shown that armies cannot be maintained unless desertion
shall be punished by the severe penalty of death.
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