Gentlemen, I fear
you have committed a great error in appointing me to the honorable
position you have assigned me. A long separation from all deliberative
bodies has rendered the rules of their proceedings unfamiliar to me, while I
should find, in my own state of health, variable and fickle as it is,
sufficient reason to decline the honor of being your presiding officer. But, in
times like these, one has but little option left him. Personal considerations
should weigh but lightly in the balance. The country is in danger; it is
enough; one must take the place assigned him in the great work of
reconciliation and adjustment. The voice of Virginia has invited her co-States
to meet her in council. In the initiation of this Government, that same voice
was heard and complied with, and the results of seventy-odd years have fully
attested the wisdom of the decisions then adopted. Is the urgency of her call
now less great than it was then? Our godlike fathers created, we have to
preserve. They built up, through their wisdom and patriotism, monuments which
have eternized their names. You have before you, gentlemen, a task equally
grand, equally sublime, quite as full of glory and immortality. You have to
snatch from ruin a great and glorious Confederation, to preserve the
Government, and to renew and invigorate the Constitution. If you reach the
height of this great occasion, your children's children will rise up and call
you blessed. I confess myself to be ambitious of sharing in the glory of
accomplishing this grand and magnificent result.
To have our names
enrolled in the Capitol, to be repeated by future generations with grateful
applause—this is an honor higher than the mountains, more enduring than the
monumental alabaster. Yes, Virginia's voice, as in the olden time, has been
heard. Her sister States meet her this day at the council board. Vermont is
here, bringing with her the memories of the past, and reviving in the memories
of all, her Ethan Allen and his demand for the surrender of Ticonderoga, in the
name of the Great Jehovah and the American Congress. New Hampshire is here, her
fame illustrated by memorable annals, and still more lately as the birthplace
of him who won for himself the name of defender of the Constitution, and who
wrote that letter to John Taylor which has been enshrined in the hearts of his
countrymen. Massachusetts is not here. (Some member said "She is
coming.") I hope so, said Mr. TYLER, and that she will bring with her her
daughter Maine. I did not believe it could well be that the voice which in
other times was so familiar to her ears had been addressed to her in vain.
Connecticut is here, and she comes, I doubt not, in the spirit of ROGER
SHERMAN, whose name with our very children has become a household word, and who
was in life the embodiment of that sound practical sense which befits the great
lawgiver and constructer of governments. Rhode Island, the land of ROGER
WILLIAMS, is here, one of the two last States, in her jealousy of the public
liberty, to give in her adhesion to the Constitution, and among the earliest to
hasten to its rescue. The great Empire State of New York, represented thus far
but by one delegate, is expected daily in fuller force to join in the great
work of healing the discontents of the times and restoring the reign of
fraternal feeling. New Jersey is also here, with the memories of the past
covering her all over. Trenton and Princeton live immortal in story, the plains
of the last incrimsoned with the hearts blood of Virginia's sons. Among her
delegation I rejoice to recognize a gallant son of a signer of the immortal
Declaration which announced to the world that thirteen Provinces had become
thirteen independent and sovereign States. And here, too, is Delaware, the land
of the BAYARDS and the RODNEYS, whose soil at Brandywine was moistened by the
blood of Virginia's youthful MONROE. Here is Maryland, whose massive columns
wheeled into line with those of Virginia in the contest for glory, and whose
state house at Annapolis was the theatre of the spectacle of a successful
Commander, who, after liberating his country, gladly ungirthed his sword, and
laid it down upon the altar of that country. Then comes Pennsylvania, rich in
revolutionary lore, bringing with her the deathless names of FRANKLIN and
MORRIS, and, I trust, ready to renew from the belfry of Independence Hall the
chimes of the old bell, which announced Freedom and Independence in former
days. All hail to North Carolina! with her Mecklenberg Declaration in her hand,
standing erect on the ground of her own probity and firmness in the cause of
public liberty, and represented in her attributes by her MACON, and in this
assembly by her distinguished son at no great distance from me. Four daughters
of Virginia also cluster around the council board on the invitation of their
ancient mother—the eldest, Kentucky, whose sons, under the intrepid warrior
ANTHONY WAYNE, gave freedom of settlement to the territory of her sister, Ohio.
She extends her hand daily and hourly across la belle riviere, to grasp the
hand of some one of kindred blood of the noble states of Indiana, and Illinois,
and Ohio, who have grown up into powerful States, already grand, potent, and
almost imperial. Tennessee is not here, but is coming—prevented only from being
here by the floods which have swollen her rivers. When she arrives, she will
wear the badges on her warrior crest of victories won in company with the Great
West on many an ensanguined plain, and standards torn from the hands of the
conquerors at Waterloo. Missouri, and Iowa, and Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Minnesota, still linger behind, but it may be hoped that their hearts are with
us in the great work we have to do.
Gentlemen, the eyes
of the whole country are turned to this assembly, in expectation and hope. I
trust that you may prove yourselves worthy of the great occasion. Our
ancestors, probably, committed a blunder in not having fixed upon every fifth
decade for a call of a general convention to amend and reform the Constitution.
On the contrary, they have made the difficulties next to insurmountable to
accomplish amendments to an instrument which was perfect for five millions of
people, but not wholly so as to thirty millions. Your patriotism will surmount
the difficulties, however great, if you will but accomplish one triumph in
advance, and that is, a triumph over party. And what is party, when compared to
the work of rescuing one's country from danger? Do that, and one long, loud
shout of joy and gladness will resound throughout the land.
SOURCES: Lyon
Gardiner Tyler, The Letters and Times of the Tylers, Volume 2, p.
598-600; Lucius Eugene Chittenden, A
Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference
Convention for Proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the United States,
Held at Washington, D. C., February 1861, p. 14-7
