Benjamin Stanton

American politician (1809-1872)

Benjamin Stanton (4 June 18092 June 1872) was an American politician from Ohio and a member of the U.S. Republican Party.

We are now, probably for the first time in our history, entering a new aspect of national politics.

Quotes

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  • Mr. Chairman, I desire to state, in a few words, what I regard as the real question in controversy between the political parties of the country. The Republican Party holds that African slavery is a local institution, created and sustained by State laws and usages that cannot exist beyond the limits of the State, by virtue of whose laws it is established and sustained. The Democratic Party holds that African slavery is a national institution, recognized and sustained by the Constitution of the United States throughout the entire territorial limits, where not prohibited by State constitutions and State laws... All other questions about which we differ grow out of this, and are dependent upon it.

Speech (1860)

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Speech (May 1860)
  • We are now, probably for the first time in our history, entering a new aspect of national politics.
  • I take it for granted there can be no controversy about what that resistance amounts to. It can only be done by levying war against the United States. The thing threatened is treason against the United States. There can be no controversy about that.
  • Another portion say that, if a Republican President is elected, they will secede from the confederacy, and organize a separate and independent Confederacy of their own. Whether that constitutes treason or not, is a matter of opinion, and may be a matter of controversy; but it is, nevertheless, equally fatal to the perpetuity of the existing Government and the existing institutions of the country.
  • "We will rule this country, or we will ruin it. We will overturn this Government if we are not allowed to administer it ourselves." That is the naked, undisguised proposition of the Democratic Party in the year of grace 1860.
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