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Quotation from Speeches on the Compromise of 1850 by Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster
“War and dissolution of the Union are identical and inevitable, in my opinion. There can be a dissolution of the Union only by consent or by war.”
Speeches on the Compromise of 1850, Clay's speech, February 5-6, 1850, peroration (Calvin Colton, The Last Seven Years of the Life of Henry Clay (1856), appendix, Internet Archive OCR text)
Clay answers Southern talk of secession by denying that the Union could be peaceably dissolved.
Citation: "War and dissolution of the Union are identical and inevitable, in my opinion. There can be a dissolution of the Union only by consent or by war." — Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, Speeches on the Compromise of 1850, Clay's speech, February 5-6, 1850, peroration (Calvin Colton, The Last Seven Years of the Life of Henry Clay (1856), appendix, Internet Archive OCR text). (id compromise-of-1850-speeches-q2)
Portrait: Henry Clay, Matthew Harris Jouett, Public domain.
