text:  No; if we must violate the simplicity of our national interests by such degrading and such desperate involvements--if we should not shrink from this conspiracy against mankind let it at least not be consummated in the face of day; let us at once abandon the hollow pretences of human honesty; let us pledge ourselves to a perpetual league of rapine and revolution; let it be transacted in some lower region of existence where it shall not disgrace the light of the sun; and let its ceremonial be worthy of the spirit of evil which it embodies whose power it proclaims and to whose supremacy it commands all nations to bow down