Hickman was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses , as an Anti-Lecompton Democrat to the Thirty-sixth Congress , and as a Republican to the Thirty-seventh Congress . He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Revolutionary Pensions during the Thirty-fifth Congress and the United States House Committee on the Judiciary during the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses . At the 1860 Republican National Convention , Hickman finished 3rd in the race for the vice-presidential nomination , behind Hannibal Hamlin and Cassius Clay At a political dinner in Philadelphia a week after South Carolina declared secession from the Union , Hickman made a fiery speech calling for war , reported on the front page of the '' Philadelphia Inquirer '' on December 29 , 1860 : The time for action has arrived ; every man must define his position ; there is an eternal conflict between freedom and slavery ; truces which will last can not be formed between them . . . . You must now make up your minds whether to serve God or Belial . ( Cheers . ) . . . For myself I say distinctly &mdash; '' No more compromises . '' ( Long continued applause . ) I love the Constitution and the Union , but I will not buy them from an enemy . ( Cries of good . ) . . . South Carolina is not out of the Union , and by the blessing of Almighty God she '' never will '' be out of the Union . ( Uproarious cheers . ) And if you believe as I do , she never will be out of the Union . ( Cheers . ) The eighteen millions of the North are not to be put down by the eight millions of the South . The prospect is indeed gloomy . We have a traitor President and a corrupt and rotten Cabinet . But with all the banded seceding States and their traitor friends , we will yet save the Union . ( Cheers . ) . . . The South thinks the North is craven , and our Union-saving merchants encourage that belief . I want to know whether every man is going to purchase a peace or '' defend '' the peace . ( Cheers . ) He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1862 . He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1862 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against West H. Humphreys , United States judge for the several districts of Tennessee
1860 Republican National Convention
1860 Republican National Convention
John Hickman (Pennsylvania politician)