Secondly: Experience in public affairs has confirmed my opinion, that domestic slavery, existing in any state, is wisely left by the constitution of the United States exclusively to the care, management, and disposition of that state; and if it were in my power, I would not alter the constitution in that respect. If misapprehension of my position needs so strong a remedy, I am willing to vote for an amendment of the constitution, declaring that it shall not, by any future amendment, be so altered as to confer on congress a power to abolish or interfere with slavery in any state.

Thirdly: While I think that congress has exclusive and sovereign authority to legislate on all subjects whatever, in the common territories of the United States, and while I certainly shall never, directly or indirectly, give my vote to establish or sanction slavery in such territories, or anywhere else in the world, yet the question what constitutional laws shall at any time be passed in regard to the territories, is, like every other question, to be determinined on practical grounds. I voted for enabling acts in the cases of Oregon, Minnesota and Kansas, without being able to secure in them such provisions as I would have preferred; and yet I voted wisely. So, now, I am well satisfied that, under existing circumstances, a happy and satisfactory solution of the difficulties in the remaining territories would be obtained by similar laws, providing for their organization, if such organization were otherwise practicable. If, therefore, Kansas were admitted as a state under the Wyandotte constitution, as I think she ought to be, and if the organic laws of all the other territories could be repealed, I could vote to authorize the organization and admission of two new states which should include them, reserving the right to effect subdivisions of them, whenever necessary, into several convenient states; but I do not find that such reservations could be constitutionally made. Without them, the ulterior embarrassments which would result from the hasty incorporation of states of such vast extent and various interests and character, would outweigh all the immediate advantages of such a measure. But if the measure were practicable, I should prefer a different course, namely: when the eccentric movements of secession and disunion shall have ended, in whatever form that end may come, and the angry excitement of the hour shall have subsided, and calmness once more shall have resumed its accustomed sway over the public mind, then, and not until then-one, two or three years hence I should cheerfully advise

a convention of the people, to be assembled in pursuance of the constitution, to consider and decide whether any and what amendments of the organic national law ought to be made. A republican nowas I have heretofore been a member of other parties existing in my day-I nevertheless hold and cherish, as I have always done, the principle that this government exists in its present form only by the consent of the governed, and that it is as necessary as it is wise, to resort to the people for revisions of the organic law whenever the troubles and dangers of the state certainly transcend the powers delegated by it to the public authorities. Nor ought the suggestion to excite surprise. Government in any form is a machine; this is the most complex one that the mind of man has ever invented, or the hand of man has ever framed. Perfect as it is, it ought to be expected that it will, at least as often as once in a century, require some modification to adapt it to the changes of society and alternations of empire.

Fourthly: I hold myself ready now, as always heretofore, to vote for any properly guarded laws which shall be deemed necessary to prevent mutual invasions of states by citizens of other states, and punish those who shall aid and abet them.

Fifthly: Notwithstanding the arguments of the gallant senator from Oregon [General LANE], I remain of the opinion that physical bonds, such as highways, railroads, rivers and canals, are vastly more powerful for holding civil communities together than any mere covenants, though written on parchment or engraved upon iron. I remain, therefore, constant to my purpose to secure, if possible, the construction of two Pacific railways, one of which shall connect the ports around the mouths of the Mississippi, and the other the towns on the Missouri and the lakes, with the harbors on our western coast.

If, in the expression of these views, I have not proposed what is desired or expected by many others, they will do me the justice to believe that I am as far from having suggested what, in many respects, would have been in harmony with cherished convictions of my own. I learned early from Jefferson that, in political affairs, we cannot always do what seems to us absolutely best. Those with whom we must necessarily act, entertaining different views, have the power and the right of carrying them into practice. We must be content to lead when we can, and to follow when we cannot lead; and if we cannot, at any time, do for our country all the good that we would

wish, we must be satisfied with doing for her all the good that we

can.

Having submitted my own opinions on this great crisis, it remains only to say, that I shall cheerfully lend to the government my best support in whatever prudent yet energetic efforts it shall make to preserve the public peace, and to maintain and preserve the Union; advising, only, that it practise, as far as possible, the utmost moderation, forbearance and conciliation.

And now what are the auspices of the country? I know that we are in the midst of alarms, and somewhat exposed to accidents unavoidable in seasons of tempestuous passions. We already have disorder, and violence has begun. I know not to what extent it may go. Still my faith in the constitution and in the Union abides, because my faith in the wisdom and virtue of the American people remains unshaken. Coolness, calmness and resolution are elements of their character. These have been temporarily displaced, but they are reäppearing. Soon enough, I trust, for safety, it will be seen that sedition and violence are only local and temporary, and that loyalty and affection to the Union are the natural sentiments of the whole country. Whatever dangers there shall be, there will be the determination to meet them; whatever sacrifices, private or public, shall be needful for the Union, they will be made. I feel sure that the hour has not come for this great nation to fall. This people, which has been studying to become wiser and better as it has grown older, is not yet perverse or wicked enough to deserve so dreadful and severe a punishment as dissolution. This Union has not yet accomplished what good for mankind was manifestly designed by Him who appoints the seasons and prescribes the duties of states and empires. No; if it were cast down by faction to-day, it would rise again and reappear in all its majestic proportions to-morrow. is the only government that can stand here. Woe! woe! to the man that madly lifts his hand against it. It shall continue and endure; and men, in after times, shall declare that this generation, which saved the Union from such sudden and unlooked-for dangers, surpassed in magnanimity even that one which laid its foundations in the eternal principles of liberty, justice and humanity.

It

THE STATE OF THE UNION.'

I HAVE received a communication from a committee of twentyfive citizens of New York, who are charged with the duty of presenting to the senate of the United States the petition of the inhabitants of that city, praying for the exercise of the best wisdom of congress in finding some plan for the adjustment of the troubles which disturb the peace and happiness and endanger the safety of the nation.

Excepting the house of representatives, this senate chamber is the largest hall that is, or ever has been, occupied by a legislative assembly since the world began. The memorial which I am charged to present is of such a length that, if extended, it would cross the senate chamber, in its extremest length, eighteen times. I have already presented memorials from the city of New York signed by citizens of that place to the number of twenty-five thousand. This memorial bears the signatures of thirty-eight thousand more, making, in the whole, sixty-three thousand of the inhabitants of that city who have signed this appeal to the senate. The committee who have charge of this memorial are a fair representation-I might almost say an embodiment-of the citizens who direct and wield the commerce of the great emporium of our country, the commerce of a continent, and a commerce which this present year, owing to the distractions of the times, is put, for the first time, in the condition of proving itself to be the controlling commerce of the world. The memorial which they present may be regarded as a fair expression of the interest which is felt by that great commercial community, and probably a fair exponent of the interest in the same great subject which is felt by the whole commercial interest of the United States. In any other part of the world, such a communication would command obedience. In England, France, Russia, Prussia, or Germany, a demonstration of the will of the commerce of the

1 Speech in the Senate on presenting the New York Union petition, January 30, 1861.

country decides the questions of war or of peace.

one.

Happily, that is not the case in this great republic. The interest of commerce is but The interest of agriculture, manufactures, and mining, each of them, is another. Each is entitled to, and each secures, equal respect; and the consideration which they obtain is due, not to their number, not to their wealth, but is due to the circumstances under which they lend their advice to the government. But I do not hesitate to say that the character of these petitioners entitle them to the respectful attention and consideration of congress.

They have asked me to support this petition. I have not yet found, though I have anxiously waited and hoped for, that manifestation of temper on the part of the people of the country and their representatives which would justify me in saying that the seceding states, or those who sympathize with them, have made propositions which the citizens of the adhering states could accept; or, as I desire to speak with impartiality upon this as upon all other occasions, to put the proposition in another form, that this or any other of the various propositions which have come from citizens of the adhering states, or those who desire to adhere to the Union, would be acceptable and satisfactory to the other party. I have thought it my duty to hold myself open and ready for the best adjustment which could be practically made; and I have therefore been obliged to ask this committee to be content with the assurance that I would express to the public and to the senate that the spirit in which they come is perfectly commendable and perfectly satisfactory. It is gratifying to me to see that the proper spirit, the spirit of fraternal kindness, of conciliation and affection, is adopted by so large a portion of my fellow citizens of the state to which I belong.

I have asked them, also, in return for performing my duty on this occasion, that when they have arrived at home, they will act in the same spirit and manifest their devotion to the Union above all other interests and all other sentiments, by speaking for the Union, by voting for the Union, and if it should be demanded by lending and even giving their money for the Union, and fighting in the last resort for the Union; taking care always that speaking goes before voting, voting goes before giving money, and all go before a battle, which I should regard as hazardous and dangerous, and therefore the last, as it would be the most painful measure to be resorted to for the salvation of the Union.