be worth to herself or to us if she were dragged captive in chains? I wish no State of this Union to be subjugated by her sisters. If she cannot be retained by the bonds of affection, or, if estranged, cannot be brought back to us by the arts of kindness, why, then, in God's name horrible as I esteem such an alternative-let her depart in sorrowful silence.

The difficulty is, that we men of the North do not rightly understand the Southern people, and that they do not rightly understand us. I fear that no remedy is within the reach of Congress, and, therefore, I deprecate any discussion of particular questions. I hope the committee now to be appointed, in virtue of this resolution, will look beyond and above all present controversies; and, if it can do nothing else, as I think it cannot, will advise us to declare to our constituents, in some solemn form, that no methods of legislation-no method of constitutional amendment to be inaugurated here-can be of the slightest efficacy or use. We must tell the people, in every State, to follow the example of their fathers-to choose delegates for conventions of all the States separately, and afterwards for a convention of the States together. The entire field of controversy should be reviewed and patiently considered, in order, if possible, to lay more deeply, more broadly, and, I trust, more wisely the foundations of our common liberty and security and happiness.

I hope the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] will reconsider his determination. I do not believe that his noble constituency would think worse of him because in response to an appeal of amity and friendship, he planted himself in the very door of reconciliation and kept it open as long as any one would speak a single kind word.

SENATOR BROWN.-The Senator will allow me a moment. I never intimated that we would not listen to appeals; I never said that this case could not be adjusted; but I said there was no disposition on the Republican side to do it. My friend from Ohio and I have not the power to do it. He is not speaking for the Republicans. They are the power in the Government, and, so far as we have had any intimations from them, they have no propositions to make, and none to accept. My friend from Ohio and I might talk to the end of the next century and agree or disagree as much as we pleased

JUDAH P. BENJAMIN [La.].-You and he could agree in five minutes.

SENATOR BROWN.-He and I would have no difficulty at all. If the Republicans will trust their cause to him [laughter] and

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the Democrats to me, we will settle the question before the sun goes down, without the least trouble in the world. Then I cannot have any difficulty with him. It is the power behind him I am talking about.

SENATOR PUGH.-My honorable friend from Mississippi has no Republicans" to conquer at home. That duty remains to me and to more than a million Northern Democrats like me. I now tell the Republicans frankly, that, unless they approach this controversy in a spirit of honorable conciliation, they have won their last victory in the non-slaveholding States, and, assuredly, in the States northwest of the Ohio River. They did not win the presidential contest on any such propositions as some of them have announced on this floor and they know it.

Let us have done with mere altercations. Is it not an utter disgrace that the first men of the Republic should come hither, at the seat of Federal Government, representing the sovereignty of their proud States at home, when the fabric of our common liberty is tottering to destruction, and, instead of stretching forth their arms to stay such ruin, should fold them inanely, helplessly, and hopelessly, as did the Roman Senators at a time of barbaric invasion.

SENATOR HALE.-Mr. President, I rise to correct a misapprehension of the Senator from Ohio, in a statement which he has made of some remarks that I made here a few days ago. I do not know that I ever spoke in my life when I was so persistently and so obstinately misrepresented. I do not refer now to the Senator from Ohio, because I do not think a Senator here would do it; but I speak of a few craven, cowardly, infamous wretches, that, in the providence of God, have found themselves editors of some of our Northern papers and seem to think it is incumbent on them to utter an apology, about once a week, that God ever sent such miserable wretches into the world. It is from their hands that this persistent misrepresentation comes. I understood the honorable Senator from Ohio to say that I had declared that I wanted to wait to see if Mr. Buchanan would not send a Federal army down to coerce South Carolina.

SENATOR PUGH.-I say to the Senator frankly that I did so understand his remarks-not that he used those words, but that was the amount of what he said, as I thought. I shall be very happy if the Senator did not mean that.

SENATOR HALE.-Well, sir, if so intelligent a man as the Senator from Ohio misunderstood me in that respect, I ought to abate a little of those adjectives that I have heaped on those editorial wretches. [Laughter.]

out.

SENATOR PUGH.-I think you had better leave the adjetives

SENATOR HALE.-I said that, in my humble judgment, the course of events would lead to war; and when the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown] asked me if I meant to threaten war, I repeated over and over again that I meant no such thing but I believed that the course of events was tending in that direction. I said it, and I believed it, and I believe it now. I deprecate it as much as any man on this floor can; I would make as much honorable concession as any man can; but I should scorn myself, and the gallant people that sent me here would scor me, if I could stand up on this floor to menace war. I will go further. I will say to the Senator from Ohio that I not only never said, but I never had such a thought as, that Mr. Buchanan would send an army down to South Carolina. I will tell you, sir, what I believe to be his position-and I am sorry to be provoked to say it. I believe that, instead of sending ar army down to South Carolina, Mr. Buchanan is on his knees before them to-day, begging them for God's sake to stave this thing off until the 4th of March, so that he may get out of the way of the shower before it comes. [Laughter.]

There was one thing which the honorable Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] said while he was up that I did not exactly catch, and nothing but my reluctance to break in upon a gentleman while he is speaking prevented me from asking him at that time if I understood him correctly. He said that he appealed to this side, to this party, who had committed the act which had driven us to this position. As I did not get the floor of the Senate, I went over and asked the Senator from Mississippi privately if I understood him, because, although the Senator from Georgia [Alfred Iverson] the other day represented that there is a state of armed neutrality here; that nobody here ever goes to the other side, and that nobody there ever comes here, I will say that whenever I have had occasion to go over on that side, even though it were to address the Senator from Georgia himself, I have always met kind, courteous, and gentlemanly treatment.

SENATOR IVERSON.-It is all on the surface; only skin deep. SENATOR HALE.-Well, then, sir, I have done you more credit than you deserve. [Laughter.] Thus encouraged, I went over and asked the Senator from Mississippi candidly, and it seems I misunderstood him. He did not speak of any particular act, but of a series of acts. Now, sir, I declare, before God and the country, that there is no one thing that I more desire in this

world than to see that bill of indictment fairly, honestly, and intelligently made out. What is it that my State has done? I represent but one State. I am unfortunate. A great many gentlemen represent whole squads of States. [Laughter.] I represent only one, and she is one of the smallest in the Union. I should be glad to see the bill of indictment fairly and squarely and legitimately and constitutionally made out. I would ask gentlemen to put their finger on the place and name the time and the occasion when the State which I have the honor in part to represent here has done anything inconsistent with her constitutional dignity and her constitutional duty-inconsistent with that fraternal feeling which should govern the representatives of the States of this Confederacy. And, sir, I can tell the honorable Senator from Georgia that, when I speak of this fraternal feeling, it is a little more than skin deep with me. I have gloried in the Union and in the country, and the whole of it; and I believe, sir, that if evil days are before us, they are the just judgments of a righteous God for the iniquities of a people who have been blind to His mercies and reckless in the use of the great privileges that He has bestowed upon them.

SENATOR PUGH.-I certainly must apologize to the Senator from New Hampshire. I did understand his speech as I said; but I am very happy to be under the necessity of apologizing, he has left so much more pleasant impressions on my mind by this speech than he did by the other.

JAMES M. MASON [Va.].-I look upon the present crisis as a war of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of society. How that will end I will not undertake to predict; but, if there be a remedy for it, it is not here; it must be at home in their own State councils; and I should regret extremely if any vote I am to give here should mislead public judgment so far as to lead them to suppose that they are to look here for safety.

I fear, too, sir, that in what fell from the honorable Senator from New York [Mr. King] we are admonished of the sort of legislation that is looked to on that side as a remedy for impending dangers. The honorable Senator says that it is the duty of the Executive head of the Confederacy to execute the laws; that it is the duty of Congress, if he has not sufficient power now under the law, to give it to him; that he knows of nothing that can resist the laws unless it originates in insurrection or rebellion, which is to be put down. That means, Mr. President, that, in the relation which subsists between the States of the Union and the Federal power, State existence is not to

be recognized; and that, if a State abandons the Union, separates from it, severs all political connection with it, that fact is not to be recognized by, or known to, the Federal Government. A State in the full plenitude of her sovereignty entirely resumed by her fundamental law, absolves her citizens from the allegiance they formerly held to the Government which they abandoned. That is not to be known; but the law is to march straight forward, like the car of Juggernaut, crushing all who may oppose it. They may call it what they please; they may call it putting down resistance to the laws, or insurrection, or rebellion, or treason in a citizen, but at last it is war-open, undisguised war-by one political power against another political power. Well, sir, if this be true, I am not one of those who will lend my aid or my vote to any legislation contemplating such a state of things.

WILLIAM BIGLER [Pa.].-I tell you, Mr. President, that the question is settled in relation to this great movement which is now progressing in certain of the Southern States. I know the efforts that are now being made to stay the hand of the Southern people, and to cool down the patriotism which is burning within the Southern hearts; but it will be ineffectual, sir. When the barricades of Paris were raised and the masses of that great city were upheaving in their majesty against the arbitrary power of the monarchy, Louis Philippe saw his danger and attempted to avert it by changing his ministry. He turned out M. Guizot and nominated M. Thiers as his principal adviser. That he supposed would quiet the dissensions which he saw rising around him; but, sir, the words "too late," "too late," went all through the streets of Paris. The next day, when he found the streets barricaded, he abdicated the throne in favor of his grandson, and made an effort, through his friends, to obtain the regency of his daughter, the mother of the Count of Paris. When that was done, in the hope that he might quell the insurrection then rising around him, "the same words 'too late' ran through all the masses of Paris, ringing out in sepulchral tones like the trump of the archangel summoning the dead to judgment." So now, sir, you may tinker the Constitution, if you please; you may propose concessions; you may suggest additional legislation; you may present additional constitutional securities; you may attempt by all these ingenious devices to stay the storm which now rages in the Southern States, to prevent that people from marching on to the deliverance and liberty upon which they are resolved; but, sir, the words "too late" that ring here to-day will be reiterated from mountain to