the virulent representatives of his State Senator from Tennessee, supported by in the Senate, he admitted and even Emerson Etheridge in the House of Repdwelt upon the prospect of future ad- resentatives, did generous service in the justment. He saw in the distance the cause, reminding the people that the reUnion again restored under one flag, gion which had cherished Jackson and provided constitutional amendments and Clay, was not yet barren of patriots. He changes in the organic law should be was instant in season and out of season, in made, "which will meet the changes defence of the beleaguered Union. Plantthat have taken place in the situation ing himself on the firm basis of popular of a portion of our people, and in the rights, secured by the national Governfeelings and views of a portion of the ment, rights which he saw were endanStates, and restore the Union to the gered by the dreams and pretensions of condition in which it was when it was the Southern oligarchy, he exclaimed, in framed, by erecting positive barriers one of the ablest of his speeches, "I have which will restrain the action of the peo- an abiding faith, I have an unshaken conple and of the departments of the Fede- fidence in man's capability to govern ral Government, within the boundaries himself. I will not give up this Governset to that action by the public sentiment ment that is now called an experiment, of the country, when the Government which some are prepared to abandon for went into operation."* The speaker's associate in the House John E. Bouligny, declined to follow the example of his colleague in retiring. He had received no direction to leave, from the legislature of Louisiana, and if he had, he would not obey it. He had been elected by the people. If they recalled him, he would go. Then, and not till then," said he, “I shall resign; and after resigning my position here, I shall yet be a Union man, and stand under the flag of the country which gave me birth." In the midst of these ill omened voices of secession, there were not wanting resolute words of good cheer, animated by a sense of duty. It was the fashion, indeed, to speak contemptuously of the government; that was the tone of political society in Washington at the time; if the Constitution was not directly assailable, it was despised. Yet good men and true rallied to its defence. Andrew Johnson, *Remarks of Mr. Taylor ir the House of Representatives, February 5, 1861. a constitutional monarchy. No! I intend to stand by it, and I entreat every man throughout the nation, who is a patriot, and who has seen and is compelled to admit the success of this great experiment, to come forward, not in heat, not in fanaticism, not in haste, not in precipitancy, but in deliberation, in full view of all that is before us, in the spirit of brotherly love and fraternal affection, and rally round the altar of our common country, and lay the Constitution upon it as our last libation, and swear by our God and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution shall be saved and the Union preserved.' Emerson Etheridge exhibited the inoperative character of the personal liberty bills of the North, testified to the very inconsiderable losses of the South from fugitives, and warned the slaveholding secessionists of their condition when the Canada line should be brought down to the banks of the Ohio. His speech of * Speech on the state of the Union, December 19, 1860 AN AFFECTING APPEAL. the 23d of January, in which these and similar topics were candidly presented, was well calculated to dispel Southern prejudice, if reason could have been heard. He asked for time, for the voice of the people, for the compromises before the House, but should all these measures fail, he said, "I will not then abandon the Union of these States and the untold blessings it lavishes upon the votaries of civil liberty throughout the world. I will return home and link my destinies with those who are ready to confront disunion." Reviewing the successive annexations to the country, by purchase and conquest, he paused to contemplate the boundaries of the nation as enlarged to the Pacific by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. With the prospect brought vividly before the minds of his hearers, he exclaimed with powerful effect: "This is the country which party madness would suspend upon the passions of the hour. Behold it, with all its vast resources, its rivers and lakes, its mountains and mineral wealth. Though in its infancy, it is greater in all the elements of enduring power and more advanced in a high civilization than was the Roman empire, when her imperial eagles were hovering around the pillars of Hercules. The hand of disunion must be stayed. Our country must not perish while its monuments are yet unfinished and the soldiers of the Revolution survive." Senator Baker of Oregon, a kindred spirit with Johnson, also a man of the people, who had learnt to value the government in its life-imparting principles, in the elevating rewards which it conferred upon all honest efforts, warmed with fervent eloquence as he waived high loft the dishonored flag of his adopted country. Douglas, forgetful of the con 63 test at the ballot-box for the Presidency, generously lent his efforts to preserve the Union over which his antagonist must. preside. Seward gave Lis best powers to the work before him, willing, in view of the imminent peril of the nation, to concede all for peace, except principle. His speech on the state of the Union, remains perhaps the most noticeable of the session. It was calm, philosophical, almost skeptical in its tone as various modes of approaching the subject were passed in review, pronounced ineffectual and, to the disappointment of the public, not supplanted by anything more potent from the lips of the orator. There was a tone of sadness throughout, pervading and overpowering his most assuring arguments. The value of the Union was exhibited not as in other days by glittering eulogium, but by the representation of what its loss would be. The listener could not but feel the altered circumstances and share the burden of anxiety feelingly presented in an illustration drawn from a familiar scene of the Senate chamber : "While listening to these debates," said the speaker, "I have sometimes forgotten myself in marking their contrasted effects upon the page who customarily stands on the dais before me, and the venerable Secretary who sits behind him. The youth exhibits intense but pleased emotion in the excitement, while at every irreverent word that is uttered against the Union the eyes of the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him weep no more. Rather rejoice, for yours has been a lot of rare felicity. You have seen and been a part of all the greatness of your country, the towering national greatness of all the world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bitter ness of anguish, who are just stepping or art, under the reign of conscription, on the threshold of life; for that great-nay, what interest in them will society ness perishes prematurely and exists not feel, when fear and hate shall have ta for you, nor for me, nor for any that shall come after us." pros-war ken possession of the national mind? Let the miner in California take heed Nor were the words in which he re- for its golden wealth will become the cited the sad items of the catalogue of prize of the nation that can command disasters which would afflict the broken the most iron. Let the borderer take and dismembered State, less affecting. care; for the Indian will again lurk The enumeration is one of the finest around his dwelling. Let the pioneer passages in the orator's many rhetorical come back into our denser settlements; speeches-thoughtful, compact, energetic, for the railroad, the post road, and the picturesque in illustration, varied in de- telegraph advance not one furlong furtail, philosophical in the comprehensive ther into the wilderness. With standing grasp of the whole. Every sentence, as armies consuming the substance of our the orator appeals to our different pas- people on the land, and our Navy and sions, our pride, our interest, our love of our postal steamers withdrawn from the power, our pursuit of happiness, closing ocean, who will protect or respect, or with the grand image of, the national who will even know by name our petty greatness, seems to sound the knell of confederacies? The American man-ofa departing blessing. "The public pros- war is a noble spectacle. I have seen it perity," was his language, "how could enter an ancient port in the Mediterrait survive the storm? Its elements are, nean. All the world wondered at it and industry in the culture of every fruit; talked of it. Salvos of artillery, from mining of all the metals; commerce at forts and shipping in the harbor, saluted home and on every sea; material im- its flag. Princes, and princesses, and provement that knows no obstacle and merchants, paid it homage, and all the has no end; invention that ranges people blessed it as a harbinger of hope throughout the domain of nature; in- for their own ultimate freedom. I imcrease of knowledge as broad as the hu-agine now the same noble vessel again man mind can explore; perfection of art entering the same haven. The flag of as high as human genius can reach, and thirty-three stars and thirteen stripes social refinement working for the renova- has been hauled down, and in its place a tion of the world. How could our suc- signal is run up, which flaunts the device cessors prosecute these noble objects in of a lone star, or a palmetto tree. Men the midst of brutalizing civil conflict? | ask, "Who is the stranger that thus What guarantees will capital invested steals into our waters?" The answer for such purposes have, that will out-contemptuously given is, weigh the premium offered by political and military ambition? What leisure will the citizen find for study, or invention, She comes from one .of the obscure republics of North America. Let her pass on."* * Speech in the Senate, January 12, 1861. |