men on your hands: what will you do with them? If you have an army composed of the white citizens of the country, and the period of their service expires, they will return to the ordinary relations and avocations. of life and business; they will resume their former position in society. They are soldiers to-day: they are citizens to-morrow. But an army of two or three hundred thousand black men, freed slaves, to be disbanded, where shall they go? To what place and condition are they to be returned? Of course, not to slavery. No man who has ever served under our flag, whether for a day or for an hour, can be made again a slave. Where, then, shall they go? You may be willing to colonize them; but they may prefer not to be colonized. I wish some practical man, who is disposed to discuss these questions upon practical grounds, would tell me what disposition you would make of these men, if the experiment fails, as fail I believe it will; or when their term of service has expired.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to this debate. I think I may claim the merit, if I have no other, of being a very patient listener; and it sometimes requires a patience which Job himself would envy. But every thing affecting, ever so remotely, the destiny of the country, is of painful interest now. I have, with pleasure for the most part, listened to this discussion. It has concerned great principles of policy and of conduct in the administration of our affairs. But I deeply regret to have seen the spirit of party so often invoked in this debate. It has no place in the presence of these great perils and great duties. The utmost freedom of discus

sion and of counsel, here and elsewhere, must be maintained. Principles are vital; party organizations or triumphs, individual hopes and aspirations, nothing. That party will wear the crown which shall do most to save the life of this nation, its unity, its liberty in law. No party can hope to triumph which is not faithful to these great aims; unless the triumph of its policy and the ruin of the country shall be cotemporaneous.

I heard with great sorrow the thoughtful and eloquent speech of the gentleman from Kansas; but I heard it with no surprise. It was but carrying out the principles laid down in his speech a year ago to their plainest and most logical conclusion. The principles were received with cordial sympathy and warmest welcome by men who shrink from the conclusion as from the abyss of despair. He and they rejected with scorn the old Union, any Union, with slave States. The only alternatives were revolution and permanent conquest of the entire South, or separation. The first is felt to be impossible; and the gentleman from Kansas logically, and I have no doubt honestly, accepts the alternative. But the gentleman cannot fail to see that the question before the country to-day is, not separation or no, but disintegration or no; that, the moment you sever the bond as to one State, you sever it as to the whole. No man can say, if separation begins, where it will end, or where the division-line will ultimately fall. Our only safety has been and is in clinging to the Union as it was in fact, and still is de jure; the old Union, the blessed Union of our fathers.

It has been clear to me as the sun in heaven and at

mid-day, that this was our only possible way of salvation. This old Constitution, spurned now by foot even of sciolist and charlatan, this stone the builders of "baseless fabrics" have rejected, must again become the head of the corner. I beseech and adjure statesmen at either end of the Capitol, at either end of the Avenue, to continue no policy, to enter upon none, which shall preclude the restoration of the Union, with the rights and powers of the States unimpaired; the only Union now within the reach, even of hope.

I regret deeply some of the measures of the Administration. I have earnestly, and with a depth of conviction which could find no adequate utterance, protested against them. The confiscation bill, the proclamations of Sept. 22d and 24th and Jan. 1st, powerless for good, have been, and will be, I fear, fruitful only of evil.

The proclamation of Sept. 24th is in conflict with the august and sacred muniments of personal security, to which, for six centuries, the Anglo-Saxon mind and heart have clung as the gospel of civil freedom. Every arrest made under it in the loyal and peaceful States serves only to strengthen the enemies of the Government, and to wound and grieve its friends. If they tried to say "Amen" to it, the amen would stick in their throats. Pray, let it sleep "the sleep that knows no waking."

The proclamation of Jan. 1st will do less good or harm than its friends hoped or opponents feared. It is not thus that great wars are prosecuted or great ends accomplished. However kind may have been the mo

tives of those who begat and conceived it, it was stillborn; and no political galvanism can give to it the semblance of life. But though the Administration may adopt measures my judgment condemns, having attempted to stay them, and protested against them, I stand in the path of duty. This is my country to serve, my Government to obey, my Constitution to rescue and save, my Union,

"Where I have garnered up my heart;

Where I must live, or bear no life."

Amid all the darkness, the thick darkness, around us, I cling to the single, simple, sublime issue, the Constitution, and the Union of which it is the bond; the old Union. God bless the old Union, and the wrath of the Lamb of God shrivel to their very sockets the arms lifted to destroy it;-not in vengeance, but in mercy to them and to all mankind!

This country of ours, this nation of ours, is the grandest, sublimest trust that was ever committed into human hands. Pray the Father of lights, we be faithful. My way of duty, in one regard, has been plain: having sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, I have striven to keep the oath. The way of obvious duty was, in my judgment, the way, the only way, of wisdom and safety for the country.

It was the prayer of New England's greatest statesman, that, when his eyes were turned for the last time to behold the sun of heaven, he might not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union. Have we ever repeated to ourselves these words, "once glorious," "once glorious Union"?

Then with tears let us wash out, or with fire burn out, the word, and write "for ever glorious," born out of tribulation into a nobler life. When our eyes shall turn to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may we see his rays kindling every star and every stripe of that banner, which, like the robe of our divine Master, was woven without seam!

If we save this Union, generation after generation will rise up to bless us. If we lose it through divisions, through party strifes, through supineness, in seeking other ends, our memories will rot evermore.