is one hundred miles. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if there be a man here so insane as to suppose that the American people will allow their magnificent national proportions to be shorn to so deformed a shape as this?

I tell you and I confess it here that while I hope I have something of human courage, I have not enough to contemplate such a result. I am not brave enough to go to the brink of the precipice of successful secession, and look down into its damned abyss. If my vision were keen enough to pierce to its bottom, I would not dare to look. If there be a man here who dare contemplate such a scene, I look upon him either as the bravest of the sons of women, or as a downright madman. Secession to gain peace! Secession is the tocsin of eternal war. There can be no end to such a war as will be inaugurated if this thing be done.

Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted to-day. Let the order go forth; sound the 'recall' on your bugles, and let it ring from Texas to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call the victorious legions back over the battle-fields of blood, forever now disgraced. Call them back, over the territory which they have conquered. Call them back, and let the minions of secession chase them with derision and jeers as they come. And then tell them that that man across the aisle, from the free State of Ohio, gave birth to the monstrous proposition. Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be sent forth through the armies of the union, the wave of

terrible vengeance that would sweep back over this land could never find a parallel in the records of history. Almost in the moment of final victory, the 'recall' is sounded by a craven people not deserving freedom. We ought every man to be made a slave, should we sanction such a sentiment.

The gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifiable under the constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect that no statute ever was enforced without coercion.

It is the basis of every law in the universe, — God's law as well as man's. A law is no law without coercion behind it. When a man has murdered his brother, coercion takes the murderer, tries him and hangs him. When you levy your taxes, coercion secures their collection; it follows the shadow of the thief, and brings him to justice; it accompanies your diplomacy to foreign courts, and backs the declaration of the nation's rights by a pledge of the nation's power. But when the life of that nation is imperiled, we are told that it has no coercive power against the parricides in its own bosom. Again, he tells us that oaths taken under the amnesty proclamation are good for nothing.

The oath of Galileo, he says, was not binding upon him. I am reminded of another oath that was taken; but perhaps it, too, was an oath on the lips alone, to which the heart made no response.

I remember to have stood in a line of nineteen men from Ohio, on that carpet yonder, on the first day of the session; and I remember that, with uplifted hands

before God, those nineteen took an oath to support and maintain the constitution of the United States; and I remember that another oath was passed around, and each member signed it as provided by law, utterly repudiating the rebellion and its pretenses. Does the gentleman not blush to speak of Galileo's oath? Was not his own its counterpart?

He says the union can never be restored because of the terrible hatred engendered by the war. Το prove it, he quotes what some Southern man said a few years ago, that he knew no hatred between peoples in the world like that between the North and the South. And yet that North and South have been one nation for more than eighty years!

Have we seen in this contest anything more bitter than the wars of the Scottish border? Have we seen anything bitterer than those terrible feuds in the days of Edward, when England and Scotland were the deadliest foes on earth? And yet for centuries, those countries have been cemented in an indissoluble union that has made the British nation one of the proudest of the earth.

I said a little while ago that I accepted the proposition of the gentleman that the rebels had the right of revolution; and the decisive issue between us and the rebellion is, whether they shall revolutionize and destroy, or we shall subdue and preserve.

We take the latter ground. We take the common weapons of war to meet them; and if these be not sufficient, I would take any element which will overwhelm and destroy; I would sacrifice the dearest

and best beloved; I would take all the old sanctions of law and the constitution and fling them to the winds, if necessary, rather than let the nation be broken in pieces and its people destroyed with endless ruin.

What is the constitution that these gentlemen are perpetually flinging in our faces, whenever we desire to strike hard blows against the rebellion? It is the production of the American people. They made it, and the Creator is mightier than the creature. The power which made the constitution can also make other instruments to do its great work in the day of its dire necessity."

This speech was so eloquently spoken, and was stamped with such sincerity, that old members of the House of Representatives gathered about him during its delivery, and greeted him with most flattering demonstrations of approval at its close.

CHAPTER XV.

EARLY SPEECHES.

HIS POSITION CONCERNING THE DRAFT FOR THE ARMY. — DIFFERS WITH HIS OWN PARTY. — CONTENDS FOR FRANKNESS AND TRUTH. — HOPEFUL VIEW OF THE NATION'S SUCCESS.- NATIONAL CONSCIENCE AND SLAVERY. EMANCIPATION THE REMEDY FOR NATIONAL EVILS. DEFENCE OF GENERAL ROSECRANS.—TRIBUTE TO GENERAL THOMAS.- - HIS ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. — THE DOCTRINE OF STATE RIGHTS. CAMDEN AND AMBOY RAILROAD VS. THE UNITED STATES. WHAT IS THE POWER AND PREROGATIVE OF THE NATION.

DURING General Garfield's first session, there was much contention over the draft for the army, and the clause in the law which allowed persons who were drawn to commute their service by the payment of three hundred dollars. The speech which General Garfield made illustrates, better than any description could do, certain phases of his character and his manner as a public speaker. In this he was not contending so much with the Democratic party, as with those of his own party with whom he differed in regard to the wisdom o. the laws regulating the draft. He said:

"Mr. Speaker, it has never been my policy to conceal a truth, merely because it is unpleasant. It may be well to smile in the face of danger, but it is neither