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You yourselves disturbed it, and brought these difficulties upon the country.

I have always insisted that the people of the Northern States were in no manner responsible for slavery in the Southern States; and why? Because they had no power in regard to it. Each State has a right to manage its own domestic affairs. I will not interfere with it where I have no authority by the Constitution to interfere; but I will never consent, the people of my State will never consent, the people of the great Northwest, numbering more in white population than all your Southern States together, never will consent by their act to establish African slavery anywhere. No, sir; I will never agree to put into the Constitution of the country a clause establishing or making perpetual slavery anywhere. No, sir; no human being shall ever be made a slave by my vote. Not one single foot of God's soil shall ever be dedicated to African slavery by my act - never! NEVER!

L. Trumbull.

THE

CCCXVI.

REPLY TO SENATOR BRECKINRIDGE.

HE Senator from Kentucky stands up here in opposition to what he sees is the overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction and prediction combined. I would ask him, sir, what would you have us to do now — a rebel army within twenty miles of us, advancing or threatening to advance to destroy your Government? Will the Senator yield to rebellion? Will he shrink from armed insurrection? Will his State justify it? Will its better public opinion allow it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he have? Or would he conduct this war so feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in derision? What would he have? These speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land — what clear, distinct meaning have they? Are they not intended for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Confederacy?

What would have been thought if, in another Capitol, in another Republic, in a yet more martial age, a Senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flying over his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace? What would have been thought if, after the battle of Cannae, a Senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasury, and every appeal to the old recollections and the old glories? Sir, a Senator, himself learned far more than myself in such lore, tells me, in a voice that I am glad is audible, that he would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. It is a grand commentary upon the American Constitution that we permit these words to be uttered.

I ask the Senator to recollect, too, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus uttered is a word (and, falling from his lips, a mighty word,) of kindling and triumph to a foe that determines to advance. For me, I have no such word, as a Senator, to utter. For me, amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter another word, and that word is, bold, sudden, forward, determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies, by military commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to conquest. I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation or not. It is compulsory obedience. not to my will; not to yours, sir; not to the will of any one man; not to the will of any one State; but compulsory obedience to the Constitution of the whole country.

E. D. Baker.

IT

CCCXVII.

EMANCIPATION-ITS NECESSITY AND JUSTICE.

T is a necessity that this war be speedily closed. By blockade it cannot be; by battle it may be, but we risk the result upon the uncertainty whether the great General of this continent

be with the enemy or with us. I come, then, to emancipation. And, first, I ask my countrymen to proclaim emancipation to the slaves as a matter of necessity to ourselves; for unless it be by accident, we are not to come out of this contest as one nation, except by emancipation. Confiscation of the property of the rebels may be necessary and just; but it is not enough. It will not save us in "this rugged and awful crisis." It is inadequate to meet the exigency in which the country is placed. We must have emancipation. The political salvation of the country demands it; and it is inevitable. The time is approaching when emancipation must take place, and we have now, I think, only a choice of ways. Emancipation may be achieved by the slaves themselves; it may be effected by the Government of the United States; it may come through the desperation of the slaveholding rebels themselves. But come it must. I say, then, let us, at the head of our armies, on the soil of South Carolina, proclaim FREEDOM - freedom to all her slaves, and then enforce the proclamation as far and as fast as we have opportunity. Let the blow fall first on that State which first rebelled, as a warning and a penalty for her perfidy in this business, which began at the moment that her delegates penned their names to the Constitution.

Next, Florida, impotent in her treachery, with less than a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, and with property not equal to that of a single ward in this city, and that purchased with the money of the people, emancipate her slaves, and invite the refugees from slavery in the South, for the moment to assemble there, if they desire, and take possession of the soil.

And next in this work of emancipation I name Texas, a State purchased by a costly war with Mexico, and which went out of the Union because she could not extend slavery in the Union. Let us teach her people that in the Union or out of the Union, slavery is not to be extended. Emancipate the slaves in Texas, and invite men from the army, invite men from the North, invite men from Ireland, invite men from Germany, the friends of freedom, of every name and every nation, bid them welcome to the millions of acres of fertile lands we shall there confiscate, and they will form a barrier of freemen, a wall of liberty, over which, or through which, or beneath which it will be impossible for slavery to extend itself.

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These three States may be sufficient for warning, for refuge, and for security against the spread of slavery; but I would have it distinctly understood, that by the next anniversary of the birth of the Father of his Country, we shall emancipate the slaves in all the disloyal and rebellious States if they do not previously return to their allegiance.

But justice to the slaves, no less than necessity to us, demands emancipation. Certainly they have been subjected to a sufficient apprenticeship under slavery, through two centuries, to prepare them for freedom if ever they are to be prepared. I say, then, justice to the slave demands emancipation. Let us maintain the principles of the declaration of Independence. The fundamental difference on which the North and South have divided for thirty years is on that part of the Declaration which says "All men are created equal." They have denied it; we have undertaken to maintain it. Jefferson meant, when he penned that immortal truth, not that men are equal physically, intellectually, or morally, but that no one is born under any political subserviency to his fellow man. Let us maintain the doctrine now. These slaves are men; Jefferson did not hesitate to call them "brethren." The declaration concerning the equality of men applies to them as to us; and now that in the progress of events the South has relieved us from responsibility in regard to eleven disloyal States, let us stand forth as a nation in our original strength and purity, maintaining the ideas to which our fathers gave utterance. That we may have ground on which to stand and defend ourselves in this contest, let us declare in the presence of these slaveholders and rebels, in the presence of Europe, that we proclaim THE EQUALITY OF All men.

G. S. Boutwell.

CCCXVIII.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF LOUISIANA.

MR. PRESIDENT and Fellow-citizens

At the request

of the Committee of Arrangements, I am present as a spectator, to witness the imposing and grand ceremonies of this interesting occasion, and reluctantly to express in words my great gratification at the progress that has been made in the

restoration of Louisiana to the Union of States, and in the majestic evidence before me of the returning loyalty of its people.

I have watched with the deepest interest the momentcus events in the struggle through which we are passing, from its inception to the present hour. In common with the mass of my countrymen I have sorrowed at reverses, and rejoiced in victories. I have mourned over the heroes who have fallen on the field of battle my brothers in blood, my brothers in arms and have joined in the honors which a grateful people have showered upon the gallant spirits who upon the sea and upon the land have led our hosts to victory. They never can be forgotten. Day by day and hour by hour, I have observed the receding armies of the enemy, until more than half the territory covered by the shadow of the rebel flag at the beginning of the war, has fallen into the possession of the Government, and is covered by the Stars and Stripes - the emblem of Liberty, now and forever, here and everywhere.

We have, indeed, enough to rejoice our hearts in the progress of our armies, and to give joy to the festivities of this glad hour,

"But much remains

To conquer still. Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than war."

In order to maintain the ground we have recovered with such terrible sacrifice of precious life, and to enable the gallant leaders and heroic men of our armies to retire to the walks of civil life again, it is necessary that civil institutions of government should be reëstablished, and a new, subdued, yet patriotic spirit, like that which held

"The helm of Rome, when robes, not arms,

Repelled the fierce Epirote and the bold African,”

should animate our people and restore the pristine purity and power of the nation.

Louisiana has not been faithless to her duties, nor is she now, nor will she be in the future. Among the truest spirits in the hour of trial were her sons and her daughters. Among the bravest and truest upon the field of battle have been her volunteers. She was the first in this great revolution of ideas rather

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