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farms along the Ohio and Kanawha, surrounded by friends who elected him to Congress when barely of the constitutional age, just married to a daughter of the diplomatist Bowlin, of Paraguayan memory, and coming from that part of Virginia where secession was the exception, his fate has seemed to be as unnatural as it is sad. Ex-Governor SMITH, of Virginia, was perhaps the most remarkable in the delegation. He was a fluent debater, ready at repartee, and brave to a fault. I am indebted to him for aiding in the special exchange of prisoners. Since the war, when I could get little or no aid from Congress or our own Government, and scarcely a vote on my resolutions urging exchange, till too late to save the lives of thousands, I received prompt and generous aid from this inveterate insurgent, which President LINCOLN, when informed of it by me, reciprocated with the remark that "he would not be outdone by Extra Billy' in extra kindness." But the man among Virginians who labored most nobly for the Union, was JOHN S. MILLSON of Norfolk. BOTELER began the same good work by moving for the Committee of Thirty-three; but to MILLSON, more than to any one, did we owe the vote of Virginia in favor of the Union given in February, 1861. I franked, at his request, many thousands of his unanswerable speech to Virginians. It was complained of us, by some of the Hotspurs, that we had had the census copied, to flood that State with MILLSON's speech. This was true. In this work no one gave to General MILLSON more effective aid than SHERRARD CLEMENS, of Wheeling, whose eloquence never did better execution, whose zeal never flagged, and whose Unionism never wavered. In looking over the names of members from other States, I wish I could find more than I do of whom this may be said. Not counting Tennessee, led by NELSON and MAYNARD, Kentucky with MALLORY at its head, and Missouri, led by the gallant PHELPS; saving JOSHUA HILL of Georgia, HOUSTON and COBB of Alabama, GILMER and VANCE of North Carolina, BOULIGNY of Louisiana, HAMILTON of Texas, and excepting such men as BRANCH of North Carolina, REUBEN DAVIS of Mississippi, BOYCE of South Carolina, RUST of Arkansas, and TAYLOR of Louisiana, distrustful of secession as the cure for Southern ills, though less pronounced in their sentiments— excepting these and a few others not so conspicuous, the whole array of Southern talent, led by MILES, GARTRELL, PUGH (of Alabama), BoCOCKE, GARNETT, SMITH, PRYOR, CRAWFORD, CURRY, HINDMAN, MCRAE, BARKSDALE, LAMAR, WRIGHT, and KEITT-nearly all, except PUGH and SMITH, young men was thrown in favor of precipitate action, without any zeal and little attempt to compromise. Even such men as WINSLOW, SMITH, and BRANCH, of N. C., and REAGAN, of Texas, elected as conservatives against the disunion sentiments of their districts, cowered before this band

of Southern talent and the pressure brought to bear from their homesinspired by hopes of independence. The wives, daughters, and other female connections of Southern members, were in the galleries constantly, to cheer by their presence and smiles the fervid efforts of these secession orators. For impetuous debate, there was LAMAR, of Mississippi, scholarly and defiant; for logical humor, Governor MCRAE, of the same State, successor to Gen. QUITMAN, one of the happiest of speakers, an original slavetrade secessionist, though educated in Ohio; for parliamentary skirmishing, there was BOсOCKE, of Virginia; for vituperative philippic, there was ROGER A. PRYOR; for courteous and beautiful elocution, ALEXANDER R. ' BOTELER, of Harper's Ferry; for swaggering bravado, toned with an elegant phraseology, there was the vain and clever KEITT; for smooth and trenchant dialectics, there was PORCHER MILES, of Charleston, who earned his place in Congress by his care of the sick in the fever-stricken city of Norfolk in 1855; for statesmanslike and vigorous debate, there was BRANCH, of North Carolina; for broad wit and hearty blows, there was GILMER, of North Carolina; for subtle ratiocination of the Calhoun pattern, there was PUGH, of Alabama, who had all the pith, without the artistic polish, of his colleague CURRY; for offensive and vivacious readiness, there was HINDMAN, who almost alone of these leaders has been conspicuous in the war. BRANCH, RUffin, Keitt, JenKINS, BARKSDALE, and RUST have had important commands, and have all met that death of which they vaunted so much, rather than submit to the Federal authority.

In looking over this roll, I cannot but regret that so much of genius, energy, and goodness have been misled to their own ruin and that of their States. Among the most eloquent of this remarkable body not thus misled, was NELSON, of Tennessee; the most eccentric and indomitable genius for politics, was EMERSON ETHERIDGE; the clearest heads for political economy, metaphysical refinement, and historic research, were WILLIAM W. BOYCE and JOHN S. MILLSON.

If we go to the Republican side of the House, we find CORWIN, of Ohio, incomparable for his fun, his pathos, and his soul-stirring eloquence; CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, with no readiness as a speaker, but a profound thinker; ELI THAYER, as practical as a steam-engine, but with all his vast motive power occasionally getting out of order; MORRILL, of Vermont, whose skill in tariff calculations never flagged during the excitements of the war; ROSCOE CONKLING, with rare gifts of ready and pure elocution; JOHN HICKMAN, of Pennsylvania, straightforward and dashing, with a scholar's taste hidden under the toga; THADDEUS STEVENS, the Metternich of Republicanism; GALUSHA A. GROW, quick in the manual and saucy in bravado toward his opponents; STANTON SHERMAN, and BINGHAM, from

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Ohio, all men of experience in legislation, and leaders of the then rising party; COLFAX, of Indiana, who, like GROW, rose to prominence by hist championing with much fluency and energy the pietistic humanitarianism of his party; LOVEJOY, of Illinois, who cultivated an ignorance of parliamentary law in order to say the most indecorous things, and whose rugged vehemence, if not oratory, was taken for it by those who look more to the manner than the substance. These, with the affable Speaker, PENNINGTON, made up the phalanx upon which the Southern cohort hurled itself in debate. As I recall the scene which took place at my desk between KEITT and GROW, during the preceding Congress, after the hour of midnight, when the passions of the time were incarnate in that Congress and at that hour; as I repicture the fierce clutch and glaring eye, and the struggle between these heady champions, there come trooping down the aisles of memory, as there came trooping down the actual aisles of the House, the belligerent members, with WASHBURNE of Illinois, and PorTER of Wisconsin, leading the one extreme, and BARKSDALE and LAMAR leading the other; then comes the mêlée-the struggle, the pale face of the Speaker calling to order, the sergeant-at-arms rushing into the area before the clerk's desk, the mace as his symbol of authority, with its silver eagle, moving up and down on the wave of passion and conflict; then the dead hush of the hot heart, and glare of defiance across the hall! As this scene is revivified, looking at it through the red storm of the war, I cannot but think that then and there was epitomized all that has made that war bloody and desperate. Then, too, there rise up the forms of those who were then accounted moderate and middle men, like DAVIS and HOLMAN of Indiana, MCCLERNAND and LOGAN of Illinois, MALLORY and STEVENSON of Kentucky, PENDLETON and VALLANDIGHAM of Ohio, FLORENCE and MONTGOMERY of Pennsylvania, SICKLES and COCHRANE of New York, who stood, like DOUGLAS, BIGLER, LATHAM, PUGH, JOHNSON, and CRITTENDEN, in the Senate, as a breakwater against the contending tides.

From these disjecta membra of this remarkable Congress, the reader may gather some idea of the force and energy, tact and eloquence, passion and prejudice, which composed it.

Some of the great questions which arose were foreshadowed in the President's Message; for instance, the power to coerce a State. But there were other questions, concerning the acquisition of territory, and the government of the territories; the effect of the decisions of the Supreme Court; various amendments of the Constitution so as to prohibit Congress and the people from impairing the right of property in slaves, etc.; the fugitive slave law; fugitives from justice; the right of transit in free States

of persons with slaves; the nullifying acts of State Legislatures; the abolition of slavery and the internal slave trade; changes by constitutional amendments in the Executive office and veto power; the restoration of the equilibrium between the slave and free States; the voluntary division of slave States into two or more States; giving the slave States a vote on all questions of slavery; making the amendments proposed unamendable; granting to the States power to appoint the Federal officers in their midst; the peaceable withdrawal of States, and apportionment of the public debt; dual Senates and dual Executive; the organization at once of the remaining territories; the foreign slave trade; the acquisition of foreign territory by a vote of two-thirds; questions as to ordinances of secession, and their effect; preventing Africans from ever becoming citizens; a constitutional convention; these and many other questions were debated, and referred to the Committees of Thirteen in the Senate and Thirty-three in the House. They were the result of anxious cogitation on the problems which threatened to dispart the country. They remain upon the records to illustrate the variety and magnitude of the interests springing out of the institution of slavery, and the duplex character of our State and Federal Governments. They were, for the last time, thrust into the legislative tribunal for tranquil solution, before the conflict in the forum of reason should be replaced by

"the intestine shock

And furious close of civil butchery."

The public record shows what result was reached by these committees, or rather how resultless were their labors. Mr. CORWIN, for a majority, presented his resolutions and bills; Mr. ADAMS declined to recommend even his own propositions, inasmuch as he believed that the South would accept nothing that he could offer. WASHBURNE of Wisconsin, and TAPPAN of New Hampshire, of the committee, offered nothing by way of compromise. The conservative men, with TAYLOR, PHELPS, RUST, WHITELY, WINSLOW, NELSON, HAMILTON, and others of the committee, wished to go further than Governor CORWIN. They recommended the CRITTENDEN proposition. The votes on the CORWIN measures were strangely incongruous. The vote on the CRITTENDEN proposition was well defined, but is not so well understood. From the frequency of inquiries since the war as to this latter vote, the people were eager to know upon whom to fix the responsibility of its failure. It may as well be stated that all other propositions, whether of the Peace Convention, or the border State projet, or the measures of the committees, were comparatively of no moment; for the CRITTENDEN proposition was the only one which could have arrested the struggle. It would have received a larger vote than

any other. It would have had more effect in moderating Southern excitement. Even DAVIS, TOOMBS, and others of the Gulf States, would have accepted it. I have talked with Mr. CRITTENDEN frequently on this point. Not only has he confirmed the public declarations of DOUGLAS and PUGH, and the speech of TOOMBS himself, to this effect, but he said it was so understood in committee. At one time, while the committee was in session, he said: "Mr. TоOMBS, will this compromise, as a remedy for all wrongs and apprehensions, be acceptable to you?" Mr. TOOMBS with some profanity replied, "Not by a good deal; but my State will accept it, and I will follow my State to And he did.

I will not open the question whether it was wise then to offer accommodations; it may not be profitable now to ask whether the millions of young men whose bodies are maimed, or whose bones are decaying under the sod of the South, and the heavy load of public debt under which we sweat and toil, have their compensation in black liberty. Nor will I discuss whether the blacks have been bettered by their precipitate freedom, passing, as so many have, from slavery through starvation and suffering to death. There is no comfort in the reflection that the negroes will be exterminated, with the extermination of slavery. The real point is, could not this Union have been made permanent by timely settlement, instead of cemented by fraternal blood and military rule? By an equitable partition of the territory this was possible. We had then 1,200,000 square miles. The CRITTENDEN proposition would have given the North 900,000 of these square miles, and applied the Chicago doctrines to that quantity. It would have left the remaining fourth, substantially, to be carved out as free or slave States, at the option of the people when the States were admitted. This proposition the radicals denounced. Notwithstanding the then President elect was in a minority of a million of the popular vote, they were determined, as Mr. CHASE wrote to Portsmouth, Ohio, from the Peace Convention, to use the power while they had it, and prevent a settlement. It has been stated, to rid the Republicans of the odium of not averting the war when that was possible, that the Northern members tendered to the Southern the CRITTENDEN Compromise, which the South rejected. This is untrue. It was tendered by Southern Senators and Northern Democrats to the Republicans. They, in conjunction with some half dozen recusant Southern Senators, rejected it. It was voted upon but once in the House, when it received 80 votes against 113. These eighty votes were exclusively Democrats and Southern Americans, like GILMER, VANCE, and others. Mr. BRIGGS, of New York, was the only one not a Democrat who voted for it. He had been an old Whig and never a Republican. The Republican roll, beginning with ADAMS and ending with WOODRUFF,