and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired. I voted the money and men in the spirit of the President's Inaugural of March 4, 1861, when he declared that he had no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists; "I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

It was in this spirit that on the 26th of July, 1861, I offered a resolution in Congress to make undiminished and increased exertions by our navy and army to maintain the Government, and that a commission be appointed, consisting of Millard Fillmore and others, to meet commissioners, not from the rebel Government, but from the seceded States, to aid in restoring by peaceful and honorable measures the old Union and the former condition of things. I defended my resolution when it was pressed against me by the opposition. I have not swerved a hair from it. I said in 1863: "I am as ready now to cancel confiscation and emancipation policies, and welcome Louisiana and North Carolina back to their old position, as I am to sustain our army in the field while a rebel army contests our authority on a foot of our soil."

The writer opposed many of the acts of the administration. He believed then, as now, that they tended to procrastinate peace. In this view he sympathized with such statesmen as Gov. Crittenden. That the war would not end without the destruction of slavery, he believed as firmly as that it was his duty to save as much as possible of the incontestable powers of the States over domestic matters. Mr. Stephens had warned the Georgia Convention, on the 14th of November, 1860, that "a vindictive decree of universal emancipation" would follow secession. So it did; but it was powerless compared with the military arm which had unshackled the slave before the edict came.

Peace has come. Slavery is gone. The constitutional amendment is not adopted; but its adoption is only a form, and a question of time. The part taken by the writer concerning that amendment is shown in this volume.

The country is greatly changed-politically, socially, materially, nationally. Novus seculorum nascitur ordo. What that new order may be, depends upon the adherence of President Johnson to his former principles. We have a census of more than thirty millions, scattered over a great area. We are what Mr. Disraeli called a Territorial Democracy. When the census becomes 60,000,000, or 100,000,000, the questions of municipal independence, State rights, and local self-government may come with more force than ever before. In the judgment of the writer, it is

only by adhering to the doctrines of decentralization, that the great diversity of interests in a union of such extent can be harmonized, and the questions of individual rights properly settled. These doctrines of local independence and self-government have been the inspiration of the words and acts here recorded. They have found expression all through these speeches. Without them, our Union will be forever endangered. With them, it will fulfil the hopes and prayers of all patriots. They furnish the key to unlock the magic chambers of our future. They are the safe and golden mean between the extremes of faction. As Tennyson has sung:

The speeches are arranged in classes:

First.-Those connected with finance and tariff. The first speech is in defence of the economy of the Government, when only sixty-five millions per year was the appropriation. The last one is at a time when eight hundred millions per session were voted! The speech on the tariff is the most elaborate of the collection. It is an exposition, by irrefragable data and arguments, of the robbery, under the present system, by the producer of the great bulk of the consumers. It is an earnest appeal to return to the principles of economic science and unrestricted interchange to which the civilization of the age has given body and spirit. The stupendous iniquity by which one set of States and one class of men are allowed gratuities from the unprotected States and classes, must soon be understood. Men of all parties will unite to correct this gigantic injustice. As Cobden and Peel joined hands, while Elliott sang and Villiers spoke, to give England the cheap loaf; as at last that boon was wrested by an intelligent people from a landed monopoly; so before 1868, agriculture and commerce, labor of all kinds, consumers of every degree, will join in a new Bund, to rescue famishing toil from fiscal tyranny. To this specch I challenge the scrutiny of every reflecting citizen.

Second.-Speeches which display the sedition and sectionalism of the North. The republication of such speeches may be reprehended now; but truth compels their publication. No one can deny but that the South had grievances. Their error and crime consisted in mistaking-oh! how wofully-their remedy.

From the beginning of the Government there have been sectional asperities growing out of sectional interests. These were happily reconciled, in their successive eras, by statesmanship. For more than a generation past these animosities have been aggravated by zealots in both sections. Political ambition, springing out of the rank soil of sectional hate, engendered by the heats of theologic strife, at last culminated in the open revolt of 1861. Not alone slavery, but questions involving provincial jealousy. representation and taxation, excise, assumption of State debts, assertion of State rights, commercial restrictions, the purchase or acquisition of territory, and the war of 1812, have from the beginning given to the slavery question additional fuel, and embroiled the States into an antagonism in which the sword leaped from the sheath. State comity and Christian feeling, at different eras of the controversy, alleviated its harshness and composed its rancor. But the conflict was declared irrepressible; and irrepressibly it burst forth.

It would be a falsehood, if not a crime, to say that the blame for these animosities rested exclusively on one section. Not alone on the South, not alone on the North, but upon both sections, will history affix the stigma. Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra.

Vattel says that no considerable insurrection or rebellion ever existed without some grievances as the cause. These grievances the South had. They committed the great crime of striking at the Federal centre, when their complaint was against States. Besides, their remedy was ample in the Union. Revolution can never be justified unless two things concur: first, the grievances must be great, and irremediable except by the sword; and secondly, there must be a reasonable probability of success. The South had neither justification. For them to draw the sword, was to fall upon it.

From this class of speeches, it will be seen that the leaders of Southern revolt copied many of their pernicious heresies and worse practices from the seditionists of the North.

Third.-Connected with the above classification, incidentally discussed, was the question of fugitives from foreign lands and the right of asylum. The occasion was the action of the administration in the Arguelles case. I offered a resolution reprobating the violation of the right of asylum. It was shelved without allowing debate. There was only one opportunity

to debate it. That was in connection with the return of fugitives from justice and labor, in which the analogies were pointed out. This question was met by the usual fling: "Oh! you are defending the slave trade. You are the advocate of the enemy of our race." But time has shown that Arguelles was not what he has been charged with being; that General Dulce has been dismissed for his treatment of Arguelles; and that the precedent our nation made is a blot upon the diplomatic escutcheon of our country.

Fourth.-Speeches on Foreign Affairs. These are mostly in vindication of our traditional policy respecting this continent. They were

made in 1859 and 1860. They contain words since made prophetic by the action of France, absolutely prophetic. They laid down a policy for the orderly and erect independence of Mexico; such a policy as would give us the commercial and other results of annexation, without its troubles and dangers. If the warnings I gave in 1860 had been heeded, Maximilian would now be at his palace in Miramar, overlooking the Adriatic, and Napoleon content with quoting the Koran to prove his Cæsarism divine for Arab as well as Frank. These speeches had the honor of Spanish and French translations, and considerable circulation in Spanish America as well as Europe. But, in anticipation of our own troubles, they attracted but little attention from our own citizens. Gen. Cass did me the favor to say that he would rest his policy, as Secretary of State, on the principles enunciated in them. That these principles are destined to play a large part in our future, is already "manifest." I will thank my constituents to re-read them in the light of the present time.

In connection with foreign affairs, I offered, on the 3d of March, 1862, a series of resolutions in relation to maritime law. They grew out of the Trent affair. In December, 1861, I had discussed the questions involved in the seizure of the soi-disant ambassadors of the South. I did not believe that a single principle had been violated in that seizure. I an a firm advocate of the Democracy of the Sea; I could not have spoken as I did, had I believed that it had been outraged in that case. I desired, however, that the most important international question of our age the maritime rights of nations-should receive fresh impulse. I wished that impulse to be in the path of liberality. With a view to untrammelling commerce from the English system, I embodied, in the resolutions which I offered, the best sentiment of the progressive publicists of all time. With such ability as I could command, I urged the amelioration of the liabilities of neutrals and the assertion of the traditionary policy of America.

Fifth.-A eulogy upon Stephen A. Douglas. This species of oratory

has not been regarded hitherto as very successfully illustrated in our parliamentary annals. My relations with Judge Douglas; his peculiar doctrines; and his death, so inopportune, combined to give an interest to the theme which oratory failed to elicit. The American people have since done justice to Douglas. This eulogy will not be looked upon now as the emanation of a partial friend, but as a truthful analysis of a giant mind, energized into action by the throbbings of a great heart.

Sixth.-Speeches growing out of Secession and the War. These embrace earnest appeals to the North to tender, and the South to receive, a peaceful redress of grievances. They discard secession as an unconstitutional and revolutionary proceeding, unjustifiable and criminal, and elevate the principle of nationality to that eminence where the Constitution can ever shield it. They embrace a vindication of Gen. McClellan from the attack of the Congressional war critics; the proper policy of conducting the war; the errors of the fanatical and negro policies, with reference to emancipation and its results upon North and South, and upon whites and blacks; the Conscription bill; the Confiscation measures; Puritanism in Politics; Miscegenation; and finally, the questions involved in the reconstruction of the Union and in the violation of personal liberty. In illustration of the speaker's views, I have introduced one short speech not made in Congress, upon the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. It was made in May, 1863, a few days after the arrest. The sentiments of that speech, revivified by the classic eloquence of Hon. Henry Winter Davis, have been endorsed by the House of Representatives at the end of the last session.

Seventh. The amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery, in which the speaker maintained the power to amend, but did not believe its exercise to be judicious at the time.

Eighth.--The final speech on the proposition to admit the Cabinet into Congress, in which the danger of aggrandizing power in the Federal Executive is considered.

It will be observed from this arrangement and classification, that the round of political discussion has been run by the speaker. In not one of the sentences of these speeches is there a syllable that breathes aught but love of country, respect for its Constitution, reverence for its founders, and prayerful aspirations for its permanent peace and prosperity.