CONGRESS, U. S. 



169 





which it had been administered. Where, then, 

 was it ? It was that our fathers formed a Gov- 

 ernment for a Union of friendly States ; and 

 though under it the people have heen prosper- 

 ous, beyond comparison with any other whose 

 career is recorded in the histary of man, still 

 that Union of friendly States had changed its 

 character, and sectional hostility had been sub- 

 stituted for the fraternity in which the Govern- 

 ment was founded. He further said : 



" I do not intend here to enter into a state- 

 ment of grievances ; I do not intend here to re- 

 new that war of crimination which for years past 

 has disturbed the country, and in which I have 

 taken a part perhaps more zealous than useful ; 

 but I call upon all men who have in their 

 hearts a love of the Union, and whose service 

 is not merely that of the lip, to look the ques- 

 tion calmly but fully in the face, that they may 

 see the true cause, of our danger, which, from 

 my examination, I believe to be that a sectional 

 hostility has been substituted for a general fra- 

 ternity, and thus the Government rendered 

 powerless for the ends for which it was insti- 

 tuted. The hearts of a portion of the people 

 have been perverted by that hostility, so that 

 the powers delegated by the compact of union 

 are regarded, not as means to secure the wel- 

 fare of all, but as instruments for the destruc- 

 tion of a part the minority section. How, 

 then, have we to provide a remedy? By 

 strengthening this Government ? By institut- 

 ing physical force to overawe the States to 

 coerce the people living under them as mem- 

 bers of sovereign communities to pass nnder 

 the yoke of the Federal Government? No, 

 sir- I would have this Union severed into 

 thirty-three fragments sooner than have that 

 great evil befall constitutional liberty and rep- 

 resentative government. Our Government is 

 an agency of delegated and strictly limited 

 powers. Its founders did not look to its pres- 

 ervation hy force ; but the chain they wove to 

 bind these States together was one of love and 

 mutual good offices. 



" Then where is the remedy ? the question 

 may be asked. In the hearts of the people, is 

 the ready reply ; and therefore it is that I turn 

 to the other side of the chamber, to the major- 

 ity section, to the section in which have been 

 committed the acts that now threaten the dis- 

 solution of the Union. I call on you, the repre- 

 sentatives of that section, here and now to say so, 

 if your people are not hostile ; if they have the 

 fraternity with which their fathers came to form 

 this Union ; if they are prepared to do justice ; 

 to abandon their opposition to the Constitution 

 and the laws of the United States ; to recognize, 

 and to maintain, and to defend all the rights 

 and benefits the Union was designed to promote 

 and to secure. Give us that declaration give 

 us that evidence of the will of your Constituen- 

 cy to restore us to our original position, when 

 mutual kindness was the animating motive, 

 and then we may hopefully look for remedies 

 which may suffice ; not by organizing armies 



not so much by enacting laws as by repressing 

 the spirit of hostility and lawlessness, and seek- 

 ing to live up to the obligations of good neigh- 

 bors, and friendly States united for the common 

 welfare." 



Mr. Green, of Missouri, said: "For me to 

 go on the stump or in this Senate chamber, 

 and denounce one section of the Union, or the 

 other section of the Union, would do more harm 

 than good ; but let me appeal to them, and ask 

 them, as I say to them now, Are you not willing 

 to grant me the Constitution ? Ye?. You ask 

 me, Do you want any more than the Constitu- 

 tion ? No. Then this one point only remains : 

 If you construe the Constitution one way, and 

 I construe it another, let us as brethren put in 

 an explanatory amendment, which will remove 

 the whole difficulty, that we may go on together 

 in harmony and peace hereafter. A rigid en- 

 forcement of the fugitive slave law, a rigid pro- 

 tection of the States from invasion, and an ex- 

 planatory amendment of the Constitution, de- 

 fining the rights on every point where there is 

 any dispute, will give us the same old peace we 

 had, and we will go on with the same prosper- 

 ity as we formerly did." 



Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, followed : " In 

 saying that the controversy respecting slavery 

 is the cause of our present difficulties, I do not 

 intend to say whether one section of the coun- 

 try is in fault more than another, whether both 

 are equally in fault, or whether the blame is 

 wholly on one side. Crimination and recrimi- 

 nation are now useless nay, dangerous. If it 

 be possible, the first thing should be to restore 

 the fraternal spirit which once existed, ought 

 to exist, and may still exist. 



" How shall this be done ? I know of no other 

 mode than by cheerfully and honestly assuring 

 to every section of the country its constitutional 

 rights. No section professes to ask more ; no 

 section ought to offer less. As to what are 

 these constitutional rights, that is a question to 

 be considered in a spirit of confidence and mu- 

 tual good will, and furthermore, in a spirit of 

 devotion to the Union, for the preservation of 

 which my constituents are ready to make any 

 sacrifice which a reasonable man can ask, or an 

 honorable man can grant, consistently with 

 principle. In this spirit, sir, I shall meet this 

 great question ; and in doing so I believe I shall 

 be sustained by an immense majority of my 

 constituents. If time shall show that I am 

 wrong in this belief, I shall instantly cease to 

 represent them in this Senate.'' 



Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, declined to vote 

 for the resolution. He said : " Things had 

 reached a crisis. The crisis could only be met in 

 one way effectually, in his judgment ; and that 

 was, for the Northern people to review and re- 

 verse their whole policy upon the subject of 

 slavery. I see no evidence anywhere of any 

 such purpose. On the contrary, the evidences 

 accumulate all around, day by day, that there 

 is no such purpose. The Southern States do 

 not expect that they are going to do it ; and, 



