CONGRESS, TJ, S. 



181 



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Administration, to the policy which is to be 

 adopted. I understand from him now, that 

 remedies failing through the Constitution by 

 the conventions of the States, his recommenda- 

 tion is battle and bloodshed to preserve the 

 Union ; and his recommendation to his people 

 is that they shall contribute the money which 

 shall march the army upon the South; for 

 what ? To preserve the Union ? It is gone ; 

 it is broken ; there is no Union now in this 

 country. Those States that are out of the 

 Union have broken it as completely as if, in- 

 stead of six or seven, there were now all the 

 fifteen slave States with them ; and if this bat- 

 tle is to be fought, it is to be fought against 

 them upon their own soil, for the purpose of 

 reducing them to colonies and dependencies. 

 It cannot mean any thing else. The honorable 

 Senator is too wise and experienced a states- 

 man, the honorable Senator knows too well the 

 construction and theory of this Government, to 

 think for one moment that when you have sub- 

 jugated the people of the States you have re- 

 stored the Union. No, sir, " 



Mr. Seward answered : " I look, sir, to no 



;ch contingency as seceded States and a dis- 

 severed Union. I look to no such condition of 

 things. The honorable Senator and I differ in 

 regard to the future. He, with an earnest will 

 and ardent imagination, sees this country here- 

 after rent and dissevered, and then recombined 

 into separate confederacies. I see no such 

 thing in the future ; but I do see, through the 

 return of reason and judgment to the American 

 people, a return of public harmony, and the 

 consolidation of the Union firmer than ever be- 

 fore. The honorable Senator from Virginia 

 can very easily see that we may differ in our 

 anticipations and expectations of the future, 

 because we differ so much in regard to the 

 actual, living present. Here I am, sir, in the 

 Union of the United States, this same blessed, 

 glorious, nobly -inherited, God-given Union ; . 

 in the Senate chamber of the United States, 

 pleading for it, maintaining it, and defend- 

 ing it/' 



The debate was further continued, and other 

 Senators took a part in it. 



Mr. Douglas, of Illinois, in allusion to the 

 votes of the Senate, said that extremes North 



d South often meet, and unite in resisting 



:e efforts of the friends of the Union, of con- 

 cession, of conciliation, and of harmony, when 

 their joint efforts, thoagh prompted by differ- 

 ent motives, lead to the same end inevitable 

 disunion, now and forever. 

 _ Mr. Johnson, of Arkansas, said the impres- 

 sion that there is no hope of an adjustment has 

 been derived from the action in this chamber, 

 and there is not a man here who is not con- 

 scious of the fact. 



Mr. TTigfall, of Texas, in reply to the remark 

 of the Senator from Illinois, said: -"Why, I 

 tell the Senator that that great principle of his 

 (non-intervention) disrupted the Democratic 

 party, and has now disrupted the Union ; and 



but for him and his great principle, this day a 

 Democrat would have been President, and the 

 Union saved. That is the fact about the mat- 

 ter ; and when a Senator who has contributed 

 more than any man in the Union, according to 

 his ability, to the destruction of the country, 

 comes here and charges me with complicity in 

 dissolving the Union, and charges in terms that 

 extremes meet, and that I and my friends, and 

 the Free-Soilers on the other side, are coop- 

 erating for the same purpose ; that we are vot- 

 ing together, and that we take great comfort 

 in all these exhibitions of the impossibility 

 of saving the Union, I tell him that he is 

 not the man to come here and preach to any- 

 body." 



The peace propositions of Virginia were next 

 taken up, and Mr. Clingman, of North Caro- 

 lina, expressed his views of all these proposi- 

 tions in these few words : " I have and shall 

 continue to vote for any measure that may im- 

 prove the existing status, whether it, in my 

 judgment, be all that the South is entitled to 

 ask or not, leaving to my constituents and 

 other Southern States the right to determine 

 how far it satisfies them. But I have felt all 

 the time, that unless some movement came 

 from the other side of the chamber, or was at 

 least taken up by them, any effort on our part 

 would be futile. Even though every Demo- 

 cratic member should vote for a proposition, 

 and that should chance to be a majority, yet 

 we could not here pass a proposition for an 

 amendment to the Constitution by the ne- 

 cessary two-thirds vote, nor carry any prop- 

 osition through the House of Representatives, 

 much less cause its adoption by the free 

 States." 



Of the future, he thus predicted : " I say, 

 Mr. President, that one of three contingencies 

 is inevitably before you : either a settlement 

 of these difficulties such as will be satisfactory 

 and arrest the movement ; or a recognition of 

 a peaceable separation ; or, thirdly, war. No 

 human ingenuity can find any other result. 

 The best course, undoubtedly, would be to 

 adjust things now, if possible, on a satisfactory 

 and permanent basis. The next best is a peace- 

 able recognition of the independence of the 

 seceding States; and the worst of all, but 

 inevitable if neither of the others be taken, 

 is war. I tell gentlemen, if they sit still war 

 will make itself; it will come of its own 

 accord." 



On closing his remarks, Mr. Clingman thus 

 referred to the subject of .peace or war : " A 

 Roman ambassador, addressing those to whom 

 he was sent, said : ' I carry in my bosom 

 peace and war ; which will you have ? ' Re- 

 versing his declaration, I say to Senators on 

 the other side of this chamber, ' You carry in 

 your bosoms, for the country, peace or war ; 

 which do you mean to give it ? ' If you say 

 war. then our people will meet you, and strug- 

 gle with you all along the lines, and wherever 

 else you come." 



