192 



CONGKESS, U. S. 



cated the Constitution, and pointed out to you 

 the danger of your course, and held them re- 

 sponsible for the censure you received, as 

 though you had not, in fact, aggressed. Even 

 at this session, after forty years of debate, you 

 have asked us what was the matter." 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, immediately rose 

 to reply, saying : " "We have listened to the 

 Senator from Mississippi, and one would sup- 

 pose, in listening to him here, that he was a 

 friend of this Union, that he desired the per- 

 petuity of this Government. lie has a most 

 singular way of preserving it, and a most sin- 

 gular way of maintaining the Constitution. 

 What is it ? Why, he proposes that the Gov- 

 ernment should abdicate. If it will simply 

 withdraw its forces from Charleston, and abdi- 

 cate either in favor of a mob or of the consti- 

 tuted authorities of Charleston, we will have 

 peace! He dreads civil war, and he will avoid 

 it by a surrender ! He talks as if we Republi- 

 cans were responsible for civil war if it ensues. 

 If civil war comes, it comes from those with 

 whom he is acting. Who proposes to make 

 civil war but South Carolina? Who proposes 

 to make civil war but Mississippi and Alabama 

 and Georgia, seizing, by force of arms, upon 

 the public property of the United States ? 

 Talk to us of mqjdng civil war ! You inau- 

 gurate it, and then talk of it as if it came from 

 the friends of the Constitution and the Union. 

 Here stands this great Government ; here stands 

 the Union a pillar, so to speak, already erect- 

 ed. Do we propose to pull it down ? Do we 

 propose undermining the foundations of the 

 Constitution or disturbing the Union ? Not at 

 all ; but the proposition comes from the other 

 side. They are making war, and modestly ask 

 us to have peace by submitting to what they 

 ask!" 



On a subsequent day the consideration of 

 this message was again called up, and Mr. 

 Seward improved the occasion to address the 

 Senate on the state of public affairs. After 

 saying what actions, in his opinion, would not 

 save the Union, he declared his abhorrence of 

 civil war in these words : "I dread, as in my 

 innermost soul I abhor, civil war. I do not 

 know what the Union would be worth if saved 

 by the use of the sword. Yet, for all this, I do 

 not agree with those who, with a desire to 

 avert that great calamity, advise a convention- 

 al or unopposed separation, with a view to 

 what they call a reconstruction. It is enough 

 for me, first, that in this plan, destruction goes 

 before reconstruction ; and, secondly, that the 

 strength of the vase in which the hopes of the 

 nation are held consists chiefly in its remaining 

 unbroken. 



" Congressional compromises are not likely 

 to save the Union. I know, indeed, that tra- 

 dition favors this form of remedy. But it is 

 essential to its success, in any case, that there 

 be found a preponderating mass of citizens, so 

 far neutral on the issue which separates parties, 

 that they can intervene, strike down clashing 



weapons, and compel an accommodation. Mod- 

 erate concessions are not customarily asked by 

 a force with its guns in battery ; nor are lib- 

 eral concessions apt to be given by an opposing 

 force not less confident of its own right and its 

 own strength. I think, also, that there is a 

 prevailing conviction that legislative compro- 

 mises which sacrifice honestly cherished prin- 

 ciples, while they anticipate future exigencies, 

 even if they do not assume extra-constitutional 

 powers, are less sure to avert imminent evils 

 than they are certain to produce ultimately 

 even greater dangers. 



" Indeed, Mr. President, I think it will be 

 wise to discard two prevalent ideas or preju- 

 dices, namely: first, that the Union is to be 

 saved by somebody in particular ; and, second- 

 ly, that it is to be saved by some cunning and 

 insincere compact of pacification." 



The immediate duty of Congress was, he 

 thought, to redress any real grievances of the 

 offended States, and then to supply the Presi- 

 dent with all the means necessary to maintain 

 the Union in the full exhibition and discreet 

 exercise of its authority. Beyond this, with 

 the proper activity on the part of the Execu- 

 tive, the responsibility of saving the Union be- 

 longed to the people, and they are abundantly 

 competent to discharge it. 



Instead of regarding the Constitution as a 

 compact upon which the Government was 

 founded, his view of its authority was ex- 

 pressed in these words : " I fully admit the 

 originality, the sovereignty, and the independ- 

 ence of the several States within their spheres. 

 But I hold the Federal Government to be 

 equally original, sovereign, and independent 

 within its sphere. And the government of the 

 State can no more absolve the people residing 

 within its limits from allegiance to the Union, 

 than the Government of the Union can absolve 

 them from allegiance to the State. The Con- 

 stitution of the United States, and the laws 

 made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme 

 law of the land, paramount to all legislation of 

 the States, whether made under the Constitu- 

 tion, or by even their organic conventions. 

 The Union can be dissolved, not by secession, 

 with or without armed force, but only by the 

 voluntary consent of the people of the United 

 States, collected in the manner prescribed by 

 the Constitution of the United States." 



The question of the moment, the simple 

 question to be then decided was, whether it 

 conduces more to the interests of the people of 

 this country to remain, for the general pur- 

 poses of peace and war, commerce inland and 

 foreign, postal communications at home and 

 abroad, the care and disposition of the public 

 domain, colonization, the organization and ad- 

 mission of new States, and, generally, the en- 

 largement of empire, one nation under our 

 present Constitution, than it would to divide 

 themselves into separate confederacies or States. 



The plan which he preferred to adopt in re- 

 lation to the territories and to the troubles of 



