200 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



to me to require, it only remains for me to bid 

 you a final adieu." 



The State of Louisiana having passed an 

 ordinance of secession from the United States, 

 her Senators in Congress, Messrs. Slidell and 

 Benjamin, took leave of the Senate on the 4th 

 of February. 



Mr. Slidell, in addressing the Senate for the 

 last time, made a very full statement of the 

 views and purposes entertained by the seced- 

 ing States, particularly Louisiana. They anti- 

 cipated reconstruction, although South Carolina 

 said the Union was gone forever. He said : 

 " The occasion, however, justifies, if it does not 

 call for, some parting words to those whom we 

 leave behind, some forever, others we trust to 

 meet again, and to participate with them in 

 the noble task of constructing and defending 

 a new confederacy ; which, if it may want at 

 first the grand proportions and vast resources 

 of the old, will still possess the essential ele- 

 ments of greatness, a people bold, hardy, homo- 

 geneous in interests and sentiments, a fertile 

 soil, an extensive territory, the capacity and 

 the will to govern themselves through the 

 forms and in the spirit of the Constitution 

 under which they have been born and educat- 

 ed. Besides all these, they have an advantage 

 which no other people seeking to change the 

 Government under which they had before 

 lived have ever enjoyed ; they have to pass 

 through no intervening period of anarchy ; 

 they have in their several State Governments, 

 already shaped to their hands, every thing ne- 

 cessary for the preservation of order, the ad_- 

 ministration of justice, and the protection of 

 their soil and their property from foreign or 

 domestic violence. They can consult with 

 calmness and act with deliberation on every 

 subject, either of immediate interest or future 

 policy. 



" But, if we do not greatly mistake the pre- 

 vailing sentiment of the Southern mind, no at- 

 tempt will be made to improve the Constitu- 

 tion ; we shall take it such .as it is ; such as 

 has been found sufficient for our security and 

 happiness, so long as its true intent and spirit 

 lived in the hearts of a majority of the people 

 of the free States, and controlled the action 

 not only of the Federal but of the State Legis- 

 latures. "We will adopt all laws not locally in- 

 applicable or incompatible with our new rela- 

 tions ; we will recognize the obligations of all 

 existing treaties those respecting the African 

 slave trade included. "We shall be prepared to 

 assume our just proportion of the national 

 debt ; to account for the cost of all the forts 

 and other property of the United States, which 

 we have been compelled to seize in self-de- 

 fence, if it should appear that our share of 

 such expenditure has been greater than in other 

 sections ; and, above all, we shall, as well from 

 the dictates of natural justice and the princi- 

 ples of international law as of political and geo- 

 graphical affinities and of mutual pecuniary in- 

 terests, recognize the right of the inhabitants 



of the valley of the Mississippi and its tribu- 

 taries to its free navigation ; we will guarantee 

 to them a free interchange of all agricultural 

 productions without impost, tax, duty, or toll 

 of any kind ; the free transit from foreign 

 countries of every species of merchandise, sub- 

 ject only to such regulations as may be abso- 

 lutely necessary for the protection of any rev- 

 enue system we may establish, and for purposes 

 of police. 



" As for such States of the Union as may not 

 choose to unite their destinies with ours, we 

 shall consider them, as we shall all other for- 

 eign nations, ' enemies in Avar, in peace friends.' 

 "We wish and we hope to part with them ami- 

 cably ; and, so far as depends on us, they shall 

 have no provocation to pursue a hostile course ; 

 but in this regard we, from the necessities of 

 the case, can only be passive ; it will be for the 

 people of the non-slavebolding States to decide 

 this momentous question. This declaration, 

 however, requires some qualification. Could 

 the issue be fairly presented to the people of 

 .those States, we should have little doubt of a 

 peaceful separation, with the possibility of a 

 complete, and the probability of a partial, re- 

 construction on a basis satisfactory to us and 

 honorable to them ; but, with the present rep- 

 resentations in either branch of Congress, we 

 see nothing to justify our indulging any snch 

 expectation. We must be prepared to resist 

 coercion, whether attempted by avowed en- 

 emies, or by a hand heretofore supposed friend- 

 ly ; by open war, or under the more insidious, 

 and, therefore, more dangerous pretext of en- 

 forcing the laws, protecting public property, or 

 collecting the revenue. "We shall not cavil 

 about words, or discuss legal and technical dis- 

 tinctions; we shall consider the one as equiva- 

 lent to the other, and shall be prepared to act 

 accordingly. Utroque arbitrio parati. You 

 will find us ready to meet you with the out- 

 stretched hand of fellowship, or in the mailed 

 panoply of war, as you may will it ; elect be- 

 tween these alternatives. 



" We have no idea that you will even at- 

 tempt to invade our soil with your armies; 

 but we acknowledge your superiority on the 

 sea, at present, in some degree accidental, but 

 in the main, natural, and permanent, until we 

 shall have acquired better ports for our marine. 

 You may, if you will it, persist in considering 

 us bound to you during your good pleasure ; 

 you may deny the sacred and indefeasible right, 

 we will not say of secession, but of revolution 

 ay, of rebellion, if you choose so to call our ac- 

 tionthe right of every people to establish for 

 itself that form of government which it may, 

 even in its folly, if such you deem it, consider 

 best calculated to secure its safety and promote 

 its welfare. You may ignore the principles of 

 our immortal Declaration of Independence; 

 you may attempt to reduce us to subjection, 

 or you may, under color of enforcing your laws, 

 or collecting your revenue, blockade our ports. 

 This will be war, and we shall meet it with 



