Year: 1861



 and thus you would lose your most valua- bic customers in the carrying trade, and the most profitable consumers of your manu- factures.

 And what would you get in return?- Would the custoihs that you thus collect ed pay the expenses of the blockade?- Would they pay half the expenses of the blockade? It is manifest they would not. The blockade, to be efectual, would have to be blockade of war, in which you pre- vented vessels from going either ont or in; and is it to be supposed that foreign nations would allow this? Is it to be presumed that Great Britain, which has millions of human beings whose very existence depends upon cotton, that the great interests of civilization would allow this grand materi- al of human industry to be thus shut up and denied to them? Why, sir, it is not to be supposed for moment. There are other powers which would prevent such blockade, in addition to the resistance which might be expected from the section that 1t was attempted thus to coerce.

 l say, then, Mir. President, that it is idle to think of coercion. You may, if you choose, if such be your feeling, infict evils by waging civil war; but will you infict more on others than you will receive in re- tura? Will you be benefited by the opera ton when you come to sum up it's results and effects? I think not But suppose you could succeed-I put equestion to you now-suppose you had succeeded accord ing to your wishes; suppose you had con- quered the South; that you had subjugated f ba ha+ l,J those States to the condition of dependent provinces, how then would you exercise your power? Would you apply your doc- Urine, that there can be no property in slaves? In that community of eight or nine million white men and four million slaves, would you turn them loose together, and set the slaves free? Would you re- peat the experiment of the British West Indies-of the island of Jamaica? Would your people stand by and see the cultivated fields return to the bush, the white man being gradually reduced to the level of the negro, and the negro remitted and restored to his primitive condition of barbarism?- Would the great interests of civilization and humanity permit such result?- Would your own interests, your manufac- turers, your shipowners, agree to it? Sir, it is not to be supposed that such thing would be permitted; and what then would be the result? You would have to main- tain the social system; you would have to recognize property in slaves; and what would follow from that? If you recognize property in slaves, you must cause fugitive slaves to be restored. If you recognize a property that is under the jurisdiction, of your government, you must protect it; and if you do protect it, you must punish per sons who attempt to make raids upon it, sirs, if you once commit yourselves to the duty of protecting it throughout all these conquered States, you would find that it followed, as necessary consequence, that you must protect it wherever you had the exclusive jurisdiction. What, then, would become of your dogma of excludingit it from the territories? What would be the effect. of such an experiment? You pen them up until there comes to be surplus population ln the old States; you pen up the negroes, and say the negro shall not move, but the white man may. What is the effect of that? The white man does move when the wages of labor are low; the negro re- mains and gains the preponderance in popu- lation until you give him the bess iss.s-t of the continent and remove the white man to the worst Could such an absurdity as this be tolerated, Mr. President? No, sir; not after 1t was made manifest.

 Then, if you would be forced to agree to all these things, if you succeeded according to your wishes, and conquered and subdu- ed us, after bloody and harrassing civil war, why not do it beforehand, when it would save the Union? Why not do it now, when it would avert all these calamites? Why not avail yourself of the present op- portunity, when you may do so without the dreadful inconsistency which will be charg- do these very things after you have carried on this cruel and harrassing and distressing system of civil war?

 1 say, then, Mir. President, that it is i'm possible to coerce the southern States, if you were to attempt to do so. If you had the constitutional right to do so it would be impossible. Why create civil war want only, without purpose, without use or be- neft to any one? If this be so, why not adopt tine proposition in my resolution why not cede back the forts to those States that claim to have seeded, and to have withdrawn from the confederacy? What do you want with the forts in the harbor of Charleston? If you do not mean to coerce South Carolina, they are of no use to you; if you do mean to coerce her, you ought not to have them The whole thing lies in nutshell because, if you do mean to use them for the purpose of coercion, you light up the flames of civil war, and there is no telling when those flames will be extin- guished; if you do attempt to use them for the purpose of coercion, you destroy the chances of the construction of another Union, which I still hope and trust may take place, and which may prove to us a more permanent bond of alliance and fra ternity than that one which is passing away from us.

 say, too, sir, that you have no right, when you come to weigh the question of right, to hold on to these forts. You could not have obtained them without the con- sent of the legislature of the State; that is the provision of the constitution. Upon what consideration was that consent given? Not for pecuniary considerations It was given upon the consideration that they were to be used for the defence of the State.-- Now, sir, you keep them when they can no longer be used for the defence of the State, but are proposed to be used for offensive purposes against her. The consideration, therefors, in my opinion, has failed; and in justice and equity, you ought to restore them

 But. Mr. President, if there were no mo- ral obligation upon you to do so, main tain that considerations of policy ought to prompt you to do 1t. In no other way can you prevent the commencement of civil