Year: 1861

 sacred name of honor, liberty. and equality, she staked her destiny on the war of the revolution, when "the cause of Boston was the cause of all;" and for the same high considerations, know that she will imperil all again, if she believes it to be her duty to do so. And if the day shall ever come when she can neither defend her honor nor assert her rights because the hand of power wields its bloody sword before her, she will feel that it would be better for her name and fame to perish with them. Republican Senators, why are these threats of coercion sent to the southern States, who are seeking to do no evil to others, but merely to protect and defend themselves? Do they go out with any pur- pose of attacking your rights? Do they sc- cede with the wish to injure or disturb you in any manner? Are they not going out simply for the purpose of exercising that first law of nature and of nations, the right l of self-government, because they believe they are not safe under your rule? Are they not willing to meet all the responsi7 bilities which they may have incurred while they were carrying on joint govern ] ment with you? Why. then. sirs, do you.ce 1 claim to pursue them with fire and with

 

 right which belongs to every organized people? When we were asserting that l right against the government of Great Britain, we claimed and we received tho l sympathies of the whole civilized world. When the Spanish provinces rebelled | against the mother country, we were quick to express our sympathy and regard for their cause. When Greece, distant Greece, | asserted her independence, we were among l the tlrst to express our sympathy for her. Now, sir, the right which we are free to offer, and the sympathy which we gladly extend to foreigners and to aliens, are re- fused to our own brethren; and you say that, if they attempt to exercise them. you will pursue them to the death.

 Mir. President, is it to be supposed that any Anglo-Saxon people, people of our own blood and race, would submit to such demands. Is there any free people who are worthy of liberty, who would not say that sooner than yield to such demands as these we bid you to wrap in flames our dwellings, and float our land in blood? I believe if they attempt to coerce the southern people in this regard, they will meet not only with the detestation of mankind, but with such resistance as has never been shown before Tn the world, except, perhaps, in the history of Holland, whose people fought behind the dykes, and flooded their lands with the waves of the sea, preferring death in any and every form rather than submission to such oppression and tyranny.

 But, MT. President, do not wish to pursue this line of argument. I do not desire to engage in. any discussion which so much stirs the blood as the supposition that such rights as these are to be denied to any portion of my countrymen. I choose rather to stand in the character in which appear this day. I stand here to plead for peace; not that my State, in my opinion, has any reason to fear war more than another, but because it is the interest of all to preserve the peace. In the sacred names of humanity and of christian civili- zation; in the names of thirty millions of human souls, men, women, and children, whose lives, whose honor, and whose hap pincss depend upon the events of such civil war as that which we are threatened; in the name of the great American experi- ment. which, as I said before, was founded by Providence in the wilderness, and which, l insist, has not yet failed appeal to the American people to prevent the effusion of blood. It is said the very scent of blood stirs up the animal passions of man. Give us time for the play of reason Let us see, after the southern States have secured themselves by some united action, if we cannot bring together once more our scat tered divisions; if we cannot close up our broken ranks; if we cannot find some place of conciliation, some common ground upon which we all may rally once more; and when the columns come mastering in from the distant North and the farthest South, from the rising and from the setting sun, to take their parts in that grand review, the shout of their war cry shall shake the air until it brings down the very birds in their flight as 1t ascends to the heavens to proclaim to the world that we are united once more, brothers in war, and brothers in peace, ready to take our wonted place in the front line of tho mighty march of human progress, and able and willing to play for the mastery in that game of nations where the prizes are power and empire, and where victory may crown our name with eternal fame and deathless renown.

 MT. HARLAN. Mr. President--

 MT. BAKER. By the leave of the Senator from Iowa, I desire to ask the gentleman from Virginia if he will allow me, and consider it respectful, one question. <

 Mir. HUNTER. What is the question? ! Mir. BAKER. It is this: if majority of this branch of Congress-the constitu- tional majority, and majority of the other branch, also the constitutional majority shall pass constitutional amendments, to be submitted according to the forms of the constitution, for the consent and approba- tion of the people, in that event, if they be such as substantially meet the views of gentlemen on the other side, will the Sena- tor from Virginia, so far as he can, throw 4 the weight of Virginia, and especially the s weight of his own individual character, to < maintaint the constitution..as it is, the laws as they now are, with the power of the gov- ernment, until the people, or the States, shall have decided upon those amendments? Mir. HUNTER. The Senator has asked me some questions which l cannot answer. l cannot answer for Virginia; I am not authorized to do so. l can only say this: that I will vote for the propositions of the s Senator from Kentucky which were pre- sented Tn committee; and other gentlemen declared that they believed they would be satisfactory; but whether the people, who are now seeding and getting in line togther for purposes of common defence, would wait to ascertain whether the States would 4 adopt them, am not authorized to say.

 Mir. BAKER. That is not quite it; IL do not make myself understood by the gentleman. Will the gentleman himself, as a Senator

 MT. HUNTER. If the Senator is not 4 satisfied. I cannot satisfy him