OF (,HIO.
i'?t,,.te Hotp,na oj             Febr,,aj  2(,) 1861.
WASHIiNGT(3N:
PR'INTED  f!Y IIENR,Y I(LiH
1IQ C,1.  
re 6tat 3medg  t   votltion of 1861.
The special order-namely, the report of the committee of thirty-three-being under consideration
Mr. VALLANDIGHAM addressed the House as follows:
Mr. SPEAKER: It was my purpose, some three months ago, to speak solely upon
the question of peace and war between the two great sections of the Union, and to
defend at length the position which, in the very beginning of this crisis, and almost
alone, I assumed against the employment of military force by the Federal Government to execute its laws and restore its authority within the States which might secede. Subsequent events have rendered this unnecessary. Within the three months
or more, since the presidential election, so rapid has been the progress of events, and
such the magnitude which the movement in the South has attained, that the country
has been forced-as this House and the incoming Administration will at last be forced,
in spite of their warlike purposes now-to regard it as no longer a mere casual and
temporary rebellion of discontented individuals, but a great and terrible REVOLUTION,
which threatens now to result in permanent dissolution of the Union, and division
into two or more rival, if not hostile, confederacies. Before this dread reality, the
atrocious and fruitless policy of a war of coercion to preserve or to restore the Union
has, outside, at least, of these walls and of this capital, rapidly dissolved. The people have taken the subject up, and have reflected upon it, till to-day, in the South,
almost as one man, and by a very large majority, as I believe, in the North, and especially in the West, they are resolved that, whatever else of calamity may befall us,
that horrible scourge of CIVIL WAR  shall be averted.  Sir, I rejoice that the hard
Anglo-Saxon sense and pious and humane impulses of the American people have
rejected the specious disguise of words without wisdom which appealed to them to
enforce the laws, collect the revenue, maintain the Union, and restore the Federal
authority by the perilous edge of battle, and that thus early in the revolution they
are resolved to compel us, their Representatives, belligerent as you of the Republican
party here may now be, to the choice of peaceable disunion upon the one hand, or
Union through adjustment and conciliation upon the other. Born, sir, upon the soil
of the United States; attached to my country from earliest boyhood; loving and
revering her, with some part, at least, of the spirit of Greek and Roman patriotism;
between these two alternatives, with all my mind, with all my heart, with all my
strength of body and of soul, living or dying, at home or in exile, I am for the Union
which made it what it is; and therefore I am also for such terms of peace and adjustment as will maintain that Union now and forever. This, then, is the question
which to-day I propose to discuss:
How SHALL THE UNION OF THESE STATES BE RESTORED AND PRESERVED?
Sir, it is with becoming modesty and with something of awe, that I approach the
discussion of a question which the ablest statesmen of the country have failed to solve.
But the country expects even the humblest of her children to serve her in this, the
hour of her sore trial. This is my apology.
Devoted as I am to the Union, I have yet no eulogi.s to pronounce upon it to-day.
It needs none. Its highest eulogy is the history of this country for the last seventy
years. The triumphs of war and the arts of peace,-science; civilization; wealth;
population; commerce; trade; manufactures; literature; education; justice; tranquility; security to life, to person, to property; material happiness; common defense;
national renown; all that is implied in the "blessings of liberty;" these, and more,
have been its fruits from the beginning to this hour. These have enshrined it in the
/
I 
4
hearts of the people; and, before God, I believe they will restore and preserve it. And
to-day they demand of us, their ernbassadors and( representatives, to tell them how this
great work is to be accomplished.
Sir, it has well beeni s:iid that it is not to be done by eulogies.  Eulogy is for times ofpeace.
Neither is it to be done by lamentations  oCver its decline and fall.  These are for the
poet and the historian, or for the exiled  statesman who  may chance to sit amid the
ruins of desolated cities.   Ouirs is a practic.l work;  and it is the business of the wise
and practical statesnmai to inqtire fir:st what the (auses Ire of the evils for which he is
required to devise a reie,dy.
Sir, tlhe subjects of imre l)artis.n coi'trovei's,v whllich lhatve })eni chiifly d(liscussed here and
ii the couiitiy, so fitr, a e not tile causes, but only th-e symlptorms or developments of the
malady vwhich is to b  hcdIealcd     se c         eues re to be fobund in the nature of man and in the
pcculiar naitui c of our systeni of goveriiiieiits. Thirst for power and place, or preeminence
-in a w ord, aimbition-is one of the strongest an(Id earliest developed passions of man.  It
is as discerniiblc in the school-boy as in the statesman.   It belongs alike to the individual
and to masses of mien, and is exhibited in every gradation of society, from the family
up to the hiliest development of the State.   In all voluntary associations of any kind,
andl in cvery ecclesi astical cr,anization, also, it is equally  manifested.  It is the sin by
wiichi the angels fell.   No form of government is exempt  from it; for even the  absolute monarchl is oliiged to execute his power through the instrumentality of agents;
a:nd ambition here courts one mastei  instead of many niasters.  As between foreign
States, it i    manifests itself in schemes of conq(llest and  territorial aggrandizement.   In
d(espotis-is, it iS  so  I  illntri  gues, assssiations,      and  revolts.  In constitutional
monaichieCs and  in aristocracies, it exliibits  it,elft' in  contests among  the different
orders of society iand the several iInterests of agriculture, trade, commerce,  and the
professions.  In deiocracies, it is seen everywhere, ianid in its highest development;
f'orI here  11 the avenues to lpolitical place and p)referment, and emolument, too, are open
to \everiy citizen  anl all imovem:ents  idl al intresrts of society, and every great question -morial, social, religious, scientific-no   mtlte-   what, as1sulli:, 1,t somne  timne or
othei, a political corIplexion,'aid forms a 1'irt of the tcetilon iSlitis and legislation of
the Cal.  Ile (,   nhe-l combined:  itth inteI est, and w e     the a C     of the   ( overinent
may be dia(de a sourice of weailtI, then hono:r  virtLu  Iat'ioti.,rt, relivi,cil,  ll,  perish
bcfr()'e it.  N\o re-ti its and I1  cinmpact  ca  bind it.
In ta F ederal Re public all thiese evil,'  ire f iouiid in tliri aitl)lt-t lurodiortion:-, and
take the foriii alo of rivaliries bctwscn tile States; or  more coliiornlv or  inarlay at
least epcecia!ly  wl               llcre eo,ra)lical and climatic  divisions  exist, or where several
con t i'eau. Sc at"s   are ii the sne inti r;te.  and  oitiie  whre tlihey are simiar in
instit'i'i''i- -,r i.ts ofi tP. ouflt, ori in   abit:i and cunetonis, of sectioLai jealousies
aned  ecV).roc'lr.'ie3  ilt2l eind alwxvays, s()ooer or later, iii eitlher.- (lissolution of the
union;ct-we-Cn tlieiii, or tlle c-;triuction orl th e  feeral claracter tof e  the govertnent.
I1ut h,owever ex',hiited wl tlether in tfderlti e or in consolidated governments, or whatever tl.e deve lopm iint nay be, tili  reat primnary cause is alwvays the san mi- tlhe feeling
that      it a   ig i th,.at the strong ogllt to govern tt,e wveak; that thle will ofi thet
mere andl aib  lute Iiaje:it  of nulmetirlis Ount li   lwa ys to coia', i r; tiat fifty nien may
d(lo Vwl-at ite               y 1lci-e wit h'if irty-nine; aind tlhat mm inoiiie  have no rii,i it, or.t    at least
that tlhey              i.iali l.'e  o. )I enforcinog theiir rilrlts, and no reimiedy for lhe violationi of tli iii.  AinLI tlius it is -,- t tIle string  mnalI   opl,lpri.,s;Es the weaki, and strorng
comm~nities, st"ates anid.'ections, aggress u(pon tl  riglist of wealker states, communlitie;s n  secti oin s.'0'lhis is the pIrinitf)le; but I I)ro)o,se to) speakl of it to-day only
in it  s    teuotnet in thile political, anld not the per:onal or domtilect,e relations.
Sir it is to repres this  p  rinc fle that Uovernui(nts, with their cotmplex nmacinervy. are  instituted aiiion  ni mn; thou-gh in  tlheir atbhise, indeed, Governuments may
theifsc l',ec  beceiae tli  worst engiines of oppriession.  Ior this purpose treaties are
entercd iiio, a,d tLie lanv of nations aclnIowl'dedg eld between foreign States.   Con ~titutions aln  lunnieipal law.vs and comftact  are ordaincd, or enacted(l, or concluded,
to secure tie -.r        great enI.  No imen  tnn,lirstoodl this. th,, ph)ilosophly and aim of
all just govcrnmet., better tiia tlice fraii,rs of our i   drl (C,ostitution.  No men
1tricd more f.itllfuliy to s   nure tle (Go)v(li-lllilt  witit (ii tlhey  were  instituting' fromn
i...~ii'i;  and  fia!i teltc  n)uitry {irti    v iit'ic ii itar's'Lstahljsistd  heen circuni -.c   el hib y inat ure to tie iitits which it titic   han t heir work   would  have, perthaps,
heei iierfeet, enduring, for ages.  LBut th.e wisest atioug._' them did *iiot foresee-who,
i~tlcc~!-. taic  was les- titan o'!ni.~cint c,)a"fe have  foreseen? —the amazing rapidity 
with which new settlements and new States have sprung up, as if by enchantment.
in the wilderness; or that political necessity or lust for territorial aggrandlizement
would, in sixty years, have given us new territories and States equal in extent to the
entire area of thile country for which they were then framing a Government?'ihey
were not priests or prophets to that God of IANIFEST DESTINY whom we now worship, and will continue to worship, whether united into one Confederacy still, or
divided into many.  And yet it is thii.s very acquisition of territory whlich has given
strength, though not birth, to that seetioialisi wvhich already has broiken in pieces
this, the noblest Government ever d vised by the wit of man.   Not fores cing the
evil or the necessity, they did not guard against its results.   13Beli vli  that  tlhe
great danger to thile system which  they w-ere labout  to inaug~urate lay ratlher in the
jealousy of the State governmients towards thli pow:r a.td autlicity i(i le ated to the
Federal Government, they defended diligently;aain>t that danger.  Appreliending
that the larger States mi-lht ao'.re<s uponi the ri?lhits of the stialler StatIts, they provided that no State sh-ould, w ithout its consent, be deriiis ed  of it.  equal suffrae in
the Senate.  I,est the legislative  deplrtoient iimligt enicroacih upon the executive,
they gave to the President thile self-)rotectinig I,owver of a qualfied veto, and in turn
made the President impeachable by the two Houst s of Congress.  Sati sfied that the
several State governments were strong enough to protect themselves itom Federal
aggressions. if; indeed, not too strong for the efficiency of the General Government,
they thus devised a system of internal checks and baiances  looking  chieflv to the
security of tihe several departments from agression upon each ot]:er, and to prevent
the systen  firom being used to the oppression  of individuals.  I thinkl, sir, that the
debates in the Federal convention and in the conventions of the several States
called to ratify the Constitution, as wvell as the cotemrporancous letters and publications of the time, will support  me in the statement that  the friends of the Constitution wholly under-estimated the power and influenice of the Governt ment whilch
they were establishing   Certainly, sir, many of the ablest statesmen of that day
earnestly desired a stronger Government; and it was thile policy of' MIr. Ianmilton,
and of the Federal party which he created, to strengthien thie CGeneral Governmeint
and hlence thile funding and protective systems  tie natio al bbane, anll other similar
schemes of finance, alon  with thtie' general-wslfare doctrine," and a liberal  construction of the Con.titution.
Sir, thile framers of the Constitution-and I speakl it reverently, but with  the freedom of history-failed to foresee the strengthl and  centralizing  tendencies of the
Federal Government.  They mistook wholly the real danger to the systfoim.  They
looked for it in the aggressionsof the large States upon the small States without
regard to geographical position, and accordingly guarded jealously in that direction,
giving for this purpose, as I have said, the power of a self-protecting veto in the
Senate to the small States, by means of their equal suffrage in that Chamber, and
forbidding even amendment of the Constitution in this particular, without the consent of every State.  But they seem whollv to have overlooked  the danger of SECTIONAL CO1BINATrIONS as against other sections, and to thile injury aud oppression
of other sections, to secure possession of the several departments of the Federal
Government, and of the vast powers and influence vwhich belong  to them.  In
like manner, too, they seemn to have utterly under-estimated SLAVERY as a  disturbing element in the system, possibly because it existed still in almost every
State; but chiefly because the growth and manufacture of cotton  had scarce yet
been  commenced  in  the United States:  because Cotton  was  not yet crowned
king.  The vast extent of the patronage of the Executive, and the immense power
and influence which  it exerts, seem also to have been altogether  under-estimated.
And independent of all these, or rather perhaps in connectioin with them, there were
inherent defects incident to the nature of all governments; some of themn peculiar
to our system, and to the circumstances of the country, and the character of the
people over which it was instituted, which no human sagacity could have foreseen,
but which have led to evils, mischiefs, and abuses,  whichl time and experience
alone have disclosed.  The men who made our Government were hutian; they were
men, and they made it for men of like passions and infirmities with themselves.
I propose now, sir, to inquire into the practical workings of the svsteiii; the experiment-as the fathers themselves called it-after seventy years of trial.
No man will deny-no American at least; and I speak to-dlay to andl for Americans-that in its results it has been the most successful of any similar Governasent
ever established; and yet, in the very midst of its highest development and its perfect
success, in the very hour of its might, while "towering in its pride of place," it has 
6
suddenly been stricken down by a revolution which it is powerless to control. Sir,
if I could believe, as the gentleman from  Tennessee [Mr. ETHERIDGE] would seem
to have me believe, that for more than half a century the South has had all that she
ever asked, and more than she ever deserved; and that now, at last, a few discon   tented spirits have been able to precipitate already seven States into insurrection and
rebellion, because they are displeased with the results of a presidential election; or if
I could persuade myself, with the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. ADAMS,] that
thirteen States, or fifteen States, and eleven or twelve millions people have been
already drawn or may soon be drawn into a revolt against the grandest and most
beneficent Government, in form and in practice, that ever existed, from no other
than the trivial and most frivolous causes which he has assigned, then I should in  deed regard this revolution in the midst of which we are, as the most extraordinary
phenomenon ever recorded in history. But the muse of history will, I venture to
say, not so write it down upon the scroll which she still holds in her hand, in that
grand old Hall of Representatives where, linked to time, solemnly and sadly she
numbers out yet the fleeting hours of this perishing Republic. No; believe me,
Representatives, the causes for these movements lie deeper and are of longer dura  tion than all this. If not, then the malady needs no extreme medicine, no healing
remedies, nothinz, nothing. Time, patience, forbearance, quiet-these, these alone
will restore the Union in a few months.  But, sir, I have not so read the history of
this country, especially for the last fourteen years.  The causes, I repeat, are to be
found in the practical  workings of the system, and are to be removed  only by
remedies which go down to the very root of the evil; not, indeed, by eradicating
the passions which give it birth and strength-for even religion fails to accomplish
that impossible mission-but by checking or taking away thile powerwith which these
passions are armed for their work of evil and mischief.
I find, then, sir, the first or remote cause which has led to the incipient dismem berment of the Union, in the infinite honors and emoluments, the immense, and
continually increasing, power and patronage of the Federal Government. Every
admission of new States; every acquisition of newterritory; every increase of wealth,
population, or resources of any kind; all moral, social, intellectual, or inventive de velopment-the press, the telegraph, the railroad, and the application of steam in
every form; whatsoever there is of greatness at home, or of national honor and
glory abroad-all, all has inured to the aggrandizement of this central Government.
Part of this, certainly, is the result of causes which no constitutional restriction, no
party policy, and no statesmanship can control; but much of it, nevertheless, from
infringements of the Constitution, and from usurpations, abuses, corruptions,  and
rmal-administration of the Government. In the very beginning, as I have said, a
fixed policy of strengthening the General Government, in every department, was
inaugurated by the Federal party; and this led to the bitter and vehement struggle,
in the very first decade of the system, between the Democratic-Republicans and
the Federalists; between the advocates of power and the friends of liberty; those
who leaned strongly towards the General Government and those who were for State
rights and State sovereignty-the followers of Hamilton and the disciples of Jefferson-which ended, in 1801, in the overthrow of the Federal party, and the inauguration of the Democratic policy, which demanded a simple Government, a strict
construction of the Constitution, no public debt, no protective tariff, no system of
internal improvements, no national bank, hard money for the public dues, and economical expenditures; and this policy, after a long and violent contest for more than
forty years-a contest marked with various fortune, and occasional defeat, and sometimes temporary departure by its own friends-at last became the established policy
of the Government, and so continued until this pestilent sectional question of slavery
obliterated old party divisions, and obscured and hid over, and covered up for a timeif, indeed, it has not removed utterly-some, at least, of the ancient landmarks of
the Democratic party. And yet, in spite of the overthrow of the Federal party; in
spite of the final defeat of its policy, looking especially and purposely to the strengthening of the General Government, partly from natural causes, as I have said, and
partly because the Democratic party has sometimes been false to its professed principles-above all, to its great doctrine of State rights, and its true and wise policy of
economy in expenditures, and decrease in executive patronage and influence-the
Federal Government has gone on, steadily increasing in power and strength and
honor and consideration and corruptio, too, from the hour of its inauguration to this
day; and when I speak of "corruption," I use the word in the sense in which British
pp 
7
statesmen use it-men who understand the word, and who have, for a century and
a half, reduced the thing itself to a science and a system, and have made it an element of very great strength in the British government.
Nor, sir, is this mischief, if mischief indeed it be, confined wholly to any one
department of the General Government?  The Federal judiciary- to begin with ithere and in the States, dazzles the imagination  and invites the ambition of the
lawyers, that not most numerous but yet most powerful class of citizens, by its superior honors, its great emoluments, its life tenure, its faith in precedents, and its settled
forms and ancient practice, untouched by codes and unshaken by crude and reckless
and hasty legislation.  Here, in this venerable forum, where States at home and
States and empires from abroad, and the Federal Government itself, are accustomed to contend for the judgment of the court, whatever there yet remains of ancient and black-letter law; whatever of veneration and regard for the names and
memories, and the volumes of Littleton and Coke and Croke and Plowden, and the 
year books; or for silk gowns, and for all else, too, that is valuable in legal archbeeology, has taken refuge, and stands intrenched.  All that there was of form  and
ceremony and dignity and decorum, in the beginning of the Government, is still
to be found here, and only here; all but the bench and bar of forty years ago-the
Marshalls and the Storys, the Harpers, the Pinckneys, the Wlrts, and the Websters,
of an age gone by.
Still, the circle of honor through the judiciary is a narrow one, and it lies open to
but few; and yet, in times past, the judiciary has done much to enlarge the powers
and increase the consideration and importance of the central Government.
But it is the Senate and the House of Representatives which are the great objects of 
ambition and the seats of power.  All the legislative powers of this great and mighty
Republic, whose name and authority and majesty are known and felt, and feared
too, throughout the earth, are vested in the Congress of the United States. War,
revenues, credit, disbursement, commerce, coinage, the postal system, the punishment of crimes upon the high seas and against the law of nations, the admission of
new States, the disposition of the public lands, armies, navies, the militia, all belong
to it to control, together with an unnumbered, innumerable, and most indefinable
host of implied or derivative powers: whence funding systems, banks, protective
tariffs, internal improvements, distributions, surveys, explorations, railroads, land
grants, submarine telegraphs, postal steam navigation and post roads upon the high
seas, plunder schemes, speculations and peculations, pensions, claims, the acquisition
and government of Territories, and a long train of usurpations and abuses all tending-legitimate powers and illegitimate assumptions of power alike-to aggrandize
the central Government, and to make its possession and control the highest object
of a corrupt, wicked, perverted, and peculating ambition, in any party or any
section.
But great and imposing as the powers, honors, and consideration of Congress are,
the executive department is scarce inferior in anything, and in some things is far superior to it.  Your President stands in the place of a king.  There is a divinity that doth
hedge him in; it is the divinity of PA'rRONAGE.  He is the god whose priests are a
hundred and fifty thousand, and whose worshipers a host whom no man can number;
and the sacrifices of these priests and worshipers are literally "a broken spirit."  Sir,
your President is commander-in-chief of your armies, your navies, and of the militiafour millions of men. He carries on war, concludes peace, and makes treaties of every
sort. Through his qualified veto, he is a participant in the entire legislation of the
Government, and it behooves the whole army of s)eculators, jobbers, contractors, and
claimants, to propitiate him as well as Senators and Representatives. He calls the
Congress together on extraordinary occasions, and adjourns them in case of disagreement. He appoints and receives embassadors and all other diplomatic agents; appoints
judges of the Supreme Court, and of other judicial tribunals; Cabinet ministers; collectors of customs, and postmasters; and controls the appointment of a hundred and
fifty thousand other officers of every grade, from Secretary of State down to the humblest tide-waiter.  All that is implied in the word "patronage," and all that is meant
by that other word, the "spoils,"-res detestslbilis et cadvC~a-a word and a thing unknown to the fathers of the Republic, all belong to him to control. His power of appointment and removal at discretion makes him the master of every man who would
look to the Executive for honor or emolument; and its tremendous influence is reflected back upon the Senate and this House, on every Senator or Representative who
would reward his friends for their support at home, or secuie new friends for a re-elec 
8
tion.  The Constitution forbids titles of nobility; yet your President is the fountain
of hon)r.  Sir, to pass by the utter and extraordinary perversion of the original pur    pose of the Constitution in the choice of electors for the President-a perversion the
result of caucuses, national conventions, and other party machinery, and which has led
to thost. violent and debauching presidential struggles every four years for possession
of the immense spoils of the executive office-no department has, in other respects
also, so utterly outstripped the estimate of the founders of the Government; except,
indeed, of the few who, like Patirick }Ieury, were derided as ghost-seers and hypochon    driacs.
When the elder Adams was President, thile great east-room  of the White House    where now, or lately, on gala days are gathleredl the emnbassadors and ministers of a
hundred courts, from Mexico to Japan, and  the assembled wit, and fashion, and
beauty, and distinction of the tlhirty-three States of the Union-was  then used by
the excellent and patriotic wife of the President as a drying-room for-not the maids
of honor-but the waslierwomtan of the palace.
Sir, there is an incident connected with the early settlement of this city-still the
capital of the. Republic, sel eted as tilhe seat of' Government by Washington, the
father of tile Republic, and bearing his hlonored name-aan incident  which  shows
how much he and the other great mien who made the Constitution underestimated
the power and importance of the Executive.  This Capitol, within whichl we now
deliberate, fjo21ts to tle cast.  Thlere all your Presidents are inaugurated; and it was
the de-ig,i and tht expectatioii of the  eounders of the city that it should extend to
the eastward.  T'h re, sir, there, in that direction, was to be thile future Rome of the
American continent. The Executive nmilnsion was meant to be in the rear, and to
be kept in thle rear of' the Clihambeis ot' the Le,islature.  A  long vista through the
original forest trees-a sort of Aruerican mall -was to connect them together; and
the Presidcient was expected to enter below stairs and at the back door into this Capi   tol.  But he was to be kept for the most part t'ans'   eTibrem-on the other side of the
Tiber.  Thile low, marshy ground  to the westward, it was supposed, would forever
forbid the building up of' a city between the seats ot legislative and executive magis  tracy; and thle whole, if indeed ever laid out at all, might have become a great
national park.  But behold the strange perversity of man!  Thile city has all gone
to the vwestward.  Thile rear ot the Capitol has now becomle its front.  Pennsylvania
A venue, instead of a subuLrbani dirive, is now a,rand thloroulghlfare, the chief artery
which conveys the blood fromn that wvhich is nov the center or heart of the system  the President.  The Executive tlansion-that old castle, with bad fires and without
bells, to the sore discomfort of Mistress Abigail Adams-is now, and has been for
years, the great object of attraction; anal whereas, in the beg,inning, the "taverns"
for that was the name given tlhet sixty years a0o-all clustered around this Capitol,
I observe that now the greatest, iost flourislin,, and  best patronized " hotel " has
established itself within bow-shot of the White House.   Sir, tile power of executive
gravitation has proved too strong for the framers of the Government and the founders
of the city.  Westward the course of architecture has taken its way; and certainly,
sir, certainly, it is not because of any especial attraction about that most venerable
of ancient marts-old Georg,etown.
But to resume, sir.  Nothing adds so much to thle powelr and influence of the Exec utive as a large rctv-ni,e and heavy expenditures; and if a public debt be added, so
much thile wors'.  Every dollar more borrowed or collected, and every dollar more
spent, is just so mnuch added to the power and value of the executive office.  Nothing
in the political history of the country has been so marked as the steady, but enormous,
increase in the taxation and disbursement of the Federal Government. Fifteen years
ago-to g) back no further-just previous to the Mexican war, the receipts of the
Treasury were $29,000,000, and the expenditures $27,000,000; while four years ago,
only ten years later, the receipts had run up to $69,000,000, and the expenditures to
$71,000,000-the latter being always, or nearly always, a little in advance of the former.
Nature, it is said, sir, abhors a vacuum; but government, our Government, at least,
would seem to abhor a plethoric Treasury. There are always surgeons, volunteers,
too, at that, if need be, of a very famous school of surgery, who  are ready to resort
upon all occasions to financial phlebotomy. Verily, sir, verily these surgeons of the
executive household have great faith in a low fiscal regimen.
The collection and disbursement of $80,000,000 a year, for four years, is a prize
worth every sacrifice. The power of the sword, the command of armies and navies
and the militia, is itself a tremendous power; and firom  the signs around us, from all 
........................ -  LItlC'             r lJavlariLO)F zItICee, t1e Jove ol  liolior  or the lovc
or' glin, i1!1n, anthig to   i,ftlf? ti ir lar Tcle,di-es in the  State  goverlniients,.   Sir,
the,State exeeL,tiv(,s iav-e nO c),l)in,t, no x eto lor tile  100ost )art, 1no arlly, no navy,
no inlitiII ocept  upoa ti            e pac  estlablishinient, and  that  cormimonily desp)is'ed; no
foreign applloiLnt'eits. a.,tl p10) diloiatic intercourse; -o  treaties, 110 post office, no
la nd ofice, no rO 1r,at rlv,,Li,, s to (o   i  v....a   salaries,  nd 1no 1)0 atronage-ia sl ort,
.ir no,tlil,- to arouso all)ition. or to excitet avarice.   The Legislatures of tlhe States
khave  a  11io_t  IaluabIe, but lnot 111 most diifiedfield of lab)or.   They  declare no
war, levy Ino iil)mpo rt, reulate   no extlernal  colrmmerce. coin no mnoney, establishl no
I)ost-routes, oc,'aniec or ov  rltan1d; nlLe no lan(] grants, enlit no bills of credlit of their
own, I)pub)lisll 110 Goll)e, hiave  no f trakiigllr priivilege and thleir senators and  repIresenta tivoes serve thle Stat  for a few    hu }red diollars a year.   The State judiciaries, how eIr imtp)ortait tlih  litialtion btlore thler   man;y bh  to tlhe  )artios, attract  commonolly
t,Lit sliall inltere-t fiom t,ie iublic; and of late years, no grreat or sl)lendid legal reputationi is to be ar,quircd outside of' a iew of thle  larger cities at least, either upon  the
l)(ncih or at ttle iar of th-.a State courts.   WV hateve,r, sir, thle (dignity or power or consideration of  tlle Unitedc  States  inay  be, thlat  of each  State is but thle one thlirtyI;,urilt 1,art ofit; anld, ii!eed  or sot0  e  e l)ast, tle control of  the State  governtiltents lh. to   b r(at 0eteti,  heen  sou,lt afiter  chlitly  as an  instrumentality for
securing control of lislti    0executtiv', or ju(licial Ipositioln in the Federal Govern1)lent.  And  all tlis rnisctiei'- o r  miscief  certainly I innust  regar(l  it,-has been
stetadily a( gravate I y', tlie l)olicy )ursued in nearly all thle States, of diminishling, in
every  wvay, in their constitutioos, andl  by their laws, thile  dignity, power, and consideration oft' the  f-veiatl d(Iel)artrnents of  tiheir State  governienIts.  Shllort  tenures,
low  salaries, i)iic nl seSSiotI.s cru0 i,  lasty, a(nd  continually clianging- legislation,
new constitutions every ten yea.  and  whl-ateve(r else may 1be, classtd unlder tle lhead
of reforill, falselv so 0called, 11ae Co boen tihe bane of State soverei(gnty and il)mportance.
Inde(ed, f'or yecars 1)1-t, Slate coistitlitiols, laws, and institutions of'every  sort, seem
to ltave 1)0ee  regardle(ld as but so imany subjects  fi'r rude tand wvanton cxl)erimient at
thle hands of' reckless  i(ldeoloists or demnagogues.   But  besidles all this, the ifinlite
subdlivision of  1iolitical lowtlr iin the Stattes, from  the  chieft  dIel)artrnents of State
d(lown throuogh COU  ti to wnslips,   sclool (districts, cities, towns, and villages, all
wilichl certainly is very  neocssary  n(ll  proper in a demrocratic  Goverinm-leit, tends
very  tueli of' itsl-f' to decrease the tdignity andl importance of the States.  In shiort, i
sir, in nearly all thile States. and especially in the nwW  States, the great I)url)ose of
tile p)oliticials wooLll1 se0ii to hlave t)e00 to ascertain just hlow  feeble and simlloe aind
ilsignifieant thieir governitnents could b0  e 1)0made-just hlow  0ear to a p)ure and p)erfect
demrnocracy our representative  fornl of republicanism  can be  carried.   All thlis, sir, 
10
would have been well and consistent enough, no doubt, if the States were totally disconnected, or if the Federal  Government could have been kept down  equally low,
simplle, and democratic.   Certainly, this is thle true idea of a strictly democratic form
and administration of government;  and( the nearer it is approached,  the purer and
better the system-in theory at least.   But the exleriment  having been fairly tried,
and the fact settled, that ini a country so large, wealthy, populous, and enterprising
as ours is, it is impossible to reduce down, or to keep down,  thle central Government
to one of economy and simplicity; it is the true wvisdlom and policy of the States to
see to it that their own  (-sep)arate governments are not rendered any more insignificant,
at least, than they are alreadv.
Such, sir, I repeat, then, is the central Government of the United States, and such
its great and tremendous  powers and hlonors and emolunients.   With such powers,
such honors, sucil patronage, and such reveinues, is it any wonder, I ask, that everything, yes, even virtue, truthl, justice, patriotism, and the Constitution itself, should
bte sacrificed to obtain possession of it?  There is no sucih glittering prize to be contended  for every four or two years, anywhere throug,houtt  the wilole  earth; and
accordingly, from  the beginning,  arnd every year  more  and more, it has been the
object of the lighest and lowest, the purest and  the most corrupt ambition known
aniong men.  IParties arnd com)iniations hav'e existed from  the first, and have been
chanted and reor,anized, anid built up an(d cast (down, from the earliest period of our
history to this day, all for the purpose of controllin  tIle powers, and lhonors, and the
rnone-s of the central Governtinct.  For a cood nmany years lparties were organized
upon questions of finance or of lpolitical econonmy.  U1pon tli( subjects of a perma nen,t piublic (debt, a national bank, thie  )ublic d(posits, a  protective  tariff, internal
imiplrovements, thle disposition of the public lands. and otler questions of a similar
character, all of them  lookingi to the sii cial inter,sls of the moneyed classes, parties
were for a lonbg while divided.  The ditlierent kinds )of capiaitlists sometimes also dis agreed  amiong  theniselves-the  manufacturers withl  the coml -ercial men  of the
country; andl in this manner  )party issues were occasionally  made  up.   But the
great  dividing  line  at  last,  was  always between  capital and  lablor-between
the few who  had money  and who  wanted( to use the Governmnent to increase
and; protect" it, as the phrase  goes, and  the many who lhad little but wanted to
keep it, and -who onlv askeh(d Government to let them  alone.   Money, money, sir,
was at the bottom of the p)olitical cont(ests ol the times; and nothing  so curiously
dlemonstrates thie immens.e power of' money as the fact that in a country where there
is no entailrient ot e,states, no law of p)rinmogeniture, lo  meanns of keeping up vast
accumulations of,wealtli in )particular faoilies, 110 exclusive )rvilev es, and  where
universal suflrage  prevails, these  contests should  have continued(, with various  for tune, ior full lialf a celntury.  B)ut at the last the opl)pon()-its oi Democracy, known
at different periods of thte struggle by lmany difl'erint namies, but around wlhomy the
moneyved interests alwavs rallied  were overb)orne an(l utterlv disp)ersed.  The Whlii
party their last refuge, the last iand ables.t of tlie economilc t)arties. dlied out; and the
politicians whlto were not of the Denieocratic party, withl a co(od many more, also, who
llad teen of it, but lwho had deserted it, or whom  it lia(i (l deserted, were oblig,ed to
resort to some othler anit(i new element for anl or,aiizaition whtich inrlit be made strong
enough  to conquer and  to destroy the Demrnocracy, and thus obtain control of the
Federal Governiment.  And most unfortunately tor the peace of tie country, and for
the perpetuity, I fear, of' tlhe Union itself, they found the nucleus of such an organi zatioii ready formned  to their hands-an oranilzation odious, indeed, in name, but
founded upon two of thle most powerful passions of thle hutiani heart: SECTIONALISM,
vlwhich is ottlv a narrow and localized patriotism, and AN'I'-SLAN'L^ Y, or love of free  dom, whiche  comnmonly is p)owerful just in proportion as it is very near coming home
to one's own self, or very far oil so that either self-interest or tlie imagination can
have lull power to act.
And here let ince remark, that it had so happened that almost, if not quite, from  the
beginning of the Goveritmenit, the South, oi slaveholdinig section of the Union-partly
becanse the people of the South are chieily an agricultural  and( producing, a non-com  nercial and non-manufacturing people, and liarily hecauso there is no conflict, or little
conflict, among them betweon laboe  and capital, inasmuch  as to  a considerable extent
capital owns a la,ge class of theit laborct   s not of the white race; and it may be also
because, as Mr. Bnurlke said many years ago, the holders of slaves are "by far the most
proud and jealous ofi their fleedoen," and because the aristocracy of birth and family,
and of talent, is more highly csteemed among them than the aristocracy of wealth-but 
x..,vi,~ Jt.  u-~lbU)l )Jtl l.'11D,ttt_Cl h.tlkl 111 ~(D} 1 S l (CIll'lOll. one; anti 1I coinlllelnei it
to the attention of.ten' tleL    ul)o01 bhoth sidIs3 of tli( Iloulse.
So lonr. sir, as the Soiutl naitaimed   its equality  in tile Senate, andt somiethingll
like equal'ty in population, strength, and  material  resources in thle country, tlhere
was little to invite aresioll, wlile there were the imeans, also, to repel it.  But,
in thle course of timIe, tlIe SoutLii  oist its equality ini tlhe othler wing, of the Capitol,
and every yea,  thie disparity betwxeen tte two sctions became  gLreater anil  greatr.
M\eantime, too, the anti- lavery selitiitient, Awhich h1ad lain dormanit at tlie North for
maii-ny years after thel inauguratione )f the  rc(ieral  Goverliment, tegan, just about
thle tim  of the emancil)ition in tile Writish  ~Vest Indies, to develop  itselt' in  great 
stren,thl, and witti wonderful ra)idity.  it had appeared, indeed, witth  tiucli vioiene at the period of the admission of,Iissouri, and even  then siiook thile Unionl
to its foundation.   And(l yet how little a sectional controversy, hased upon  such  a
question, ihad been  fores.een  Ibv the founders of the Governmuenit, rmay be learned
i'rom nlr. Jefil.rson's letter to Nlr. ltolnes, in 1IS  ), where  lie spekls of it falling
upon his car lIke'a fire )ell in the niht.'  Said he:
'; I considered it, at oece(, as the datii kanell of the Union.   It is hluslhed, indeed,
for the momeit; hut this i.s a reprieve only, not a final sl,ntence.  A  geograpl)hical
line, Coirl1,11: 4t,:'?a (i,    1',,'/:e j)iz c'e),,lilob'(il a,1 oiic:,:"'  Sir, it is tils very coinci(dene  of geog,raphical  line with  the miarkied principle,
moral and political, of slavery, which  I propose to reach and  to olbliterate in the
only wray p)ossible; by runni,ng othier lines, coinciding with  other and  less dangerous principles, noine of tihelii moral, and, above all, with  other an,d  conflicting
interests   A    eoraphieal line coincidling with a markedl  principle, moral and political,
once conceived and heldl u) to the aingry' passions of men, will never be obliterated,
and every new irritation will mnarkl it deeper and deeper."   *           *     *      *
~ *         *      *      *       *    "I regret that I anm now to die in the belief that
' the useless sacrifice of thleniselves by the generation oil'1776, to acquire  self-govern ment and happirness  to their countrv, is to be tihrown  away  by the unwise and
unworthy passions of thteir sons; and that my only consolationl is to be that I shall
not live to weep over it.")
Fortunate m-it!  He  did not litve to weep  over it.  To-Jay tlie sleeps  quietly
beneath the soil of his owrn  Ionticello, unc,onscious tlhat the miglity fabric of Government which he helped to rear-a Government  whose  foundations were laid by
tile hands of so many patriots and  sages,  and  cemented by tle blood of so many
martyrs anll  heroeshastens now, (lay by (iay, to its fill.'Wliat recks  lie, or that
otlier great man, his coml)eer, fortunate in life and opportune alike in death, whose 
believe  of tile Demiocratic 1)arty of thle free Stato,.'1liat,,ir, wvas the iatal mistalke
of the Northl; and in trib)ulatio and angLuisl  vill;lle tand tile othler sectionsi  of tlhe
Uiiion, acnd  our pos.terity, too, for ages, it may be, weep1) tears of bloody repentance
and regrret over it.
Tliis controv(ersv, hlowever, sir, after                              eavini' ai l-ae! the Union to its center,
vwas at last, tlioe,il witlh great digeculty, adjlu.ste   throutgh tlhe coriil)roiiii:e mleansures
of 1S0), by ttiLe la t of thle great sti testileni of the se.oiid cerio(l of tle l'        e)uolic. But
four )rears afterwards, u)pon tIe [)ill to organize tte'l'eirlitoriesi of Kaiisas andIl   Ne —
braska, uponI t        ie         o  the lepisatlon of  1S5}), tlie iit )ri.oned wninds-Euru s,
Notusi(lue, cJ/S i(qtf c l''cJl   z l/'ic?~,'wire    ll again let loose witlih  more thflan the rae
of a tropical liurricaeLe.  Tile NIiss.)uLri restrictiono  whicel  for  years lhad( been  d(enouncedi as a  wvice(d and  atrociousconessiop. to sl\averv, and which  soe  thlirty
years i)efore, hlad consigrned  tltio,;t every  fr,'  State Srenitor or Iwepre::ient attve  Iwho
sul)ported it to p)olitical oljlivion  I)t ca1.ie now a 1r.o:t sacretl                   whonillpact  ewl nci  it  wias
sacrilege to touchi.   A  diestio'uisIed Se'ntor, litte tlh(  ()ve('lorn rof' Ofiio,  wlho  lead
entitled his _reat spei.i h         n.t t ile adj istt        of'cnt  lii5asuris of i,50), "Ul ii() (,('  F ree
(doz SL'i'/ioi,t L      ICo sIiio,?l   no,,  ])o put tfortlh his el'ol)rate  det'i'ii, tour y ears later, of the
Missouri restric'tioI,  ivtlh  thile rull)ric  or  te,t,  in aitious  claratrs, i)J(Ii.t(e;
Pii,/MJ1 (It 1t1,1/I.:'3ut, right or w'ronI, wise or uawise, at tl  tinmi  as the Iep(al of tlhat
restriction may h1ave  seeiied(l, sul)equent   acts and evelt. ha1-ve mnade it othil a   delusolI and a snare.  Yes, sir, I confess it.   I wvhio  is.- priva te citien,  was one of' its
earliest defen(ers, make ol)eL  confirssion of it tere  to-d(Iiy.  It was  this whiclh  ave
a new and terriblle vitality, to  the langutisliIn   eleiiient of al)olitmioisri  and  whiche
precipitatecl, at least, a crisis which  I atr  waisI  nvier'i lv'-is,            s ooner ior later, iIevitable.   It is the crisis of'  whiclh  the 1Presidenlt (elec t'lo   three year.,; a,o.  It is, indeed, reached.   Would to GCod it were Irsse(l,;il.o, in lt'e
But  sil, whiethei the leaders of the imovecll:S       t aO    llnC: t t:  rTicsl of the  MissouI'i
restriction were consistcnt or inconsisteInt, lioiiCs,t (-)r girlIIoI', tl,rcat  niass of the
people of the icee Stat(s weic rous (l f,14 a titlie      the hii}-.c  iullitloi  by it; alnd
inasmuch as the   hbig  arts- ywa S ji st thent lil(i"     i    to tli' wk,    ( or clls,   Sor
short-sightedl mn,  ea' erly a     i seiz,'ld  ii)o1ri t}ii IIi-sittlc(d c'iti,, i of tol'  i)ulliic mlind, to
reorganize the Fiece-Soil party of lI  8, undei  a   )cew'ad c                 aIpltialti g' alie, but  very
nearly upon thie principles of the Bull.do platformi of tlat t                   hus   abandonilig  thle
extreme abolition sentiments of the Lilberty party-, a(d briiing  lip tlie great matjority
of the WVhig pa)rty, and( notra few of the I)eiiiocrati,,Iaty  lso, to  the  Free-Soil  auid
non-slavery extension p)iinciple; and by  this compllrolisieo, ftnilg ad  consolidatting
that powerful )party, which, for the first limei in our Ilistoyr, })y a mre sectional  tlurality
— iii a iLlilloity ii itkct by a irillion of votc — hlit; oobt,il(L,l l,s(., ioii of the )ower n.lld 
f~e, it-ru- s      t o e'Ytti~ fiei h~i~iy  a n ~,. li I ii,- sfiort of' the,, suplprc,ioiio  of' t~i(~,ov,
iiiafJe-it'(It~    f'() iA~id  i,tti( ltfiI,  fess  tihan  tifs Ii  te   wiau'd    i1 il                              fl
iiiiV C I I        10 f  Vof  (,v(,,,  tire  iyore   rnodlerozte  of' th.e  IPcop~i(  Ut  tfi(   o   i
if~ic'~t ~t diiiC I ni Witiiliot it tljere is' not tile sl,,Ifitest'tope, of' t~ie return of
,1i   t'tsIlfeo  tifi  ( le          tid  thius  of' a  r,.,toro;tiori  of' tha~i Un.ii a,, it exi,~ted  hoii
iii~~~~~l")'I'          I fI e'oI     (,nc,i,d  the  p~eofi)!(2f off il   of,  sii>'~t")ite, lv(f,J1,
clI if  f~iwv  of  cver'{,  coliiitry                                       atiYjifvi  o   1(1   hv   tife
janv of I'lS11        afitlvcsn  tiiCCi~i0(   ~rlit-i II)over Ioo'~r~,()~~it
Wit!)Liii ti il e    t   anif tili,  ~Ircl),i-atiot  to  a~grees, i.,s a,o(o(I (.~ai,e  v.,!y  Lnt  iivi0i
or -i%~t      ~ fin.h h -eiuir(1OVd to,lve ~ionic  odequoIjte                             tharoc   iit tle. )o~v(i~r'1
iiot  lCUiei u    ii( t~il~i -"      e        i te t; or, otfierwise, tiiiit t~ie ponver ifofit~(Ieft'                    L
1   Toy  if  ~~i,(w    sl\" i, tficme  I1rrinipfes t(o  tile, Case  in fi,undi.              N~fc~o,tii tlii te
powde~r;tii'i -,Ie'         s  iii the hiand(s  of' thle 1~ii~ii   n             ry, n    idtoreidly  lliiy li~ive
tCO  I  If to i,~e it  e"  thi   e,'C c,ius'0    of' tlie  S,)utll I cort'  ~il   thle   Ii~tI'Ii                I1
~fit,,  - hi'   o 1'  etC C xt,, )'oiilO of' flvery.   Nleri-( tliot  t fiis  tice  CC)fI i' oftIl efartv
iio'i''                       1     feouders  (I' flie  old  Ti Llliirtv Gu~ii-rd   i lie  Ai    i,o 11               it~ei  fi0I I  f  I'' \ i  Ii tilevery1~enWho broui-~~it tlti' iii-li i~(, ot'tlie  A   fiii'~  )irut y
iiidiil''I' i~tfil   L)e,~c'ii( aCtiC   party  f.roml-  ott(!r  ii   ttriI~          ii(Iinoii cvci   o,
C'ii''I  C''li    c ifli  I  iiof ifov;ery uf) to trip, 1101 it ()(' i,,               cryC\ioire.0
liud f~~~cV~' IiI' I'sipi t(~ of' the wanieg,Ii, voiCe, of' W isfilti,tn, timi tfir v(i  I-v'
ofi  tic l   1il'd                   ion00, to un ite f'oirii fa l l,        cc      ll,e~'re i'ii    aiI
bu,fur "ieI fi"-~t t ii' n1  thle  iisiery of' tile G'ov2i iniui t-tfli,-.'fI'1'((   C    C'
,)'ulztileiI 11(11 ilot'ndt,-cl -,i, pre,,;tt ifoctrines orp-r,)s of' thi 1(elfei leit
t)int a   ~ii        ~        e    rts, as fixed,  eitn foi                    t1hat  tfieii( i           li a,Ii~fii   ],,IV,,
tfi.i      t iu-~ it I 0 i n,   otii    irreprsi ilhf    conflict"'  of' p~rlnufllC Sii      i            itle
I CCC                  iii f the m.,   -iinoritv,-ctioni~ of' tfie,  tiiioti       iilii   it on''~ o,  LIi,
(2.11i' cI  o~ Cci Ifi'i  i   lccltlt~ t i thiherci if   I'dli                                   sl' -       tiii
~~~~~~~~~~~~I Cc',0 iI,,itc   ioiV   i   h  corCti(i   ftfI is  l'  t
I~~~li                  (1~~ii     tie l,)nllt.    S',',If C   r    hefil  no  fN~lIl"  iii'Ifc'        y
-1O~ II  I I  Ii,- peii   dl,;-'    fi t- cloiiiio i    of t ie nintio'   ornie o'svlectin IC  i'  t    l'ti vul  i i et
ii~~'id t~~i'' c~~llil  t~~ii  ~ ~        thesdore  of! i    tfu ic ining aniii cl   Iir, I~II i ii   iC1  II
I fiet  iii I:  iioefitd  ilion,ts alrinost WIvt~i one  voice  tficy  hleavie~id   f    iiite
11110' Cciii~~~~~fifoii~''IriteitoI tfiieir rl,i)hts and  iccurity 0'0'laiiiit o ~riiiiI? iiiI(r
W~~~~~~    ~~ri ~ %T,  ltifiIifUL Ca ihel  luie, they  hoave  dlone  it: atnd   I  1i li et to  ii'tii
-(cilie c)f tjii  St,~,t(2,c  hoave  CIeO   cOne  so far  as to thiroW  oil' Wvholly  tile    sfirt   oil t,!e.
1'~~~l~'af (~I'Ctillil~ilt,inil   I wifiuira v  tihenui,elv(~is f'-on   the  IJii'()i).  1S'i-, I Vi ]loi  t
-i'L      l        t ot  2  I      oCCC n10  It iiof'i1o0o~3.i'I tile oval I,inow,  citifier  to  iii iii,liii  or 
14
to condemn it: yet it is vain to tell me that States cannot secede.  Seven States 7ave
seceded; they now refuse any longer to recognize the authority of this Government,
and already have entered into a new confederacy and set up a provisional government
of their own.  In three months their agents and commissioners will return  from
Europe with the recognition of Great Britain and France and of the other great
Powers of the continent. Other States at home are preparing to unite with this new
confederacy, if you do not grant to them their just and equitable denlands.   The
question is no longer one of mere preservation of the Union. That was the question
whlen we met in this Chamber some two months ago. Unhlappily, that day has
passed by; and white your " perilous committee of thirty-three  debated and deliberated to gain time  ves. to gain time-for that was the insane and most unstatesmanlike cry in tie beginning of the session, star after star shot madly from our political
firmament.  The question to-day is: how shall we now keep the States we have and
restore those wh icih are lost'? 2 Ay, sir, restore, till every wanderer shall have returned,
and not one be missing from the "starry flock. "
If, then, ir. Speake,I, I have justly and truly stated the causes which have led to
these most disastrous results; if indeed the control of the immense powers, honors,
and revenues-the spoils  of the Federal Government; in a word, if the possession of
power and the temptation to abuse it be the primary cause of the present dismemiberment of the United States, ought not every remedy proposed to reach at once the very
seat of the disease?  And   lwhy, sir, may not the malady be healed?  Why cannot this
controversy be acdJusted?  Ilas, indeed, the Union of these States received the iimmedicable wound?  I do not believe it.  Never was there a political crisis for which  wise,
courageous, and disinterested statesmen could more speedily devise a remedy.  British
statesmen would have adjusted it in a few weeks.  Twice certainly, if not three times,
in this century, they have healed troubles threatening a dissolution of the monarchy
and civil war; and each time healed them by yielding promptly to the necessities which
pressed upon them, giving up principles and measurcs to which they had every way for
years been commnitted.  They have learned wisdom from the obstinacy of the King
who lost to Great Britain her thirteen colonies, and have been taught by that memorable lesson to concede and to compromnise in timne, and to do it radically; and history
has pronounced it statesmanship, not weakness.  In each case, too, they yielded up,
not doctrines anld a policy which they were seeking for the first time to establish, but
the ancient and settled principles, usages, and institutions of the realm; and they
yielded up these to save othlers yet more essential, and to maintain the integrity of the
empire.  They did save it, and did maintain it; and to-day Great Britain is stronger
and more prosperous and more secure than any Government on the globe.
Sir, no man had for a longer tinme, or with more inexorable firmness, opposed
Catholic emancipation than the Duke of Wellington.  Yet, when the issue came at
last between emancipation or civil war, the hero of a hundred battle-fields, the conqueror at Waterloo, the greatest military comniander, except Napoleon, of' modern
times; yes, the IRON DUKE, lost not a moment, but yielded  to the storm, and himself led the party which carried the great measure of peace and colmprornise through
the very citadel of conservatism-lthe House of Lords. Sir, hlie sought no middle
ground, no hlalf-way measure.  confessing weakness, promruising something, doing
nothing.  And in that memorable debate hlie spoke words of wisdom, moderation,
and true courage, which I comtmend to gentlemen in this House; to our Wellington
outside of it, and to all others anywhere, whose parched jaws seem ravenous for
blood. He said:
" It has been my fortune to have seen much of war-more than most men.  I have
been constantly engaged in the active duties of the military profession from boyhood
until I have grown gray. My life has been passed in familiarity with scenes of death
and  human  suffering.  Circumstances have  placed me in countries where  the
war was internal-between opposite parties in the same nation; and rather than a
country I loved should be visited with the calamities which I have seen, with the
' tittterable hoi-rrors of civil iacy, I woulcld r7t ably risk; I wozuldl mtake aity sacriftice;
I would fieely toy (tlown1  my life.  There is nothing whichi destroys property and
prosperity and demroralizes character, to the extent which civil war does.  By it,
'the hand of man is raised against his neighbor, against his brother, and against his
father; the servant betrays his master, and tie master ruins his servant.  Yet thibs i
' the resoitrce to which we i7vust have looked, these are the viteaits which we  taust have
a]~)lied, itt order to have pet. ant end to this state of thini7s, if we ha(l ilot cmbr,czcel  the
' olptio, of brijgi1i forward the measitre for which I hold ittysetf responsible." 
15
Two years later, sir, in a yet more dangerous crisis upon the Reform Bill, which
the Commons had rejected, and when civil commotion and discord, if not revolution, were again threatened, and it became necessary to dissolve the Parliament, and
for that purpose to secure the consent of a King adverse to the dissolution, the Lord
Chancellor of England, one of the most extraordinary men of the age, by perhaps
the boldest and most hazardous experiment ever tried upon royalty, surprised  the
King into consent, assuring him that the further existence of the Parliament  was
incompatible with the peace and safety of the kingdom; and having, without  the
royal command, summoned the great officers of State, prepared the crown, the robes,
the King's speech, and whatever else was needed, and, at the risk of the penalties ot
high treason, ordered also the attendance of the troops required by the usages of the
ceremony, he hurried the King to the Chamber of the House of Lords, where, in
thile presence of the Commnons, the Parliament was dissolved, while each House was
still in high debate, and without other notice in advance than the sound of the cannon which announced his Majesty's approach. Yet all this was done in thile midclst
of threatened insurrection and rebellion; when tbe Duke of Wellington, the Duke of
Cumberland, and other noblemen, were assaulted in  the streets, and their houses
broken into and mobbed; when London itself was threatened with capture, and the
dying Sir Walter Scott was hooted and reviled by ruffians at the polls. It was done
while the kingdom was one vast mob; while the cry rang through all England(, Ireland, and Scotland, that the bill must be carried tl,roiujh Parliament or over Parliamerit; if possible, by peaceable means; if not possible, then by force; and when the
Prime Minister declared in the House of Commons that, by reason of its  defeat,
"much blood would be shed in the struggle between the contending parties, and thait
he was perfectly convinced that the Britishl Constitution would I)erisli in the conflict."  And, sir, when all else failed. the King himself at last g(ave permission  in
writing, to Earl Grey and the Lord Chancellor, to create as many new peers as might
be necessary to secure a majority for the reform bill in the House of Lords.
Such, sir; is British statesmanship. They remember, but we have fi)rgotten, the
lessons which our fathers taught them.  Sir, it will be the opprobrium  of American
statesmanship forever that this controversy of ours shall be permitted to end in final
and perpetual dismemberment of the Union.
I propose now, sir, to consider briefly the several propositions before the House,
looking to the adjustment of our difficulties by constitutional amendment, in connection also with those which I have myself had the honor to submit.
Philosophically or logically considered, there are two  ways in which the work
before us may be efiected: the first, by remioving  the temptation to aggress; tilhe
second, by taking the power away.   Now, sir, I am free to confess that I do not see
how any amendment of the Constitution  can  diminish  the  powers, dignity, or
patronage of the  Federal Government,  consistently with the just distribution of
power between the several departments; or between the States and the General
Government,  consistently with its necessary strength and efficiency.   The evil
here lies rather in the administration than in the organization of the systemn; and a
large part of it is inherent in the administration of every governmenet.  The virtue
and intelligence of thie people, and the capacity and honesty of their representatives
in every departmient, must be intrusted with the mitigation and correction of tilhe
mischief.  The less the legislation of every kind, the smaller the revenues, and
fewer the disbursements; the less the Government shall have to do, every way, with
debt, credit, moneyed influences, and jobs and schemes of every sort, the longer
peace canll be maintained; and the more the number of the employees andi dependents
on Government can be reduced, the less will be the patronage and the corruption of
the system, and the less, therefore, the motive to sacrifice truth and justice, aid to
overleap the Constitution to secure tie control of it.  In other words, the more you
diminish temptation, the more you will deliver us from evil.
But I pass this point by without further remark, inasmuch as none of the plans
of adjustment proposed, either here or in the Senate, look to any change of the Constitution in this respect.  They all aim-every one of them-at checking the POWER
to aggress; and, except the amendment of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr.
ADOASI,] which goes much further than mine in giving a negative upon one subject
to every slave State in the Union, they propose to effect their purpose by mere constitutional prohibitions. It is not my purpose, sir, to demand a vote upon the propositions which I have myself submitted. I have not the party position, nor the
power behind me, nor with me. nor the age, nor the experience which would justify
11 
III in ansuinilng tit lead in any great  measure or pac oandi conciliation; but I
believe, anti verv respectfully I suggest it, tilit sonlethiiog sill,iilar, at least, to these
1li-opo.itions will form a part of any adequate  and final a(djustmtient  whichl  may
restore all the States to the Federal Union.   No, sir; I am able now only to follow
lwhere otiiers nmay lead.
I shall vote  for the amendment  of the gentleman  from  Massachusetts,  [Mlr.
ADOAS.S] (tiough it does not go tar enough,) because it ignores and denies the moral
or religious elenent of the anti-slavery agitation, and thus remroves so ifr, at least,
its most dangerous stingCfct,(cticism-and( dealing wvith the question as one of niere
policy andl economy, of purepolitics alone, proposes a new  and itost coimpl)rehlensive
guara intee for the peculiar institution of tlie States of tile SouthIL.   I shiall vote also
jOi the Crittenden propositions as an experiment, and only as an  experiment-be   cause they lproceed upon the sam-ie ereneral idea whiclh marks the Adarms amendment
a.-d Vwhereas, for the sake oft peae a  ttd  the  Union, thle Ilatter would  give a new
security to slavery in the States, the fornier, for the self'-stamne  reat  and(i l)aramount
ol)3ect of Union and  pieace: proposes to  ive a new security also to slavery in the
Territories south of the latitude 3(~ 30'.  It' the Uiion  is worth the price whlich
the gentleman fioni Alassaciusetts volunteers to pay to mnaintaitn  it, is it not richly
\vorth tthe very small additional price wichie  the Senator  froit  Kentucekv (leman(ls
as toe pos,ible condition of preserving it'?  Sir, it is thle old liarable of' tlIe Itoman
,vbil; and to-nmorrow shte will return withi fewer volumnes, and it may be at a hi,gher
plrice.
I sall vote to tr, the Crittenden proposition, bectise, ailso, I  )elieve that they
ar 1perrap0s) the 1est whici  evien the more in moderate of the slave  States wNould  under
ity ciirisitances be w illing t:) accept; and because nor th, south, ati(d weCst, the people
seemrr to l,ave tlk,n hiold o  tihe iii anid to detanl tlhem of us, as aii experiment at least.
I aoo reacdy  to try, also, if need )be, the p)ropositiotis of the bo.,'i  L State cIommittee, or
of the Iejcc co         or, ress; oI any, octher fiir, honor,alle, and reasontble ter1i1s of adjustment
w}lich m )ay so imutcil as promiise even, to heal our t)i,sent troubles, anld  to restore the
Union of tticse Stat s.  Sir, I am ready and willing anti atlixiotuIs to try a.ll things and
to d(lo all ttoin Ns "  hich may become a man," to secure that ograet ob)ject which is near  est to iiy ert.
B it, jtidg'ini  all of these propositions, nevertheless, by the lighits of philosophy and
statesransiiti), anol'is I believe they will be regartded by the histoiain who shal coreic
after us, I ftind in them all two capital defcts which will, iii the en(, prov,, tlhem  to  be
bot1 Ii unsatisfactory to large nunmbers alike of the people of the free andl the slave States,
und  w-holly iol% kqna e to the great purpose of the reconstruction  ain(l fotti,e pres ervation of tile Utiion.  None of them-except that of the ogetl'_iian froim Massachu s:tts, [',[r. Al)_os,] and his in one particular only-proposes to give to the min(ority
section tioy veto or 0'.e lf-protectin- power against those aggressiofis, tIhe templtatio i  to
-.ictb, anod thie d-mo.er frotn which, are the very cause or reason for the demand for any
new garra,tfet s at all.  Tliev who cotoplain of violated ftith in the I)ast, arie met only
wit!i newt p romises of good faith for the future; tlhey who tell yol tlhat you have broken
the Coonstititioo llhertofore, are answered with proposed( additions t, the (Constitution
so thlit there Imay be more room  for breaches hereafter.  The only  l)rotection hlere
offetedl against ttihe ar,tessive spirit of the majority, is the simple e(lge of poswer that
it wiil not aluiie itself'; nor aggress, nor usurp, nor amplify itself to attain  its cnds.
You p1)lc3 in the distance, the hiighest hoiinois, the largest emolumeits, the most glitter inii  of al prizes'.  anllld then you propose, as it were, to exact  a I)pomise fromn the  race
hor;e that lie will accomniodate his speed to the slow-moving pace of the tortoise.  Sir,
if I enieiat terils of equality, I would give the tortoise a good ways the start in the race.
Mly point of objection, therefore, is, that you (10o not allow t,,to  that very minority
w-hich, becoaue it is a minority, anti because it is afraid of your aggressions, is now
about to secede and withdraw' itself from your  Government, and" set up a separate
confedleracy ot' its own, yoti do( not allow to it thle  power of self-p' rotection within
the Union.   If,  epresentatives, you are sincere in your I)rotsitions that you do
not  msean to a,iress upon the rig,hts of this minority, you deny yourselves nothing
by these new guarantees.   If you do mean to a         ggress, then this minority has a right
to demand self protection and security.
But, sir, there remains yet another, and a still stronger objection  to these several
propositions.  Every one of themi proposes to recognize, and to embody ini the Con.
stitution, that very sort of sectionalism which is the immediate instrumetitality of
the lpresent dismemberment of these States, and the existence of which is, in my
judgment, utterly inconsistent with the peace and stability of the Union.   Every
16 
17
one of them recognizes and perpetuates the division line between slave labor and
free labor, that self-same "geographical line, coinciding with t7ie marked principle, moral
and'political," of slavery, which so startled the prophetic ear of Jefferson, and which
he foretold, forty years ago, every irritation would mark deeper and deeper, till, at
last, it would destroy the Union itself. They one and all recognize slavery as an
existing and paramount element in the politics of the country, and yet only promise
that the non-slavehlolding, majority section, immensely in the majority, will not
aggress upon the rights or trespass upon the interests of the slaveholding minority
section, immensely in the minority. Adeo senuterunt Jutl)iter et 2lars?
Sir, just so long as slavery is recogrzed as an element in politics at all-just so
long as the dividing line between the slave labor and the itree labor States is kept up
as the only line, with the disparity between them growing every day greater and
greater-just so long it will be impossible to keep the peace and maintain a Federal
Union between them. However sufficient any of these plans of adjustment might
have been one year ago, or even in December last when proposed, and prior to the
secession of any of the States, I fear that they will be found utterly inadequate to
restore the Union now. I do not believe that alone they will avail to bring back
the States which have seceded, and therefore to withhold the other slave States from
ultimate secession; for surely no man fit to be a statesman can fail to foresee that
unless the cotton States can be returned to the Union, the border States must and
will, sooner or later, follow them out of it.  As between  two confederacies-the
one non-slaveholding, and the other slaveholding-all the States of the South must
belong to the latter, except possibly Maryland and Delaware, and they of course
could remain with the former only upon the understanding that just as soon as prac  ticable slavery should be abolished within their limits.  If fifteen slave States can- 
not protect themselves, and feel secure in a Union with eighteen anti-slavery States,
how can eight slave States maintain their position and their rights in a Union with
nineteen, or with thirty, anti-slavery States?  The question, therefore, is not merely
what will keep Virginia in the Union, but also what will bring Georgia back.  And
here let me say that I do not doubt that there is a large and powerful Union senti ment still surviving in all the States which have seceded, South Carolina alone
perhaps excepted; and that if the people of those States can be assured that they
shall have the power to protect themselves by their own action witltia the Union,
they will gladly return to it, very greatly preferring protection within to security
outside of it. Just now, indeed, the fear of danger, and your persistent and obsti nate refusal to enable them to guard agaiast it, have delivered the people of those
States over into the hands and under the control of the real secessionists and dis unionists among them; but give them security and the means of enforcing it; above
all, dry up this pestilent fountain of slavery agitation as a political element in both
sections, and, my word  r it, the ties of a common ancestry,a common kindred, and
common language; the bonds of a common interest, common danger, and common
safety; the recollections of the past, and of associations not yet dissolved, and the
bright hopes of a future to all of us, more glorious and resplendent than any other
country ever saw; ay, sir, and visions, too, of that old flag of the Union, and of the
music of the Union, and precious memories of the statesmen and heroes of the dark
days of the Revolution, will fill their souls yet again with desires and yearnings
intense for the glories, the honors, and the material benefits, too, of that Union which
their fathers and our fathers made; and they will return to it, not as the prodigal,
but with songs and rejoicing, as the Hebrews returned from the captivity to the
ancient city of their kings.
Proceeding, sir, upon the principles which I have already considered, and applying
them to the causes which, step by step, have led to ourI present troubles, I have ventured with great deference to submit the propositions which are upon the table of the
House. While not inconsistent with any of the other pending plans of adjustment,
they are, in my judgment, and again I speak it with becoming deference, fully adequate
to secure that protection from aggression, without which there can be no confidence,
and therefore no peace and no restoration for the Union.
There are two maxims, sir, applicable to all constitutional reform, both of which it
has been my purpose to follow. In the first place, not to amend more or further than
is necessary for the mischief to be remedied; and next, to follow strictly the principles
of the Constitution, which is to be amended; and corollary to these I might add that,
in framing amendments, the words and phrases of the Constitution ought so far as practicable to be adopted. 
18
I propose, then, sir, to do as all others in the Senate and the House have done, so far
-to recognize the existence of sections as a fixed fact, which, lamentable as it is, can
no longer be denied or suppressed; but, for the reasons I have already stated, I pro  pose to establish four instead of two grand sections of the Union, all of them well known
or easily designated by marked, natural, or geographical lines and boundaries. I pro  pose four sections instead of two; because, if two only are recognized, the natural and
inevitable division will be into slaveholding and non-slaveholding sections; and it is
this very division, either by constitutional enactment, or by common consent, as hith  erto, which, in my deliberate judgment and deepest conviction, it concerns the peace
and stability of the Union should be forever hereafter ignored. Till then there cannot
be, and will not be, perfect union and peace between these United States; because, in
the first place, the nature of the question is such that it stirs up, necessarily, as forty
years of strife conclusively proves, the strongest and the bitterest passions and antago  nism possible among men; and, in the next place, because the non-slaveholding section
has now, and will have to the end, a steadily increasing majority, and enormously dis  proportioned weight and influence in the Government; thus combining that which
never can be very long resisted in any Government-the temptation and the power to
aggress.
Sir, it was not the mere geographical line which so startled Mr. Jefferson in 1820;
but the coincidence of that line with the marked principle, moral and political, of
slavery. And now, sir, to remove this very mischief which he predicted, and which
has already happened, it is essential that this coincidence should be obliterated; and
the repeated failure, for years past, of all other compromises based upon a recogni tion of this coincidence, has proved beyond doubt that it cannot be obliterated unless
it be by other and conflicting lines of principle and interests. I propose, therefore,
to multiply the sections, and thus efface the slave-labor and free-labor division, and
at the same time, and in this manner, to diminish the relative power of each section.
And to prevent combinations among these different sections, I propose, also, to allow
a vote in the Senate by sections, upon demand of one-third of the Senators  of any
section, and to require the concurrence of a majority of the Senators of each sec tion in the passage of any measure in which, by the Constitution, it is necessary that
the House, and therefore, also, the President, should concur. All this, sir, is perfectly
consistent with the principles of the Constitution, as shown in the division of the
legislative department into the two Houses  of Congress; the veto power; the two thirds vote of both Houses necessary to pass a bill over the veto; the provisions in
regard to the ratification of treaties and amendments of the Constitution; but espe cially in the equal representation and suffrage of each State in the Senate, whereby
the vote of Delaware, with a hundred thousand inhabitants, vetoes the vote of New
York, with her population of nearly four millions. If the protection of the smaller
States against the possible aggressions of the larger States required, in the judgment
of the framers of the Constitution, this peculiar and apparently inequitable provis ion, why shall not the protection, by a similar power of veto, of the smaller and
weaker sections against the aggressions of the larger and stronger sections, not be
now allowed, when time and experience have proved the necessity of just such a
check upon the majority? Does any one doubt that, if the men who made the Con stitution had foreseen that the real danger to the system lay not in aggression by the
large upon the small States, but in geographical combinations of the strong sections
against the weak, they would have guarded jealously against that mischief, just as
they did against the danger to which they mistakenly believed the Government to
be exposed? And if this protection, sir, be now demanded by the minority as the
price of the Union, so just and reasonable a provision ought not for a moment to be
denied. Far better this than secession and disruption. This would indeed, enable
the minority to fight for thfieir rights in the Union, instead of breaking it in pieces
to secure them outside of it.
Certainly, sir, it is in the nature of a veto power to each section in the Seniate; but
necessity requires it, secession demands it, just as twice in the history of the Roman
Commonwealth secession demande l-and received the power of the tribunitian veto as
he price of a restoration of the Republic. The secessionto the Sacred Mount secured,
just as a second secession half a century later restored, the veto of the tribunes of the
people, and reinvigorated and preserved the Roman constitution for three hundred
years.;Vetoes, checks, balances, concurrent majorities —these, sir, are the true conservators of free Government. 
19
But it is not in legislation alone that the danger or the temptation to aggress is to be
found. Of the tremendous power and influence of the Executive I have already spoken.
And, indeed, the present revolutionary movements are the result of the apprehension
of executive usurpation and encroachments to the injury of the rights of the South.
But for secession because of this apprehended danger, the legislative department would
have remained, for the present at least, in other and safer hands. Hence the necessity
for equal protection and guarantee against sectional combinations and majorities to se cure the election of the President, and to control him when elected. I propose, there fore, that a concurrent majority of the electors, or States, or Senators, as the case may
require, of each section, shall be necessary to the choice of President and Vice Presi dent; and lest, by reason of this increased complexity, there may be a failure of choice
oftener than heretofore, I propose also a special election in such case, and an extension
of the term in all cases to six years. This is the outline of the plan; the details may
be learned in full from the joint resolution itself; and I will not detain the House by
any further explanation now.
Sir, the natural and inevitable result of these amendments, will be to preclude the
possibility of sectional parties and combinations to obtain possession of either the
legislative or the executive power and patronage of the Federal Government; 
and, if not to suppress totally, at least, very greatly to diminish the evil results
of national caucuses, conventions, and other similar party appliances. It will no
longer be possible to elect a President by the votes of a mere dominant and majority
section. Sectional issues must cease, as the basis at least of large party organiza tions. Ambition, or lust for power and place, must look no longer to its own section,
but to the whole country; and he who would be President, or in any way the fore most among his countrymen, must consult, henceforth, the combined good and the
good will, too, of all the sections, and in this way, consistently with the Constitu tion, can the "general welfare" be best attained.  Thus, indeed, will the result be, ~
instead of a narrowv, illiberal, and sectional policy, an enlarged patriotism and ex tended public spirit.
If it be urged that the plan is too complex, and therefore impracticable, I answer
that that was the objection in the beginning to the whole Federal system, and to
almost every part of it. It is the argument of the French Republicans against the
division of the legislative department into two Chambers; and it was the argument
especially urged at first against the entire plan or idea of the electoral colleges for
the choice of a President. But, if complex, I answer again, It will prevent more
evil than good.  If it suspend some legislation for a time, I answer, The world is
governed too much. If it cause delay sometimes in both legislation and the choice
of President, I answer yet again, Better, far better, this than disunion and the ten
thousand complexities, peaceful and belligerent, which  must attend it.  Better,
infinitely better this, in the Union, than separate confederacies outside of it,
with either perpetual war or entangling and complicated alliances, offensive and
defensive, from henceforth forever.  To the South I say, If you are afraid of free
State aggressions by Congress or the Executive, here is abundant protection for
even the most timid. To the Republican party of the North and West I say, If you
really tremble, as for years past you would have had us believe, over that
terrible, but somewhat mythical, monster-the  SLAVE POWER —here, too, is the
utmost security for you against the possibility of its aggressions. And from first
to last, allow me to say that, being wholly negative in its provisions, this plan can
only prevent evil, and not work any positive evil itself. It is a shield for de-,
fense; not a sword for aggression. In one word, let me add that the wholel
purpose and idea of this plan of adjustment which I propose, is to give to the several
sections inside of the Union that power of self-protection which they are resolved, or will some day or other be resolved, to secure for themselves out8ide of the
Union.
I propose further, sir, that neither Congress, nor a Territorial Legislature shall
have power to interfere with the equal right of migration, from all sections, into the
Terrritories of the United States; and that neither shall have power to destroy or
impair any rights of either person or property, in these Territories; and, finally, that
new States, either when annexed or when formed out of any of the Territories, with'
the consent of Congress, shall be admitted into the Union, with any constitution,
republican in form, which the people of such States may ordain.
And now, gentlemen of the South, why cannot you accept it? The Federal
Government has never yet, in any way, aggressed upon your rights. Hitherto, in 
20
deed, it has been in your own, or at least in friendly hands. You only fear-being in
the minority-that it will aggress, because it has now fallen under the control of
those, who, you  believe, have the temptation, the will, and  the power  to aggress.
But this plan of adjustment proposes to take away the power; and of what avail will
the temptation or the will then be, without the power to execute? Both must soon
perish.
And why cannot you, of the Republican party, accept it? There is not a word about
slavery in it, from beginning to end: I mean in the amendments. It is silent upon the
question. South of 36~ 30', and east of the Rio Grande, there is scarce any territory
which is not now within the limits of some existing State; and west of that river, and
of the Rocky Mountains, as well as north of 36Q 30' and east of those mountains,
though any new State should establish slavery, still her vote would be counted in the
Senate and in the electoral colleges with the non-slaveholding section to which she would
belong; just as if, within the limits of the South, any State should abolish slavery, or
any new S-tate not tolerating slavery should be admitted, the vote of such State would
also be cast with the section of the South. However slavery might be extended, as a
mere form of civilization or of labor, there could be no extension of it as a mere aggres sive political element in the Government. If the South only demand that the Federal
Government shall not be used aggressively to prohibit the extension of slavery; if she
does not desire to use it herself, upon the other hand, positively to extend the institu tion, then she may well be satisfied; and if you of the Republican party do not really
mean to aggress upon slavery where it now exists; if you are not, in fact, opposed  to
the admission of any more slave States; if, indeed, you do not any longer propose to
use the powers of the Federal Government positively and aggressively to prohibit
slavery in the Territories, but are satisfied to allow it to take its natural course, accord ing to the laws of interest or of climate, then you, too, may well be content with this
plan of adjustment, since it does not demand of you, openly and publicly, to deny, abjure, and renounce, in so many words, the more moderate principles and doctrines which
you have this session professed. And yet, candor obliges me to declare, that this plan
of settlement, and every other plan, whatsoever, which is of the slightest value-even
the amendment of the gentleman firom Massachuseets, [Mir. ADAMS,] is a virtual dissolution of the Republican party, as a mere sectional and anti-slavery organization; and
this, too, will, in my judgmrnent, be equally the result, whether we compromise at all,
and the Union be thus restored, or whether it be finally and forever dissolved. The
people of the North and the West will never trust the destroyers-for destroyers, indeed, you will be, if you reject all fair terms of adjustment-the destroyers of our Government, and such a Government as this, with the Administration and control of any
other.  You  have now the executive department, as the result of the late election.
Better, far better, reorganize and nationalize your party, and keep the Government for
four years in peace, and with a Union of thirty-four States, than with the shadow and
mockery of a broken and disjointed Union of sixteen or nineteen States, ending, at last,
in total and hopeless dissolution.
Having thus, sir, guarded diligently the rights of the several States and sections, and
given to each section also the power to protect itself inside of the Union from aggression, I propose next to limit and to regulate the alleged right of SECESSION, since this,
from a dormant abstraction,ras now become a practical question of tremendous import.
As long, sir, as secession remained an untried and only menaced experiment, that confidence without which no Government can be stable or efficient, was not shaken, because it was believed that actual secession would never be tried; or if tried, that it must
speedily and ingloriously fail. The popular faith, cherished for years, has been that the
Union could net be dissolved. To that faith the Republican party was indebted for its
success in the late election; and we who predicted its dissolution were smitten upon
the cheek and condemned to feed upon bread of affliction and water of affliction, l'ke
the prophet whom Ahab hated. But partial dissolution has already occurred. Secession has been tried and has proved a speedy and a terrible success. The practicability
of doing it and the way to do it, have both been established. Sir, the experiment may
readily be repeated. It will be repeated. And is it not madness and folly, then, to call
back, by adjustment, the States which have seceded, or to hold back the States which
are threatening to secede, without providing some safeguard against the renewal of this
most simple and disastrous experiment? Can foreign nations have any confidence hereafter in the stability of a Government which may so readily, speedily, and quietly be
dissolved? Can we have any confidence among ourselves?
If it be said that it would have availed nothing to check secession in the Gulf
States, even had there been a constitutional prohibition of it, I answer, perhaps not,
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21
if it had been total and absolute, for there would have been no alternative but sub mission or revolution; and hence I propose only to define and restrain and to regu late this alleged right. But I deny that, if a particular mode of secession had been
prescribed by the Constitution, and thus every other mode prohibited, it would have
been possible to have secured, in any of the seceding States-no, not even in South
Carolina-a majority in favor of separate State secession, or secession in any other
way than that provided in the Constitution. No, sir; it was the almost universal
belief in the cotton States in the unlimited right of secession-a doctrine recognized
by few in the free States, but held to by a gre.many, if not very generally, all over
the slave States-which made secession so easy.  It is hard to bring any considerable number of the people of the United States-suddenly, at least-up to the point
of a palpable violation of the Constitution; but it is easy, very easy, to draw them
into any act which seems to be only the exercise of one right for the purpose of
securing and preserving the higher rights of life, liberty, person, and property for a
whole State or a whole section. Sir, it is because of this very idea or notion among
the people of the Gulf States, that they were exercising a right reserved under the
Constitution, that secession mlere, and the establishment of a new  confederacy and
provisional government, have been marked by so much rapidity, order, and method,
all through the ballot-box, and not with the halter, or at the point of the bayonet,
over oppressed minorities; and, for the most part, with so few of the excesses and
irregularities which have characterized the progress of other revolutions. I would
not prohibit totally the right of secession, lest violent revolutions should follow; for
where laws and constitutions are to be overleaped, an- they who make the revolution
avow it to be a revolution, and claim no right except the universal rights of man,
such revolutions are commonly violent and bloody within themselves; and even if
not, they cannot be resisted by the established authorities except at the cost of civil
war; while, if submitted to in silence, they tend to demoralize all government. It
is of vital importance, therefore, every way, in my judgment, that the exercise of
this certainly quasi revolutionary right should be defined, limited, and restrained;
and accordingly, I-propose that no State shall secede without the consent of the
Legislatures of all the States of the section to which the State proposing to secede
may belong.  This is obviously a most reasonable restraint; and yet, of its sufficiency
no man can doubt, when he rememnbers that, in the present cii.;is of the country, had
this p)rovision exist',d, no State could have obtained the al};olute consent, at least,
of even one-half of the States of the South.
Such, MIr. Speaker, is tlhe plan which, with great deference, and yet with great
confidence, too, in its efficiency, I would propose for the adjustment of our controversies, and for the restoration and preservation of the Union  which our fathers
made.  Like all human contrivances, certainly, it is imperfect, and subject to objection.  But something searching, radical, extreme, going to the very foundations of
government, and reaching the seat of the malady, must be done, and that right
Speedily, while the fracture is yet fresh and reunion is possible.  Two months ago,
when I last addressed the House, imploring you  for immediate action, less, much
less, would have sufficed; but we learned no wisdom from the lessons of the past;
and now, indeed, not poppy, nor mandragora, nor other drowsy sirup is of any value
to arrest that revolution, in the umidst of which  we are to-day-a revolution the
(iraadept and the saddest of modern timnes. 
APPENDIX.
The following are the amendments to the Constitution proposed by Mr. VA,LLAN'DIGHAM:
JOINT RESOLUTION.
Whereas the Constitution of the United States is a grant of specific powers delegated to the Federal
Governmentby the people ofthe several States, all powers notdelegated to it nor prohibited to the States being
reserved'o the States, respectively, or to the people; and whereas it is the tendency of stronger Governments to enlarge their powers and jurisdiction at the expense of weaker Governments, and of majorities to
usurp and abuse power and oppress minorities, to arrest and hold in check which tendency compacts and
constitutions are made; and whereas the only effectual constitutional security for the rights of minorittes,
whether as people or as States, is the power expressly reserved in constitutions of protecting those rights
by their own action; and whereas this mode of protection by checks and guarantees is recognized in the
Federal Constitution, as well in the case of the equality of the States in representation and in suffrage in
the Senate, as in the provision for overruling the veto of the President and for amending the Constitution,
not to enumerate other examples; and whereas, unhappily, because of the vast extent and diversified interests and institutions of the several States of the Union, sectional divisions can no longer be suppressed;
and whereas it concerns the peace and stability of the Federal Union and Government that a division of
the States into mere slaveh,lding and non-slaveholding sections, causing hitherto, and from the nature and
necessity of the case, inflammatory and disastrous controversies upon the subject of slavery, ending already in present disruption of the Union, should be forever hereafter ignored; and whereas this important
end is best to be obtained by the recognition of other sections without regard to slavery, neither of which
sections shall alone be strong enough to oppress or control the others, and each be vested with the power
to protect itself from aggressions: Therefore,
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assemnbled,
(two-thirds of both Houses concurring.) That the following articles be, and are her eby,proposed as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of
said Constitution when ratified by conventions in three-fourths of the several States:
ARTICLE XIII.
SEC. 1. The United States are divided into four sections, as follows: 
The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York,
New Jerrey, and Pennsylvania, aad all new States annexed and admitted into the Union, or formed or
erected within the jurisdiction of any of said States, or by the junction of two or more of the same, or of
parts thereof, or out of territory acquired nor h of said States, shall constitute one section, to be known as
the NORTH.
The States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas, and all new
States annexed or admitted into the Union, or erected within the jurisdiction of any of said States, or by
the junction of two or more of the same, or of parts thereof, or out of territory now held or hereafter acquired north of latitude 36~ 3C', and east of the crest of the Rocky MIountains, shall constitute another section, to be known as the WEST.
The States of Oregon and California, and all new States annexed and admitted into the Union, or formed
or erected within the j urisdiction of any of said States, or by the junction of two or more of the same, or
of parts thereof, or out of territory now held or hereafter acquired west of the crest of the Rocky Mouiitains and of the Rio Grande, shall constitute another section to be known as the PACIFIC.
The States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caroiina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, and all new States
annexed and admitted into the Union, or formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any of said States, or
by tle junction of two or more of the same, or of parts thereof, or out of territory acquired east of the Rio
Granide and south of latitude 36~ 30', shall constitute another section, to be known as the SourN.
SaEc. 2. On demand of one-third of the Senators of any one of the sections on any bill, order, resolution,
or vote, to which the concurrence of the House of Representatives may be necessary, except on a questiot of adjournment, a vote shall be had by sections, and a majority of the Senators from each section voting shall be necessary to the passage of such bill, order, or resolution, and to the validity of every such
vote.
SEc. 3. Two of the electors for President and Viee-President shall be appointed by each State in such
manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, for the State at large. The ether electors to which each State
may be entttled, snall be chosen in the respective congressional districts into which the State may, at the
-,-.ular decennial period, have been divided, by the electors of each district, having the qualifications re  isite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.  A majority of all the electors
ii each of the four sections in this article established, shall be necessary to the choice of President and
Vice-President; and the concurrence of a majority of the States of each section shall be necessary to the
choice of President by the House of Representatives, and of the Senators from each Section to the choice
of Vice-President by the Senate, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them respectively.
Sic. 4. The President and Vice-President shall hold their office each during the te m of six years  and
neither shall be e igible to more than one term, except by the votes of two-thirds of all the electors of each
section, or of the States of each section, whenever the right of choice of President shall devolve upon the
House of Representatives, or of Senators from each section whenever the right of choice of Vice-President shall devolve upon the Senate.
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Ssc. 5. The Congress shall by law provide for the case of failure by the House of Representatives to
choose a President, and of the Senate to choose a Vice-President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them respectively, declaring what officer shall then act as President; and such officer shall act
accordingly until a President shall be elected. The Congress shall also provide by law for a special election for President and Vice-Presldent in such case to be held and completed within six months from the
expiration of the term of office of the last preceding President, and to be conducted in all respects as provided for in the Constitution for regular elections of the same officer, except that if the House of Reprosentatives shall not choose a President, should the right of choice devolve upon them, within twenty days
from the opening of the certificates and counting of the electoral votes, then the Vice-Presideet shall act
as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutioqal disability of the President. The term of
office of the President chosen under such special election sliall continue six years from the fourth day of
March preceding such election.
ARTICLE XIV.
No State shall secede without the consent of the Legislatures of the States of the section'to which the
State proposing to secede belongs. The President shall have power to adjust with seceding States all questions arising by reason of their secession; but the terms of adjustment shall be submitted to the Congress
for their approval before the same sha'l be valid.
ARTICLE XV.
Neither the Congress nor a Territorial Legislature shall have power to interfere with the right of the citizens of any of the States within either of the sections to migrate upon equal terms with the citizens of the
States within either of the other sections to the Territories of the United States: nor shall either the Congress or a Territorial Legislature have power to destroy or impair any rights of either person or property
in the Territories.
New States annexed for admission into the Union, or formed or erected within the jurisdiction of other
States, or by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States; and States formed, with the consent
of the Congress, out of any territory of the United States, shall be entitled to admission upon an equal footing with the original States, under any constitution establishing a government republican in form which the
people thereof may ordain, whenever such States, if formed out of any territory of the United States, shall
contain, within an area of not less than sixty thousand square miles, a population equal to the then existing
ratio of representation for one mrember of the House of Represertativcs.
A card, from which the following is extracted, was published by Mr. VALLAN'DIG1tAM in the Cincinnati Enquirer, on the 10th of November, 1860-a few days after
the presidential election:
"And now let me add that I did say, not in WVashington, not at a dinner-table, not i, the presence of' fire'
eaters,' but in the City of New York, in public assembly of northern men, and in a public speech at the
Cooper Institute, on the 2d of November, 1860, that,' if any one or more of the States of this Union should,
at any time, secede-for reasons of the sufficiency and justice of which, before God and the great tribunal of
history, they alone may judge-much as I should deplore it, Inever would, as a Representative in the Congress
ofthe United States, vote one dollar of money whereby'one drop of American blood should be shed in a civil war.'
That sentiment, thus uttered in the presence of thousands of the merchants and solid men of the free and
patriotic city of New York, was received with vehement and long-continued applause, the entire vast assemblage rising as one man and cheering for some minutes. And I now deliberately repeat and reaffirm
it, resolved, though I stand alone, though all o hers yield and fall away, to make it good to the last moment
of my public life. No menace, no public clamor, no taunts, nor sneers, nor foul detraction, from any quarter, shall drive me from my firm purpose. Ours is a Government of opinion, not of force; a Union of free
will, not arms; and coercion is civil war; a war of sections, a war of States, waged by a race compounded
and made up of all other races; full of intellect, of courage,of will unconquerable, and, when set on fire
by passion, the most belligerent and most ferocious on the globe; a civil war full of horrors, which no imaginatior ean conceive and no pen portray.  If Abraham Lincoln is wise, looking truth and danger fulljn
the face, he will take counsel of the' old men,' the moderates of his party, and advise peace, negotiation,
concession; but if like the foolish son of the wise king, he reject these wholesome counsels, and hearken
only to the madmen who threaten chastisement with scorpions, let him see to it, lest it be recorded at last
that none remained to serve him'save the house of Judah only.' At least, if he will forget the secession
of the ren Tribes, will he not remember aud learn a lesson of wisdom from the secession of the Thirteen
Colonies?"