children, and our grandchildren, would cry out, Shame upon us! if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government, and the harmony of the Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is each of the thirty states to defend itself? I know, although the idea has not been stated distinctly, there is to be a southern confederacy. I do not mean, when I allude to this statement, that any one seriously contemplates such a state of things. I do not mean to say that it is true, but I have heard it suggested elsewhere, that that idea has originated in a design to separate. I am sorry, sir, that it has ever been thought of, talked of, or dreamed of, in the wildest flights of human imagination. But the idea must be of a separation, including the slave states upon one side, and the free states on the other. Sir, there is not- I may express myself too strongly, perhaps -but some things, some moral things, are almost as impossible as other natural or physical things; and I hold the idea of a separation of these states-those that are free to form one government, and those that are slaveholding to form another as a moral impossibility. We could not separate the states by any such line, if we were to draw it. We could not sit down here to-day, and draw a line of separation, that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together, and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break, if we would, and which we should not if we could. Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment-nobody can see where its population is most dense and growing-without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that, erelong, America will be in the valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting off that river, and leaving free states at its source and its branches, and slave states down near its mouth? Pray, sir pray, sir, let me say to the people of this country that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the free states north of the river Ohio: can anybody suppose that this population can be severed by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and an alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What will become of Missouri? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave states? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be connected in the new republic with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it-I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up! to break up this great government! to dismember this great country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession. Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession. I Sir, I hear there is to be a convention held at Nashville. am bound to believe that if worthy gentlemen meet at Nashville in convention, their object will be to adopt counsels conciliatory to advise the south to forbearance and moderation, and to advise the north to forbearance and moderation, and to inculcate principles of brotherly love, and affection, and attachment to the constitution of the country, as it now is. I believe, if the convention meet at all, it will be for this purpose; for certainly, if they meet for any purpose hostile to the Union, they have been singularly inappropriate in their selection of a place. I remember, sir, that when the treaty was concluded between France and England, at the peace of Amiens, a stern old Englishman and an orator, who disliked the terms of the peace as ignominious to England, said in the house of commons that if King William could know the terms of that treaty, he would turn in his coffin. Let me commend this saying of Mr. Windham, in all its emphasis, and in all its force, to any persons who shall meet at Nashville for the purpose of concerting measures for the overthrow of the Union of this country, over the bones of Andrew Jackson. Sir, I wish to make two remarks, and hasten to a conclusion. I wish to say, in regard to Texas, that if it should be hereafter at any time the pleasure of the government of Texas to cede to the United States a portion, larger or smaller, of her territory which lies adjacent to New Mexico and north of the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude, to be formed into free states, for a fair equivalent in money, or in the payment of her debt, I think it an object well worthy the consideration of congress, and I shall be happy to concur in it myself, if I should be in the public counsels of the country at the time. I have another remark to make: In my observations upon slavery as it has existed in the country, and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of its extinguishment or melioration. I will say, however, though I have nothing to propose on that subject, because I do not deem myself so competent as other gentlemen to consider it, that if any gentleman from the south shall propose a scheme of colonization, to be carried on by this government upon a large scale, for the transportation of free colored people to any colony or any place in the world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of expense to accomplish that object. Nay, sir, following an example set here more than twenty years ago, by a great man, then a senator from New York, I would return to Virginia, and through her for the benefit of the whole south, the money received from the lands and territories ceded by her to this government, for any such purpose as to relieve, in whole or in part, or in any way to diminish or deal beneficially with the free colored population of the southern states. I have said that I honor Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been received into the treasury of the United States eighty millions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands ceded by Virginia. If the residue should be sold at the same rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions of dollars. If Virginia and the south see fit to adopt any proposition to relieve themselves from the free people of color among them, they have my free consent that the government shall pay them any sum of money out of its proceeds which may be adequate to the purpose. And now, Mr. President, I draw these observations to a close. I have spoken freely, and I meant to do so. I have sought to make no display; I have sought to enliven the occasion by no animated discussion; nor have I attempted any train of elaborate argument. I have sought only to speak my sentiments, fully and at large, being desirous, once and for all, to let the senate know, and to let the country know, the opinions and sentiments which I entertain on all these subjects. These opinions are not likely to be suddenly changed. If there be any future service that I can render to the country, consistently with these sentiments and opinions, I shall cheerfully render it. If there be not, I shall still be glad to have an opportunity to disburden my conscience from the bottom of my heart, and to make known every political sentiment that therein exists. And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pygmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there devolve, on any generation of men, higher trusts than now devolve upon us for the preservation of this constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest, and the brightest link, in that golden chain which is destined, I fully believe, to grapple the people of all the states to this constitution, for ages to come. It is a great popular constitutional government, guarded by legislation, by law, by judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these states together; no iron chain of despotic power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government, popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and calculated, we hope, to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. has received a vast addition of territory. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the ornamental edging of the buckler of Achilles Now the broad shield complete the artist crowned, And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole. It TOM'S EFFRONTERY.1 BY GEORGE MACDONALD. (From "Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood.") [GEORGE MACDONALD: a Scottish author; born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, in 1824. He was educated at King's College and the University of Aberdeen, and became an Independent minister. He later removed to London and adopted a literary career. His writings are voluminous and consist chiefly of novels. They include: "Poems and Essays" (1851), "David Elginbrod (1863), "Alec Forbes of How Glen" (1865), “Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood" (1867), "The Seaboard Parish" (1868), "Ronald Bannerman's Boyhood" (1875), "Malcolm " (1875), "The Marquis of Lossie" (1877), "Castle Warlock" (1882), "What's Mine's Mine" (1883), "The Elect Lady" (1888), "There and Back" (1891), "Heather and Snow" (1893), "Lilith " (1895), "The Lost Princess" (1895), and "Salted with Fire" (1897).] As soon as my wife and I had settled down at home, and I had begun to arrange my work again, it came to my mind that for a long time I had been doing very little for Tom Weir. I could not blame myself much for this, and I was pretty sure neither he nor his father blamed me at all; but I now saw that it was time we should recommence something definite in the way of study. When he came to my house the next morning, and I proceeded to acquaint myself with what he had been doing, I found to my great pleasure that he had made very considerable progress both in Latin and Mathematics, and I resolved that I would now push him a little. I found this only brought out his mettle; and his progress, as it seemed to me, was extraordinary. Nor was this all. There were such growing signs of goodness in addition to the uprightness which had first led to our acquaintance, that although I carefully abstained from making the suggestion to him, I was more than pleased when I discovered, from some remark he made, that he would gladly give himself to the service of the Church. At the same time I felt compelled to be the more cautious in anything I said, from the fact that the prospect of the social elevation which would be involved in the change might be a temptation to him, as no doubt it has been to many a man of humble birth. However, as I continued to observe him closely, my conviction was deepened that he was rarely fitted for ministering to his fellows; and soon it came to speech between his father and me 1 By permission of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. (Price 38. 6d.) |