Southern colleagues on this floor, that I do not apprehend danger to our constitutional rights from the bare fact of increasing the number of States with institutions dissimilar to ours. The whole governmental fabric of the United States is based and founded upon the idea of dissimilarity in the institutions of the respective members. Principles, not numbers, are our protection. When these fail, we have, like all other people who, knowing their rights, dare maintain them, nothing to rely upon but the justice of our cause, our own right arms and stout hearts. With these feelings and this basis of action, whenever any State comes and asks admission as Oregon does, I am prepared to extend her the hand of welcome, without looking into her Constitution further than to see that it is republican in form, upon our well-known American models.

"When aggression comes, if come it ever shall, then the end draweth nigh. Then, if in my day, I shall be for resistance, open, bold, and defiant. I know of no allegiance superior to that due the hearthstones of the homestead. This I say to all. I lay no claim to any sentiment of nationality not founded upon the patriotism of a true heart, and I know of no such patriotism that does not centre at home. Like the enlarging circle upon the surface of smooth waters, however, this can and will, if unobstructed, extend to the utmost limits of a common country. Such is my nationality,—such my sectionalism,—such my patriotism. Our fathers of the South joined your fathers of the North in resistance to a common aggression from their fatherland; and if they were justified in rising to right a wrong inflicted by a parent country, how much more ought we, should the necessity ever come, to stand justified before an enlightened world in righting a wrong from even those we call brothers! That necessity, I trust, will never come.

"What is to be our future I do not know. I have no taste for indulging in speculations about it. I would not, if I could, raise the veil that wisely conceals it from us. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' is a good precept in every thing pertaining to human action. The evil I would not anticipate; I would rather strive to prevent its coming; and one way, in my judgment, to prevent it is, while here, in all things to do what is right and proper to be done under the Constitution of the United States,-nothing more and nothing less. Our safety, as well as the prosperity of all parts of the country, so long as this Government lasts, lies mainly in a strict conformity to the laws of its existence. Growth is one of these. The admission of new States is one of the objects expressly provided for. How are they to come in? With just such Constitutions as the people in each may please to make for themselves, so they are republican in form. This is the ground the South has ever stood upon. Let us not abandon it now. It is founded upon a principle planted in the compact of Union itself, and more essential to us than all others besides; that is, the equality of the States and the reserved rights of the people of the respective States. By our system, each State, however great the

number, has the absolute right to regulate all its internal affairs as she pleases, subject only to her obligations under the Constitution of the United States. With this limitation, the people of Massachusetts have the perfect right to do as they please upon all matters relating to their internal policy; the people of Ohio have the right to do the same; the people of Georgia the same; of California the same; and so with all the rest.

"Such is the machinery of our theory of self-government by the people. This is the great novelty of our peculiar system, involving a principle unknown to the ancients, an idea never dreamed of by Aristotle or Plato. The union of several distinct, independent communities upon this basis is a new principle in human Governments. It is now a problem in expe

riment for the people of the nineteenth century upon this continent to solve. As I behold its workings in the past and at the present, while I am not sanguine, yet I am hopeful of its successful solution. The most joyous feeling of my heart is the earnest hope that it will, for the future, move on as peacefully, prosperously, and brilliantly as it has in the past. If so, then we shall exhibit a moral and political spectacle to the world something like the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, when he saw a number of distinct beings or living creatures, each with a separate and distinct organism, having the functions of life within itself, all of one external likeness, and all, at the same time, mysteriously connected, with one common animating spirit pervading the whole, so that, when the common spirit moved, they all moved,—their appearance and their work being, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel; and whithersoever the common spirit went, thither the others went, all going together; and when they went he heard the noise of their motion like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty. Should our experiment succeed, such will be our exhibition,-a machinery of government so intricate, so complicated, with so many separate and distinct parts, so many independent States, each perfect in the attributes and functions of sovereignty within its own jurisdiction,—all, nevertheless, united under the control of a common directing power for external objects and purposes,-may, natural enough, seem novel, strange, and inexplicable to the philosophers and crowned heads of the world.

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It is for us, and those who shall come after us, to determine whether this grand experimental problem shall be worked out; not by quarrelling among ourselves; not by doing injustice to any; not by keeping out, any particular class of States; but by each State remaining a separate and distinct political organism within itself,-all bound together for general objects, under a common Federal head; as it were, a wheel within a wheel. Then the number may be multiplied without limit; and then, indeed, may the nations of the earth look on in wonder at our career; and when they hear the noise of the wheels of our progress in achievement, in development, in expansion, in glory, and renown, it may

well appear to them not unlike the noise of great waters, the very voice of the Almighty-Vox populi! Vox Dei! [Great applause in the galleries and on the floor.]"*

Previous to the last session of Congress, it was announced that Mr. Stephens would retire at its close. It was ardently hoped that the rumor was groundless, as much by the party he was opposed to as by that which he had elevated by his wisdom, energy, and eloquence. A complimentary dinner was tendered him in Washington by the prominent men of all parties, including Senators and members,—an unusual manifestation of personal regard. This he declined, but yielded to a like invitation of his immediate constituents. This was given in the city of Augusta, in his district, without distinction of party, on the 2d of July last. He addressed the assemblage in a speech reviewing public events since his entrance into public life, and retired with feeling but manly words of hope. He left the country in a better condition than he found it upon entering its councils. Whatever dangers may have threatened the Republic, her material resources, intellectual advancement, social condition, or political status had suffered no detriment. On the contrary, he beheld in her progress a career unprecedented. He dwelt on the agitations growing out of the Slavery question, in conformity with his views as already set forth, and, showing the good which emanates from the public discussion of principles, desired his friends to weigh not too lightly the most violent discussions by public men, even upon the most abstract principles. They underlie all popular rights, and constitute the essence of sovereignty and independence. The war of the Revolution was fought more in vindication of abstract principles than for the redress of any practical grievances. It was the right to impose taxes without representation, more than the amount imposed, that was complained of. "The very bill," said Mr. Stephens, "that led to resistance reduced the tax, but asserted in its preamble the unlimited and unconditional right to tax. The amount involved in the Dred Scott case was small, but on the principle probably depended the destiny of the country."

In the acquisition of Cuba Mr. Stephens beheld a most import

*See "Cong. Globe," Appendix, 2d Sess. 35th Congress, Feb. 12, 1859.

ant measure, but he would not give Spain more than a million or two for it. The true policy would be to repeal all laws making it penal for Americans to go and help the Cubans to independence. Whatever may be our expansion, he saw no danger to the South, if the Territorial policy now settled should be adhered to, as by it the South could colonize and expand too with her institutions, to the full extent of her capacity and population; but he could not expect to see many new slave States unless they had an increase of African stock. Boundaries do not make States. People make them, and it requires people of the African race to make slave States. He questioned whether the South could furnish the requisite number to secure more than the four States to come out of Texas. We could not get more without a foreign supply. If but few more slave States come into the Union, it will not necessarily be in consequence of Abolitionism or Wilmot-Provisoism, but for want of negroes. "It is useless," said Mr. Stephens, "to wage war on those who may withhold Congressional legislation to protect slave-property in the Territories, or to quarrel among ourselves and accuse each other of unsoundness on that question, unless we get more Africans to send there to be protected. I give you no opinion upon the subject except this: that, without an increase of African slaves from abroad, you may not expect or look for many more slave States."

Mr. Stephens did not agree with those who assailed a "higher law." He believed in it, and held that in the law of the Creator, as manifested in His works and His revelations, the cause of the South eminently rested. In an eloquent passage he showed why he recognised to the fullest extent the doctrine that all human laws and constitutions must be founded upon the divine law. He would not swear to support any constitution inconsistent with this higher law. He showed the gradation of every thing in nature, and condemned, as the wickedest of all follies and the absurdest of all crusades, those which attempt to make things equal which God in his wisdom has made unequal. Slavery or subordination was the normal condition of the negro. He did not hold to the doctrine which teaches that that Government is best which secures the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number. One hundred men have no right to enjoy happiness at the expense of ninety-nine or a less number. That

is best which secures the most happiness to all; and if our system is not the best, or cannot be made the best, for both master and slave, it ought to be abandoned. While Southern security was, in his eyes, paramount to the safety of the Union, he expressed himself strongly in favor of the latter, and believed that it would be preserved as long as intelligence, virtue, integrity, and patriotism ruled the National Councils.

In conclusion, Mr. Stephens said he retired from no feelings of discontent, but because, the questions having been settled with which he had been connected, he desired to follow some more agreeable pursuits. There was no office under heaven he wished to hold; and, in quitting public life, he hoped and believed no crisis would occur to require his active participation in public affairs again. With a deep regret if he had ever, in the heat of party excitement, inadvertently wounded the feelings of an opponent, he invoked undisturbed peace and prosperity on our common country. In that speech one of the best and wisest men of the country took his leave of the public stage.

Mr. Stephens is proverbially kind, but of his many good acts none is more deserving of mention than his liberal assistance to boys and young men. Having received aid in procuring his own education, he appreciates its value. He has aided, as he was aided, upward of thirty, and has for several years kept annually at least three at college. He generally selects the orphan and the destitute, those who have a desire for knowledge without the means of obtaining it.

I commenced this brief sketch with an allusion of Thorpe's to Stephens as a celebrity in Washington, and I may not inaptly close it with a rapid and comprehensive picture made by John Mitchel at that home to which the statesman has been so deeply attached from childhood and to which he has retired in his effulgent maturity:

"At Crawfordville," writes Mitchel, "a village on one of the piney ridges of Georgia, in an unpretending and somewhat desolate-looking house, (desolate-looking it may well be, for no fair and kindly housemother ever made it shine and smile,) dwells one of the choicest and rarest spirits of our hemisphere. Youthful and almost boyish-looking, yet stricken by mortal malady,-one who has made a covenant with death,' yet whose veins are full of the most genial life,-with the cold