growth of cotton, but the presence of qualified laborers upon those lands. Now that the interests of England and Continental Europe are put in jeopardy by the movements of the South, we may look for more vigorous efforts to procure supplies of cotton from other sources. These efforts will be crowned with success, partial or complete; but it behooves the South to put an end to a controversy which will give no additional security to slavery, and which may result in the overthrow of the institution itself, and the surrender of the cotton-growing power to other sections of the globe. A diminution in the supply of American cotton works an increase of the article elsewhere, or else a change in the manufacturing industry of America and Europe. In either case, the South first, and the whole country secondarily, must suffer. The reign of King Cotton must be peaceful: by war, he will be dethroned.

III. The movements of the secessionists encourage and forbode servile war. I fear that men who have defied the flag of the republic may yet have bitter experience touching the institution of slavery. By the Constitution, we are bound to suppress servile insurrections; and the North would doubtless, whenever the exigency should arise, act in conformity to the requirement. But who can or will be responsible for the four million slaves, when the flag of the Union is no longer recognized in the slave States, and hostility to the North takes possession of men, who, more than any besides, are interested in promoting loyalty to the government? Nor will it be easy for the North to prevent hostile incursions into the South. If men sought the overthrow of

slavery in blood, the destruction of this Union would be at once the beginning and the accomplishment of their design.

IV. The Southern States cannot form a lasting Union among themselves. Being the weaker section, the politics and diplomacy of the North would be directed to promote divisions and estrangements. The northern slave States would gradually lose their interest in slavery; and finally the Northern confederacy would aid in the emancipation of their slaves by purchase, and receive them into the Union of free States. Slavery cannot advance northward: freedom, with the Union or without it, will advance southward, and, by its gentle allurements, bring back State after State into the Northern confederacy.

If, then, peaceful secession were possible, there is nothing beyond inviting to either section, and destruction surely awaits the South. But peace for any number of years is not possible; secession is war, and those who weigh the circumstances will so treat it in the beginning.

Will fugitives from slavery be surrendered? Will the territorial questions be answered? Will strife cease on the borders of States or Territories? Will there not be bitter and bloody struggles for the possession of New Mexico and old Mexico? — for the control of Central America and the routes to the Pacific?

And, for the North, there is the additional consideration that we cannot consent to the establishment of a slaveholding, military oligarchy upon our southern side. We must first, then, give to the exist

ing administration whatever support may be needed for the execution of the laws and the preservation of the Union.

We must look for the peaceful inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and be prepared to secure his inauguration at the capital of the country, and at the appointed time, by the presence of such force as may be demanded by those officials who are bound to keep the peace. Then there must be time given for the organization of the conservative men of the South, who are at present borne down by an audacity and tyranny unknown since the revolutionary era of France. This interval will at once exhaust the revolutionists of the seceding States, and diminish the number and force of the prejudices in the Southern mind, that have no basis, except in misrepresentations made for political purposes.

Nor should I deem it unwise for the North, if it may do so without serious division and loss of strength, to announce its readiness to aid those States that desire to adopt a plan of emancipation, by the assumption, on the part of the general government, of a portion of the pecuniary burden. In so far as the evil is general, its removal should be sought through common and mutual sacrifices.

But if, unhappily, neither a spirit of justice in us, nor the presence of obstacles in the way of the secessionists which cannot be overcome, nor the exhaustion and sacrifices on their part of a condition of war without any of its customary honors or glories, shall recall them to their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union, there will then be no alternative but

to preserve the one and compact the other by the exhibition of such force as may be needed.

When all things else have failed, force is the last resort of States, whatever may have been the theory of their organization. And we shall, I doubt not, if these but possible extremities of public and national life are finally to be presented and accepted, preserve the freedom of the citizens and the sovereignty of the States.

It is, indeed, possible, yet not probable, that the leaders of the South, maddened by ambition and disappointment, and deceived by a few men who misrepresent the opinions and purposes of the North, may seize the pillars of the temple of the nation, and bring it down in ruins upon us all. But, for one, I fear not any such catastrophe; and I accept the future of the country with the utmost confidence that Liberty and Union are to be hereafter, as now, one and inseparable.

The words which I addressed to Kossuth, when, in the name of the people of Massachusetts, I sought to cheer him with the hope that Hungary would be restored to nationality and freedom, I now address to myself and to you: "Liberty can never die. The generations of men appear and pass away; but the aspirations of their nature are immortal." Slavery may die. The republic shall live!

88

CONCESSION AND COMPROMISE.

SPEECH MADE IN PEACE CONGRESS, FEB. 18, 1861, AS REPORTED BY L. E. CHITTENDEN.

I HAVE not been at all clear in my own mind as

to when, and to what extent, Massachusetts should raise her voice in this Convention. She heard the voice of Virginia, expressed through her resolutions, in this crisis of our country's history. Massachusetts hesitated, not because she was unwilling to respond to the call of Virginia, but because she thought her honor touched by the manner of that call and the circumstances attending it. She had taken part in the election of the 6th of November. She knew the result. It accorded well with her wishes. She knew that the government whose political head for the next four years was then chosen, was based upon a Constitution which she supposed still had an existence. She saw that State after State had left that government,— seceded is the word used, had gone out from this great confederacy, and that they were defying the Constitution and the Union.

Charge after charge has been vaguely made against the North. It is attempted here to put the North on trial. I have listened with grave attention to the gentleman from Virginia to-day; but I