AN AFFECTING APPEAL. 63 the 23d of January, in which these and test at the ballot-box for the Presidency, similar topics were candidly presented, generously lent his efforts to preserve the was well calculated to dispel Southern Union over which his antagonist must prejudice, if reason could have been preside. Seward gave his best powers heard. He asked for time, for the voice to the work before him, willing, in view of the people, for the compromises before of the imminent peril of the nation, to the House, but should all these measures concede all for peace, except principle. fail, he said, "I will not then abandon the His speech on the state of the Union, Union of these States and the untold remains perhaps the most noticeable of blessings it lavishes upon the votaries of the session. It was calm, philosophical, civil liberty throughout the world. I almost skeptical in its tone as various will return home and link my destinies modes of approaching the subject were with those who are ready to confront passed in review, pronounced ineffectual disunion." Reviewing the successive an- and, to the disappointment of the pubnexations to the country, by purchase lic, not supplanted by anything more and conquest, he paused to contemplate potent from the lips of the orator. There the boundaries of the nation as enlarged was a tone of sadness throughout, perto the Pacific by the treaty of Guada- vading and overpowering his most assurlupe Hidalgo. With the prospect brought ing arguments. The value of the Union vividly before the minds of his hearers, was exhibited not as in other days by he exclaimed with powerful effect: "This glittering eulogium, but by the represenis the country which party madness would tation of what its loss would be. The suspend upon the passions of the hour. listener could not but feel the altered Behold it, with all its vast resources, its circumstances and share the burden of rivers and lakes, its mountains and min- anxiety feelingly presented in an illuseral wealth. Though in its infancy, it is tration drawn from a familiar scene of greater in all the elements of enduring the Senate chamber: power and more advanced in a high civilization than was the Roman empire, when her imperial eagles were hovering around the pillars of Hercules. The hand of disunion must be stayed. Our country must not perish while its monuments are yet unfinished and the soldiers of the Revolution survive." Senator Baker of Oregon, a kindred spirit with Johnson, also a man of the people, who had learnt to value the government in its life-imparting principles, in the elevating rewards which it conferred upon all honest efforts, warmed with fervent eloquence as he waived high loft the dishonored flag of his adopted country. Douglas, forgetful of the con "While listening to these debates," said the speaker, "I have sometimes forgotten myself in marking their contrasted effects upon the page who customarily stands on the dais before me, and the venerable Secretary who sits behind him. The youth exhibits intense but pleased emotion in the excitement, while at every irreverent word that is uttered against the Union the eyes of the aged man are suffused with tears. Let him weep no more. Rather rejoice, for yours has been a lot of rare felicity. You have seen and been a part of all the greatness of your country, the towering national greatness of all the world. Weep only you, and weep with all the bitter ness of anguish, who are just stepping or art, under the reign of conscription; on the threshold of life; for that great-nay, what interest in them will society ness perishes prematurely and exists not for you, nor for me, nor for any that shall come after us." feel, when fear and hate shall have taken possession of the national mind? Let the miner in California take heed, Nor were the words in which he re- for its golden wealth will become the cited the sad items of the catalogue of prize of the nation that can command disasters which would afflict the broken the most iron. Let the borderer take and dismembered State, less affecting. care; for the Indian will again lurk The enumeration is one of the finest around his dwelling. Let the pioneer passages in the orator's many rhetorical come back into our denser settlements; speeches thoughtful, compact, energetic, for the railroad, the post road, and the picturesque in illustration, varied in de- telegraph advance not one furlong furtail, philosophical in the comprehensive ther into the wilderness. With standing grasp of the whole. Every sentence, as armies consuming the substance of our the orator appeals to our different pas- people on the land, and our Navy and sions, our pride, our interest, our love of our postal steamers withdrawn from the power, our pursuit of happiness, closing ocean, who will protect or respect, or with the grand image of, the national who will even know by name our petty greatness, seems to sound the knell of confederacies? The American man-ofa departing blessing. "The public pros- war is a noble spectacle. I have seen it perity," was his language, "how could enter an ancient port in the Mediterrait survive the storm? Its elements are, nean. All the world wondered at it and industry in the culture of every fruit; talked of it. Salvos of artillery, from mining of all the metals; commerce at forts and shipping in the harbor, saluted home and on every sea; material im- its flag. Princes, and princesses, and provement that knows no obstacle and merchants, paid it homage, and all the has no end; invention that ranges people blessed it as a harbinger of hope throughout the domain of nature; in- for their own ultimate freedom. I imcrease of knowledge as broad as the hu-agine now the same noble vessel again man mind can explore; perfection of art entering the same haven. The flag of as high as human genius can reach, and thirty-three stars and thirteen stripes social refinement working for the renova- has been hauled down, and in its place a tion of the world. How could our suc- signal is run up, which flaunts the device cessors prosecute these noble objects in of a lone star, or a palmetto tree. Men the midst of brutalizing civil conflict? ask, "Who is the stranger that thus What guarantees will capital invested steals into our waters?" The answer for such purposes have, that will out-contemptuously given is, "She comes weigh the premium offered by political from one .of the obscure republics of and military ambition? What leisure will North America. Let her pass on. the citizen find for study, or invention, * Speech in the Senate, January 12, 1861. CHAPTER V. THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. On the 4th of February, the same day | the political associations with the national that John Tyler's Peace Congress assembled at Washington, the delegates of six seceding States, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana,―met in convention at Montgomery, Alabama. Texas, completing the original "seven," sent her delegation some days after. The members were not chosen by the people, but by the Seceding conventions of the States; it being a prominent characteristic of the whole movement, that it was carried on as far as possible out of the reach of popular discussion. A few leading schemers, in fact, kept control of the entire affair. 'That they succeeded in exciting the enthusiasm of the people, and secured, as the experiment went on, an extraordinary degree of support, is not inconsistent with the original usurpation. Fortyone delegates, in unequal numbers from the different States, were present at the opening and formed the convention. Of these, the members best known to the country were the Georgia representatives, Robert Toombs, late United States Senator, and Howell Cobb, late United States Secretary of the Treasury. The latter, on motion of R. B. Rhett, Senior, of South Carolina, was called to the chair. In his address on taking his seat, after the usual complimentary sentence of thanks and expression of good intentions, he alluded briefly to the dissolution of government, by "the sovereign and inde- |