The Great Conspiracy, Complete

ble speeches were made, but there was substantially nothing done, in the line of Compromise. The only thing that had been accomplished was the passage, as we have seen

h power. It is true that the Pro-slavery men had charged the Republicans with ultimate designs, through Congress, upon Slavery in t

We have passed none of these measures. The differences of opinion among Senators have been such that we have not been able to concur in any of the measures which have been proposed, even by bare majorities, much less by that two-thirds majority which is necessary to carry into effect some of the pacific measures which have been proposed. We are about to adjourn. We have done nothing. Even the Senate of the United States, beholding this great ruin around them, beholding Dismemberment and Revolution going on, and Civil War threatened as the result, have been able to do nothing; we have absolutely done nothing. Sir, is not this a remarkable spectacle? * * * How does it happen that not even a bare majority here, when the Country trusted to our hands is going to ruin, have been competent to devise any measure of public safety? How does it happen that we have not had unanimity enough to agree on any measure of that kind? Can we account for it to ourselves, gentlemen? We se

nor any other Southern Senator, desired affirmative legislation to protect Slavery. Even up to this day, not one of them has proposed affirmative legislation to protect it. Whenever the question has come up, they have decided that affirmative legislation to protect it was unnecessary; and hence, all that the South required on the Territorial question was 'hands off; Slavery shall not be prohibited by Act of Congress.' Now, what do we find? This very sessio

diment of the Party, sat quietly and did not propose it. What more? Last year we were told that the Slave Code of New Mexico was to be repealed. I denounced the attempted interference. The House of Representatives passed the Bill, but the Bill remains on your table; no one Republican member has proposed to take it up and pass it. Practically, therefore, the Chicago platform is abandoned; the Philadelphia platform is abandoned; the whole doctrine for which the Republican Party contended, as to the Territories, is

lic Opinion at the North. All I would ask now of the Republican Party is, that they would insert in the Constitution the same principle that they have carried out practically in the Territorial Bills for Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada, by depriving Congress of the po

us have backed down too, from the idea that Congress has not the power to prohibit Slavery in the Territories; and we are proposing some of us in the Crittenden proposition, and some in the Amendment now before the Senate-to prohibit Slavery by the Constitution itself, in the Territories;"-and by Mr. Douglas, when he

an, had, on the 5th o

n, and to enforce the laws; but when we undertake the performance of these duties, let us act in such a manner as will be best calculated to preserve and not destroy the Government, and keep ourselves within the bounds of the Constitution. * * * Sir, I have always denied, and

Government and any of our own people, let it come when every other means of settlement has been tried and exhausted; and not then, exce

ea, is paramount to all the Parties and platforms that ever have existed, or ever can exist. I would, to-day, if I had the power, sink my own Party, and every oth

t of the Committee of Thirty-three; that of the Border States; and those of Representatives McClernand, Kellogg, and Morris, of Illinois, Mr. Logan to

nk this is the best proposition, because it is a fair concession on all sides. The Republicans give up their Congressional intervention; those who are styled 'Squatter Sovereigns' give up their Territorial legislative policy; and the Southern (Slave) protect

the point, except to repeat again, that I will willingly vote for any of them, or make any other sacrifice necessary to save

once happy and prosperous People, our fruitful fields and golden forests, our enjoyment of all civil and religious blessings-let Parties die that these be preserved. Such noble acts of patriotism and concession, on your part, would cause posterity to render them illustrious, and pause to contemplate the magnitude of the events with which they were connected. * * * In the name of the patriotic sires who breasted the storms and vicissitudes of the Revolution; by all the kindred ties of this Country; in the name of the many battles fought for your Freedom; in beh

an unnatural strife, in which the hand of brother shall be uplifted against brother, and father against son. My God, what a spectacle! If all the evils and calamities that have ever happened since the World began, could be gathered in one great Catastrophe, its horrors could not eclipse, in their frightful proportions, the Drama that impends over us. Whether this black cloud that drapes in mournin

ence to the Union in its integrity and with all its parts, with my friends, with my Party, with my State, with my Country, or without either, as they may determine, in every event, whether of Peace or War, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Although I lament the occasion, I hail with cheerfulness the duty of lifting up my voice among distracted debates, for my whole Country and its ine

tion to the Union. The calm, dispassionate recital by Henry Winter Davis (of Maryland), of the successive steps by which the Southern leaders had themselves created that very "North" of whose antagonism they complained, was one of the best of the

ates, worn the mask of Government. We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The Nation

* * * *

eated a North. Let us trace t

almost unanimous voice of the States, did not mention Slavery in his first two Messages. In 18

Southern Whigs, were left

Legislature and laws for that Territory, by the invaders; still furth

the new Party, when the Pro-Slavery Party in Kansas perpetrated, and the President and the South accepted, the Lecomp

ctate terms; and the People vindicated by

in the Territories; the South, while repudiating other decisions, instantly made these opinions the criterion of faithfuln

est satisfied with t

by Congress to Slavery, declared by the Supreme

the claim to Congressional protection, and that is now followed by the hitherto unheard of claim to a Constitutional Amendment establishing Slavery, not merely in territory now held, but in all hereafter held from the line of 36 30' to Cape Horn, while the debate foreshadows in the dis

ates; let the Southern people dismiss their fears, return to their friendly confidence in their fellow-citizens of the North, and accep

measures to restore the Union, slowly dawned-with but a few hours lacking of the time when Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United States-Mr. Wigfall thought proper, in the United S

Section of the Country. It represents two million men who hate us, and who, by their votes for

that you have it; and one-half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been defeated. But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts. Our objection to living in this Union

asters, and next, to array one class of citizens against the other; and I say to you, that we cannot live in peace, either in the Union or out of it, until you have abolished your Abolition societies; not, as I have been misquoted, abolish or destroy your school-houses; but until you have ceased in your schoolhouses teaching your children to hate us; until you have ceased to conver

okesman of the South saluted the cold and cloudy dawn of that day which

istinguished persons filling the great platform on either side and behind them-Abraham Lincoln stood bareheaded before full thirty thousand people, upon whose uplifted faces the unveiled glory of the mild Spring sun now shone-stood reverently be

disarm at least the personal resentment of the South toward him, and sufficiently strengthen the Union

dence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with th

y, Peace, and Security of no Section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the

servations, and with no purpose to construe the Co

petuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all National Governments. It is safe to assert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Cont

ntract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One par

atured and continued in the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation, in 1778; and, finally, in 1787, one of the declared objec

t Resolves and Ordinances to that effect, are legally void; and that acts of violence within any State or Stat

and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enj

t only as the declared purpose of the Union, that

or violence, and there shall be none, unles

ing to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but, beyond what may be necessary fo

will continue to be furnish

* *

in restraint by Constitutional checks and limitations and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a Free People. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fl

* *

his. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties, easier than friends can make laws?

overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendations of Amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the P

tion of the States. The People themselves can do this also, if they choose; but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it.

* *

Administration, by any extreme of weakness or folly, can very s

be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are

ent will not assault you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registe

of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all

wded through the brain and oppressed the heart of Abr

Every step proposed or contemplated by the Government would be known to the so-called Government of the Confederate States almost as soon as thought of. All means, to thwart and d

t blasted-the position must, even to his hopeful nature, have seemed at this time desperate. To be sure, despite threats, neither few nor secret, which had been made, that he should not live to be inaugurated, he had passed the first cri

se, must have searched up and down and along the labyrinths of history and "corridors of time," everywher

stracted Country! How his great heart must have been racked with the alternations of hope and foreboding-of trustfulness and doubt! Anxiously he must have looked for the light of the morrow, that he might

iliation follow! A little more time for reflection would yet make all things right. The young men of the South, fired by the Southern leaders' false appeals, must soon return to reason. The prairie fire is terrible while it sweeps along, but it soon burns out. When the young men face the emblem of their Nation's glory-the

of the West, throbbed with the mighty weight of the problem entrusted to him for solution, and th

cheerful belief in the Providence of God, the Patriotism of the People, and the efficacy of his Inaugural Peace-offering to the South. But alas, and alas, for the fallibility of human judgment and human hopes! Instead of a message of Peace, the South chose to regard it as a message

of the olive branch to the South; the Conspirators everywhere interpret

t heart of the Union-the rash children of the South, if they would but let him. It was more with sorrow, than in anger, that he looked upon their contemptuous repulsion of his advances; and his soul still reproachfully yearned toward these his Southern brethren, as did that of a high

. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut,

Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State; Charles G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; Leroy Pope Walker, of Alabama, Secre