them, there would be nine-tenths of them in favor of the pacification which is embodied in that report. Mr. President, what have we been looking at? What are we looking at? The "proviso"; an abstraction always; thrust upon the South by the North against all the necessities of the case, against all the warnings which the North ought to have listened to coming from the South; pressed unnecessarily for any Northern object; opposed, I admit, by the South, with a degree of earnestness uncalled for, I think, by the nature of the provision, but with a degree of earnestness natural to the South, and which the North itself perhaps would have displayed if a reversal of the conditions of the two sections of the Union could have taken place. Why do you of the North press it? You say because it is in obedience to certain sentiments in behalf of human freedom and human rights which you entertain. You are likely to accomplish those objects at once by the progress of events, without pressing this obnoxious measure. You may retort, why is it opposed at the South? It is opposed at the South because the South feels that, when once legislation on the subject of slavery begins, there is no seeing where it is to end. Begin it in the District of Columbia; begin it in the territories of Utah and New Mexico and California; assert your power there to-day, and in spite of all the protestations — and you are not wanting in making protestations that you have no purpose of extending it to the Southern States, what security can you give them that a new sect will not arise with a new version of the Constitution, or with something above or below the Constitution, which shall authorize them to carry their notions into the bosoms of the slaveholding States, and endeavor to emancipate from bondage all the slaves there? . . . The cases, then, gentlemen of the North and gentlemen of the South, do not stand upon an equal footing. When you, on the one hand, unnecessarily press an offensive and unnecessary measure on the South, the South repels it from the highest of all human motives of action, the security of property and life, and everything else interesting and valuable in life. Mr. President, I trust that the feelings of attachment to the Union, of love for its past glory, of anticipation of its future benefits and happiness; a fraternal feeling which, I trust, will be common throughout all parts of the country; the desire to live together in peace and harmony, to prosper as we have prospered heretofore, to hold up to the civilized world the example of one great and glorious republic, fulfilling the high destiny that belongs to it, demonstrating beyond all doubt man's capacity for selfgovernment; these motives and these considerations will, I trust, animate us all, bringing us together to dismiss alike questions of abstraction and form, and consummating the act in such a manner as to heal not one only, but all the wounds of the country. IN the second period of our national existence, when the Government was laboring at the adjustment of great interests - internal improvements, territorial expansion, troubles with England resulting in war, the tariff, the United States Bank and monetary question, the mutual relations of the States to the Union under the Constitution (a troublesome theme, underlying all the others), etc. - CALHOUN, CLAY, and WEBSTER were the immortal trio of Senators that drew the chief national attention, WEBSTER the Northern Federalist, CALHOUN the Southern defender of State rights, and CLAY the harmonizer. CALHOUN was a very able, noble, upright, intensely earnest man, whose sympathies grew more narrowly concentered upon his own State and its interests as he grew older, thus somewhat limiting his large usefulness. A South Carolina Presbyterian of Scotch-Irish blood, born in poverty, but working his way through Yale College and law studies, he entered politics early in his native State, and was first in its legislature, then its representative in Congress; and his forty years in Washington as Congressman, Secretary of War, Vice-President through two terms, almost President (although he disclaimed any wish for the post), Senator, again Secretary of War, and finally Senator to the end were spent in conscientious and generally admirable service to the country. His greatness appeared in his congressional career in both Houses, during which he took prominent part in all important questions, but he was at his greatest in the Senate, where the notable debates between him and his two great compeers took place. His last speech, during the discussion of the Clay Compromises of 1850, was read for him by another (on March 4), owing to his extreme weakness. But he was present, and his pallid face and intense eyes added solemnity to his words. He died on the 23d of that month. The address follows, somewhat abridged. SLAVERY AND THE UNION I HAVE, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion. Entertaining this opinion, I have, on all proper occasions, endeavored to call the attention of both the two great parties which divide the country to adopt some measure to prevent so great a disaster, but without success. The agitation has been permitted to proceed with almost no attempt to resist it, until it has reached a point when it can no longer be disguised or denied that the Union is in danger. You have thus had forced upon you the greatest and gravest question that can ever come under your consideration How can the Union be preserved? - To give a satisfactory answer to this mighty question, it is indispensable to have an accurate and thorough knowledge of the nature and the character of the cause by which the Union is endangered. Without such knowledge it is impossible to pronounce with any certainty, by what measure it can be saved; just as it would be impossible for a physician to pronounce in the case of some dan |