Leake's Tirade. upon tions, by a violent decla- | ment, in the Executive or Judicial Depart mation against the Repub-ments thereof, was concerned therein. licans, as a party, charging Burnett, of Kentucky, did not believe in it the authorship of all the evils under the existence of any such conspiracy, and which the country staggered-the North had, conceived the resolution to be a “miserable, in its madness, sanctioned crime, canonized contemptible mode of engendering bad feelmurder, and made it a high crime and mis-ing, making excitement worse." Grow pro demeanor to obey laws passed by virtue of the Constitution. It was the North which had broken the unity of the States; it had refused a compliance with constitutional obligations, and offered a premium on per-mittee, (Howard of Michigan), in his seat, jury. assumed that every griev tested that he had evidence sufficient to base the resolution upon. Branch, of North Carolina, objected to the resolution, until he should see the Chairman of that Select Com and feel assured that it met his approval. Grow answered, that it had his approval. The following passage then occurred: Exciting Passage. Mr. Grow "I have reason to believe there was such a design entertained by some persons in the employment of the Government. To what extent it has gone I don't know. For that reason I offered the resolution. If gentlemen on the other side don't want to investigate the subject they can object, and that would afford better evidence Mr. Burnett "I have not objected to the resolu tion. If the member says there is reason for investi. gation, he shall have an investigation as thorough as he desires. Therefore there was no necessity for the remark that objection would afford evidence of the existence of a conspiracy." Mr. Grow" I demand the previous question." right to say a word pertaining to myself.” ance complained of could be, ought to be, that there is something in it." and would be, redressed, in a constitutional manner that the Constitution was supreme for good, and tolerated no wrong to any section, State or individual. He vindicated the principles of the Republican party from the uncalled for, unwarrantable and evidently wicked perversions of those conspiring to break up the Union. To those who assumed an attitude of irreconcilable hostility to the incoming Administration, the Republicans could not, and would not, give one inch. If compromise is asked of them it must also be resolution because of the fewness of the members given. No compromise which does not look to the protection of the rights of the citizens of all the States under the Constitution could receive his sanction. The North is for the enforcement of the laws, and will vindicate the flag from insult. It had but one motto, "The Union-it shall be preserved.” Saturday's session was characterized by an interesting episode, growing out of a resolution by Grow, (Rep.,) of Pennsylvania, that the Select Committee of Five, appointed on the 7th instant, be instructed to inquire whether any secret organization, hostile to the United States, exists in the District of Columbia, and, if so, whether any officer or employee of the Federal Govern Commission of Mr. Grow-"I ought to have said the gentleman from Tennessee yesterday afternoon objected to the then present." The Speaker "The question is now on the adop tion of the resolution." Mr. Kunkle, (Dem.,) of Maryland—“I object to the resolution." Cries from the Republican side, "Too late." Mr. Kunkle—"I announced my intention to ob. ject to it long since. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania indulged in some remarks reflecting on this side of the House, and as he desires some one to take the responsibility of objecting to this miserable imposition or reflection on the people of Maryland, there is one here to object, and I am he." Mr. Grow-"I called the previous question." Mr. Kunkle "I have my rights on this floor, and they cannot arbitrarily be taken from me by any Exciting Passage. MR. GILMER'S SPEECH. 285 man. I have a right to object | hoped, however, that they would be spared to the resolution, under the from such a necessity." rule, as soon as I get the recognition of the Speaker. I will never relinquish my rights. I repeat my objection." The Speaker said he would not attempt to deprive the gentleman of any right, but the gentleman from Pennsylvania demanded the previous question before the gentleman from Maryland was recognized by the Chair. Mr. Kunkle-"I was on the floor." Gilmer's Speech. Mr. Gilmer, (Am.) of North Carolina, followed, in a carefully considered speech. It was listened to with much interest, as indicating North Carolina sentiments. His views were "conservative," and his condemnation of secession hearty. For thirty years, he said, South Carolina had been en The Speaker" But the gentleman was not recog-gaged in trying to bring Southern mind up nized." Mr. Kunkel-"I am aware that the gentleman who occupies the chair is not well disposed toward me at any time." Calls from the Republican side to order. Mr. Craige, (Dem.,) of North Carolina, wanted to offer an amendment. Mr. Grow--“I have demanded the previous tion." Mr. Craige, amid much confusion, indicated his amendment: that the Committee further inquire by what authority troops were stationed on the southern side of the Capitol. Was it to control the proceedings here at the point of the bayonet and the mouth of cannon? Grow carried his point, and the resolution was adopted. The conspirators were fairly beaten. Howard, of Michigan, as President of the Commission to Kansas, proved how dangerous a person he was to all evil doers; and that the investigation proposed would be most unflinchingly made the disorganizers had good reason to feel. to its present point. She started with nuilification as a peaceful remedy, but Jackson crushed it out. Then the idea of secession was born and studiously nursed, as a peaceful remedy for Southern ills. Nullification could never have many friends, and secession would have but very few, were it not for that decoy ques-doctrine, the fruitful and seductive recommendation which was attached to it, that it was peaceful in character. Coming down to the history of events within the last twelve months, he said, the Democratic party had been broken up by the nullifiers and seceders at Charleston and Baltimore. Their nullifying friends, on that occasion, relied upon the action they might take in a separate Convention, which, it was said, contained many prudent and patriotic men. They did not then hold out the idea that the election of Lincoln would be a just cause for disrupting the Government. They held out the fact that they have made a Union nomination, and placed at the head of their ticket Unionloving men. But when they were charged with having had a design to disrupt the Government in case they were defeated, and in case Lincoln was elected, these men almost universally and generally, throughout the South, denied the charge most manfully. The men who controlled that party-the men who were first on the Breckenridge. ticket, and who declared that nullification was peaceful, and secession was a proper and peaceful remedy-where were they now? They were scattered everywhere over the Southern States, doing all they could to destroy the Government and break up the Union. No counsel for delay, for calm consideration, came from them; but the wild and inflammable dispatches which flew over the South, to fire the Southern heart, betrayed their Thomas, (Dem.,) of Tennessee, laid before the House the resolutions of the Tennessee Legislature, [see pp. 247–248,] in response to the New York members. Clark's (of Mo.,) The consideration of the Corwin Report was then resumed. Clark, (Dem.) of Missouri, having the floor, addressed the House. His remarks were of the usual character of those already made by gentlemen of the Secession school. Being hard pressed, however, he confessed that " he would first exhaust all constitutional means; but he would tell the Republicans that, unless something was speedily done to restore peace, and give the Border States guarantees of their constitutional rights, the Union cannot be preserved; and they will go where they can find their interests better protected. He Gilmer's Speech. baleful influence in subverting the sentiments of the people to destroy the Union. Mr. Gilmer then adverted to the dangerous character of the Virginia manifesto, [See page 247.] It contained two propositions, alike fallacious and destructive: namely, that Virginia's only safety was to leave the Union; and, second, that such a course was the only way to reconstruct the Union. He also adverted, in the same connection, to Senator Clingman's letter to a leading North Carolina paper, in which the Senator explicitly warned the people that it was the determination of the Republican party to subjugate the South, and, finally, to abolish Slavery in the States even at the risk of civil war! There was a purpose in this most wicked, most baleful misrepresentation to the people; but, he knew if the people of the Border States could be assured that the object of these men who were hurrying the South into extremes was to break up the Union, they would shudder with horror at the very idea, as the men who voted for Breckenridge would, at the knowledge of the truth, had they been told, as they ought to have been told, that the men who put Mr. Breckenridge in nomination intended to break up the Union if they failed. They would have shuddered at the idea of assisting in such a work. The honest farmers and mechanics and traders of the South would shudder if they were told that the movement, represented to them as one intended for the purpose of securing Southern rights under a reconstruction of the Government, was, in fact, designed by the men of the Baltimore Platform, to dissever the Union and break up the Government. The men of the South would shudder at the great mistake they had made in voting in compliance with those secessionists and disunionists. They might as well hope to put together the delicate machinery of a watch, after it had been broken into atoms by the heavy strokes of a sledge-hammer, as to hope for a reconstruction of this Government and Union, after a virtual separation. The speaker earnestly pressed the readoption of the Missouri Compromise. He did not advocate concession because of revolution; but thought that, immaterial as the conces Gilmer's Speech. sion was, it would disarm the false statements so sedulously made to bewilder and lead astray the mass of the Southern people. Only prove to them the baseness of the representations made, and the power of the conspi rators for harin would be gone. He said:"There was not a man in the House who would put his hand on his breast and say that he believed that the concession would make one Slave State more or less, or the Free States one more or less. Let them do this, and the question would be settled forever, and those disunionists who were still among them would go hence, weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth, at the downfall of all their cherished hopes and ambitious designs.” He elaborated on the various propositions made, and favored that of Mr. Corwin as best to allay excitement, to restore confidence, and to save the Border States from the revolution. He thus closed:: "If these things go on unchecked, then civil war is inevitable. Then prepare to see your country laid waste, all the channels of communication and trade broken up, their shipping destroyed and their commerce ruined, their fields drenched with blood, and their homes desolated. Then would wives, and mothers, and sisters, reproachfully ask them, why it was they had done nothing to ward off the calamities of the land? Why did they not say something, when they had the opportunity, that would have averted those terrible evils? In those days the remembrance of what they might have done to save their country from this saturnalia of horrors will come to torment them, and then a harvest of punishment will be in that retrospection. He would ask them while there was yet time, would they, on a mere abstraction, the surrender of which could do them no harm, precipitate ruin on the country? He begged gentlemen to take these things to heart, and offer this basis of conciliation to their brethren of the South. He would not envy the feelings of men, North or South, who would at this time, in the dread hour of impending calamity upon them, here now in this Congress, not unite heart and hand to settle this terrible controversy by yielding a petty, trifling abstraction." This speech, so excellent in spirit, so strong in fact, so suggestive for action, stood out in strong contrast to the wild logic and irrational statements of Mr. Clingman. North Carolina's misfortune was to have been misrepresented by.her Senator, for it is incontestable that Mr. Gilmer, at the date unde con sideration, embodied the feelings and wishes | he trusted, as returnless as that of James II. of the vast majority of the people of his really conservative State. Alley's Speech. Mr. Alley, (Rep.,) of Massachusetts, followed. He wondered at disunion, since, to the South especially, it was suicide. The North, he conceded, would at first suffer, but her gigantic resources would soon recover from the changes of trade, when she would open for herself new channels equal to all her requirements. Indeed, he thought the North would be better off, commercially, so long as there was such a want of harmony and confidence between the two sections. To expect the North, which stood upon the Constitution, which adopted the old and long-settled views of Washington, Jefferson and other fathers of the Government, on the question of Slavery, was going to humble itself before the arrogance of the Slave power, was simply preposterous. The North stood, on that question, precisely where the great men of the South had always stood until within a very recent period. Because the South had changed front was no reason why the North should do the same, and abandon its deep-rooted convictions in giving constitutional guarantees and protection to Slavery. The North had no power, no desire to interfere with Slavery in the States, but they would be degenerate sons of most worthy sires if they consented to the extension of Slavery in the Territories. The South, he said, had had possession of the National Government for more than half a century, and her sons had monopolized a large share of the offices and emoluments, and received the lion's share of appropriations. The North had paid for many years more than threefourths of the revenue, and most of it had been spent for the benefit of the South. The South, in its arbitrary exercise of power and its propagandism, had a parallel in the reign of James II., who was a propagandist of the Roman Catholic religion. To serve that interest, he abused his power, violated the Constitution, and was driven into exile as a reward for his tyranny. So it was with the Slave Power-it had been driven into exile, He vindicated Massachusetts; she would be true to all her constitutional obligations. Her fidelity to the Union was but the record of her history. He vindicated her Governor, and said that Massachusetts had had twentyone Governors since 1780-all of them able and distinguished-most of them eminent— some of them illustrious men, and, in everything that constituted true greatness of mind and character, not one among them all was superior to John A. Andrew. He had faith in the wisdom and patriotism of the American people, and if they were true to their convictions, they had a future most hopeful, a mission most important, a destiny most glorious. Résumé. A review of this week's proceedings will show that the disunion movement had bitter opponents in Southern men, and that, could they have been heard effectually by the people of the Border States, both Virginia and North Carolina would have been spared the dreadful plunge. But, so true is it that the machinations of the Evil One are more potent with men than the quiet promises of Angels, that the revolution gained force even as there dawned hope of staying it. The disunion leaders at Washington fairly burdened the mails to the South with their treasonable and baleful correspondence and documents. Did a member from a Slave State make a Union speech, immediately there was dispatched to his district such a counter-flood of falsehood and calumny as not only impaired his own standing with his constituents, but added immeasurably to the disunion sentiment. It was by such means-means whose invention would have added new lustre to Machiavel's crown of dishonor-that Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia were given up to the embraces of the monster whose very breath was political and social poison. We can imagine that the Angels of Darkness bore to Lucifer's court glad tidings during those eventful days-that his galleries of glory became lustrous with the records of America's dishonored and dishonoring sons. CHAPTER XIX. PRESSURE FOR COMPROMISE. MR. LINCOLN'S POLICY. THE PEACE CONGRESS APPOINTMENTS. MENACING ATTITUDE OF AFFAIRS IN CHARLESTON. COLONEL GOVERNMENT. HAYNE'S FINAL DEMANDS. HI MR. HOLT'S REPLY. THE POSI though no definite proposition grew out of News Dispatches. "Affairs wear a more hopeful aspect. A large number of distinguished gentlemen, from all parts of the country, are encouraged by the prospect of being able to contribute to a restoration of good feeling between the two sections. The repeal of the Personal Liberty bill in Rhode Island, and the late action of the Ohio Legislature on the same subject, are hailed by the friends of the Union as har bingers of peace. "The Boards of Trade of Milwaukee and Chicago EVENTS of the closing Outside Pressure for week of January tended to Compromise. demonstrate the improbability of any settlement of the vexed questions between the North and South. A very strong pressure was brought to bear on Congress, by petitions, by letters, by special deputations, and by eminent men who gathered at the Capital to lend their influence to compromise. A delegation of thirty-three citizens, from Philadelphia, representing fifty thousand working-men of that city, visited Washington January 30th. In a call upon Senator Crittenden, they stated their object to be to testify their love for the Union and their desire to urge the adoption of the Crittenden Compromise by Congress. Delegations were also present from New York and Boston, un-paid their respects, to-day, to President Buchanan derstood to represent the commercial inter- and to Senators Douglas, Seward and others. In ests of those great business centres. They, their interview with the President he said: "If Mr. too, favored the Crittenden propositions, Lincoln shall enjoy his accession to power as much and urged powerful monetary reasons why as I do my retirement from it, he will be a happy a settlement should be made. Great in- man." Senator Seward, in the course of his confluence was exerted by the voice from versation with the Members of the Boards, said: Wall street. A conference of members of "Heretofore the cry has been raised to save the the Border States was held, January 30th, at the request of the delegation from New York City. The delegation urged that, as the Republicans would not receive the Crittenden resolutions, some other practical proposition should be devised which did not require any surrender of principle at their hands. Several members from the Border Slave States expressed a willingness to accept the Corwin propositions, "with proper modifications;" and even the lately belligerent Rust, of Arkansas, is represented as having exhibited a conciliatory disposition-so humanizing and harmonizing was the power of gold. Al Union, when the Union was not in danger. I tell you, my friends, the question of Slavery is not now to be taken into account. We must save the Union. Then we save all that is worth saving." the Union is to avoid all pretext for a collision by "The great point now aimed at by the friends of the Seceding States, in the hope that the 'sober, second thought of the people,' if adjustment measures shall be presented, will induce them to resume their connection with the Federal Government. "The friends of the Union are much encou raged by the prompt responses to the invitation for Commissioners from the several States to meet in Convention here on the 4th of February, and it is believed the action of the Convention will command |