24 it would not stop the progress of this revolution. It is not your personal liberty bills that we dread. Nor do we suppose that there will be any overt acts on the part of Mr. Lincoln. For one, I do not dread overt acts. I do not propose to wait for them. We intend to go out.” This man, although one of the leading conspirators, did not pretend that the election of Mr. Lincoln, or the want of any compromise, was the cause of the attempt about to be made to overthrow the Government. The great complaint that I heard from southern members was that we in the North permitted our laboring men to vote, while their laborers were not allowed and were not capable of voting. They had looked carefully to the census, and found that political power had departed from them forever—that the laboring men of the North, East, and West, were hereafter to hold the power of the Government in their hands; and they had determined they would not submit to it. As early as 1850 Mr. Clay and Thomas H. Benton warned the country of their schemes for a dissolution of the Union. They then had their constitution drawn up, and the man designated for president, who was none other than Jeff. Davis, the perjured traitor, now the assumed president of the southern confederacy. But it failed then,.because they were not prepared for it, and could not induce all the States they desired to take, the fatal step in treason. They wanted an administration like James Buchanan’s, with a Floyd, a Thompson, and a Breckinridge, to aid them to make the preparation for the establishment of their confederacy based on slavery. And they got what they wanted, a President, and a Cabinet to. suit; and most diligently did they use th e4 means thus placed in their hands for the destruction of the Government. They flattered themselves that they had destroyed it. Protection to slavery was not what they wanted, for that was never better protected than just previous to this rebellion. Sir, in the 36th Congress Senator Brown, of the State of Mississippi, introduced a bill for the better protection of slavery, which received but two votes in the Senate—the whole South declaring by their votes and speeches, with the exception of two, that they did not want any more protection to slavery. With these facts before us, can any sane man believe that the passage of the Crittenden compromise would have saved the country from the present civil war? Sir, let us hear what southern men in Congress said at the time on this subject, which may be found in the Congressional Globe of that year. Mr. Singleton, of the State of Mississippi, on the 4th December, 1860, in the House of Representatives, said: r “I was not sent here for the purpose of malting any compromise or to patch up existing difficulties, I leave, sir, to the sovereign State of Mississippi to determine for herself her present Federal relations.” On the same day, Mr. Jones, of Georgia, made a similar declaration respecting his State. Messrs. Hawkins of Florida, and Clopton and Pugh of Alabama, spoke in even stronger language for their States. Hear Hawkins: “While I am up, Mr. Speaker, I may as well say in advance, that I am opposed, and I believe my State is opposed, to all and every compromise. The day of compromise has passed.” Hear Clopton: “ Believing that a State has the right to secede, and that the only remedy for present evils is secession, I will not hold out any delusive hope, or sanction any temporizing policy.” •
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