Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/317

Rh I have tried to look upon these propositions of the majority of the committee as true measures of pacification. I have listened patiently to all that has been said in their favor. But I am still unconvinced, or, rather, I am convinced that they will do nothing for the Union. They will prove totally inadequate; may perhaps be positively mischievous. The North, the free States, will not adopt them,—will not consent to these new endorsements of an institution which they do not like, which they believe to be injurious to the interests of the republic; and if they did adopt them, as they could only do by a sacrifice of principles which you should not expect, the South would not be satisfied: the slave States would not fail to find pretexts for a course of action upon which I think they have already determined. I see in these propositions anything but true measures of pacification.

But the North will never consent to the separation of the States. If the South persist in the course on which she has entered, we shall march our armies to the Gulf of Mexico, or you will march yours to the Great Lakes. There can be no peaceful separation. There is one way by which war may be avoided, and the Union preserved. It is a plain and a constitutional way. If the slave States will abandon the design which we must infer from the remarks of the gentleman from Virginia they have already formed, will faithfully abide by their constitutional obligations, and remain in the Union until their rights are in fact invaded, all will be well. But, if they take the responsibility of involving the country in a civil war, of breaking up the government which our fathers founded and our people love, but one course remains to those who are true to that government. They must and will defend it at every sacrifice—if necessary, to the sacrifice of their lives.

At the close of the session, and upon the request of my associates upon the commission, I wrote a report to Governor