after we have done everything to carry it into effect. Is there

any language of reproach pungent enough to express your commentary on the fact? What would you say, or, rather, what would you not say? Would you not tell them, wherever an Englishman might travel, shame would stick to him: he would disown his country. You would exclaim, England, proud of your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of power, blush for these distinctions, which become the vehicles of your dishonor. Such a nation might truly say to corruption, thou art my father, and to the worm, thou art my mother and sister. We should say of such a race of men, their name is a heavier burden than their debt.

XLVI.-THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtue, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proof of its utility and its blessings, and although our country has stretched out, wider and wider, and our population stretched farther and farther, they have not overturned its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. 1 have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, in my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him

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as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant, that ou my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured-bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as-What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly-liberty first, and union afterwards-but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every true American heart-liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

XLVII-NO EXTENSION OF FREEDOM BY FORCE.

REVERDY JOHNSON.

SIR, our institutions are telling their own story by the blessings they impart to us, and indoctrinating the people everywhere with the principles of freedom upon which they are founded. Ancient prejudices are yielding to their mighty influence. Heretofore revered, and apparently permanent systems of government, are falling beneath it. Our glorious mother, free as she has ever comparatively been, is getting to be freer. It has blotted out the corruptions of her political

franchise. It has broken her religious intolerance. It has greatly elevated the individual character of her subjects. It has immeasurably weakened the power of her nobles, and by weakening in one sense has vastly strengthened the authority of her crown, by forcing it to rest for all its power and glory upon the breasts of its people. To Ireland too-impulsive Ireland-the land of genius, of eloquence, and of valor, it is rapidly carrying the blessings of a restored freedom and happiuess. In France, all of political liberty which belongs to her, is to be traced to it; and even now it is to be seen cheering, animating, and guiding the classic land of Italy, making the very streets of Rome itself to ring with shouts of joy and gratitude for its presence. Sir, such a spirit suffers no inactivity, and needs no incentive. It admits of neither enlargement nor restraint. Upon its own elastic and never-tiring wing, it is now soaring over the civilized world, everywhere leaving its magic and abiding charm. I say, then, try not, seek not to aid it. Bring no physical force to succor it. Such an adjunct would serve only to corrupt and paralyze its efforts. Leave it to itself, and, sooner or later, man will be free.

XLVIII.-DISUNION AND WAR INSEPARABLE.

HENRY CLAY.

MR. PRESIDENT, I have said what I solemnly believethat the dissolution of the Union and war are identical and inseparable; that they are convertible terms. Such a war, too, as that would be, following the dissolution of the Union! Sir, we may search the pages of history, and none so furious, so bloody, so implacable, so exterminating, from the wars of Greece down, including those of the commonwealth of England, and the revolution of France-none, none of them raged with such violence, or was ever conducted with such bloodshed and enormities as will that war which shall follow that disastrous event-if that event ever happen-of dissolution.

And what would be its termination? Standing armies and navies, to an extent draining the revenues of each portion of the dissevered empire, would be created; exterminating wars would follow-not a war of two or three years, but of interminable duration-an exterminating war would fol

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low, until some Philip or Alexander, some Cæsar or Napoleon, would rise to cut the Gordian knot, and solve the capacity of man for self-government, and crush the liberties of both the dissevered portions of this Union. Can you doubt it? Look at history-consult the pages of all history, ancient or modern; look at human nature-look at the character of the contest in which you would be engaged in the supposition of a war following the dissolution of the Union, such as I have suggested and I ask you if it is possible for you to doubt that the final but perhaps distant termination of the whole will be some despot treading down the liberties of the people? -that the final result will be the extinction of this last glorious light which is leading all mankind, who are gazing upon it, to cherish hope and anxious expectation that the liberty which prevails here will sooner or later be advanced throughout the civilized world? Can you lightly contemplate the consequences? Can you yield yourself to a torrent of passion, amidst dangers which I have depicted in colors far short of what would be the reality, if the event should ever happen? I conjure gentlemen-whether from the South or the North, by all they hold dear in the worldby all their love of liberty--by all their veneration for their ancestors - by all their regard for posterity-by all their gratitude to Him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings-by all the duties which they owe to mankind, and all the duties which they owe to themselves—by all these considerations I implore them to pause-solemnly to pause at the edge of the precipice, before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken in the yawning abyss below, which will inevitably lead to certain and irretrievable destruction And, .nally, I implore, as the best blessing which heaven can bestow upon me upon earth, that if the direful and sad event the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle.

XLIX. THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION.

HENRY CLAY.

WHAT patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this ex punging? Is it to appease the wrath, and to heal the wounded pride of the chief magistrate? If he really be the hero

that his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all grovelling sycophancy, all self-degradation, and self-abasement. He would reject with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches, and your baby lines in the fair records of his country. Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the secretary of the Senate will preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to that senator of the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our free institutions, all that now remain to us, some future American monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate especially this expunging resolution, may institute a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of THE KNIGHT OF THE BLACK LINES. But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my breath in future exertions? The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done--that foul deed, like the blood-stained hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before you, and like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence of the constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that, henceforth, no matter what daring or outrageous act any president may perform, you have for. ever hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell ther that he may fearlessly assume what power he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the hall of the capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice; that it must wait until a house of representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it composed of the partisars of the president, shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, and, if the people do