the possession of the United States, how much of the slavery question was left? What better compromise could have been made? Still we are told that matters might have been compromised, and that if we had agreed to compromise, bloody rebellion would not now be abroad in the land. Sir, Southern Senators are responsible for it. They stood here with power to accomplish the result, and yet treacherously, and, I raay say, tauntingly, they left this Chamber, and announced that they had dissolved their connection with the Government. Then, when we were left in the hands of those whom we had been taught to believe would encroach upon our rights, they gave us, in the constitutional amendment and in the three territorial bills, all that had ever been asked; and yet gentlemen talk about compromise. Why was not this taken and accepted? No; it was not compromise that the leaders wanted; they wanted power; they wanted to destroy this Government, so that they might have place and emolument for themselves. They had lost confidence in the intelligence and virtue and integrity of the people, and their capacity to govern themselves; and they intended to separate and form a government, the chief corner-stone of which should be slavery, disfranchising the great mass of the people, of which we have seen constant evidence, and merging the powers of government in the hands of the few. I know what I say. I know their feelings and their sentiments. I served in the Senate here with them. I know they were a close corporation, that had no more confidence in or respect for the people than has the Dey of Algiers. I fought that close corporation here. I knew that they were no friends of the people. I knew that Slidell and Mason and Benjamin and Iverson and Toombs were the enemies of free government, and I know so now. I commenced the war upon them before a State seceded; and I intend to keep on fighting this great battle before the country for the perpetuity of free government. They seek to overthrow it, and to establish a despotism in its place. That is the great battle which is upon our hands. The great interests of civil liberty and free government call upon every patriot and every lover of popular rights to come forward and discharge his duty.

We see this great struggle; we see that the exercise of the vital principle of government itself is denied by those who desire our institutions to be overthrown and despotism established on their ruins. If we have not the physical and moral courage to exclude from our midst men whom we believe to be unsafe depositors of public power and public trust-men whose associates were rolling off honeyed accents against coercion, and are now in the traitor's camp-if we have not the courage to force these men from our midst,

because we have known them, and have been personal friends with them for years, we are not entitled to sit here as Senators ourselves. Can you expect your brave men, your officers and soldiers that are now in "the tented field," subject to all the hardships and privations pertaining to a civil war like this, to have courage, and to march on with patriotism to crush treason on every battle-field, when you have not the courage to expel it from your midst? Set those brave men an example; say to them by your acts and voice that you evidence your intention to put down traitors in the field by ejecting them from your midst, without regard to former associations.

I do not say these things in unkindness. I say them in obedience to duty, a high constitutional duty that I owe to my country; yes, sir, that I owe to my wife and children. By your failure to exercise the powers of this Government, by your failure to enforce the laws of the Union, I am separated from those most dear to me. Pardon me, sir, for this personal allusion. My wife and children have been turned into the street, and my house has been turned into a barracks, and for what? Because I stand by the Constitution and the institutions of the country that I have been taught to love, respect, and venerate. This is my offense. Where are my sons-in-law? One to-day is lying in prison; another is forced to fly to the mountains to evade the pursuit of the hell-born and hell-bound conspiracy of disunion and secession; and when their cries come up here to you for protection, we are told, "No; I am against the entire coercive policy of the Government."

The speech of the Senator from California the other day had the effect in some degree, and seemed to be intended to give the question a party tinge. If I know myself—although, as I avowed before, I am a Democrat, and expect to live and die one--I know no party in this great struggle for the existence of my country. The argument presented by the Senator from California was, that we need not be in such hot pursuit of Mr. Bright, or those Senators who entertain his sentiments, who are still here, because we had been a little dilatory in expelling other traitorous Senators heretofore, and he referred us to the resolution of the Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden], which was introduced at the special session in March last, declaring that certain Senators having withdrawn, and their seats having thereby become vacant, the Secretary should omit their names from the roll of the Senate. I know there seemed to be a kind of timidity, a kind of fear, to make use of the word "expel" at that time; but the fact that we declared the seats vacant, and stopped there, did not preclude us from afterwards passing a vote of censure. The resolution, which was adopted in March, merely stated the fact that Sena

ators had withdrawn, and left their seats vacant. At the next session a resolution was introduced to expel the other Senators from the seceded States who did not attend in the Senate; and my friend [Mr. Latham] moved to strike out that very resolution the word 66 expelled," and insert "vacated;" so that I do not think he ought to be much offended at it. I simply allude to it to show how easy it is for us to forget the surrounding circumstances that influenced our action at the time it took place. We know that a year ago there was a deep and abiding hope that the rebellion would not progress as it has done; that it would cease; and that there might be circumstances which, at one time, would to some extent justify us in allowing a wide margin which, at another period of time, would be wholly unjustifiable.

All this, however, amounts to nothing. We have a case now before us that requires our action, and we should act upon it conscientiously in view of the facts which are presented. Because we neglected to expel traitors before, and omitted to have them arrested, and permitted them to go away freely, and afterwards declared their seats vacant because they had gone, we are not now prevented from expelling a Senator who is not worthy to be in the Senate. I do not say that other traitors may not be punished yet. I trust in God the time will come, and that before long, when these traitors can be overtaken in the aggregate, and we may mete out to them condign punishment, such as their offense deserves. I know who was for arresting them. I know who declared their conduct to be treason. Here in their midst I told them it was treason, and they might make the best of it they could.

Sir, to sum up the argument, I think there is but little in the point presented by the Senator from New Jersey, of there being no proof of the reception of the letter; and I think I have extracted the staple commodity entirely out of the speech of the Senator from Delaware; and so far as the force of the argument, based upon the Senate having at one session expelled certain members, while at the previous session it only vacated their seats, I think the Senator from California answers that himself. As to the polished and ingenious statement of the case made by the Senator from New York [Mr. Harris], I think I have answered that by putting the case upon a different basis from that presented by him, and which seems to control his action.

Mr. President, I have alluded to the talk about compromise. If I know myself, there is no one who desires the preservation of this Government more than I do; and I think I have given as much evidence as mortal man could give of my devotion to the Union. My property has been sacrificed; my wife and children have been

turned out of doors; my sons have been imprisoned; my son-in-law has had to run to the mountains; I have sacrificed a large amount of bonds in trying to give some evidence of my devotion to the Government under which I was raised. I have attempted to show you that on the part of the leaders of this rebellion there was no desire to compromise-compromise was not what they wanted; and now the great issue before the country is the perpetuation or the destruction of free Government. I have shown how the resolution of the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] was defeated, and that Southern men are responsible for that defeat-six sitting in their places and refusing to vote. His proposition was only lost by two votes; and in the end, when the seceders had gone, by only one. Well do I remember, as was described by the Senator from California, the sadness, the gloom, the anguish that played over his venerable face when the result was announced; and I went across the Chamber, and told him that here were men refusing to vote, and that to me was administered a rebuke by one of them for speaking to him on the subject.

Now, the Senator from Delaware tells us if that compromise had been made, all these consequences would have been avoided. It is a mere pretense; it is false. Their object was to overturn the Government. If they could not get the control of this Government, they were willing to divide the country and govern a part of it. Talk not of compromise now. What, sir, compromise with traitors with arms in their hands? Talk about "our Southern brethren" when they lay their swords at your throat and their bayonets at your bosoms? Is this a time to talk about compromise? Let me say, and I regret I have to say it, that there is but one way to compromise this matter, and that is to crush the leaders of this rebellion and put down treason. You have got to subdue them; you have got to conquer them; and nothing but the sacrifice of life and blood will do it. The issue is made. The leaders of rebellion have decreed eternal separation between you and them. Those leaders must be conquered, and a new set of men brought forward who are to vitalize and develop the Union feeling in the South. You must show your courage here as Senators, and impart it to those who are in the field. If you were to compromise they would believe that they could whip you one to five, and you could not live in peace six months, or even three months. Settle the question now; settle it well; settle it finally; crush out the rebellion and punish the traitors. I want to see peace, and I believe that is the shortest way to get it. Blood must be shed, life must be sacrificed, and you may as well begin at first as last. I only regret that the Government has been so tardy in

its operations. I wish the issue had been met sooner. I believe that if we had seen as much in the beginning as we see to-day, this rebellion would have been wound up and peace restored to the land by this time.

But let us go on; let us encourage the Army and the Navy; let us vote the men and the means necessary to vitalize and to bring into requisition the enforcing and coercive power of the Government; let us crush out the rebellion, and anxiously look forward to the day-God grant it may come soon-when that baneful comet of fire and of blood that now hovers over this distracted people may be chased away by the benignant star of peace. Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag, the glorious flag of our country, and nail it below the cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden time, and let us gather around it, and inscribe as our motto, "Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." Let us gather around it, and while it hangs floating beneath the cross, let us exclaim, "Christ first, our country next!” Oh, how gladly rejoiced I should be to see the dove returning to the ark with the fig leaf, indicating that land was found, and that the mighty waters had abated. I trust the time will soon come when we can do as they did in the olden times, when the stars sang together in the morning and all creation proclaimed the glory of God. Then let us do our duty in the Senate and in the councils of the nation, and thereby stimulate our brave officers and soldiers to theirs in the field.

Mr. President, I have occupied the attention of the Senate much longer than I intended. In view of the whole case, without personal unkind feeling towards the Senator from Indiana, I am of opinion that duty to myself, duty to my family, duty to the Constitution, duty to the country, obedience to the public judgment, require me to cast my vote to expel Mr. Bright from the Senate, and when the occasion arrives I shall so record my vote.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S OPINIONS ON THE USE OF ARDENT SPIRITS.

The New York Observer contained the following communication conveying President Johnson's opinions on the use of ardent spirits: SOUTH RALSTON, SARATOGA Co., April 29, 1865.

MESSRS. EDITORS,-In 1833 I visited ex-President Madison, who signed the declaration below. On my return from Virginia, I called