any other. It would have had more effect in moderating Southern excitement. Even DAVIS, TOOMBS, and others of the Gulf States, would have accepted it. I have talked with Mr. CRITTENDEN frequently on this point. Not only has he confirmed the public declarations of DOUGLAS and PUGH, and the speech of TOOMBS himself, to this effect, but he said it was so understood in committee. At one time, while the committee was in session, he said: "Mr. TOOMBS, will this compromise, as a remedy for all wrongs and apprehensions, be acceptable to you?" Mr. TOOMBS with some profanity replied, "Not by a good deal; but my State will accept it, and I will follow my State to -." And he did.

I will not open the question whether it was wise then to offer accommodations; it may not be profitable now to ask whether the millions of young men whose bodies are maimed, or whose bones are decaying under the sod of the South, and the heavy load of public debt under which we sweat and toil, have their compensation in black liberty. Nor will I discuss whether the blacks have been bettered by their precipitate freedom, passing, as so many have, from slavery through starvation and suffering to death. There is no comfort in the reflection that the negroes will be exterminated, with the extermination of slavery. The real point is, could not this Union have been made permanent by timely settlement, instead of cemented by fraternal blood and military rule? By an equitable partition of the territory this was possible. We had then 1,200,000 square miles. The CRITTENDEN proposition would have given the North 900,000 of these square miles, and applied the Chicago doctrines to that quantity. It would have left the remaining fourth, substantially, to be carved out as free or slave States, at the option of the people when the States were admitted. This proposition the radicals denounced. Notwithstanding the then President elect was in a minority of a million of the popular vote, they were determined, as Mr. CHASE wrote to Portsmouth, Ohio, from the Peace Convention, to use the power while they had it, and prevent a settlement. has been stated, to rid the Republicans of the odium of not averting the war when that was possible, that the Northern members tendered to the Southern the CRITTENDEN Compromise, which the South rejected. This is untrue. It was tendered by Southern Senators and Northern Democrats to the Republicans. They, in conjunction with some half dozen recusant Southern Senators, rejected it. It was voted upon but once in the House, when it received 80 votes against 113. These eighty votes were exclusively Democrats and Southern Americans, like GILMER, VANCE, and others. Mr. BRIGGS, of New York, was the only one not a Democrat who voted for it. He had been an old Whig and never a Republican. The Republican roll, beginning with ADAMS and ending with WoODRUFF,

It

was a unit against it. Intermingled with them was one Southern extremist, General HINDMAN, who desired no settlement. There were many Southern men who did not vote, believing that unless the Republicans, who were just acceding to power, favored it, its adoption would be a delusion.

The plan adopted by the Republican Senators to defeat it, was by amendment and postponement. On the 14th and 15th of January they cast all their votes against its being taken up; and on the 16th, when it came up, Mr. CLARK, of New Hampshire, moved to strike it out and insert something which he knew would neither be successful nor acceptable. The vote on Clark's amendment was 25 to 23.; every "ay" being a Republican, and every "no," except KENNEDY and CRITTENDEN (Americans), being Democrats. On this occasion, six Southern Senators, including BENJAMIN and WIGFALL, did not vote. They could have defeated Mr. CLARK's motion. In reference to this vote, we have the testimony of President JOHNSON, in a speech on the expulsion of Senator BRIGHT, January 31, 1862, to this effect:

"I sat right behind Mr. BENJAMIN, and I am not sure that my worthy friend [Mr. LATHAM] was not close by when he refused to vote; and I said to him, Mr. BENJAMIN, why do you not vote? Why not save this proposition, and see if we cannot bring the country to it?' He gave me rather an abrupt answer, and said he would control his own actions without consulting me or anybody else. Said I: 'Vote and show yourself an honest man.' As soon as the vote was taken, he and others telegraphed South, We cannot get any compromise."

Doubtless the rest of the six Senators had the same sinister motive for their reticence in voting and readiness in telegraphing. But their recreancy does not excuse the body of the Republicans. Nor do I know that now, since the collapse of the rebellion, they are so anxious to be excused. I only write the facts of history, not to justify or condemn.

When this result was announced, universal gloom prevailed. The people favored this compromise. Petitions by thousands of citizens were showered upon Congress, for its passage. Had it received a majority only, they would have rallied and sustained those who desired peace and Union. One more earnest appeal was made to the Republicans. General CAMERON answered it by moving a reconsideration. His motion came up on the 18th, when he voted against his own motion. It was carried, however, over the votes of the Republicans, although WIGFALL voted with them. When it was again up on the 2d of March, 1861, the Southern States were nearly all gone; even then it was lost by one vote only. But on that occasion all the Democrats were for, and all the Repub

licans against it. The truth is, there was nothing but sneers and scepticism from the Republicans at any settlement. They broke down every proposition. They took the elements of conciliation out of the Peace Convention before it assembled. Senators HARLAN and CHANDLER were especially active in preparing that Convention for a failure. If every Southern man and every Northern Democrat had voted for this proposition, it would have required some nine Republicans for the requisite two-thirds. Where were they? Dreaming with Mr. SEWARD of a sixty-days struggle, or arranging for the division of the patronage of Administration. The only Southern Senators who seemed against any settlement were IVERSON and WIGFALL; that no man will challenge if he will refer to the Globe (1st part, 35th Congress, p. 270) for the testimony of DOUGLAS and PUGH, and to Mr. BIGLER'S Bucks County speech, September 17, 1863. The latter knew it to be true, when he said that

"When the struggle was at its height in Georgia between ROBERT TOOMBS for secession, and A. H. STEPHENS against it, had those men in the Committee of Thirteen, who are now so blameless in their own estimation, given us their votes, or even three of them, STEPHENS would have defeated TOOMBS, and secession would have been prostrated. I heard Mr. TоOMBS say to Mr. DOUGLAS that the result in Georgia was staked on the action of the Committee of Thirteen. If it accepted the CRITTENDEN proposition, STEPHENS would defeat him; if not, he would carry the State out by 40,000 majority. The three votes from the Republican side would have carried it at any time; but Union and peace in the balance against the Chicago platform were sure to be found wanting."

If other testimony were wanting, I would ask a suspension of judgment until those facts, better known to Southern men, transpire. The intercourse about to be reëstablished between the sections will cumulate the proof. It will also bring to the light many facts showing that, while President BUCHANAN was working for the Peace Conference, while Virginia had been gained to our side with her ablest men, there were even then in the Cabinet those who not only encouraged revolt, but foiled by letter and speech the efforts of the Unionists at Washington and Richmond. Those who sought to counteract the schemes of secession, were themselves checkmated by men now in authority. These letters and acts are referred to in the recent speech of General BLAIR. They will be and should be brought into the sunshine, if only to vindicate the true Union men of that dark hour, and to condemn those who have since made so much pretension with so much zealotry, coupled with unexampled cruelty and tyranny.

Whether, therefore, you consult the public record, or go beyond its veil

and consult those who knew the elements at work in the committees and in social life, one leading fact always stands stark and bold before you : that with the aid of a handful of secessionists per se, the whole body of the Republicans were, as President JOHNSON described Senator CLARK, when he defeated the CRITTENDEN resolution by his amendment, "acting out their policy." In the light of subsequent events, that policy was developed; it was the destruction of slavery at the peril of war and disunion; or, as Senator DOUGLAS expressed it, "a disruption of the Union, believing it would draw after it, as an inevitable consequence, civil war, servile insurrections, and finally the utter extermination of slavery in all the Southern States."

SPEECHES.

I.

FINANCES, TARIFFS, ETC.

COMPARISON OF EXPENSES BETWEEN 1858 AND 1864, AND OF THE TAXATION OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1858.

I INSERT the following extracts, not so much for their importance, as to show the astounding disparity of our revenues and expenditures between the years 1858 and 1864. It is curious to see how sixty-five millions startled us in the one year, and how contemptible it seemed six years later! The first speech was delivered on the 12th of June, 1858, and the last on the 2d day of June, 1864:

Gentlemen cannot complain of our withholding protection to ocean commerce. The West had been generous in this regard. If she were more niggardly, she might have had more consideration. She does not 66 calculate so much as our Atlantic States. It is high time she began it. Her own commerce, on river and lake, far exceeds that of the seaboard States. Her commerce is not so much endangered from the hostility of other nations; but it is in equal danger from the elements, from snag and rock, from storm and fire. I voted your ten sloops-not so much because I feared a war as because I wanted the peace kept, and your commerce protected from outrage by search and seizure.

Mr. Chairman, I am one of those who believe that the splendor of a nation does not lie in the wealth and extravagance of its pampered metropolis. The true glory of this nation is to be found elsewhere. Her new States, made up of men of simple habits, without artificial wants-these are the blossoms and fruits of our "secular majesty and magnificent strength." I am opposed to all these extravagant expenditures for the