n, sir, let us see how, as a Republican, I give up any
thing. First, suppose I did: I would give up a great deal to preserve
a great Government; I would give up a great deal to be able to shake
hands with Kentucky and Tennessee as friends for the rest of my life,
as I have in all that has gone before. I would not be ashamed to give
up. I would not at least be giving up to traitorous secession, such as
Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina are guilty of to-day; but I
would be giving up to loyal and affectionate brethren, who implore me
for the love of a common Union to do something to satisfy the doubts
and fears of their people. I can stand that; I will do it.

Again, sir; how much do I give up? I have said, as a Republican, that
Congress has the power to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of
the United States. I believe it to-day. Talking about giving up, there
are a good many other people that give up something here. Gentlemen on
the other side, who have been contending that Congress had no power
whatever to prohibit slavery, acknowledge that they were mistaken; at
any rate they go for it; they do prohibit it by law, by the
Constitution itself. Therefore I am not the only one that gives up.

Again: I believe it is wrong, politically wrong--I am not now
discussing the social and moral question--but I believe it to be
politically very wrong to establish slavery in the name of freedom.
Sir, twelve years ago or more, it was my fortune, perhaps, to wander
in a foreign land beneath the Stars and Stripes of my country. I went
there, as I think, impelled by motives of patriotism, perhaps having
mingled with them not a little desire of adventure, love of change,
and that feverish excitement for which we people of this country are
always and everywhere remarkable; but I believe, if I know myself,
that I did suppose I was doing something to repay the country for much
that she had done for me. Sir, often and again, wandering sometimes
beneath

"Where Orizaba's purpled summit shone,"

sometimes by the dark pestilential river that marks the boundary
between the two countries, often and often have I wondered to myself
whether I was wandering and suffering there to spread slavery over an
unwilling people. I am not sorry to see that now that is rendered
impossible. I am not sorry to see that it is impossible, first, in the
course of events; but if it were not so, I know, if these propositions
shall pass, that the fo