Tennessee. I have been in both States. I know something of their
people. I believe that there, even there, the Union is in danger; and
I believe if we break up here without some attempt to reconcile them
to us, and us to them, many of the predictions of friends and foes as
to the danger will be accomplished. I said, in the earlier part of the
session--I repeat it--I would yield nothing to secession. When the
Representatives from South Carolina and Mississippi and Alabama and
Louisiana came here invoking war, telling us that if we did not yield
to them they would secede, they would confederate with foreign
Governments, they would break this Union, they would hold us as aliens
and strangers and enemies, I believed then, as I believe now, that
that was too dear a price to pay even for Union and peace; but to-day
the case is altered. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, reiterate their
love for the Union. They tell us in unmistakable terms that they
desire to remain; and in every county, nay, in every township of those
States, we have staunch and true and ardent friends who would be
willing to seal their devotion to this Union with their blood. It is
they to whose appeal I would listen. It is from them that I would take
counsel and advice; and when they tell me, "pass these resolutions;
they are resolutions of peace; submit them to your people; listen to
what ours say in reply; if it appears to you at the polls that these
resolutions will produce peace, restore union, create or renew
fraternal, kindly feeling, pass them; let us settle this question, and
be one people," I agree; with all my heart, I will do it.

Now, as I close, let me ask what evil; who will be hurt? Suppose, when
I get home, I find that the Senators from Virginia are on the stump
and they are convincing their people that they are a great deal worse
off; the more they convince Virginia that she is worse off, the more
Pennsylvania and New York will be convinced that they are better off;
and every argument they make against it in Virginia will have a
twofold weight North and West. I could not make half as good a speech
in favor of these propositions of Union, even in Oregon, or
California, or Illinois--I speak of the States I know best--as I
should make if I were to read their objections to these propositions.

But suppose--which I do not think possible--they could succeed, not
only in Virginia (which I do not believe), but in Kentucky and
Tennessee; suppose they