ill give them actual
power instead of mere paper rights. Her stake in this controversy is
too deep. In my judgment she has asked too little; I think fuller and
greater guarantees ought to be required, and that this Convention
should not stand upon ceremony, but in a free and liberal spirit of
concession should yield to us all that we ask. Be assured we shall ask
none but adequate guarantees.

But I am told that Virginia is content with the Crittenden
Resolutions--I say this because I am instructed to say so--that is, if
we are to treat these resolutions, not as the principles of the man
who offers them, but as the principles of the great party just come
into power.

Gentlemen, remember that we of the South are already stripped of
one-half our sister States; our system is dislocated; the Union is
disrupted.

How can you expect now to retain Virginia, to retain the border
States, when they stand in the face of such a great, such an immense
party? How can you expect Virginia to remain in the Union without
these added guarantees?

I told you I would make no appeals to your pity. If we are not
entitled to the guarantees we ask, according to the principles of
sound philosophy, of right and justice, then we do not ask them at
all.

Mr. BOUTWELL:--I have not been at all clear in my own mind as to when,
and to what extent, Massachusetts should raise her voice in this
Convention. She heard the voice of Virginia, expressed through her
resolutions in this crisis of our country's history. Massachusetts
hesitated, not because she was unwilling to respond to the call of
Virginia, but because she thought her honor touched by the manner of
that call and the circumstances attending it. She had taken part in
the election of the sixth of November. She knew the result. It
accorded well with her wishes. She knew that the Government whose
political head for the next four years was then chosen, was based upon
a Constitution which she supposed still had an existence. She saw that
State after State had left that Government--seceded is the word used;
had gone out from this great Confederacy, and were defying the
Constitution and the Union.

Charge after charge has been vaguely made against the North. It is
attempted here to put the North on trial. I have listened with grave
attention to the gentleman from Virginia to-day, but I have heard no
specification of these charges. Massachusetts hesitated I say; she has
her own opinions of the G