tion of
this Union_. God grant it may not happen in our time or that of
our children; but, sir, it must come sooner or later, and when it
does come, border war follows it, as certain as the night follows
the day. An enemy upon your frontier offering arms and asylum to
this population, tampering with it in your bosom, when your
citizens shall march to repel the invader, their families
butchered and their homes desolated in the rear, the spear will
fall from the warrior's grasp; his heart may be of steel, but it
must quail. Suppose an invasion in part with _black troops_,
speaking the same language, of the same nation, burning with
enthusiasm for the liberation of their race; if they are not
crushed the moment they put foot upon your soil, they roll
forward, an hourly swelling mass; your energies are paralyzed,
your power is gone; the morasses of the lowlands, the fastnesses
of the mountains, cannot save your wives and children from
destruction. Sir, we cannot war with these disadvantages; _peace,
ignoble, abject peace,--peace upon any conditions that an enemy
may offer, must be accepted_. Are we, then, prepared to barter
the liberty of our children for slaves for them?... Sir, it is a
practice, and an increasing practice in parts of Virginia to
_rear slaves for market_. How can an honorable mind, a patriot
and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient Dominion,
rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her
sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand managerie,
where men are to be reared for market like oxen for the shambles.
Is this better, is it not worse, than the _Slave-Trade_, that
trade which enlisted the labor of the _good and the wise of every
creed and every clime to abolish it_?"

Mr. P. A. Bolling said:--

"Mr. Speaker, it is vain for gentlemen to deny the fact, the
feelings of society are fast becoming adversed to slavery. The
moral causes which produce that feeling are on the march, and
will on _until the groans of slavery are heard no more in this
else happy country_. Look over this world's wide page--see the
rapid progress of liberal feelings--see the shackles falling from
nations who have long writhed under the galling yoke of slavery.
Liberty is going over the whole earth--hand-in-hand with