that General Sherman was entirely
justified in denouncing Davis and his associates, before the Civil
War commenced, as conspirators and traitors. I closed my remarks
as follows:

"I am sorry this debate has sprung up. I was in hope, with the
Senator from Connecticut, who introduced the resolution, that these
papers would be published, and nothing more would be said about
them here, but let the people determine the issue and let this
matter go down in history. But, sir, whenever, in my presence, in
a public assemblage, Jefferson Davis shall be treated as a patriot,
I must enter my solemn protest. Whenever the motives and causes
of the war, the beginning and end of which I have seen, are brought
into question, I must stand, as I have always stood, upon the firm
conviction that it was a causeless rebellion, made with bad motives,
and that all men who led in that movement were traitors to their
country."

Senator Lamar answered my speech with some heat, and closed as
follows:

"One other thing. We, of the south, have surrendered upon all the
questions which divided the two sides in that controversy. We have
given up the right of the people to secede from the Union; we have
given up the right of each state to judge for itself of the
infractions of the constitution and the mode of redress; we have
given up the right to control our own domestic institutions. We
fought for all these, and we lost in that controversy; but no man
shall, in my presence, call Jefferson Davis a traitor, without my
responding with a stern and emphatic denial."

Senator Vest closed the debate in a few remarks, and the subject-
matter was displaced by the regular order. While I regretted this
debate, I believed that the speeches made by the Republican Senators
properly defined the Rebellion as, first, a conspiracy; second,
treason; third, a rebellion subdued by force, finally followed by
the most generous treatment of those engaged in the Rebellion that
is found in the history of mankind.

During this session there was a very full debate upon the subject
of regulating interstate commerce, in which I participated. The
contest was between what was known as the Reagan bill, which passed
the House of Representatives, and the Senate bill. I expressed
the opinion that the Senate bill was better than the Reagan bill,
and, although much popular favor had been enlisted from time to
time in favor of the Reagan bill, because it grappled with and