our institutions and government. The imprisoned winds are let loose.
The East, the North, and the stormy South combine to throw the whole
sea into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its
profoundest depths. I do not affect to regard myself, Mr. President,
as holding, or fit to hold, the helm in this combat with the political
elements; but I have a duty to perform, and I mean to perform it with
fidelity, not without a sense of existing dangers, but not without
hope. I have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am
looking out for no fragment upon which to float away from the wreck, if
wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the preservation
of all; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this
struggle, whether the sun and the stars shall appear for many days. I
speak to-day for the preservation of the Union. "Hear me for my
cause." I speak to-day out of a solicitous and anxious heart, for the
restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the
blessings of this Union so rich, and so dear to us all. These are the
topics that I propose to myself to discuss; these are the motives,
and the sole motives, that influence me in the wish to communicate
my opinions to the Senate and the country; and if I can do any
thing, however little, for the promotion of these ends, I shall have
accomplished all that I expect.

* * * We all know, sir, that slavery has existed in the world from time
immemorial. There was slavery in the earliest periods of history, among
the Oriental nations. There was slavery among the Jews; the theocratic
government of that people issued no injunction against it. There was
slavery among the Greeks. * * * At the introduction of Christianity, the
Roman world was full of slaves, and I suppose there is to be found no
injunction against that relation between man and man in the teachings
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or of any of his apostles. * * * Now, sir,
upon the general nature and influence of slavery there exists a wide
difference of opinion between the northern portion of this country and
the southern. It is said on the one side, that, although not the subject
of any injunction or direct prohibition in the New Testament, slavery
is a wrong; that it is founded merely in the right of the strongest; and
that it is an oppression, like unjust wars, like all those conflicts by
which a powerful nation subjects a weaker to its