tees. The claim to access to the Territories was
followed by the claim to Congressional protection, and that is now
followed by the hitherto unheard of claim to a Constitutional Amendment
establishing Slavery, not merely in territory now held, but in all
hereafter held from the line of 36 30' to Cape Horn, while the debate
foreshadows in the distance the claim of the right of transit and the
placing of property in Slaves in all respects on the footing of other
property--the topics of future agitation. How long the prohibition of
the importation of Slaves will be exempted from the doctrine of
equality, it needs no prophet to tell.

"In the face of this recital, let the imputation of autocratic and
tyrannical aspirations cease to be cast on the people of the Free
States; let the Southern people dismiss their fears, return to their
friendly confidence in their fellow-citizens of the North, and accept,
as pledges of returning Peace, the salutary amendments of the law and
the Constitution offered as the first fruits of Reconciliation."

But calmness, kindness, and courtesy were alike thrown away in both
Houses upon the implacable Southern leaders. As the last day of that
memorable session, which closed in the failure of all peaceful measures
to restore the Union, slowly dawned--with but a few hours lacking of the
time when Mr. Lincoln would be inaugurated President of the United
States--Mr. Wigfall thought proper, in the United States Senate, to
sneer at him as "an ex-rail-splitter, an ex-grocery keeper, an
ex-flatboat captain, and an ex-Abolition lecturer"--and proceeded
to scold and rant at the North with furious volubility.

"Then, briefly," said he, "a Party has come into power that represents
the antagonism to my own Section of the Country. It represents two
million men who hate us, and who, by their votes for such a man as they
have elected, have committed an overt act of hostility. That they have
done."

"You have won the Presidency," said he, to the Republicans, "and you are
now in the situation of the man who had won the elephant at a raffle.
You do not know what to do with the beast now that you have it; and
one-half of you to-day would give your right arms if you had been
defeated. But you succeeded, and you have to deal with facts. Our
objection to living in this Union, and therefore the difficulty of
reconstructing it, is not your Personal Liberty bills, not the
Territorial question, but that you utte