stantial accord.

In a speech made in the Senate, March 15, 1861, Mr. Douglas had reduced
the situation to the following three alternative points:

"1. THE RESTORATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE UNION by such Amendments to
the Constitution as will insure the domestic tranquillity, safety, and
equality of all the States, and thus restore peace, unity, and
fraternity, to the whole Country.

"2. A PEACEFUL DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION by recognizing the Independence
of such States as refuse to remain in the Union without such
Constitutional Amendments, and the establishment of a liberal system of
commercial and social intercourse with them by treaties of commerce and
amity.

"3. WAR, with a view to the subjugation and military occupation of those
States which have Seceded or may Secede from the Union."

As a thorough Union man, he could never have agreed to a "Peaceful
Dissolution of the Union." On the other hand he was equally averse to
War, because he held that "War is Disunion. War is final, eternal
Separation." Hence, all his energies and talents were given to carrying
out his first-stated line of policy, and to persuading the Seceders to
accept what in that line was offered to them by the dominant party.

His speech in the Senate, March 25, 1861, was a remarkable effort in
that respect. Mr. Breckinridge had previously spoken, and had declared
that: "Whatever settlement may be made of other questions, this must be
settled upon terms that will give them [the Southern States] either a
right, in common with others, to emigrate into all the territory, or
will secure to them their rights on a principle of equitable division."

Mr. Douglas replied: "Now, under the laws as they stand, in every
Territory of the United States, without any exception, a Southern man
can go with his Slave-property on equal terms with all other property.
* * * Every man, either from the North or South, may go into the
Territories with his property on terms of exact equality, subject to the
local law; and Slave-property stands on an equal footing with all other
kinds of property in the Territories of the United States. It now
stands on an equal footing in all the Territories for the first time.

"I have shown you that, up to 1859, little more than a year ago, it was
prohibited in part of the Territories. It is not prohibited anywhere
now. For the first time, under Republican rule, the Southern States
have secured that equality of rights in