In reply to a reference to a somewhat celebrated speech by Senator Benjamin of Louisiana, which we had heard the day previous, he said that we might consider it, as a whole, a very fair statement both of the arguments and the purposes of the South.  Perhaps a speech of more horrible doctrine, upheld by equal argumentative and rhetorical power, has never been heard in the American Senate.  In reply, also, to the one central question concerning the chief grievance of the South, he gave in substance the same answer, uttered perhaps with more logical calmness, that had been given by Mr. Hunter and Mr. Toombs, that it was substantially covered by Mr. Calhoun’s old complaint, the non-recognition of slave-property under the Federal Constitution.  Of course we were as yet too well established in the belief that slavery in the United States is upheld by the Constitution only very remotely and indirectly, under local or municipal law, to desire, even by questions, to draw on any debate.

In reply to a question by the gentleman from Harvard, he spoke of a Central Confederacy as altogether improbable, and thought, if Georgia seceded, as the telegrams for the last fortnight had indicated she would, Maryland would be sure to go.  “I think the commercial and political interests of Maryland,” he remarked, in his calm and simple, but distinct and watchful manner, manifesting, too, at the same time, a natural command of dignified, antithetical sentences, “would be promoted, perhaps can be only preserved, by secession.  Her territory extends on both sides of a great inland water communication, and is at the natural Atlantic outlet, by railway, of the Valley of the West.  Baltimore in the Union is sure to be inferior to Philadelphia and New York:  Baltimore out of the Union is sure to become a great commercial city.  In every way, whether we regard her own people or their usefulness to other States, I think the interests of Maryland would be promoted by secession.”

“But would not Maryland lose many more slaves, as the border member of a foreign confederacy, than she does now in the Union?”

The reply to this question we looked for with the greatest interest, since no foreign nation, such as the North would be, in case of the success of the attempted Confederacy, ever thinks of giving up fugitives, and since the policy of the South upon this point, in case she should succeed, would determine the possibility or impossibility of peace between the two portions of the Continent.

Mr. Davis’s reply was in the following words, uttered in a tone of equal shrewdness, calmness, and decision:—­

“I think, for all Maryland would lose in that way she would be more than repaid by reprisals.  While we are one nation and you steal our property, we have little redress; but when we become two nations, we shall say, Two can play at this game.”

We breathed more freely after so frank an utterance.  The great importance of this reply, coming from the even then proposed political chief of the Confederacy, as indicating the impossibility of peace, even in case of the recognition of the South, so long as it should continue, as it has begun, to make Slavery the chief corner-stone of the State, will be at once perceived.