Sir, the border slave-States of this Union complain of the Cotton States for the movement which is now in progress.  They say that we have no right to take them out of the Union against their will.  I want to know what right they have to keep us in the Union against our will.  If we want to go out let us go.  If they want to stay let them stay.  They are sovereign and independent States, and have a right to decide these questions for themselves.  For one, I shall not complain when, where, or how they go.  I am satisfied, however, that they will go, when the time comes for them to decide.  But, sir, they complain of us that we make so much noise and confusion on the subject of fugitive slaves, when we are not affected by the vitiated public sentiment of the Northern States.  They say that we do not lose fugitive slaves; but they suffer the burden.  We heard that yesterday.  I know that we do not suffer in this respect; it is not the want of good faith in the Northern people, so far as the reclamation of fugitive slaves is concerned, that is causing the Southern States around the Gulf of Mexico and the Southern Atlantic coast to move in this great revolution now progressing.  Sir, we look infinitely beyond this petty loss of a few negroes.  We know what is coming in this Union.  It is universal emancipation and the turning loose upon society in the Southern States of the mass of corruption which will be made by emancipation.  We intend to avoid it if we can.  These border States can get along without slavery.  Their soil and climate are appropriate to white labor; they can live and nourish without African slavery; but the Cotton States cannot.  We are obliged to have African slavery to cultivate our cotton, our rice, and our sugar fields.  African slavery is essential not only to our prosperity, but to our existence as a people....

  [Sidenote] “Globe,” Dec. 11, 1860, pp. 49-51.

I understand one of the motives which influence the tardy action of these two States [Virginia and Maryland], They are a little afraid of the opening of the African slave trade, and the cheapening of negroes.  Now, sir, while I state here that I am opposed to the opening of the African slave-trade, because our negroes will increase fast enough, God knows, for our interest and protection and security; and while I believe that the great masses of the Southern people are opposed to it, yet I will not stand security that if the Cotton States alone form a confederacy they will not open the African slave-trade; and then what will become of the great monopoly of the negro market which Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina now possess?

The disunion Senators, while indulging in the violent and uncompromising language already quoted, had nevertheless here and there interjected phrases indicating a willingness to come to an understanding and adjustment, but their object in this seemed to be twofold:  for a few days longer it would serve as a partial screen to their more active conspiracy, and in the possible event (which they evidently did not expect) of a complete surrender and abdication of their political victory by the Republican party, it would leave them in the advantageous condition of accepting triumph as a fruit of compromise.