Now, Sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment, in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more fraternal sentiments between the South and the North.

Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible.  I hear with distress and anguish the word “secession,” especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services.  Secession!  Peaceable secession!  Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle.  The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion!  The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface!  Who is so foolish, I beg everybody’s pardon, as to expect to see any such thing?  Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe.  There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession.  Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility.  Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country,—­is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off?  No, Sir!  No, Sir!  I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, Sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character.

Peaceable secession!  Peaceable secession!  The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate!  A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other.  Why, what would be the result?  Where is the line to be drawn?  What States are to secede?  What is to remain American?  What am I to be?  An American no longer?  Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress?  Heaven forbid!  Where is the flag of the republic to remain?  Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground?  Why, Sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and