Nor can we find any thing in his history to deter us from seceding from the Union, should it fail to fulfil the objects for which it was instituted, by being permanently and hopelessly converted into the means of oppressing instead of protecting us.  On the contrary, we find much in his example to encourage us, should we be forced to the extremity of deciding between submission and disunion.

There existed then, as well as now, a union—­between the parent country and her colonies.  It was a union that had much to endear it to the people of the colonies.  Under its protecting and superintending care, the colonies were planted and grew up and prospered, through a long course of years, until they be-came populous and wealthy.  Its benefits were not limited to them.  Their extensive agricultural and other productions, gave birth to a flourishing commerce, which richly rewarded the parent country for the trouble and expense of establishing and protecting them.  Washing-ton was born and grew up to manhood under that Union.  He acquired his early distinction in its service, and there is every reason to believe that he was devotedly attached to it.  But his devotion was a national one.  He was attached to it, not as an end, but as a means to an end.  When it failed to fulfil its end, and, instead of affording protection, was converted into the means of oppressing the colonies, he did not hesitate to draw his sword, and head the great movement by which that union was forever severed, and the independence of these States established.  This was the great and crowning glory of his life, which has spread his fame over the whole globe, and will transmit it to the latest posterity.

Nor can the plan proposed by the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, nor that of the administration, save the Union.  I shall pass by, without remark, the plan proposed by the Senator.  I, however, assure the distinguished and able Senator, that, in taking this course, no disrespect whatever is intended to him or to his plan.  I have adopted it because so many Senators of distinguished abilities, who were present when he delivered his speech, and explained his plan, and who were fully capable to do justice to the side they support, have replied to him. * * *

Having now shown what cannot save the Union, I return to the question with which I commenced, How can the Union be saved?  There is but one way by which it can with any certainty; and that is, by a full and final settlement, on the principle of justice, of all the questions at issue between the two sections.  The South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take.  She has no compromise to offer, but the Constitution; and no concession or surrender to make.  She has already surrendered so much that she has little left to surrender.  Such a settlement would go to the root of the evil, and remove all cause of discontent, by satisfying the South that she could remain honorably and safely in the Union, and thereby restore the harmony and fraternal feelings between the sections, which existed anterior to the Missouri agitation.  Nothing else can, with any certainty, finally and forever settle the question at issue, terminate agitation, and save the Union.