The responsibility of this great measure passes from the hands of the committee, and from my hands.  They know, and I know, that it is an awful and tremendous responsibility.  I hope that you will meet it with a just conception and a true appreciation of its magnitude, and the magnitude of the consequences that may ensue from your decision one way or, the other.  The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents, are concord and increased discord; a servile civil war, originating in its causes on the lower Rio Grande, and terminating possibly in its consequences on the upper Rio Grande in the Santa Fe country, or the restoration of harmony and fraternal kindness.  I believe from the bottom of my soul, that the measure is the reunion of this Union.  I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land.  I believe that it will be attended with all these beneficent effects.  And now let us discard all resentment, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of place, all hankerings after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power.  Let us forget popular fears, from whatever quarter they may spring.  Let us go to the limpid fountain of unadulterated patriotism, and, performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our glorious Union—­that Union without which we shall be torn into hostile fragments, and sooner or later become the victims of military despotism, or foreign domination.

Mr. President, what is an individual man?  An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass—­a mere speck upon the surface of the immense universe; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and never-ending eternity; a drop of water in the great deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds; a grain of sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung.  Shall a being so small, so petty, so fleeting, so evanescent, oppose itself to the onward march of a great nation, which is to subsist for ages and ages to come; oppose itself to that long line of posterity which, issuing from our loins, will endure during the existence of the world?  Forbid it, God.  Let us look to our country and our cause, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disinterested patriots, and save our country from all impending dangers.  What if, in the march of this nation to greatness and power, we should be buried beneath the wheels that propel it onward!  What are we—­what is any man—­worth who is not ready and willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country when it is necessary? * * *