VI.-SECESSION.

     John Parker Hale On Secession; Moderate Republican Opinion
     —­United States Senate, December 5, 1860.

     Alfred Iverson On Secession; Secessionist Opinion
     —­United States Senate, December 5, 1860.

     Benjamin Wade On Secession, And The State Of The Union; Radical
     Republican Opinion—­United States Senate, December 17, 1860.

     John Jordon Crittenden On The Crittenden Compromise; Border State
     Unionist Opinion—­United States Senate, December 18, 1860.

     Robert Toombs On Secession; Secessionist Opinion
     —­United States Senate, January 7, 1861.

     Samuel Sullivan Cox On Secession; Douglas Democratic Opinion
     —­House Of Representatives, January 14, 1861.

     Jefferson Davis On Withdrawal From The Union; Secessionist Opinion
     —­United States Senate, January 21, 1861.

LIST OF PORTRAITS

     William H. Seward —­ Frontispiece From a photograph.

     Salmon P. Chase —­ From a daguerreotype, engraved by F. E. Jones.

     Edward Everett —­ From a painting by R. M. STAIGG.

     Stephen A. Douglass —­ From a steel engraving.

     Jefferson Davis —­ From a photograph.

INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED VOLUME.

The third volume of the American Eloquence is devoted to the continuation of the slavery controversy and to the progress of the secession movement which culminated in civil war.

To the speeches of the former edition of the volume have been added:  Everett on the Nebraska bill; Benjamin on the Property Doctrine and Slavery in the Territories; Lincoln on the Dred Scott Decision; Wade on Secession and the State of the Union; Crittenden on the Crittenden Compromise; and Jefferson Davis’s notable speech in which he took leave of the United State Senate, in January, 1861.

Judged by its political consequences no piece of legislation in American history is of greater historical importance than the Kansas-Nebraska bill.  By that act the Missouri Compromise was repealed and the final conflict entered upon with the slave power.  In addition to the speeches of Douglas and Chase, representing the best word on the opposing sides of the famous Nebraska controversy, the new volume includes the notable contribution by Edward Everett to the Congressional debates on that subject.  Besides being an orator of high rank and of literary renown, Everett represented a distinct body of political opinion.  As a conservative Whig he voiced the sentiment of the great body of the followers of Webster and Clay who had helped to establish the Compromise of 1850 and who wished to leave that settlement undisturbed.  The student of the Congressional