March 28, 1864

I assumed from this, in connection with the other extracts which I read and which were published in my speech, that the honorable Senator was not m favor of paying for the slaves of loyal masters; but while they would be received in our service, he was for returning them back again to slavery and paying the masters their wages, because lie .said so in direct terms.

the death op slavery is the life op the nation.

Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, "our country," said that illustrious statesman, John Q oincy Adams," be an its existence by the umvtr al emancipation of man from the thralldom of man." Amidst the darkling storms of revolution it proclaimed as its living faith the sublime creed of human equality. From out the rolling clouds of battle the new Republic, as it took its position in the family of mo nations, proclaimed in the ear of all humanity that the poor, the humble, the sons of toil, who hands wer< hardened by honest labor, whose limbs wvr" chilled bv the blasts of winter, whose cheeks wt re scorched by the sons of summer, wen- the peers, the equals, d before the law, of kings and princes and nobles, of the mob t favored of the sons of men. When its splendid edifice of constitutional government rose in grandeur and beauty upon the vision of mankind the champions of popular rights in the Old World, and the people, in whose hearts still lingered, the dimly itmemhered acc< nts of hb liberty, as they turned their gaze hithei ward, hailed and welcomed the advent of the new born lit public. In after years, amid the throes of rewshuiont, they turned ever to the nsmg Republic beyond the s as for the inspiration of faith and hope in the final triumph of s ruu lin humanity. And the republics of the New World, as they emerged from colonial dependence, through the fire and blood of evolutions, to national life, turned towai d uruled America as the great exoniphtr whose steady lights would illume their daikftied pathway to uati< nel uiis y and power and liberty regulao d by law.

We i f Ann rica have been accustomed, Mr. Pr< siden 1, to e iiitempla o wuii somi tlima of rat tfi. d and patriotic pi oh ?he sir n th of our di m- octc11U' niiutHions and th*- sia ubty of oor repub- !i'-an Govs rnnienl. As we have wuiUu d the frar< riicd yti if- the bloody and d<";t.j <do^ w o s of le ions that, m ih i r puobcsof the ]N"< w World, ii v followed eu h oiltM hkoim f]. t** j 1 shadows of Mimiii- r <,!ord.>, us we ha\< v. aich- d, too, the rev dutionai y tbio K ood die fdloe^ and rising :h, o e ond d vnistjo-: j f tin* Old W nld we h tv ofu n fni,,<■!: nai v t ml rood y to our o v n C ii idoe d .o;>':.« f. -A, ?i)at dn Ropubl c w i nn i it. sii ejii tl by the vi fa! 'iud dn on o o in'^ i'si 1 .st: 10 pi o- ple, it Was 1 v. r M t v eh; 11 '.sien and olt om of v iiih 11. ti e 'i ti,e\i';oro; it},. t n 1 e^l manhood. Cs iZ u^ Wlf li bean -1m;< ve 0 a th' obb lllg heai t upon the ^landrnr and be ou of tins splendid• dihoi of coiM tufjoi d ,V( l j inuit in A merica, w c< an. to b■!: *v-. th u it w os as nnpenshab e as 11." ivo no y or lis es i' eofi uiidws.

Hut to.' b e ih- Unit- d Stao s5 the land of o !e i d <y s 1 ctve o tie .:-oo Civil v ar .11va 1 o• K1 rv ijtso s b oeu y harTh■ •..(O! i-: Oi dnu v. ill. -i o Ultic Of u l i boi f U oxnsii n- e, for the pr s iV on of itfc' ns- na ed life, a niht n rt o, lijon vii■* lh.< 1.. p rc h in the annals N of lie- world.

\V|•:'!- s of ije C Hi!)." I i as ti 'O, J. "d vsi 5 'Mi- r s,.! noon t n sfarfh d <.«r oi the nat- >n,') or origin u« imon d the people to asn the)•' sp MisH ioEa s of (nisoiiirnaied pow< r, and f by the red hand of war shield the hfe and protect the liberties of the nation, menaced by this foul revolt against law and order, liberty and civilization. That patriotism which garners the hallowed memories of the past, which comprehends the vital issues of the present, which is instinct with the aspirations of the future that looms up grand and great, bade wealth open its coffers to meet the needs of the imperiled nation, and the citizen bare his bosom to the blows aimed at the nation s life; it bade the mother offer upon the altar of her endangered country her fair haired boy in the bloom and pride of youth; it bade the wife send forth the husband of her love and hope to the harvest of death; and manhood

11 offer youth and beauty

On the wasting sin me

Of a stern and lofty duty,"

Mindful of a country to serve and to save, hundreds of thousands of the young men of loyal America have left their blooming fields, their forests and mines, theirringing woikshopsand mills, their ships that" help to wind the silken chain of commerce round the world," their homes hallowed by associations and memories, their parents, brothers, sisters, wives, children, friends, the dear and the loved, to follow the old flag of united America to the battle field there to bear soldiers' burdens*, do soldiers' duties, and fill, if it might be, soldiers' graves. We saw them as they thronged at the summons of duty around the unrolled banners of the Republic*, we heard the glad music of their march; we gazed upon the glittering steel and upon the gleaming banners as they fluttered away from our straining sight; and with throbbing heart, quickened pulse, quiveiing lip, and tearful eye, we commended them to the guardian cme of that Being who notes even the aparrow s fall.

Through nearly three years of alternate successes and disasters, of weary toils, wasting 'matches, and decimating battles, they have borne bravely the banners of our unity and power. Many, who went from us m thepnde ot lusty life, now «l M p in their bloody fditouds in the crowded and shallow trenches of the fields made immortal hy their constancy and valor. Many, wasted by disease or falling by the hand of war, rest beneath !on >ly mound* on luuh fieldtf along the lines o) matches, around the encampments and ih'; hospitals, or m the graveyards beneath their own noi (hern skies. Many, hi broken by disease, or maimed by .shot or shell, be in the hospitals, or linger tuiiuii^ us, reminding us of the appalling auenlieea of this revolt ot imrbansni. "Worn out and wasted by the stoi ms of war, regiments that marched away with ei crowded ranks are standing airrnly front, to the urm d foes of the Republic wherever they menace the authority of the nation, ready to follow then torn and faded fhtgs into hetih baitle lichis The wasting battalions that opened the Mississippi, so that its waters, from their source** to the Gulf, reflect back the stars of our national flag; the war smitten regiments of the army of the Potomac, that on the immortal field of Gettysburg rolled back the advancing legions of the rebellion, broke jiH| power, and blasted its hopes forever, must yet be renewed by the ticfch vigor and blood of the peo-: plo. The needs of the imp eriled eounu y still de-; mand thatthe decimated ranks of our veteran heroes that now bear upon their bayonets the unity and existence of the nation should bo crowded with the manhood of the Republic.

Why is it, Mr. President, that this nvgmikcnt continental Republic isnow rent, torn dissevered by civil war? Why is it that the land resounds with the measured tread of a million of armed] men? Why is ii that our bright waters are stained and our green fields reddened with fraternal blood? Why is st that the young men of America, m the pride and bloom of early manhood, are summoned! from homes, from the mothers who bore them,! from the wives and sisters who love them, to the! fields of bloody strife-' Why is it that millions of the men and the women of Christian America are sorrowing with aching heaitaaud teaituleyes. for the absent, the loved, and the lost? Why is it that the heart of loyal America throbs heavily! oppressed with anxiety and gloom for the future of the country?

Sir, this gigantic crime against the peace, the unity, and the life ox1 the nation is to make eternal the hateful dominion of man over the souls and' bodies of his fellow men These sacrifices of! property, of health, and of life, these appalling sorrows and agonies now upon us, are all the merciless inflictions of slavery in its gigantic effort to found itsempircand make its hateful power forever dominant in Christian America. Yes, slavery is the conspirator that conceived and organized this mighty conspiracy against theunity and existence of the Republic. Slavery is the traitor that madly plunged the nation into thefire and blood and darkness of civil war. Slavery is the criminal whose hands are dripping with the blood of our murdered sons. Yes, sir, slavery is the conspirator, the traitor, the criminal that is reddening the sods of Christian America with the* blood of fathers and husbands, sons and brothers, and bathing them with the bitter tears of mothers, wives, and sisters.

Sir slavery—bold proud, domineering, with hate in its heart, scorn in its eye, defiance in its mien—has pronounced against the existence of republican institutions in America, against the supremacy of the Government, the unity And life of the nation. Slavery, hating the cherished institutions that tend to secure the rights and enlarge the privileges of mankind; despising the toiling masses as mudsills and white slaves; defying the Government, its Constitution and its laws, has openly pronounced itself the mortal and unappeasable enemy of the Republic. Slavery stands to day the only clearly pronounced foe our country hason the globe. Therefore every word spoken, every line written, every act performed that keeps the breath ofhfe in slavery for amoment, is against the existence of democratic institutions, against the dignity of the toiling millions, against the liberty, the peace, the honor, the renown, and the life of the nation. In the lights of to day that flash upon us from camp and battle field the loyal eye, heart, and brain of America sees and feels and realizes that the death of slavery is the life of the nation! The loyal voice of patriotism pronounces, m clear accents, that American slavery must die that the American Republic may live!

Mr. President, the imperishable records of the Republic will bear to future ages the amplest evidence that slavery has ever been hostile to the spirit of her free institutions. Planted in America by the commercial and colonial policy of the British empire, fostered by British legislation, protected by British kings and queens, lords, judges, and prelates, slavery from the day if entered the harbor of Jamestown to the dawn of the Revolution, was an alien m America, an enemy to law and order, liberty and pi ogress. The pages of our colonial history heai to us the amplest testimony that our fathers saw its malign influence, and protested against the slave tradeand the slaveextending policy of the British Government. The bright pages of our history, upon which are recorded the heroic deeds of the men who accepted the bloody issues of civil war in defense of their periled liberties, and whose names are forever associated with national independence and constitutional Government, will transmit to all coming genoiatioos the glorious fact that the founders of the Republic believed slavei y to be. an evil moral, social, and political evil— that would pav away under the influence ofthe ideas arrd principles they had proclaimed.

Hui slavery, ever lawless aggressive seductive, glided into the illustrious assembly that proclaimed America independent, and there bade the men who were hurling defiance at the most powerful empire of the world erase from their immortal declaration the words Jefferson had traced, branding the Afi ican slave trade as an" execrable coin me i if,"" a piratical warfare," u a cruel war •against human nature itself." In the Continental Congress, when the exhausted and bleeding country needed soldiers to fight her battles, slavery raised its imperious voice, asit does in these days of peril, against arming; black and permitting them to light and bleed for the Republic. Yes, when the heel of British power was on Carolina and Georgia, and the youthful and accomplished Laurens sought to summon bondmen to the defense of the smuggling country, slavery was" the triple headed monster that shed the baleful influence of avarice, prejudice, and pusillanimity in all our assemblies." Slavery came into the Convention of illustrious statesmen met to frame a Constitution or United A menca, and by the voice of the Pmckneys defiantly declared that" South: Carolina could never receive the Constitution if it prohibits the slave trade;" and that assembly of immortal statesmen who had met unawed the power of the British empire were forced to permit the African slave trade to continue for twenty years longer, unchecked by national legislation, and to incorporate into the new Constitution a provision under color of which slave masters could hunt their fleeing bondmen over fields once moistened with revolutionary blood.

Sir, under the new Constitution, framed to secure the blessings of liberty, slavery strode into the chambers of legislation, the halls of justice, the mansions of the Executive and with menaces in the one hand and bribes ii) the other, it awed the timid and seduced the weak. Marching on from conquest to conquest, crushing where it could not awe, seduce, or corrupt, slavery saw institutions of learning, benevolence, and religion, political organizations and public men, ay, and the people too, bend before it and acknowledge its iron rule. Seizing on the needed acquisitions of Louisiana and of Florida to extend its boundaries, consolidate its power, and enlarge its sway, slavery crossed the Mississippi and there established its barbarous dominion against the too feeble resistance of a not yet conquered people. Controlling absolutely the policy ofthe South, swaying the policy of the nation, impressing itself upon the legislation, the sent ments and opinions of the North, slavery move*! on to assured dominion. Under its aggressive advances emancipation societies, organized by the men of the revolutionary era in the first bright ardor of secured liberty r one by one disappeared; presses and churches forgot to remember those m bonds as bound with* them and recreant sons disowned the sentiments, opinions, and principles of a glorious ancestry. And slavery, in the pride of power, proclaimed itself in the Halls of Congress, through its apostles and champions, its Calhouns and McDuffics, "a positive good," the only stable basis of republican institutions," "the corner-stone of the republican edifice."

But amid this general defection from the faith of the statesmen and heroes of the revolutionary age, a fearleso and faithful few clung to the teachings of Washington and Franklin, Jefferson and Jay, and their illustrious compeers, Unawed by its power, unscduced by its blandishments, they opposed to the aggressions of slavery to slavery itself stern and unyielding resistance. They proclaimed emancipation to be the duty of the master and the right of the slave. To advance the cause of emancipation and to improve the condition of free people of color they avowed their readiness to use 44 all means sanctioned by law, humanity, and religion." Slavery marked and branded these heroic men as political and social outlaws; compelling them, in the words of John G. Whitti H to hold property, liberty, and life itself at the mercy of lawless mobs." Slavery cast Hs malign influence over all the land, maddening the brain and firing the heart of a deluded people ngain t the fearless few who opposed its aggressions and pitied its hapless victims. Passion— blind, unreasoning passion— ruled the hour. Cities were lighted by the sacked and burning dwellings of a proscribed and hated race. Churches, institutions of learning, and presses, were often forcibly closed or destroyed at the bidding of slavery by the lawless violence of "gentlemen of property and standing."

Slaves were held in the District of Columbia, and slave pens and the slave trade polluted and dishonored the national capital under the color of laws for which the people of America were responsible in the forum of nations and before the throne of Almighty God, Christian men and women oppressed with the sin and shame, humbly petitioned Congress to lehevo them from the tsin and shame by making the national capital free. Slavery bade its tools—its Pnaons, its Pmckneys, and its Athertons—violate the constitutional ri ht of petition, and willing majorities hastened to register its decree. Slavery arraigned before the bar of the House of Representatives John Q uincy Adams, the illustrious champion of the right of petition and the freedom of speech, arid ite vpelled the fearless and faithful Giddings for the offense of daring to construe the Constitution of his country and interpret the law of nations. Slavery stepped upon the decks of Massachusetts ships m the harbor of Charleston, seized colored seamen, citizens of the Commonwealth, and consigned them to prisons, to be fined, to be lashed, and to be sold into perpetual bondnge. •Massachusetts, mindful of the rightsofall her citizens, sent Samuel Hoar, one of her most honored sons, to test the constitutional rights of her imprisoned citizens in the judicial tribunals. Slavery cast him violently from South Carolina, and enacted that whoever should attempt to defend the rights of colored seamen in the courts of that Commonwealth should suffer the ignominy of imprisonment.

Slavery cast its devouring eye upon the broad, rich fields of Texas, and sent its pioneers to wrench them from the feeble grasp of the Mexican republic. By the pen of Calhoun, its great champion, slavery in the name of the nation demanded, in the face of Europe, the annexation of thatslavcholdingiepublic, to defeat ultimate emancipation there, and to tighten the fetters of the bondmen here. In obedience to the humiliating demand of slavery, Texas was forced into the Union by an unconstitutionaljoint resolution, and the nation plunged into a war with Mexico. When peace returned, it brought with itlialf a million square miles of free territory. The North, the humiliated North, timidly asked that this territory, made forever free by Mexican law, should be forever consecrated to freedom by national legislation*, but slavery demanded the right to extend itself over these free Territories, and threatened the dismembcrmentoftheUnion if that claim was denied. Californiaframed a constitution and asked admission as a free Commonwealth, but slavery resisted her admission with menaces of disunion and civil war. To appease slavery, a pliant Congress organized Utah and New Mexico, so that slave masters could range over them with their fettered bond men, gave fitly thousand square miles of the free soil of New Mexico to slaveholding Texas, and with them 10 000 000 and enacted the unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian fugitive slave act, that has dishonored and humiliated the nation before earth and heaven. Slavery thi ii in its hour of complete triumph, insolently demanded that the two great political parties, who had shrunk appalled before its menaces of disunion and civil war, who had betrayed the cause of freedom, humanity, and civilization m America, should now declare these its acts" finalities," and bid the people forever cease" agnation."

Having forced those parties to pronounce its legislation of 18o0 a4< finality in principle and substance," slavery strode like an imperial despot into these Chambers and demanded the repeal of the Missouri prohibition of the 6th of March, 1820, and a faithless Congress and a subservient Executive hastened to open half a million square miles, in the central regions of the Republic, consecrated forever to freedom and free labor, to the footsteps ofthe bondman. Northern freemen went to that magnificent Territory to found there the institutions offieedom. Sin very made its brutal tools invade Kansas, seize the ballot box elect a territorial Legislature, enact inhuman and unchristian laws, ba ihe ibe virgin soil of thatbeautiful region with the blood of civil war, frame a slave constitution by fraud, and force it upon a free people. Faithfully did the propagandists of slavery labor in Kansas and in Congress, and in the Executive Departments of the Government, to execute its decrees. They invaded the Territory, they usurped the government, they enacted slave statutes, they robbed and burned, they murdered brave men contending for their lawful rights. In Congress, the champions of slavery were hardly less brutal than in the wilds of distant Kansas. My colleague [Mr. Sumner] portrayed the crimes of slavery against Kansas, and he was smitten down upon the floor of the Senate by "a brutal, murderous, and cowardly assault." The propagandists of slavery framed a slave constitution, sustained it by fraud and violence, and the weak and wicked Administration of James Buchanan, in obedience to the imperative demands of slavery, attempted to force it by corruption through Congress upon an unwilling people, but for the first time slavery was baffled, defeated, dishonored. Freemen triumphed; Kansas came into the Union radiant with liberty.

Sir, slavery saw its waning power; itsaw, too, that its criminal victories of the past were but barren and fruitless triumphs that turned to ashes on the lip. it then wrung from the Supreme Court the Died Scott decision, by which it hoped to control the vast Territories of the Republic, even against the will of the actual settlers. It bade the Legislature of New Mexico enact a slave code, and also a code for the enslavement of white laboring men. It sent Walker and his filibusters to Central America to win slave territory. It sighed for Cuba, which it could not clutch. It mobbed, flogged, expelled, and sometimes murdered Christian men and women in the South for no offense against law, humanity, or religion. It maddened the southern brain and fired the southern heart, it turned large masses of the people of the South against the institutions and the people of the North, against the Constitution and the old flag of their country. It came into the Thirty Sixth Congress threatening to dismember this Union of constellated Commonwealths if the people of America should elect a President opposed to its admission into the Territories. It rushed into the Democratic national convention, and, as the first step toward disunion, severed the Democratic party. It then went into the presidential election, seeking defeat, yet threatening th<? vengeance of disunion and civil war if defeated. Regardless, however, of its treasonable menaces, the people went to the ballot-boxes and made Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. Slavery instantly raised the banner of treason, dragged South Carolina with headlong haste into open rebellion, and forced other States swiftly to follow her example. Slavery organized conspiracies in the Cabinet, conspiracies in Congress, conspiracies in the States, conspiracies in the Army, conspiracies in the Navy, conspiracies every where for the overthrow of the Government and the disruption of the Republic. At the bidding of slavery the oft vaunted southern confederacy, the dream of slaveholding traitors for thirty years, rose upon the recognized basis that bondage was the normal condition of all men of the African race. Slavery bade those of its champions who were in the service of the nation leave Cabinets and Senates, military posts and naval stations, for the service of the rebellion; and at the bidding of slavery, Floyd, its truest exponent, left the Cabinet when there seemed nothing more for him to steal; and Davis and Toombs, Shde l and Mason, Hunter and Benjamin, and their guilty compeers m treason, in solemn mockery left the Chambers of Congress when the plots, conspiracies, treacheries, and peijmies imposed upon them by the great architect of ruin seemed accomplished.

Sir, not content with seizing forts, arsenals, arms, and public property everywhere within the rebel States, slavery bade the fiownim: batteries menacing Sumter fire upon the Star of the West sailing under the protecting folds of the national flag, and freighted with bread for starving soldiers; and when that act of armed treason railed to arouse to action an insulted but patient and forbearing couuti y, slavery bade those rebel batteries open their fire on Sum tor and its few starving but heroic defenders; and those consuming batteries, in obedience to its command, hurled shot and shell upon that devoted fortress till the glorious old flag of united America came down, and the rebel banner waved over the smoking ruins. And thus slavery, after an aggressive warfare of two generations upon the vital and animatingspiritof republican institutions, upon the cherished and hallowed sentiments of a free and Christian people, upon the enduring interests and lasting fame of the nation, organizes a treasonable conspiracy, raises the standard of revolt, and plunges the nation into a bloody contest for the preservation of its menaced life. To the full comprehension of every man in America whose heart, brain, and soul havenot been poisoned by its seductive arts and malign influence slavery is the cause, the whole cause, of this foul, wicked, and bloody rebellion. Every loyal American whose reason is unclouded sees that slavery is the prolific mother of all these nameless woes—these sumless agonies of civil war. He sees that every loyal soldier upon the cot of sickness, of wounds, and of death, was laid there by slavery; thatevery wounded and maimed soldier hobbling along our streets was wounded and maimed bv slavery; that the lowly grave of every loyal soldier fallen in defense of the country was dug by slavery; that mourning wives] and sorrowing children were made widows and; orphans by slavery. Before the tribunal of mankind of the present and of coming ages, before! the bar of the ever living God, the loyal heart of America holds slavery responsible for every dollar sacrificed, for every drop of blood shed, for every pang of toil, of agony, and of death, for every tear wrung from suffering or affection, in this godless rebellion now upon For these treasonable deeds, for these crime s against freedom, humanity, and the life of the nation, slavery should be doomed by the loyal people of America to a swift, utter, and ignominious annihilation.

But slavery, Mr. President, should not only be doomed to an ignominious death, to perish Utterly from the face of the country, for the treasonable crime of levying war unon the Government, but the safety if not the existence of the nation demands its extermination. The experience of nearly three years of civil war has demonstrated to the full comprehension of every loyal and intelligent man in America that slavery is the motive power the heart and soul and brain of the rebellion. Slavery fills the hearts of the southern people with its sweltered venom, with its dark and malignant hatred of the free States, and with its bitter scorn and contempt for the toiling masses, for the policy that cares for their rights and interests, and for the institutions that' improve and elevate them. Slavery instinctively feels that the achieved institutions of twenty million free people, their free speech, free presses, their political, moral, and religious convictions, their permanent interests, all forbid that its policy should continue to control the national Government. Slavery realizes, too, that every enduring element ofthe Constitution, every permanent principle of national policy and interest, is and must continue to be hostile to the ascendency of its principles and its policy. Slavery, hating, scorning, despising the toilmgmillions of the Republic, conscious that it cannot longer retain the permanent control of the national Government, consolidates the public opinion of the South against the people and Government, and fires southern ambition and interest with the idea of a splendid slaveholding empire, sitting on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, and extending its imperial sway over Cuba, Mexico, and Central America.

Sir, slavery not only fires the southern heart, brain, and soul, and nerves the southern arnvin council hall and on the battle field with its malignant hate and bitter scorn of Yankee laborers and Yankee institutions', its lofty contempt for the principles and policy of freedom, its haughty defiance of the authority of the national Government, and its gorgeous visions of the future power of the southern confederacy, commanding the commerce of the world by its tropical productions and its millions of slaves, but it uses the bones and sinewsofmore than threemillionsof the bondmen of rebel masters in supportoftherebclhon. These slaves of rebel masters sow and reap, plant and gather the harvests that support rebel masters and feed rebel armies. By their ceaseless, unpaid toil, these millions of bondmen enable their traitorous masters and the poor white men of the rebel States to leave their fields and shopR and rush to the battle field to shed the blood of our loyal countrymen, of our neighbors and friends and brothers and sons. These bondmen throw up fortifications, dig: trenches and rifle pits make roads and bridges, fell forests and build barracks, drive teams, and relieve in many ways the toil of rebel soldiers, thus making more efficient rebel armies. It is as clear as the track of the sun across the heavens that these slaves of rebel masters are as efficient instruments for the overthrow of the authority of the Federal Government, for the dismemberment of the Republic, and the establishment of the rebel empire, as are rebel soldiers in camp or on battle fieid The spade and hoe of the slaves of rebels support the rifle and bayonet of rebel soldiers. Slavery is not only the motivepower, the heart and soul of the rebellion, but it is the arm also. Therefore the preservation of the life of the country, and the lives of our brave soldiers battling for national existence, us well as the just punishment of conspiracy and treason, demand that the loyal men of the Republic shall swear by Him who hveth evermore that slavery in America shall die.

Not only the punishment ofits appalling crimes, not only the lives of our countrymen and the proseivdtion of the life of the nation, demand the utter extermination of slavery, but the future renose of the country also demands it. Slavery has poisoned the very fountains of existence in the South; it has entered into the blood and bone and« marrow and (he soul of our southern country-! men. It has filled their bosoms with bitter,[ fierce, unreasoning hate toward their countrymen! of the North, and the institutions the Government, and the flag of their country. So long as slavery shall live, it will infuse Us deadly and fatal poison into the southern brain, heart, and soul. Then let slavery die a felon s death, and sink into a traitor s grave, amid the curses of a loyal nation. Then, when slavery shall sleep the sleep that knows ntJ waking, m the grave of dishonor arid infamy, reason will assume its mild sway again over our now maddened, poisoned, and intoxicated countrymen of the South. Take the maddening* cup from the trembling hand of the drunkard, who, in his wild delirium, hates the mother who bore him, the wife of his bosom, and the children of his love, and that drunkard will bo a man again, and love, cherish, and protect the mother, wife, and children he would smite down in his madm ss. Smite down slavery, strike the fetters from the limbs of its hapless victims, and slave masters will become loyal again, ready to pour out their blood for the Government they now hateand the country they nowassail. They will recur to the recollections of the early days of the Republic with gratitude and patriotic pride, they will look forward with undoubting confidence in the future of their country. Their hearts will again throb with kindly regard for their countrymen of the North, and they will hail once more the beneficent institutions of a united country, The old under which the men of the North and of the South fought and bled, side by side, on land and wave, will again bo an object of affection and pride; its stars, now obscured to their vision, will gleam again with brighter luster and more radiant beauty.

Sir, would we, then, punish the foul conspirator, the lawless traitor, the giant criminal, thatorganized this conspiracy, inaugurated this civil war, and murdered our tuns; would we preserve our country one and indivisible; would we secure for our countrymen, our institutions, our country, and our Government future repose and affection, let us email out and utterly exterminate slavery in America. Surely the needs of the country, the pressing exigencies of passmgevents teach this as our first and highest duty. Purely the far seeing intelligence of loyal patriotism is rising to the Inil comprehension of this duty to an endangered country, to the present and future age*. Surely the Congress of the United Stare* and the Chief Magistrate of the Republic should come to the realization of this transcendent duty. When slavery, in the spring of Idlil, stained the Inml with the blood of civil war, the President, by proclamation, summoned the Thirty Seventh Congress to meet on the 4th of July, and at noon on that day Congress assembled, "to enter upon the mighty task imposed upon it by the national perils. Vacant chairs in both Chambers vividly impressed upon the mind the gigantic proportions ot the rebellion, and the fearful magnitude oi the impending sti ng e and inspired the soul with something of awe in the presence of events h transcendent. Few of the chiefs of slavery were pi esent to dominate, seduce, or corrupt. The clear headed practical, dominating Davis: the erratic, reckless, blustering Toombs; the accomplished, timid, cautious Hunter; the eloquent, polished, insincere Benjamin; the pretentious, pompo us Mason; the bold, adroit, unscrupulous "Slide!!; the dark, eoid, hitter Clay; the genial, couih ous fanatical Brown, ami their compeers }?i eon amacy sedition, and treason, plotted their foul, dark, and infernal work no longer nt the Capitol ot the nation. iiut BrecKmridge, the chosen chief of incipient treason, not less guilty than his absent compeers u\ crime, was present to cavil and to criticise, denounce the actsirf loyal patriotism, uie lie taiuk away to strike at the heart of the count) y that had trusted and honored him. The chair of Douglas was vacant; lifc lmig op >o- uents gaoi l p uify upon it, for they gratefully renu iii ucd that the closing hours of his crowded hie wcr" V ij to patriotism, to adjuring his devoted ibil wcis to ciing t( the Union, and crush the iebeiuoii with th non hand of war. Andrew Johnson, baffling the assassins of the Union ni Tennessee, was present to cheer and to animate by bold and patriotic counsels.

Sir, seldom in the history of nations have statesmen been called to the perforrnanceofhigherduties than were the men who were summoned by the Administration they had placed in power to legislate for a land remand torn by discord and stained by fraternal blood. They entered with brave hearts and resolved spirits upon the great, work imposed upon them with unsurpassed devotion and tireless industry. The Administration asked for four hundred thousand men and 400 000 000 and Congress promptly gave itfive hundred thousand men and 500 000 000 The Army and Navy were increased, and luwa enacted for the organization and government of the military and naval forces, mid for supplying the Government with the needed means to carry on the war, whose gigantic proportions startled and amazed the world.

Statesmen of -the majority in both Houses of Congress clearly saw that slavery was not only the cause and motive power of the rebellion, but that the ceaseless toil of its millions of enforced victims enabled treason to fill the ranks, feed and pay its armies. They would quickly strike at the vital* of the insurrection by confiscating the property of leading rebels, and freeing the slaves of all rebel masters; but prudence demanded that they should yield at least for a time, to the counsels of the cautious and the fears of the timid. Slaves were used by rebel armies to erect fortifications, dig trenches and rifle pits but it wasnot until after the defeat of Bull Run that a majority could be obtained in Congress to enact that such slaves should be declared free. The timid and the cautious feared that Union men in the border States would be alarmed by the emancipation of the slaves used to construct works, behind which rebel legions mi« lu hurl shot and shell into the bared bosoms of our devoted sons, battling for their country under the old flag. But this measure, denounced by the traitor Ureekmndge as the first of a series of acts loosing all bonds,"

became the law of the land.

Sir, as the rebellion developed its gigantic proportions, as the rebel confederacy manifested its great military power, the loyal masses, whose instincts outrun the dedm tions of statesmen, did not fad to see that slavery was the vital and impelling force of the rebellion, and that it should be crippled by theexerci se ol all the constitutional and war powers of the Government, no they hailed and welcomed the proclamation of John C. Fremont.

Congress assembled in December, 1 01 instructed by the events of the war, ami oh assured by the sentimi nts of the people. Measures of transcendent magnitude pressed for consideration, and to the consideration of these measures Congress addressed itself with an industry never surpassed —-no, never equaled by any Congress m the history of the Republic. Important measures concerning the Army and Navy were passed, a great system of internal taxation was devised, and the revenue, laws revised. The Pacific railroad bill was enacted, and that, beneficent measure, the homestead bill, was made the law of the land. Other measures for the defence, protection, and 'Metesfy of the country, hardly less important, were matured and enacted; but the crow nini' glory of the Thirty Seventh Congress was its comprehensive, far reaching legislation against slavery, the declared enemy of the country, and the common enemy of the race. For two generations slavery had polluted the national capital, under the sanction of the nation. On the day Congress reassembled, three tlrcmsand men, women, and children, fettered by the people of this Republic, as they held up their manacled hands, could see the stars and stripes wn e over the Capitol. Congress, by decisive majorities m both Houses struck the shackles from th'* limbs of these three thousand bondmen, and made the capital of the nation free forevcrmore. Slavery, stung to madness, mmteied malediction painted the miseries of freedom, drew vivid pictures of the horrors of San Domingo, and predicted anarchy and strife; but the enfranchised bondmen assembled in the churches of the living God, and offered up the thanks of a grateful people for the priceless boon of personal freedom.

The fifteen thousand persons of African descent m the District of Columbia were subjected to inhuman and oppressive laws and ordinances. Congress enacted that they should be tried for the same offenses in the same manner and be subjected to the same punishment as were white persons. The free colored people of the District v, were compelled to pay taxes for the support of schools from which their children were excluded, and Congress authorized them to establish schools, and to pay their own money for the support of their own schools.

Slavery demanded the right to enter and range over the Territories unchecked bjr national legislation orloca 1 law. It bade the legislators of New Mexico enact a barbarous slave code, and also a degrading code for the oppression of white laboring men; but those legislators hastened to repeal those dishonoring codes, when the nation put its heel upon the neck of the slave power in the autumn of 1860. On every rood of the vast territory of the United States, the Thirty Seventh Congress has written, Slavery shall be prohibited forever and forever, The irrepealable decide has gone forth that evermore those prairies slid forests and mines, with their illimitable resources to be developed for mankind, are consecrated to freedom and free institutions for all, chains and fetters for none.

Slavery, unmindful of the commercial interests of the country, although the commercial interests of the country have been too often mindful of the interests of slavery, persistently refused for two generations to acknowledge the independence of Hayti, but the Thirty Seventh Congress by large majorities- acknowledged the independence of Hayti and Liberia. For many years the African slave traders carried on their inhuman and accursed traffic under the protecting folds of the American flag, but slavery saw neither inhumanity nor dishonor in this degrading prostitution of the emblem of our national sovereignty. The Administration early negotiated a treaty with the British Government for the more effectual suppression of that loathsome traffic, by the mutual recognition of the rightof visitation and of search on the coasts of Africa, and the Senate of the United States, no longer controlled by the oligarchs, ratified that treaty, and the Thirty Seventh Congress enacted the needed legislation to carry it into full effect, in spite of all persuasive influences and noisy clamors the President of the United States permitted the violated laws to be enforced upon a slave pirate in the city of New York, by which he died a felon s death and left a felon s name.

OHicers in the military service often dishonored that service by surrendering persons claimed as fugitive slaves, who sought protection and service under the Hag of the country. Sometimes persons claimed as fugitive slaves were given up to rebel claimants and inhumanly tortured. Ourcncampmenta were sometimes searched by traitor masters, weaponed for violence, and humane officers were sometimes arrested and punished for refusing to stain their souls with the crime of rendering to rebel masters escaped slaves, who were ever ready to serve their country with a noble fidelity fidelity now acknowledged by William ft. Seward in these aptand ever to be remembered words:

EVI RY VHFRE TIIK AMERICAN GENTRA?.. RECEIVES HIS MOST CMai t AND RLLI 4 C I E IN FORM K l ION FROM THE NR~ ouo, u io hails his coming as the huilhi er oj freedom."

The Thirty Seventh Congress enacted by decisive majorities a new article of war for the government of all our armies, that persons claimed as fugitive slaves shall not be surrendered by persons engaged in the military or naval service on pain of being dismissed from that service.

Sir, the Thirty Seventh Congress declared in the confiscation act that no slave escaping into any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia, should be delivered up or deprived of his liberty in any way except for some offense against the laws, unless the person claiming said fugitive shall make oath that he has not been in arms against the United nl States, nor given aid and comfort to the rebellion in any way; and that no persons in the mihtuy or naval service shall assume to decide upon the validity of any claim to fugitive slaves, nor surrender any such persons to the claimant, on pam of b nig dismissed from the s ivice. P By the ninth section of that act, the Thirty Seventh Congress provided that all slave? of persons in rebellion against the Government of the United States escaping and taking refuge within the lines of the Army, or captured from such persons or deserted by them, should be deemed captures of war and should be "forever free. By Uus sweeping act the Tiini y SevehtL Congress decrt ed that freedom should follow the advancing flag of the Republic wherever our armies should match m the rebel States.

Ti >e President was authorized by the ThirtySeventh Congress to receive into the military service of the United States the slaves of rebel masters, and tlie slaves so accepted for military purposes, their mothers, their wives, and their children if held in servitude by rebel masters were made lrte fore vet. This series of acts of the Thii ty Sf venth Congress" loosing in the words of John C. Hrcekinridgc, "all bonds 3 though resisted, misrepresented, and maligned will be sanctioned by the approval of the present and of coming ages, by that patriotism that embraces the permanent and lasting interests of United America, by that humanity that cares for the poor and lowly, by that religion that recognizes in the humblest of the children of men a being made in the image of God for whom Christ mounted the cross. The act giving a gratuity of §1 000 000 to the loyal slave masters of the Dssmu of Columbia, and the vote pledging the nation to aid emancipation in the loyal States, will stand forever as evidences of the moderation, the justice, and the self sacnficing spirit of tin statesmen who carried through Congress this series of humane, Christian, and patriotic measures.

Sir, on the 2 2d of September, 18G3, the President of the United States ealkd the attention of all persons engaged in the mil tary and tuual service to these humane, wise, and comprehensive piovi sions of the hws of Congress, and lie'• enjoined and ordered" them to li ob sene obey and enforce thorn," and those tith de -ds to fiewh m were thereafter to b<> enforced in the imd of the lybeihon by the glittering bayonets of a million Cut the President of the United States, on the 22d of September, lcG3, startled ami thrilled the nations by that immortal proclamation tint an nouaeed 'Mhaion the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord Itili J aii persons held as slaves within any State, or in any designated part of a State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United State?, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, orany of the m, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom." On the 1st day of January, 1863, the Presidentof the United States 4f invoking the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Ahi i hi y Godredecrmd this solemn pledge of tin- of September, s lueh t recording angel had ie<; -aored. Go it at d ?y tie- ti o versib e decree a^ sent h i th to ma* a r ami slave, to earth and heaven. By this ox ici e or the war powers of the Government a'! [.ciron* held as slaves i i any State or part thereof in i helh n were declare'! to be" then. f hence toi waul, en a forever free, a fid the Executive,! lie mihtai y and naval authorities were pledged to lecogmzs and maintain the freedom of Mich persons. This, complete, absolute, and final decree of emancipation m rebel States, born of military necessity, pioekum< d by the Commander in Chief of the An iy and Nai y, is the settled and irrepealable law of the Republic, to be observed, obeyed, and enforced, by Army aid Navy, and by the inever ibie voice of the nation.

The enforcement of this proclamation v dl give peace and onh r freedom and unity, to a now distracted count: y; the failure to ei foree uv n bring with it discord mid anarchy, a d s ver d Union and a broken nation. The issuer aic cieaiJyand J simctl drawn by this proclamation betv vtm law and oid rand freedom and aunited nation on the one hand, and anarchy a od discord end slavery and a shi e ed and dishonored Union on the other. Freedom, humanity, ana religion, the unoinng voice of patriotism, pronounces a!! attempts to defeat the enforcement of this proclamation decreeing the freedom or oil slaves in lehul States as unpatriotic, as criminal, ay? as tK a vnab e to", as weie tht. etli iM defeat the fm d e mibiish ment of the Declaration oi the 4th w July, 177 1 The men who sought to defeat the consummation of that" proclamation of the universal emancipation of man from ihethralldom of man" sank into obscure and dishonored graves under the blasting and withering tin s of outraged patriotism. The fires of patriotism bum as brightly now as in earlier days, and the men u who," in the words of a gallant soldier," emerge from their gloom as the shadows fall upon their country," the men who prate of the constitutional rights of slavery, treason, and crime, should remember the fate of tine "skulking neutrals" and the sticklers for 44 rightful authority" in 1776cre joining in giving aid and comfort to the traitor chiefs. Patriotism instinctively indorses this proclamation of emancipation; treason m every fiber of its being sti tves with bloody hands to throttle it. In the fiery and bloody struggles through which this proclamation has passed, struggles that have stirred this nation to its profoundest dt pths patriotism will mark and brand the men who care more for the safety of the slaves <>f rebel masters than for the blood of brave men lighting the battles of the endangered country, more for the perpetuity of slavery in rebelborrthan for the unity and the perpetuity of the Republic.

Sir, eighteen e\ entful months have passed since the polh y of emancipation in the rebel States was announced to the doubting nations. Met on its announcement by the vehement resistance of mighty interests, assailed by passion and prejudice, misunderstood by timidity and ignorance, that transcendent measure, sanctioned alike by liberty, humanity, and patriotism, has fought its way u l it has won for our country doubting friends, conquered the country s enemies m the Old World, and laid low the vaunted power of its assuiamts in theNtw. it has lifted up the bloody civil war m America from what European statesmen were wont to characterize as" a mere struggle for power on the one hand, and independence on the other," to a holy war for liberty, humanity, and civilization against the rebel slavemongers, fighting to perpetuate in Christian America a vulgar, brutal, and loathsome barbarism. T?his proclamation of emancipation, sent forth by the President m the name of the menaced nation, by elevating the struggle m v inch we are engaged, is fast winning for our country the active sympathies of humanity the wide world over.

Smee emancipation m the rebel States was proclaimed as the seif led policy of the R' public, the huge, horrid, and ghastly system of human slavery in republican and Christian America, that in the nnde and arrogance of its power mocked and jeered at the claims of toiling millions, scoffed at and derided the higher law, and defied the authority of the country, is hastening to its inglorious end, to the grave of dishonor that knows no r< smrection. Its worshipers, who were swift to come to us support before they were called, and to run on its errands before they were sent, are blinking aw? y from it m this its hour of bitter hnnh iauon or hastening to announce, m accents of anguish, th it the idol of their worship is dtthioned, hilien, dead fore errnore

Sir, si m ry in the loyal States is hastening to its fail. Delaware sends to the House of Representatives an immediate emancipationist as the exponent of her sentiments and opinions tint ere long v< ill be embodied ir. adecu e of liberty. Maryland has summoned a convention to smite thofetteis from the limbs of her bor dmen and to place her in the- list of free Commonwealths. West Virginia, carved out of the ancient dominion, begins iier career by a deed of gradual emancipation. Missouri proclaims a system of gradual emancipation, which her interests and advancing public .sentiment alike demand shall be transformed into i system of mmedia e and unconditional abolition. Kentucky alone, among the loyal States, b urs the banners of slavery proudly and defiantly Spiucd by the tender mercy of the President of th i United Suues, slave y there \auntiJ g y proclaims its power, and assumes to control tlie destinies of that Commonwealth. But the m- inexorable loi ic of events, the advancingsentiments of her people, the efforts of many of her noblest sons, will rescue the dark and bloody ground" ftum the domination of slavemasters and th>- opprobrium of continuing to be what she now is, the s ave oen of loyal America, into which slavemongers of s run slusesfiom tiieStat s where slavery m piiishme;, nnd where men im de free by the President s proclamation in rebel States are often arrested and imp isrmed in shameless defiance of Federal authority. Tennessee, excepted by the President in his proclamation of emancipation, is, under the lead of Andrew Johnson, ripening for• immediate and unconditional emancipation. Arkansas accepts the proclamation -and prohibit# slavery forever in her organic law. Louisiana elects a State administration pledged by her Governor in his inaugural address to (he u universal and immediate extinction of slavery as a public and private blessing," to base the regenerated" State on a devotion to the Union, on a love of liberty to all men, and on a spirit of justice and humanity "—to put her constitution in harmony with the proclamation of freedom. The government of Virginia recognized by the Congress of the United States, by an amendment to her organic law decrees immediate emancipation, and Federal bayonets will enforce that decree in that ancient Common wealth where repose the ashes of Washington and Henry, Jefferson and Madison, Mason and Marshall, and other champions of emancipation in her better days. Congress, not by the consent of the loyal States orloyal masters, but by the will and power of the nation, makes free at once and forever every slave who enlists into the military service. The Attorney General pronounces the black man, who was said to have no rights that white men were bound to respect, a citizen of the United States. The Secretary of State gives the black man the passport of citizenship, which m every quarter of the globe is evidence that the bearer is a citizen of the North American Republic. The Secretary of War commissions a black man to be a surgeon in the military service of the United States, and the President organizes a hundred and twenty regiments, of eighty thousand black men, who are bearing upon their flashing bayonets the unity of the Republic, and the destinies of their race.

Sir, slavery in America, though upheld by interests, customs, and usages, trenched about by inhuman statutes, and hedged around by passionate, vehement, and unreasoning prejudices, is fast crumbling to atoms beneath the blowsrained upon it by a liberty loving and patriotic people. But let anti-slavery men listen to no truce, to no compromise, to no cry for mercy. Let them now be as inflexible as justice, as inexorable as destiny. Whenever and wherever a blow can be dealt at the vitals of the retreating fiend, let that blow be sti uck in the name of the bleeding nation, and of the "dumb, toiling millions bound and sold." A truce wuh slavery is a defeat for the nation. A compromise with slavery is a present of disaster and dishonor and a future of anarchy and blood. Mercy to slavery is a crime against liberty. The death of slavery is the annihilation of the rebellion, the unity of the Republic, the life of the nation, the harmonious development of republican institutions, the repose, culture, and renown of the people.

Though riven and shattered by the storms of the stupendous civil war it inaugurated, slavery still battles for existence with the reckless audacity of that desperation which sees with clear vision its impending doom. Though waning in power, slavery still letains in its grasp vast masses of men in the loyal States, ready to do its biddingjand presents in its defense a rampart of three hundred thousand gleaming bayonets. Those masses must be won over to the gathering hosts of freedom, or utterly routed and that rampart of glittering steel must go down before the advancing legions of the Republic, ere slavery sinks into the grave that knows no resurrection.

Sir, let not the anti-slavery men of this age forget that the founders of the Republic believed slavery would whhorand die beneath theblended rays of the Chi: >!lan and democratic institutions th .y founded. L t them not forget that slavery was then a, ttvivheant, pleading for forbearance and mercy, for a little t me to itself from the gaze of that humanity it outraged and dishonored. Let them icmem her how it eluded and deceived our fathers, and from a feeble mendicant became the master of the Governm :nt and the people, until it consummated Us crimes by the inauguration of the revolution to blot the North American Republic from 'he imister ioli of nations. Letthtm remember that masses of our countrymen have been, and still are, its plian t instruments,© vers wift to execute its decrees; at its bidding tra mple upon the sacred right of petition; to arraign John Ciuincy Adams before the bar of the representatives of the people; to expel Joshua R Giddings to annex slaveholding Texas for the extension and perpetuation of its power; to open the free territory won from Mexico to its blistering footsteps to enact an inhuman fugitive slave law, to repeal the Missouri prohibition of slavery north and west of 36° 30'; to invade the territory of Kansas, seize the ballotboxes, elect a Legislature, enact black codes, murder free State men for no offense, frame a Lecomptfc n constitution, and attempt to force it upon an unwilling people by executive power and corruption-, to promulgate the Dred Scott decision; to dcmdtfli the incorporation into the Constitution of the recognition and protection of slavery south of 36° 30'; the right to carry slaves in transit into, through, and over free States; the denial of the right to make the national capital free without the consent of slaveholding Virginia—the denial of the right of citizenship and of suffrage to colored men in the free States, and a pledge to expend the treasures of the nation in colonizing free colored men at the will ofslavemasters. Let them r nem ber, too, that hundreds of thousands of our countrymen in loyal States, since slavery raised the banners of insurrection, and sent death, wounds, sickness and sorrow into the homes of the people, have resisted, and still continue to resist, any measure for the defense of the nation, if that measure tended to impair the vital and animating poweisof slavery. They resisted the act making free the slaves used by rebels for military purposes; the confiscation of rebel property and the freedom of the slaves of rebel masters; the abolition of slavery in the capital of the nation, and the consociation of the Territories to free labor and free laboring men; the proclamation of emancipation; the enlistment of colored men to fight the battles of the country; the freedom of the black soldier, who is fighting, bleeding dying for the country, and the freedom of his wife and children. And, now, when war has for nearly three years menaced the life of the nation, bathed the land in blood, and filled two hundred thousand graves with our slain sons, these menoi the loyal States still cling to the failing fortunes of the relentless and unappeasable onejny of their counti y and its democratic institutions. They nioui n and will not be comforted, over the expiring system, in the border slave States, and in tones of indignationoj of anguish they utter lamentations over the proclamation of emancipation and the policy that is bringing rebel States back again, radiant with freedom.

The past with its crowded memories of the development and power, con upturns and crimes of slavery, the present with Us lessons to be lead by every eye, all demand that the anti-slavery men of united A inenca should vi e (he liist, the last, and every occasion to trample down and stamp out every vestige of slavery. Let them swear it, wutt: it upon the lids of then Bibles, engiave it upon their door posts and proclaim it in the face of earth and of heaven, that the barbarous, treasonable, man dixhonoi ing, and God defying system of human slavery in America shall perish utterly hum the face of the Republic; that its supporters, apologists, and sympathizers shall never more guide the councils or wear the honors of the emancipated, disinthralled, and regenerated nation.

Engraving on every rood of the vast territo ics ol the Republic, on the magnificent foiests and prairies, valleys and mountains in the central regions of the continent in letters of light, Slavery shall be forever prohibited," obliterating slavery and annulling the slave code m the capital of the nation, decreeing under the war powers more than Unee million bondmen m the rebel States thenceforward and forever free," proclaiming the emancipation of the slave c by the fiat of the nation the instant he vuites his name on the muster roll of the defend*, rs of the Republic, has riven and shivered the slave system into broken and dismembered fragments; and that huge and ghastly system now lies prostrate in the convulsive throes of dissolution. National lug islatjon, executive actio injudicial decision may still further wound and weaken, degrade and humiliate the now impotent system that once in the pride of power gave law to lepubliean America, The hideous fugitive slave act still blackens the statutes of this Christian land, reminding us of the degradation and humiliation of our country when the heel of that master was on its neck. Justice and humanity, self respect and decency, all demand that the lingering infamy shall be obliterated from the page it blackens. The decree of emancipation, too, should be enforced and sanctioned by measures of legislation; the colored soldiers whrt are fighting our battles with unsurpassed devotion and heroic courage should be entitled by law to receive the pay and emoluments of other soldiers of the Republic and their wives and children should be made free by act of Congress, and placed under the protective care of the country for which their husbands and fathers are periling liberty and life on battle fields in spite of that merciless ban of the rebel leaders which denies to them the rights and usages of civilized warfare.

But, sir, the crowning act in this series of acts for the restriction and extinction of slavery in America is this proposed amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the existence of slavery forevcrmore in the Republic of the United States. If this amendment shall be incorporated by the will of the nation into the Constitution of the United States, it will obliterate the last lingering vestiges of the slave system; its chattelizing, degrading, and bloody codes; its dark, malignant, barbarizing spirit; all it was and is, everything connected with it or pertaining to it, from the face of the nation it has scarred with moral desolation, fiorn the bosom of the country it has reddened with the blood and strewn with the graves of patriotism. The incorporation of this amendment into the organic law of the nation will make impossible forovermoie the reappeanngofthediscarded slave system, and the returning of the despotism of the slavemasters' domination.

Then, sir, when this amendment to the Constitution shall be consummated the shackle will fall from the limbs ol the hapless bondman, and the lash drop from the weary hand of the taskmaster. Then the sharp cry of the agonizing hearts of severed families will cease to vex the weary ear of the nation and to pierce the ear of ilim whose judgments are now avenging the wrongs of centuries. Then the Have mart, pen, and auctionblock, with their clanking fetters for human limbs, will disappear from the land they have brutalized, and the school house will rise to enlighten the darkened intellect of a race imbruted by long years of enforced ignorance. Then the sacred lights of human nature, the hallowed family rein lions of husband and wife, pai ent and child, will ho protected by the guardian spirit of that law which makes sacred alike -the proud homes and lowly cabins of freedom. Then the scarred earth, blighted by the sweat and tears of bondage, will bloom again under the quickening culture of rewarded toil. Then the wronged victim of the slave system, the poor white man, the saud hiller the clay eater of the wasted fields of Carolina, impoverished, debased, dishonored by the system that makes toil a badge of disgrace, and the instruction of the biam and soul of man a cnmc, will lift his abashed forehead to the skies and begin to run the rnee of improvement, progress, and elevation. Then the nation, "regenerated and disenthralled by the genius of universal emancipation," will run the career of development, power, and glory, quickened, animated, and guided by the son it of the Christian democracy that 41 pulls not the highest down, but lifts the lowest up."

Our counti y is now floating on the stormy waves of civil war. Darkness lowers and tempests threaten. The waves are rising and foamingand breaking around us and over us with ingulfing fury. But amid the thick gloom, the star of duty casts its clear radiance over the dark and troubled waters, making luminous our pathway. Our duty is as plain to the clear vision of intelligent patriotism as though it were written in letters of light on the bending arches of the skies, That duty is, with evei y conception of the biam, every throb of the heart, every aspiration of the soul, by thought, by word, and by deed to feel, to think, to speak, to act so as to obliterate the last vestiges of slavery in America, subjugate rebel slavemasters to the authority of the nation, hold up the weary arm of oui struggling Government, crowd with heroic manhood the ranks of our armies that an1 bearing the destinies of the country on the points of then glutei mg bayonets, and thus forever blast the last hope of the rebel chiefs. Then the waning star of the rebellion will go down in eternal night, and the star of peace ascend the heavens, casting its mild radianceover fields now darkened by the storms of this fratricidal war. Then, when "the war drums throb no longer and the battle Dags are furled," our absent sons, with the laurels of victory on their brows, will come back to gladden our households and fill the vacant chairs around our hearthstones. Then the star of United America, now obscured, will reappear, radiant with splendor on the forehead of the skies, to illume the pathway and gladden the heart of struggling humanity.

Mr. DAVIS obtained the floor.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I presume the Senator from Kentucky does not desire to go on to night and if not I will move that the Senate adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.