purpose of the government in prosecuting the war to overthrow
slavery."

--Mr. Fessenden of Maine agreed with Mr. Collamer as to the word
"subjugation." It expressed the idea clearly, and he was "satisfied
with it. The talk about subjugation is mere clap-trap."

--Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin said the use of the word "subjugation"
in the resolution did not imply that it was not "the purpose of
the Government to compel the Disunionists to submit to the Constitution
and the laws."

--Mr. Willey of Virginia said that there was a great sensitiveness
in his section; that there was a fear among many that the object
of the war was subjugation; that "its design was to reduce the Old
Dominion to a province, and to make the people (in the language of
the senator from Vermont) pass under the yoke."

--Mr. Hale of New Hampshire favored the resolution. He said the
most radical abolitionists had "always disclaimed the idea or the
power of interfering with slavery in the States."

--Mr. Clark, the colleague of Mr. Hale, would support the resolution,
and would oppose any amendment offered to it, not because he liked
its phraseology, but because "it was drawn by the senator from
Tennessee, and suited him and the region from which he came."

--Mr. Breckinridge of Kentucky could not vote for the resolution,
because he did not "agree with the statement of facts contained in
it." He would not go into the antecedents of the unhappy difficulties.
He did not consider that "the rupture in the harbor of Charleston,
the firing on the _Star of the West_, and the collision at Fort
Sumter, justified those proceedings on the part of the President
which have made one blaze of war from the Atlantic to the western
borders of the Republic." He did not believe that "the President
had a right to take that step which produced the war, and to call
(under Presidential authority alone) the largest army into the
field ever assembled on the American continent, and the largest
fleet ever collected in American harbors." He believed that "the
responsibility for the war is to be charged, first, to the majority
in the two Houses last winter in rejecting amendments to the
Constitution; and, secondly, to the President, for calling out an
armed force."

--Mr. Sherman of Ohio replied with great spirit to Mr. Breckinridge.
He said Ohio and Kentucky stood side by side, and had always been
friends; but if the senator who had just spoken, spoke the voice
of hi