you can give us these
securities--these assurances. We shall then go home and tell our
people that we can still live on together, in security. Will it do to
say that this cannot be done before the inauguration of Mr. LINCOLN?
No! No such answer should go to the people of any of the States--no
such answer will satisfy them. Give us the guarantees _here_. We will
satisfy the people of the whole nation as to the appropriateness of
the time.

There is no truth in the assertions of the gentleman from
Massachusetts. We are willing to go before the old commonwealth of
Massachusetts with all her glorious memories, willing to go before New
York with her half million of voters, confident that both will do us
justice. Why stand between us and the people? At least, let us ask
their judgment upon our propositions.

We come here to confer, to propitiate, not to awaken old troubles and
differences. If there are such existing and which must be settled, why
should we not settle them here? We all wish to bring back the seven
States which have left us; we have a common interest in them. I think
they should not have deserted us; that they should have consulted us
first, and then there would have been no necessity. If they were here,
their presence surely would not have weakened us, nor would their
presence have disturbed the North. We come not here to widen our
separation--to drive them further off. We come to consult together, to
give and receive justice.

I confess I am not much in favor of the second proposition of
amendment. We must regard this as a progressive country. From four
millions of people we have risen to thirty millions! Where will we be
in eighty years more? There will be in that time a great population in
our now unsettled territory--perhaps greater than all our present
population. I thought the amendment unwise, but I consented to it, for
if we would agree we must all yield something.

And now I hope, and hope most earnestly, that without crimination or
recrimination we shall vote in good temper and in good time, so that
our proposals may in due time go before Congress and before the
people.

Do not let us give up to revolution anywhere, in any section of the
Union! Do not you of the North impose upon us the necessity of fleeing
our country! God knows this same necessity may come to you of the
North, and sooner than you expect it. If disruption--if war must come,
one-half your merchants, one-half your mechanics wi