e Whigs who would have buckled on
their armor and would have won the battle for him.

When the Southern papers began to threaten disunion because LINCOLN
did not suit the South, I was not one who abused or denounced them. I
knew the temper of some of the politicians in the free States. I knew
the action of the South was not impulsive. I knew there was a reason
for it. They said their capital was to be rendered worthless--their
property to be destroyed, and their country made desolate. God forbid
that I should chide them for thinking so!

The Northern mind is in some respects very different from the
Southern. It is not started by slight scratches, but strike the rowel
deep, and there is a purpose in it that nothing can conquer or
restrain. The people of the North will carry that purpose into
execution, with a power as fierce as that of the maddest chivalry of
South Carolina. The rowel _was_ struck deep and the consequences were
not considered.

Subjects have been introduced into this discussion which I should have
been glad to have avoided, which it would have been better every way
to have avoided. The gentleman from Virginia has referred to the JOHN
BROWN invasion. That is one of those subjects. He spoke of the feeling
at the North regarding insurrections. I assure you that the North
regarded the invader in that case as a foe in your homes--uncurbed and
unrestrained--a terrible enemy. I would say to the gentleman from
Virginia, that although too many instances among extreme men may have
been found of attempts to justify that invasion, such was not the
general feeling at the North. Those instances were rare exceptions;
and because they were so few and so exceptional, acquired a degree of
notoriety and received a degree of attention to which they were never
entitled. Such instances as these have always served to prejudice the
South improperly against the North. Men are too much given to forming
opinions of us from the intemperate acts of a few meddling men.

How do we stand at the present moment in this respect. You will find a
few men among us, even now, rash enough to say, "Let these Southern
slaveholders go. The 'nigger' will rise upon them and cut their
throats!" The action of such men, I admit, gives some color and
justification to your charges and prejudices against the whole
Northern people.

I agree with you, gentlemen, that this is now a question of peace or
war. I believe it to be so from my very soul. The