is to be done by the Government of the United States while you
are trying this experiment? The seceded States are organizing a
Government with all its departments. They are levying taxes, raising
military forces, and engaging in commerce with foreign nations, in
plain violation of the provisions of the Constitution. If this
condition of affairs lasts six months longer, France and England will
recognize theirs as a Government _de facto_. Do you suppose we will
submit to this, that we can submit to it?

I speak only for myself. I undertake to commit no one but myself; but
I here assert, that an administration which fails to assert by force
its authority over the whole country will be a disgrace to the nation.
There is no middle ground; we must keep this country unbroken, or we
give it up to ruin!

We are told that one State has an hundred thousand men ready for the
field, and that if we do not assent to these propositions she will
fight us. If I believed this to be true, I would not consent to treat
on any terms.

From the ports of these seceded States have sailed all the
fillibustering expeditions which have heretofore disgraced this land.
There, have those enterprises been conceived and fitted out. Their new
government will enter upon a new career of conquest unless prevented.
Even if these propositions of amendment are received and submitted to
the people, I see nothing but war in the future, unless those States
are quickly brought back to their allegiance.

I do not propose to use harsh language. I will not stigmatize this
Convention as a political body, or assert that this is a movement
toward a revolution counter to a political revolution just
accomplished by the elections. Nor will I speak of personal liberty
bills, or of northern State legislation, about which so much complaint
has been made. If I went into those questions, much might be said on
both sides. We might ask you whether you had not thrown stones at us?

Did not the Governor of Louisiana, in his message to the Legislature
of his State, recommend special legislation against the supporters of
Mr. LINCOLN? Is there not on the statute books of Maryland a law which
prohibits a "black Republican" from holding certain offices in that
State?

Mr. JOHNSON:--There was a police bill before the Legislature of
Maryland, in which some provision of that kind was inserted by one who
wished to defeat it. Its friends were compelled to accept the
provision in orde