on, that she would not agree to abide by the decision of
the people upon these propositions," then hope went out from my heart!
I have not since had any expectation that much good would come from
our deliberations.

I have refrained from entering into the merits or demerits of slavery.
I have refrained, so far as I could, from repeating what has been
better said by others than I could say it. The point which I wish to
press upon the Conference is this: Speaking for one State, we frankly
tell you that she will not enter upon a compromise which is not fair
and mutual, which does not bind both parties.

But, sir, although I have thus expressed myself, I do not at all
despair of the Republic. I do not believe that a dissolution or
destruction of this Government is to take place. Its origin and its
existence have been characterized by too many signal interpositions of
Providential favor. We cannot look into the future. I have no desire
to do so. If we all conscientiously perform our prescribed duties, if
we are faithful to ourselves, to our people and our Constitution, HE
who rules the nations will take care of the rest. It may be that the
clouds which now cover our horizon will be swept away, carrying with
them all these subjects of difficulty and danger, which alone have
troubled the quiet and the prosperity of the American Union.

Mr. LOGAN:--Instead of dreaming, like Mr. FIELD, of news from the seat
of war, and of marching armies, I have thought of a country through
which armies _have_ marched, leaving in their track the desolation of
a desert. I have thought of harvests trampled down--of towns and
villages once the seat of happiness and prosperity, reduced to heaps
of smoking ruins--of battle-fields red with blood which has been shed
by those who ought to have been brothers--of families broken up, or
reduced to poverty; of widowed wives, of orphan children, and all the
other misfortunes which are inseparably connected with war. This is
the picture which presents itself to my mind every day and every hour.
It is a picture which we are doomed soon to witness in our own
country, unless we place a restraint upon our passions, forget our
selfish interests, and do something to save our country.

We feel these things deeply in the Border States. The people of these
States bear the most intimate relations to each other. They are
closely connected in business. They associate in their recreations and
their pleasures. The memb