If I do, you must check me. Again I say, I thank Virginia for
her invitation. Why should we not confer together? Six or seven
States--no matter which--are gone. If nothing is done, eight or nine
others will follow, and other divisions will come as a matter of
necessity. Rhode Island--patriotic Rhode Island--will not go with New
England in this Conference. She will not separate from her southern
sisters. Connecticut, I think, will not stay, and New York, I believe,
will stand with the South.

How is it, or why is it, that we should do nothing? Why should we
break up and go home? Have not all the States asked us to come here
and do this work? Why did their legislatures take the trouble to send
us here? All this circumlocution might have better been done at home.

Will a Convention answer the purpose, when another Confederacy has
been formed in our very midst? It would be two years at least before
any thing could be accomplished by a Convention, and then it would be
too late. We all know how delegates to such a Convention are elected.
We all know how much time would be consumed before the Convention
could meet. I say we cannot bear the delay. I ask the gentleman (Mr.
BALDWIN) of Connecticut whether he thinks it would be safe to delay.

Mr. BALDWIN:--I think it is always safe to follow the Constitution. I
think we can follow the example of Kentucky.

Mr. CLAY:--I would suggest to the gentleman from Connecticut that the
representatives of Kentucky are here to speak for her.

Mr. BRONSON:--Kentucky has sent delegates to this Convention since she
passed the resolutions to which the gentleman refers. I think we
cannot stand upon the ground taken in these resolutions. I do not
believe Kentucky herself would be satisfied with them now.

It is strange to see gentlemen so cool and apathetic under such
circumstances. Is no one alarmed for the safety of the old flag about
which so much is said? Can the Border States stay with us when their
brethren are gone? If the action of the North in relation to slavery
is such as to drive out South Carolina, can Delaware and the other
Border States remain? For one, I do not wish to put this Constitution
into the hands of a General Convention. Who can tell what such a
convention would do with the Constitution; what it would do with the
decisions of the Supreme Court, under which so many of the vexatious
questions have been settled? It would be worse than attempting to
settle our differences