irst-rate training school for Republicanism.
Helper's famous book, "The Impending Crisis," had made a decided
sensation throughout the country, and John Sherman, the principal
candidate of the Republicans for Speaker, had endorsed it, though
he now denied the fact. Mr. Millson of Virginia, declared that
the man who "consciously, deliberately, and of purpose, lends his
name and influence to the propagation of such writings, is not only
not fit to be Speaker, but he is not fit to live." De Jarnette,
of the same State, said that Mr. Seward was "a perjured traitor,
whom no Southerner could consistently support or even obey, should
the nation elect him President." Mr. Pryor said that eight million
Southern freemen could not be subjugated by any combination whatever,
"least of all by a miscellaneous mob of crazy fanatics and conscience-
stricken traitors." Mr. Keitt said that "should the Republican
party succeed in the next Presidential election, my advice to the
South is to snap the cords of the Union at once and forever." Mr.
Crawford of Georgia said, "we will never submit to the inauguration
of a black Republican President"; and these and like utterances
were applauded by the galleries. The growing madness and desperation
in the Senate were equally noteworthy. This was shown by the
removal of Mr. Douglas from the chairmanship of the Committee on
Territories, and the determined purpose to read him out of the
party for refusing to violate the principle of popular sovereignty
in the Territory of Kansas. The attempt to hunt down a man who
had done the South such signal service in dragooning the Northern
Democracy into its support could not fail to divide the party, and
at the same time completely unmask the extreme and startling designs
which the slave power had been stealthily maturing. But that power
was now absolutely bent upon its purpose, and morally incapable of
pausing in its work. Its demand was a slave code for the Territories,
and it would accept nothing less. Jefferson Davis was the champion
of this policy, which he embodied in a series of resolutions and
made them the text of an elaborate argument; and Mr. Douglas replied
in a speech which at once vindicated himself and overwhelmingly
condemned the party with which he had so long acted. The resolutions,
however, were adopted by the Senate, which thus proclaimed its
purpose to nationalize slavery.

In the meantime these remarkable legislative proceeding