pp. 28-30.

Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, denounced this proposition as
a quack nostrum. He feared it was to rear a monster which would break
the feeble chain provided, and destroy the rights it was intended to
guard. Establishing military posts along the borders of States
conferred a power upon this Federal Government, which it does not now
possess, to coerce a State; it was providing, under the name of Union,
to carry on war against States. From the history and nature of our
government no power of coercion exists in it.

[Sidenote] Ibid., p. 33.

Senator Brown, also of Mississippi, was no less emphatic in his
condemnation of the scheme. He said, that a Southern Senator
representing a State as much exposed as Missouri should deliberately,
in times like these, propose to arm the Federal Government for the
purpose of protecting the frontier, to establish military posts all
along the line, struck him with astonishment. He saw in this
proposition the germ of a military despotism. He did not know what was
to become of these armies, or what was to be done with these military
posts. He feared in the hands of the enemy they might be turned against
the South; they would hardly ever be turned against the North.

[Sidenote] "Globe," Dec. 10, 1860, pp. 30, 31.

Senator Green, in his reply, justly exposed the whole animus and thinly
concealed import of these rough criticisms, by retorting that, to call
that a military despotism amounts to just this: we are going out of the
Union, right or wrong, and we will misrepresent every proposition made
to save the Union. Who has fought the battles of the South for the last
twenty-five years, and borne the brunt of the difficulty upon the
border? Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, while Mississippi
and Louisiana have been secure; and while you have lost but one
boxed-up negro, sent on board a vessel, that I remember, we have lost
thousands and thousands. He knew it was unpopular in some sections to
say a word for the Union. He hoped that feeling would react. Means to
enforce and carry out the Constitution ought not to be ridiculed by
calling it a quack remedy.

It is more likely that we may find in the response of Senator Iverson,
of Georgia, the true reason which actuated the Cotton-State leaders in
driving their people into revolution, regardless of the remonstrances
of the border States.

Sir, the border slave-States of this Union complain of the Cotton