ying nothing.'"

He professed that he wanted "the Union to be restored with the
Constitution as it is;" that he verily believed the passage of this
Amendment would be "the most effective Disunion measure that could be
passed by Congress"--and, said he, "As a lover of the Union I oppose
it."

[This phrase slightly altered, in words, but not in meaning, to
"The Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is," afterward
became the Shibboleth under which the Democratic Party in the
Presidential Campaign of 1864, marched to defeat.]

He endeavored to impute the blame for the War, to the northern
Abolitionists, for, said he: "Had there been no Abolitionists, North,
there never would have been a Fire-eater, South,"--apparently ignoring
the palpable fact that had there been no Slavery in the South, there
could have been no "Abolitionists, North."

He heatedly denounced the "fanatical gentlemen" who desired the passage
of this measure; declared they intended by its passage "to destroy the
Institution of Slavery or to destroy the Union," and exclaimed: "Pass
this Amendment and you make an impassable chasm, as if you were to put a
lake of burning fire, between the adhering States and those who are out.
You will then have to make it a War of conquest and extermination before
you can ever bring them back under the flag of the Government. There is
no doubt about that proposition."

Mr. Sumner, at this point, withdrew his proposed amendment, at the
suggestion of Mr. Howard, who expressed a preference "to dismiss all
reference to French Constitutions and French Codes, and go back to the
good old Anglo-Saxon language employed by our Fathers, in the Ordinance
of 1787, (in) an expression adjudicated upon repeatedly, which is
perfectly well understood both by the public and by Judicial Tribunals
--a phrase, which is peculiarly near and dear to the people of the
Northwestern Territory, from whose soil Slavery was excluded by it."

[The following is the language of "the Ordinance of 1787" thus
referred to:

"ART. 6.--There shall be neither Slavery nor Involuntary Servitude
in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes,
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: * * *."]

Mr. Davis thereupon made another opposition speech and, at its
conclusion, Mr. Saulsbury offered, as a substitute, an Article,
comprising no less than twenty sections--that, he said, "embodied