orth was "distracted,
exhausted, and impoverished," and would, "through the agency of a strong
conservative element in the Free States," soon treat with the Rebels "on
acceptable terms."

Things indeed had reached such a pass, in the House of Representatives
especially, that it was felt they could not much longer go on in this
manner; that an example must be made of some one or other of these
Copperheads. But the very knowledge of the existence of such a feeling
of just and patriotic irritation against the continued free utterance of
such sentiments in the Halls of Congress, seemed only to make some of
them still more defiant. And, when the 8th of April dawned, it was
known among all the Democrats in Congress, that Alexander Long proposed
that day to make a speech which would "go a bow-shot beyond them all" in
uttered Treason. He would speak right out, what the other Conspirators
thought and meant, but dared not utter, before the World.

A crowded floor, and packed galleries, were on hand to listen to the
written, deliberate Treason, as it fell from his lips in the House. His
speech began with an arraignment of the Government for treachery,
incompetence, failure, tyranny, and all sorts of barbarous actions and
harsh intentions, toward the Rebels--which led him to the indignant
exclamation:

"Will they throw down their arms and submit to the terms? Who shall
believe that the free, proud American blood, which courses with as quick
pulsation through their veins as our own, will not be spilled to the
last drop in resistance?"

Warming up, he proceeded to say: "Can the Union be restored by War? I
answer most unhesitatingly and deliberately, No, never; 'War is final,
eternal separation.'"

He claimed that the War was "wrong;" that it was waged "in violation of
the Constitution," and would "if continued, result speedily in the
destruction of the Government and the loss of Civil Liberty, and ought
therefore, to immediately cease."

He held also "that the Confederate States are out of the Union,
occupying the position of an Independent Power de facto; have been
acknowledged as a belligerent both by Foreign Nations and our own
Government; maintained their Declaration of Independence, for three
years, by force of arms; and the War has cut asunder all the obligations
that bound them under the Constitution."

"Much better," said he, "would it have been for us in the beginning,
much better would it be for us now, to co