ear. What means the
inaugural of Governor Pickens, when he says: "From the position we may
occupy toward the Northern States, as well as from our own internal
structure of society, the government may, from necessity, become
strongly military in its organization"? What mean the minute-men
of Governor Wise? What the Southern boast that they have a rifle or
shot-gun to each family?

What means the Pittsburgh mob? What this alacrity to save Forts Moultrie
and Pinckney? What means the boast of the Southern men of being the
best-armed people in the world, not counting the two hundred thousand
stand of United States arms stored in Southern arsenals? Already Georgia
has her arsenals, with eighty thousand muskets. What mean these lavish
grants of money by Southern Legislatures to buy more arms? What mean
these rumors of arms and force on the Mississippi? These few facts have
already verified the prophecy of Madison as to a disunited Republic.

Mr. Speaker, he alone is just to his country, he alone has a mind
unwarped by section, and a memory unparalyzed by fear, who warns against
precipitancy. He who could hurry this nation to the rash wager of
battle is not fit to hold the seat of legislation. What can justify the
breaking up of our institutions into belligerent fractions? Better this
marble Capitol were levelled to the dust; better were this Congress
struck dead in its deliberations; better an immolation of every ambition
and passion which here have met to shake the foundations of society
than the hazard of these consequences! * * * I appeal to Southern men,who
contemplate a step so fraught with hazard and strife, to pause. Clouds
are about us! There is lightning in their frown! Cannot we direct it
harmlessly to the earth? The morning and evening prayer of the people I
speak for in such weakness rises in strength to that Supreme Ruler
who, in noticing the fall of a sparrow, cannot disregard the fall of a
nation, that our States may continue to be as they have been--one; one
in the unreserve of a mingled national being; one as the thought of God
is one!

JEFFERSON DAVIS,

OF MISSISSIPPI. (BORN 1808, DIED 1889.)

ON WITHDRAWAL FROM THE UNION; SECESSIONIST OPINION;

UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 21, 1861.

I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that
I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn
ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her