I am aware that the most guilty would be the most likely to escape the proper punishment. The legislators who decreed the conflict and ordered the rebellion would not be apt to be present at the overt act. The civilians would be in council; the soldiers in battle. The passing seditious laws merely, and ordering others to execute them-although moral treason and misprision of treason-is not, in my judgment, treason. "Treason against the United States consists only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. " In England, even after her great conservative act, the statute of treason, it was not necessary to be present at the overt act or so near as to be able to give physical aid. Conspiring, plotting, and counselling others to do the act, although at a distance, made them principals in treason; for by the common law those who encouraged, advised, or contrived the act, or who gave aid to the felon after the act, were accessories in felonies; but as there could be no accessories in treason, the common law converted such as would have been accessories in felonies into principals in treason. But we have no common law; and those only are traitors who potentially

committed the overt act.

Under our Constitu

tion there is neither constructive nor accessorial treason.

South Carolina (and when I speak of South Carolina I mean to include under that name all seceding States, to avoid prolixity, and thus what I say of her shall apply to all that have seceded or may secede) has, with others, declared herself out of the Union; and no doubt fancies that she is so. What ought to be done? Send no armies there to wage civil war, as alarmists pretend. The general government should annul all postal laws within her territory, and stop the mails at the line of the State. Let the revenue laws be executed, and the money paid into the Treasury; it will help to pay the expenses caused by the refractory member, and leave the new empire to direct taxation to support their great burden. How long the people will submit to this cannot be told to a mathematical certainty. Not long, I predict.

If the revenue could not be thus collected, and smuggling prevented, the government should abolish all laws establishing ports of entry and collection districts within the seceding States, and prevent all vessels, foreign or

domestic, from entering or leaving any of their ports. How will she send her cotton and other surplus products abroad? She cannot load a vessel in her own harbors, for there are no national officers to give her a clearance. The vessel would be without papers, without nationality, and a prize to the first captor. How forlorn must be her condition! Without commerce, without industry, her seaports would be barren wastes. With a flag recognized by no civilized nation; with no vessel entering her ports, except now and then a low black schooner scudding in from the river Congo; with no ally or sympathizer except the king of Dahomey.

If these States will have war, who is to protect them against their own domestic foes? They now tremble when a madman and a score of followers invade them. If a citizen declare his opposition to slavery, they hang him; and declare, as a justification, that it is necessary for their personal safety; because they say they are standing on the thin crust of a raging volcano, which the least jar will crack, and plunge them in. How, then, will it withstand the booming of cannon and the clash of arms?

Sir, the attempt of one or more of these cot

ton States to force this government to dissolve the Union is absurd. Those who counsel the government to let them go, and destroy the national Union, are preaching moral treason. I can understand such doctrine from those who conscientiously dislike a partnership in slaveholding-who desire to see this empire severed along the black line, so that they could live in a free republic. Let no slave State flatter itself that it can dissolve the Union now, and then reconstruct it on better terms. The present Constitution was formed in our weakness. Some of its compromises were odious, and have become more so by the unexpected increase of slaves, who were expected soon to run out. But now, in our strength, the conscience of the North would not allow them to enter into such partnership with slave-holding. If this Union be dissolved, its reconstruction would embrace one empire wholly slave-holding, or one republic wholly free. While we will religiously observe the present compact, not attempt to be absolved from it, yet if it should be torn to pieces by rebels, our next United States will contain no foot of ground on which a slave can tread, no breath of air which a slave can breathe. Then we can boast of liberty. Then we can

rise and expand to the full stature of untrammelled freemen, and hope for God's blessings. Then the bondmen who break their chains will find a city of refuge. Our neighboring slave empire must consider how it will affect their peculiar institution. They will be surrounded by freedom, with the civilized world scowling upon them.

Much as I dislike the responsibility and reproach of slavery, I recoil from such a remedy. Let us be patient, faithful to all constitutional engagements, and await the time of the Disposer of events. Let us not destroy this grand fabric of freedom, which, when once dissolved, will never be rebuilt. Let there be no blood shed until the last moment; but let no cowardly counsels unnerve the people; and then, at last, if needs be, let every one be ready to gird on his armor, and do his duty.