Representative James Stevens Argues for the Compromise
In the final selection James Stevens, Representative from Connecticut, pleads with Congress to accept the Compromise:
I have listened with pain to the very long, protracted debate that has been had on this unfortunate question. I call it unfortunate, sir, because it has drawn forth the worst passions of man in the course of the discussion....
If the deadliest enemy this country has, or ever had, could dictate language the most likely to destroy your glory, prosperity, and happiness, would it not be precisely what has been so profusely used in this debate—sectional vaunting?... Indeed, sir, there is no view of this unhappy division of our country but must be sickening to the patriot and in direct violation of the dictate of wisdom, and the last, though not least, important advice of the Father and Friend of his Country. He forbids the use of the words Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western, as descriptive of the various parts of your country.
But, sir, we have now arrived at a point at which every gentleman agrees something must be done. A precipice lies before us at which perdition [ruin] is inevitable. Gentlemen on both sides of this question, and in both Houses, indoors and out of doors, have evinced a determination that augurs ill of the high destinies of this country! And who does not tremble for the consequences?...
I wish not to be misunderstood, sir. I don’t pretend to say that in just five calendar months your Union will be at an end;...
But, sir, I do say, and, for the verity of the remark, cite the lamentable history of our own time, that the result of a failure to compromise at this time, in the way now proposed, or in some other way satisfactory to both, would be to create ruthless hatred, irradicable jealousy, and a total forgetfulness of the ardor of patriotism, to which, as it has heretofore existed, we owe, under Providence, more solid national glory and social happiness than ever before was possessed by any people, nation, kindred, or tongue under Heaven.