In this same broad spirit, Mr. Seward, in his great speech of January 12th, had said: "Republicanism is subordinate to Union, as everything else is and ought to be—Republicanism, Democracy, every other political name and thing; all are subordinate—and they ought to disappear in the presence of the great question of Union." In another part of it, he had even more emphatically said: "I therefore * * * avow my adherence to the Union in its integrity and with all its parts, with my friends, with my Party, with my State, with my Country, or without either, as they may determine, in every event, whether of Peace or War, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of life or death. Although I lament the occasion, I hail with cheerfulness the duty of lifting up my voice among distracted debates, for my whole Country and its inestimable Union." And as showing still more clearly the kindly and conciliatory attitude of the great Republican leader, when speaking of those others who seemed to be about to invoke revolutionary action to oppose—and overthrow the Government—he said: "In such a case I can afford to meet prejudice with Conciliation, exaction with Concession which surrenders no principle, and violence with the right hand of Peace."
In the House of Representatives, too, the voice of patriotism was often heard through the loud clamor and disorder of that most disorderly and Treason-uttering session—was heard from the lips of statesmen, who rose high above Party, in their devotion to the Union. The calm, dispassionate recital by Henry Winter Davis (of Maryland), of the successive steps by which the Southern leaders had themselves created that very "North" of whose antagonism they complained, was one of the best of these, in some respects. He was one of the great Select Committee of Thirty-three, and it was (February 5th) after the Resolutions, heretofore quoted, had been reported by it, that he condensed the history of the situation into a nutshell, as follows:
"We are at the end of the insane revel of partisan license which, for thirty years, has, in the United States, worn the mask of Government. We are about to close the masquerade by the dance of death. The Nations of the World look anxiously to see if the People, ere they tread that measure, will come to themselves.
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"Southern politicians have created a North. Let us trace the process and draw the moral.
"The laws of 1850 calmed and closed the Slavery agitation; and President Pierce, elected by the almost unanimous voice of the States, did not mention Slavery in his first two Messages. In 1854, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, at the instance of the South, reopened the agitation.
"Northern men, deserted by Southern Whigs, were left to unite for self-defense.
"The invasion of Kansas, in 1855 and 1856, from Missouri; the making a Legislature and laws for that Territory, by the invaders; still further united the Northern people. The election of 1856 measured its extent.
"The election of Mr. Buchanan and his opening policy in Kansas, soothed the irritation, and was rapidly demoralizing the new Party, when the Pro-Slavery Party in Kansas perpetrated, and the President and the South accepted, the Lecompton fraud, and again united the North more resolutely in resistance to that invasion of the rights of self-government.
"The South for the first time failed to dictate terms; and the People vindicated by their votes the refusal of the Constitution.