Mr. President, in the State of Connecticut the Democracy assert the correct principle, and they charge the trouble in the country to the right quarter. I stated, on a former occasion, that the Democracy of old Connecticut would never join the Republican party in any attempt to coerce the Southern States; and I am now authorized by their own declaration to say again, what I said before, that they, like the Democracy of Oregon and of every other Northern State, will never join a party that has refused justice; that has refused equality and right; that has refused to protect property in the Territories, or wherever the jurisdiction of the United States extends, in putting down those who contended for their rights and for the equality to which they were entitled. Sir, the loyal Democracy of this country fully understand the question, and they assert the right.

Now, sir, these great principles were not carried out. The platform on which the Democracy presented their candidates for President and Vice-President was not heeded, though based upon the Constitution. I will say to the Senator who has boasted of his efforts in Tennessee in behalf of the Breckinridge ticket, that I shall notice that hereafter; but I have only to say now, that, for the sake of the country, I would to God the ticket had succeeded. We should then have had those principles endorsed upon which the Government is established, and the country would have been at peace. For that alone I wished it to succeed.

I will say only a word, now, as to the amendments proposed to the Constitution. I had the pleasure of listening, yesterday, to the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. I know his patriotism and his devotion to the Union. I know his willingness to take any thing, however small, however trifling, however little it might be, that would, in his opinion, give peace to the country. Sir, I am actuated by no such feeling. We should never compromise principle nor sacrifice the eternal foundations of justice. Whenever the Democratic party compromised principle it laid the foundation of future troubles for itself and for the country. When we do, then, amend the Constitution, it ought to be in the spirit of right and justice to all men and to all sections. I voted for the Senator's propositions, and I will do so again, if we can get a vote, because there is something in them; something that I could stand by; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference. He proposed to establish the line of 36° 30´, and to prohibit slavery north of it and protect it south of it, in all the present territory, or of the territory to be hereafter acquired. In that proposition there was something like justice and right; but there is nothing in the amendments proposed by the Peace Conference that any man, North or South, ought to take. They are a cheat; they are a deception; they are a fraud; they hold out a false idea; and I think, with all due respect to the Senator—for I have the highest regard for him personally—that he is too anxious to heal the trouble that exists in the country. He had better place himself upon the right and stand by it. Let him contend, with me, for the inalienable and constitutional rights of every American citizen. Let him beware of "compromising" away the vital rights, privileges, and immunities of one portion of the country to appease the graceless, unrelenting, and hostile fanaticism of another portion. Let him labor with me, to influence every State to mind its own affairs, and to keep the Territories entirely free to the enterprise of all, with equal security and protection—without invidious distinctions—to the property of every citizen. Thus, and only thus, can we have peace, happiness, and eternal Union.

I could not avoid noticing the anxiety of the Senator from Kentucky to accept any thing, and the readiness of the Senator from Oregon to pledge his people—"my people"—to any thing that he chooses. Now, I know there are many free people in the State of Oregon. They generally do as they please. They have no master. No man owns them; and no man can claim to control them. But this I am warranted in asserting—for I know long, well, and intimately, the gallant men of Oregon—that they will not be found ready or inclined, at the Senator's and his masters beck, to imbrue their hands, in a godless cause, in fraternal gore.

Mr. President, the principles asserted in the resolutions adopted by the Senate, last winter, have not been carried out. We see the consequences. We see a dissevered country and a divided Union. A number of the States have gone off, have formed an independent Government; it is in existence, and the States composing it will never come back to you, unless you say in plain English, in your amendments to the Constitution, that every State in the future Union has an equal right to the Territories and all the protection and blessings of this Government—never! I tell you, sir, although some foolish men and some wicked ones may say I am a disunionist, I am for the Union upon the principles of the Constitution, and not a traitor. None but a coward will even think me a traitor; and if anybody thinks I am, let him test me. This Union could exist upon the principles that I have held and that are set forth in the Davis resolutions; but upon no other condition can it exist. Then, sir, disunion is inevitable. It is not going to stop with the seven States that are out. No, sir; my word for it, unless you do something more than is proposed in this proposition, old Virginia will go out too—slothful as she has been, and tardy as she seems in appreciating her own interests and her rights, and kind and generous as she has been in inviting a Peace Congress to agree upon measures of safety for the Union. The time will come, however, when old Virginia will stand trifling and chicanery no longer. Neither will North Carolina suffer it. None of the slave States will endure it; for they cannot separate one from the other, and they will not. They will go out of this Union and into one of their own; forming a great, homogeneous, and glorious Southern Confederacy. It is and it has been, Senators, in your power to prevent this; it is and it has been for you to say (you might to-day, as it is the last day, say so), whether the Union shall be saved or not. I know, that gallant Old Dominion will never put up with less than her rights; and if she would, I should entertain for her contempt. I should feel contempt for her if she were to ask for any thing more than her rights; and so I would if she were to put up with any thing less than her constitutional rights. Then, sir, secession has taken place, and it will go on unless we do right.

Mr. President, in the remarks which I made on the 19th of December last, in reply to the Senator from Tennessee, I took the ground that a State might rightfully secede from the Union when she could no longer remain in it on an equal footing with the other States; in other words, when her continuance as a member of the Confederacy involved the sacrifice of her constitutional rights, safety, and honor. This right I deduced from the theory of equality of the States, upon which rests the whole fabric of our unrivalled system of government—unrivalled, as it came from the hands of its illustrious framers—a model as perfect, perhaps, as human wisdom could devise, securing to all the blessings of civil and religious liberty, when rightly understood and properly administered; but like all other Governments, and even Christianity itself, a most dangerous engine of oppression when, having fallen into the hands of persons strangers to its spirit, and unmindful of the beneficent objects for which it was framed, it is perverted from its high and noble mission to the base uses of a selfish or sectional ambition, or a blind and bigoted fanaticism. I said, on that occasion—referring to this fundamental principle of our Government, the equality of the States—that "as long as this equality be maintained the Union will endure, and no longer." I might here undertake to enforce, by argument and the authority of writers on the nature and purposes of our Government, this, to me, self-evident proposition. But I deem it unnecessary to consume the time of the Senate in discussing that branch of the subject.

I propose, Mr. President, to confine what I have to say in regard to the right of secession to the question, Who must judge whether such right exists, and when it should be exercised? According to the theory of every despotic Government, of ancient or modern times, there is no such right. A province of an empire, how much soever oppressed, is held by the oppressor as an integral part of his dominions. The yoke, once fastened on the neck of the subject, is expected, however galling, to be worn with patience and entire submission to the tyrant's will. This is the theory of despotism. What are its fruits? We have seen, in modern times, some of the bloodiest struggles recorded in history growing out of the assertion by one party, and the denial by the other, of this very right. Hungary undertook to "secede" from the Austrian empire. Her right to do so was denied. She constituted an integral part of the empire—a great "consolidated" nation, as some consider the United States to be. Being an integral part of the empire, according to the theory of the Austrian Government, she must so remain forever. Austria not having the power to enforce an acquiescence in this doctrine, Russian legions were called to her aid; and Hungary, on whose gallant struggle for independence the liberty-loving people of this country looked with so much admiration and sympathy, soon lay prostrate and bleeding at the tyrant's feet. You may call this attempt of Hungary to regain her independence revolution. That is precisely what Austria called it. I call it an effort on her part to peaceably secede—to peaceably dissolve her connection with a Government which, in her judgment, had become intolerably unjust and oppressive. Her oppressors told her it was not her province but theirs, to judge of her alleged grievances; that to acknowledge the right of secession would strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the empire, which could be maintained only by enforcing the perfect obedience of each and every part.

We have, in the recent struggle of the Italian States, an instructive commentary on the now mooted questions of secession and coercion. Indeed, history, through all past ages, is but a record of the efforts of tyrants to prevent the recognition of the doctrine, that a people deeming themselves oppressed might peaceably absolve themselves from allegiance to their oppressors. When our Government was formed, our fathers fondly thought that they had made a great improvement on the despotic systems of modern Europe. They saw the infinite evil resulting from coercing the unwilling obedience of a subject to a Government which he abhorred and detested. They accordingly declared the great truth, never enunciated until then, that "Governments derive all their just power from the consent of the governed." A Government without such consent they held to be a tyranny.

Now, Mr. President, this brings us to the very point in issue. Who is to determine whether this consent is given or withheld? Must it be determined by the ruler? If so, the proposition just stated is an absurdity. Clearly it was the meaning of those who enunciated this great truth, that the subjects of a Government have the right to declare or withhold their consent; otherwise no such right exists. They, and they only, must judge whether their rights are protected or violated. If protected, every consideration of interest and safety impels them to consent to live under a Government which secures the blessings they desire. If, on the other hand, in their judgment, their most sacred rights are violated, interest and honor, and the instinct of self-preservation, all conspire to impel them to withhold their consent; which being withheld, the Government, as far as they are concerned, ceases.

Here I would call the attention of the Senate to the first of the Kentucky resolutions of 1798-'99, written by Mr. Jefferson, in which he says distinctly, that the parties to a political compact must judge for themselves of the mode and measure of redress, when they consider the compact violated and their rights invaded: