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.
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