Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/370

interesting discussion occurred at once. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, said that " the general tone of the message is eminently patriotic, but it falls short of stating the case now before the country. It is not merely that a dangerous man has been elected to the Presidency of the United States. We know that under our complicated system that might very well occur by accident and he be powerless; but I assert that the President-elect has been elected because he was known to be a dangerous man. He avows the principle of the Irrepressible conflict; he declares that it is the purpose of the North to make war upon my section until its social system has been destroyed and for that he was taken up and elected. That declaration of war is dangerous because it has been endorsed by a majority of the votes of the free States in the late election. It is this great, remarkable and dangerous fact that has filled my section with alarm and dread for the future. Mr. Lane, of Oregon, said, It is the principles upon which the late election has taken place that have given rise to the trouble. Never in any previous presidential election has the issue been so fully put, so directly made as in the late one. " Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, asked, " Do you mean to say that we shall neither have peace in the Union, nor be allowed the poor boon of seeking it out of the Union? " Mr. Douglas declared that he was willing to act with any party, with any individual of any party who will come to this question with an eye single to the preservation of the Constitution and the Union." Mr. Jefferson Davis, following Mr. Douglas, stated that he did not intend to enter into a statement of grievances. "I do not here intend to renew the war of crimination which for years past has disturbed the country and in which I have taken a part perhaps more zealous than useful; but I call upon all men who have in their hearts a love of the Union, and whose service is not merely that of the lip, to look the question calmly but fully in the face that, they may see the true