Mr. Simmons-They have gone without | Republic. The Senator's speech was not asking. I am not disposed to force them concluded when the Senate went into Exback. I presume they will be sick of their ecutive session. experiment within a year.

The speech was resumed Thursday, and occupied all the open session of that day, and a portion of Friday. Its latter portion was devoted to an arraignment of the principles of the dominant party, and in favor of a recognition of the independence of the Southern Confederacy.

Friday, Howe, of Wisconsin, addressed the Senate on the Douglas Resolu

Howe's Speech.

Mr. Clingman--That remains to be tested. Mr. Simmons, resuming, said the country in six months would settle matters in spite of the restless politicians. He had no more idea that the Administration contemplated the invasion of State rights any more than he (Simmons) did. He believed this was getting to be well understood at the South, and hence new issues and threats were made, and new positions taken. Certain gentlemen|tion, opposing it, and dealing the Senators are in a wonderful hurry to settle everything from Kentucky and Illinois some sturdy before it happens. We shall continue to collect the revenue as heretofore, or the States setting up for themselves will cease to have any business. He believed the President has as kind and pacific intentions towards those States as any President ever had. He believed, but for the agitation here and elsewhere, they would go about their every-day associations. Politicians, however, must be agitating. They never produce a dollar, and never will.

Bayard's Speech.

blows. The information asked, he thought a proper degree of self-respect should prevent the Democratic Senators from calling for, since it was under their rule and domination that the country was placed on the verge of destruction. We have now, he said, an Administration which has proclaimed a fixed purpose to maintain the authority of the United States, and not the authority of this or that section merely, by peaceful means, if peaceful means will suffice. This is the setWednesday, Bayard, of tled purpose, as he understood it, of the AdDelaware, consumed the en- ministration. Was it not a purpose which tire open session in a speech demanded the best energies of every one? of an elaborate character, covering the whole It seemed to him the Senator from Illinois ground of the rights of States and the pow- was not furnishing the great aid he could ers of the Federal Executive. His position have furnished with this view. Instead of was a Southern" one, in most respects helping to hold up the hands of the Governgoing to prove the right of secession and the ment, that Senator was confronting the Govwant of power for coercion. He quoted, at ernment, not by arms and the application of some length, from the Madison and Hamilton force, but with objections that the Adminis"Federalist" papers, and also from the writ-tration must stop here, then there, and must ings of William Rawle, one of the ablest and not undertake to collect the revenue, &c., most unbiased jurists Pennsylvania pro-and it seemed to him (Howe) this furnished duced during the Revolutionary era. [Rawle, | aid to the enemies, and not to the friends of in 1825, published a volume of "Notes on the country. the Constitution," wherein he assumed, in the broadest sense, the independence of the States and their right to withdraw, at any time, by a vote of their people, from the Fed-pelled to record that, with the friends of the eral Union, which he considered but a mere compact.] Mr. Bayard presumed that the President and Congress had the power, also, to treat in the matter of the cession and secession of the States, and therefore called upon the President to secure peace by settling upon terms for a reorganization of the

He would admonish representatives that if another revolution is to be thrust upon us, we should take especial care that the future historian shall not be com

United States, were found the semblance of the Cowboys of the Revolution. His (Howe's) party had done nothing to create the feverish apprehension alluded to by the Senator from Illinois. They were in no way responsible for it; they have no purpose to trample on a single right of any individual

'Resolved, That the President be requested to communicate to the Senate, if not incompatible with the public interest, the dispatches from Major Anderson to the War Department during the time he has been in command of Fort Sumter.”

Howe's Speech Concluded.

Mr. Howe then resumed his speech of the previous Friday. He conceived the true design of the dominant party to be not to subjugate the revolutionary States, but to save them from subjugation. The Unionists of those States, he believed, were being ridden down by a reckless tyranny, from which they had a right to be relieved. The leaders were in insurrection against their own peace and order-were persecuting their own citi

in any portion of the country. The Senator from Illinois argued that the information asked was to allay excitement, but did not every such suggestion from so respectable a source tend more than all things else to increase and continue the excitement? To allay excitement, all should unite to tell the country they have no purpose to trample on any one's rights or constitutional privileges. As to Mr. Douglas' proposition to amend the Constitution, he objected to it for the admission it contained; namely, that fraternity can be maintained only by adopting certain amendments to the fundamental law. This is not the proper method of bringing about fraternity, for if approved only by a portion of the people of the Union, it would be disap-zens, who were also citizens of the United proved by the remainder of them. A Con- States, and entitled to its protection. He adstitution, to be satisfactory, must receive the verted, at some length, to the exclusion of assent of the whole country. We have got Slaves from the Territories, and demanded such a Constitution now. Why should not to know if such exclusion—the deliberate voice of the majority-could afford any reathe people continue to be satisfied with it? sonable ground for rebellion? The means did not justify the ends. The cause was too

Mr. Howe's speech was concluded on Monday, Saturday being devoted to miscellaneous business and an Executive session. A very sharp controversy sprung up over the election of new officers of the floor-the Southern members resisting a change.

The last week of the extra session was rendered notable from the tilt between Messrs. Breckenridge and Douglas. These two men were mutually disinclined to fellowship. Entertaining ideas of polity quite at variance, they still had suffered the session to pass without any expressions to indicate the hostility existing between them. Douglas was, evidently, anxious to force his opponent to a confession of his real principles. That Breckenridge was disloyal to the Constitution all Senators well understood, and Douglas finally became so anxious to force the Kentuckian to the confessional-to unmask his treason, and thus to dispose of him forever as a Democratic leader-that, on Monday, (March 25th,) in the course of the debate with Howe, (of Wisconsin,) he referred to the Senator from Kentucky in such a manner as to compel that gentleman to take the floor, which he did on Tuesday.

Mr. Powell, on Monday, March 25th, introduced, by unanimous consent, the following resolution, which was agreed to:

immaterial for the monstrous wrongs perpetrated against the Union, by the Seceded States, in the seizure of forts, arsenals, mints, &c.—the firing on the United States flagthe defiance of United States authority.

Mr. Howe called upon Mr. Douglas, if that Senator really wished to preserve the Union and to avert the calamities of civil war, to unite with the Republicans in the declaration, that while they did not propose to make war, they did not intend that war shall be made on the North. The country may be saved, not by dissolving the Union, but by supporting it—not by abjuring the Constitution, but by taking a fast hold upon it. Did any State or section complain that injustice had been done them, or their rights denied? If so, let. them go bravely before the people of the United States for redress, and not to those of any one State or section. To the victims of private wrong the Courts are open for relief, and to those of public wrong the Legislatures are available.

In further reply to the Senator from Illinois, he showed the difficulties of procuring amendments to the Constitution, which the former had advocated as a remedy for exist ing troubles. He was alike opposed to the

Douglas thought the admission was so clear that he might include all the Republicans in it without offense. In the course of his remarks he said that the triumph of the Republicans had brought on dis

union, and God only knew what consequences were

to grow out of it.

Howe inquired whether he understood that the election of Mr. Lincoln, or somebody else, had caused a dissolution of the Union.

overwhelming testimony offered by the Republicans of their entire and utter devotion to the Union in its integrity. They believed the best way to preserve the Union and save the country from the calamities of present and future insurrection, was to stand by the ·Constitution, so wisely framed by the founders of the Government-that amendments of it under compulsion would prove disastrous, unwise and wicked. Therefore, they opposed the amendments proposed, pre-certain that the policy of that party would not be ferring to consider them when the revolutionists were again citizens, instead of men in arms against their country.

Clark said he could judge of amendments only when they were proposed; he should deprecate civil war as earnestly as the Senator from Illinois.

Douglas replied: Yet, when the question of war or amendment to the Constitution is proposed, he un

derstood the Senator to be against all compromise.

Clark said distinctly, he believed they could stand

on the Constitution better than anywhere else, and

avoid war by taking that position. Propositions of compromise had demoralized the Union feeling for, failing to get those, persons had become disunionists. In further response to Mr. Douglas, he said, the time is not far distant when the laws will be enforced all over the Union, without the use of bayonets.

Douglas-Still, nobody can deny that seven States have expelled the Federal authority.

Douglas answered: If he had succeeded in defeating the Republican party, thereby rendering it

carried into effect, the Southern people would have rested in security, and the Union would not have been dissolved.

Howe inquired, What policy?

Douglas replied: The sectional policy; because the Republicans make war on the institution of slavery as a great political and moral evil.

Howe denied that the Republicans are a sectional party. They were in favor of maintaining the au

thority of the whole people of the Union.

Douglas said that depended on what the Senator meant by the word "sections." The Republican party was based on hostility to slavery wherever it exists, (and, to the extent that where the Constitution does not prohibit, interference.)

Howe, in the course of the debate, wished to

know, if the Douglas principles would have saved

the Union, and the Republicans had adopted them,

why there was not peace ?

Douglas replied: Because the Republicans would not acknowledge it, and kept the people in the dark.

The reference, by Mr. Douglas, to the question of Slavery in the Territories, which called out the Kentucky Senator, was as follows:

"From the beginning of this Government down to 1859,

Clark inquired whether the Post-office did not run slavery was prohibited by Conthe mails in those States yet?

Douglas believed it did, but with the leave and permission of those States. Those through whose hands the letters go might open or violate them, yet no punishment could be inflicted.

Clark--Suppose Congress shall clothe the President with the power to collect the revenue on shipboard? Could not this be done?

Douglas supposed it could, but he had been speaking of the laws as they are. He regarded this as an admission from the Republicans, that they do not mean to collect the revenue till the laws are

Douglas vs. Breckenridge.

gress, in some portion of the Territories of the United States. But now, for the first time in the history of this Government, there is no foot of ground in America where slavery is prohibited by act of Congress. You, of the other side of the Chamber, by the unanimous vote of every Republican in this body, and of every Republican in the House of Representatives, have organized all the Territories of the United States on the principle of non-intervention, by Congress, with the question of slavery-leaving the people to do as they please, subject only to the limitations of the Constitution. Hence, I think the Senator from Ken. tucky fell into a gross error of fact as well as of law

⚫hanged. Clark did not wish the Senator to take the admis- when he said, the other day, that you had not abated sion as including anybody but himself. one jot of your creed-that you had not abandoned