not live in peace six months, or even three months. Settle the question now; settle it well; settle it finally; crush out the rebellion and punish the traitors. I want to see peace, and I believe that is the shortest way to get it. Blood must be shed, life must be sacrificed, and you may as well begin at first as last. I only regret that the Government has been so tardy in its operations, I wish the issue had been met sooner. I believe that if we had seen as much in the beginning as we see to-day, this rebellion would have been wound up and peace restored to the land by this time.

But let us go on; let us encourage the Army and the Navy; let us vote the men and the means necessary to vitalize and to bring into requisition the enforcing and coercive power of the Government; let us crush out the rebellion, and anxiously look forward to the day- God grant it may come soon -when that baleful comet of fire and of blood that now hovers over this distracted people may be chased away by the benignant star of peace. Let us look forward to the time when we can take the flag, the glorious flag of our country, and nail it below the cross, and there let it wave as it waved in the olden time, and let us gather around it, and inscribe as our motto, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Let us gather around it, and while it hangs floating beneath the cross, let us exclaim, "Christ first, our country next." Oh, how gladly rejoiced I should be to see the dove return

ing to the ark with the olive-leaf, indicating that land was found, and that the mighty waters had abated. I trust the time will soon come when we can do as they did in the olden times, when the stars sang together in the morning, and all creation proclaimed the glory of God. Then let us do our duty in the Senate and in the councils of the nation, and thereby stimulate our brave officers and soldiers to do theirs in the field.

Mr. President, I have occupied the attention of the Senate much longer than I intended. In view of the whole case, without personal unkind feeling towards the Senator from Indiana, I am of opinion that duty to myself, duty to my family, duty to the Constitution, duty to the country, obedience to the public judgment, all require me to cast my vote to expel Mr. Bright from the Senate, and when the occasion arrives I shall so record my vote.

APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF TENNESSEE.

FELLOW-CITIZENS: Tennessee assumed the form of a body politic, as one of the United States of America, in the year seventeen hundred and ninetysix, at once entitled to all the privileges of the Federal Constitution, and bound by all its obligations. For nearly sixty-five years she continued in the enjoyment of all her rights, and in the performance of all her duties, one of the most loyal and devoted of the sisterhood of States. She had been honored by the elevation of two of her citizens to the highest place in the gift of the American people, and a third had been nominated for the same high office, who received a liberal though ineffective support. Her population had rapidly and largely increased, and their moral and material interests correspondingly advanced. Never was a people more prosperous, contented, and happy than the people of Tennessee under the Government of the United States, and none less burdened for the support of the authority by which they were protected. They felt their Government only in the conscious enjoyment of the benefits it conferred and the blessings it bestowed.

Such was our enviable condition until within the

year just past, when, under what baneful influences it is not my purpose now to inquire, the authority of the Government was set at defiance, and the Constitution and laws contemned, by a rebellious, armed force. Men who, in addition to the ordinary privileges and duties of the citizen, had enjoyed largely the bounty and official patronage of the Government, and had, by repeated oaths, obligated themselves to its support, with sudden ingratitude for the bounty and disregard of their solemn obligation, engaged, deliberately and ostentatiously, in the accomplishment of its overthrow. Many, accustomed to defer to their opinions and to accept their guidance, and others, carried away by excitement or overawed by seditious clamor, arrayed themselves under their banners, thus organizing a treasonable power, which, for the time being, stifled and suppressed the authority of the Federal Government.

In this condition of affairs it devolved upon the President, bound by his official oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and charged by the law with the duty of suppressing insurrection and domestic violence, to resist and repel this rebellious force by the military arm of the Government, and thus to reestablish the Federal authority. Congress, assembling at an early day, found him engaged in the active discharge of this momentous and responsible trust. That body came promptly to his aid, and while supplying him with treasure and arms to an extent that would previously have

been considered fabulous, they, at the same time, with almost absolute unanimity, declared "that this war is not waged on their part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or the established institutions of these States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease.' In this spirit, and by such coöperation, has the President conducted this mighty conquest, until, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, he has caused the national flag again to float undisputed over the capitol of our State. Meanwhile the State government has disappeared. The Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is in abeyance. The great ship of state, freighted with its precious cargo of human interests and human hopes, its sails all set, and its glorious old flag unfurled, has been suddenly abandoned by its officers and mutinous crew, and left to float at the mercy of the winds, and to be plundered by every rover upon the deep. Indeed the work of plunder has already commenced. The archives have been desecrated; the public. property stolen and destroyed; the vaults of the State Bank violated, and its treasures robbed, including the funds carefully gathered and consecrated for all time to the instruction of our children.