Not content with bestowing upon this Pretender a title of courtesy denied to our own President, the author proceeds to bestow upon him a further title of office and of power.

He addresses him as “President of the Confederation of States,”--meaning the very States then engaged in levying war upon the National Government.

So far as this author can go, just to the extent of his authority, the Pretender is recognized as President, and the Rebel States are described by the very title which, in defiance of the National Government, they assume.

But it becomes important, when used directly to the Pretender himself; for then it signifies respect and recognition, while it discloses the mood of the author.

The disloyalty which crops out in titles of courtesy and recognition becomes full-blown in the letter itself, whether we regard its general character or its special import; and I shall now consider these in their order.

In general character the letter is correspondence with a public enemy, in open war with our own country; or rather let me say it is correspondence with a public rebel.

It is obvious that all correspondence of such a character, even without considering its special import, is open to suspicion.

Even if mere correspondence with an enemy would not bring the author within the scope of these words, clearly and beyond all question such correspondence is calculated to give at least moral aid and comfort to the enemy.

But the letter in question is a letter of sympathy and friendship, from beginning to end,--such a letter as only one friend could write to another friend.

The patriot soul recoils from the ancient traitor who flashed a signal torch from a beleaguered citadel; but one of our own number, who yet sits among us, has done this very thing.

I use no soft words, for the occasion does not allow it.

It is “to dispose of what he regards a great improvement in fire-arms.” Thus does an American Senator send actual, open, unequivocal aid to the Chief of the Rebellion.

It is true, he does not send him rifles or cannon; but he sends him “a great improvement in fire-arms,” through which rifles and cannon and other instruments of death, then preparing to be employed by Rebel hands against the patriot armies…

And when an American Senator, without disguise, sends “a great improvement in fire-arms” to the Rebel chief, then engaged in levying war against his country, he mixes himself in the Rebellion, so that under Municipal Law he is a traitor.

This conclusion is harsh, and I state it painfully; but it is according to the irresistible logic of the law and the facts.

The open traitor is announced as “a gentleman of the first respectability.” This is much to say of anybody; it is too much to say of an open traitor.

The bearer of this letter, going forth on an errand of treason, is “reliable in every respect”; and as the universal contains the special, he is reliable especially for the purposes of his treason: and this is the commendation which he…

It was expressly decided in England long ago, that a treasonable communication, “though intercepted, is an overt act of treason”; and this early principle was repeated by the Court of King’s Bench, speaking by the voice of Lord Mansfield…

The author is welcome to express “utter contempt for Abolitionism,” and also to declare his early and constant opposition to what he calls “the entire coercive policy of the Government.” Such declarations may render him an unsafe…

And it belongs to us, while purging this body of disloyalty in all its forms, to maintain at all hazards that freedom of speech which is herald and safeguard of all other freedom.

Surely it was wanting in him who could thus brave a just judgment: I fear it was wanting also in ourselves, when he was permitted to go without instant rebuke.

War had already begun, in the seizure of forts, and in the muster of Rebel armies; nay, more, in the very presence of the author, the gage of battle was flung down on this floor by Senators leaving to take part in the Rebellion.

But the second part of the suggestion attributes to the author an ignorance of the well-known condition of things, inconsistent with his acknowledged intelligence.

If the progress and development of the Rebellion had been in secret, if it had been masked by an impenetrable privacy, if it had been shrouded in congenial darkness, then this apology might be entitled to attention.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.