The cod fisheries of the United States are now valued at more than two million dollars annually.

It is not so much fishing,” he said, “as enterprise, industry, and employment.

It is not fish merely; it is gold, the produce of that avocation.

Small beginnings, therefore, are no discouragement; I turn with confidence to the future.

All things will be changed in form and proportion; but the original aptitude for the sea will remain.

A practical race of intrepid navigators will swarm the coast, ready for any enterprise of business or patriotism.

But your best work and most important endowment will be the Republican Government, which, looking to a long future, you will organize, with schools free to all, and with equal laws, before which every citizen will stand erect in the…

Bestow such a government, and you will give what is better than all you can receive, whether quintals of fish, sands of gold, choicest fur, or most beautiful ivory.

In short, it seems as if we are to have Nullification here in Washington in the Executive branch of the Government.

According to these opinions, the President, I understand, is to exercise a power of appointment during the recess of Congress, notwithstanding the recent Act which undertakes to regulate the tenure of office.

The Administration is now about to drive its coach-and-six through our recent legislation.

In other words, it is about to force upon the country officers who cannot be officers according to existing law.

I do not admit that he can in any way set it aside; but I wish to do everything that can be done to prevent him from undertaking to set it aside.

We ought to stay until our work is fully done.

There can be no excuse for going home while any part of the Executive business remains unfinished.

We should stay, it seems to me, until the offices are filled, rejecting nominations that are bad and confirming the good,--doing, in short, all we can, as a Senate, to secure good officers, and I insist, also, officers on the right side…

I know your vows to the good cause; but I ask you to make haste.

Of course, we can always wait for the needful processes; but there are present reasons why we should allow no time to be lost.

This question must be settled forthwith: in other words, it must be settled before the Presidential election, now at hand.

There are Northern States where their votes can make the good cause safe beyond question.

There are other States where their votes will be like the last preponderant weight in the nicely balanced scales.

Let our colored fellow-citizens vote in Maryland, and that State, now so severely tried, will be fixed for Human Rights forever.

Let them vote in Pennsylvania, and you will give more than twenty thousand votes to the Republican cause.

Let them vote in New York, and the scales, which hang so doubtful, will incline to the Republican side.

Emancipation was a National act, proceeding from the National Government, and applicable to all the States.