I know there has been a great deal of intemperance of language on this subject; but I ask, if it has been used upon our side, has it not been used upon yours?

If I have, I beg every man's pardon; because I think that violent language, calculated to stir up excitement and agitation, ought not be used in a deliberative assembly.

Let us go on with the administration of the government kindly, harmoniously, hopefully, trusting in that providence of Almighty God which has thus far guided and guarded us, until this nation has become a marvel to the world.

Why not let the Republican administration be inaugurated in peace and quiet?

If it does not do right, you will find thousands--ay, millions--in the northern states who will stand by you.

In a retrospect of my six years as a Member of the House of Representatives, I can see, and will freely admit, that my chief fault was my intense partisanship.

I felt that this insult to the north should be resented by the renewed exclusion, by act of Congress, of slavery north of the line of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes.

Buchanan, and the infamy of the Dred Scott decision, appeared to me conclusive evidence of the subserviency of the President and the Supreme Court to the slave power.

The gross injustice to me personally, and the irritating language of southern Members in the speakership contest, aroused my resentment, so that in the campaign of 1860 I was ready to meet the threats of secession with those of open war.

It would appear that as in 1860 the exclusion of slavery from Kansas was definitely settled by the people of that state, and that as the only region open to this controversy was New Mexico, from which slavery was excluded by natural…

If this was conceded to be a just cause for secession, our government would become a rope of sand; it would be worse than that of any South American republic, because our country is more populous, and sections of it would have greater…

This pretense for secession would not have been concurred in by any of the states north of South Carolina, but for the previous agitation of slavery, which had welded nearly all the slaveholding states into a compact confederacy.

This was done, not for fear of Lincoln, but to protect the institution of slavery, threatened by the growing sentiment of mankind.

Upon this question I had been conservative, but I can see now that this contest was irrepressible, and that I would soon have been in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery in all the states.

This could not have been effected under our constitution but for the Rebellion, so that, in truth, South Carolina, unwittingly, led to the only way by which slavery could be abolished in the present century.

The Congress of the United States, in order to put into form its sense of this obligation, passed the act 'to strengthen the public credit,' and the last and most important clause of this act is the promise which I have just read, that…

After you enacted that law-- the faith of the people of the United States that you would redeem this pledge--the value of your greenbacks advanced, not rapidly, but gradually, and in one year, to within twelve per cent. of par in gold.

It was Congress that made it, in obedience to the public voice; and no act of Congress ever met with a more hearty and generous approbation.

But I say to you, with sorrow, that Congress has done no single act the tendency of which has been to advance the value of these notes to a gold standard; and I shall make that clearer before I get through.

Every bond that was issued was issued only upon the sacred pledge contained in this act, that the interest of that bond should be paid in coin; and the principal should be paid, when due, in coin.

If the policy provided for by this act had been maintained, we would long since have been at specie payments, without any serious disturbance of our monetary affairs.

If the legal tender notes could have been wedded to any form of gold bond by being made convertible into it, they would have been lifted, by the gradual advance of our public credit, to par in gold, leaving the question of contraction to…

We cannot reconcile or pass any measure that will be satisfactory to the country unless we do so.

Any positive victory by either extreme of this controversy will be an absolute injury to the business of the country.

I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune.