referred to Mr. Clay and Mr, Clay's senti-
ments. He could not quote a more patriotic,
a more honest, or a more able statesman. I
listen always to the counsels of Clay with as
much reverence and respect as to those of
any other statesman at any time in the histo-
ry of our country. On one or two occasions
I have been intending to call the attention of
my friend to the counsels of Mr. Clay upon a
subject that be seems studiously to avoid.—
When he can find a remark of Mr. Clay on
the ambition of southern statesmen, as be says,
he is ready to adopt it, but when Mr, Clay
has uttered warnings against danger from
another source, they seem never to have
readied the gentleman's attention. I beg to
call the gentleman's attention to a few ex-
tracts from a speech delivered by Mr. Clay as
long ago as 1839, in which be warned his
countrymen, in a strain of impassioned elo-
quence, of the dire consequences of abolition-
ism and northern attacks upon southern insti-
tutions, and in reading his remarks, every one
will be strikingly impressed with the fact that
what he then predicted has actually come to
pass:
"Abolition should no longer be regarded
as an imaginary danger. The abolitionists,
let me suppose, succeed in their present aim
of uniting the inhabitants of the free States as
one man against the inhabitants of the slave
States. Union on the one side will beget
union on the other. And this process of re-
ciprocal consolidation will be attended with
all the violent prejudices, embittered passions,
and implacable animosities which ever degra-
ded or deformed human nature, A virtual
dissolution of the Union will have taken place,
while the forms of its existence remain. The
most valuable element of union, mutual kind-
ness, the feelings of sympathy, the fraternal
bonds which now happily unite us, will have
been extinguished forever. One section will
stand in menacing and hostile array against
the other. The collision of opinion will be
quickly followed by the clash of arms,"
Now listen to his picture of the conse-
quences:
"I will not attempt to describe scenes
which now happily lie concealed from our
view, Abolitionists themselves would shrink
back in dismay and horror at the contempla-
tion of desolated fields, conflagrated cities,
murdered inhabitants, and the overthrow of
the fairest fabric, of human government that
ever rose to animate the hopes of civilized
man. Nor should the abolitionists flatter
themselves that, if they can succeed in their
object of uniting the people of the free States,
they will enter the contest with numerical
superiority that must insure victory. All
history and experience proves the hazard and
uncertainty of war. And we are admonished
by Holy Writ that the race is not to the swift
nor the battle to the strong.
" But if they were to conquer, whom would |
they conquer? A foreign foe—one who had
insulted our flag, invaded our shores, and
laid our country waste? No sir; no. It
would be a conquest without laurels, without
glory—a self-suicidal conquest:—a conquest of
brothers over brothers, achieved by one over
another portion of the" descendants of common
ancestors, who nobly pledging their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor, had
fought and hied side by side. in many a hard
battle on land and ocean, severed our
country from the British crown, and estab-
lished our national independence."
There are two sides to this question; and 1
give the gentleman the warnings of Mr. Clay
against the consequences of abolitionism in
the north, while the gentleman gives us the
consequences of the ambition of statesmen in
the south,
With reference to the definition of the word
"loyalty" upon which he insists, the objec-
tion to it is that we know not what it means.
If, as the gentleman from Prince George's
(Mr. Marbury) says, it means asteadfast and
faithful obligation of obedience to the consti-
tution and laws of the country, we under-
stand that, and there is not a man in Mary-
land who is not ready to take the oath to
support it, I presume that any man who
withholds his assent to that would halve manli-
ness enough to go elsewhere. Those who
stay here are presumed to stay under the laws
and the constitution, and to be ready to per-
form their duties,
But :he objection is, that what is loyalty to-
day is disloyalty to-morrow; and a man does
not know when he gets up in the morning,
supposing him to be perfectly loyal in heart—
the gentleman himself cannot tell whether he
is loyal to-day or not. A new policy may
have been adopted by the President, and a
new proclamation issued, which the gentle-
man has not yet read, taking the back track
and upsetting' all his calculations, if it is
loyalty to sustain the President in all his acts,
then that ideal of loyalty would be to sustain
a government in tyranny, in all its measures.
Mr. SANDS. I hope the gentlemen will ex-
cuse me for interrupting him, but my lan-
guage could not bear that con struct ion. I said
expressly that it was to support the President
and those in authority with him, and to obey
them so long as they continue in the lawful
discharge of their duty.
Mr. JONES, of Somerset. That is right; and
upon that definition of the oath of loyalty 1
will take it every morning and every night.
Mr. SANDS. That is my definition
Mr. JONES, of Somerset. Then it ought to
be in the oath. I will show you what was
loyal in 1861. I will show you »what was the
deliberate statement made by the President,
through the secretary of state, in his instruc-
tions (No. 3) to Mr. Dayton, our minister to
Paris. He says:
"The condition of slavery in the several |
