Lincoln's election, and a declaration that it
was the duty of the whole body of citizens to render obedience to the
Government. I very well knew that these terms would be rejected with
scorn, as I well knew that any other terms would be rejected.
Conspirators are never disposed to make terms with the party or person
against whom their conspiracy is aimed, until the conspiracy has
failed. Hence it was that those who humbled themselves in the dust
were treated with contumely, even more offensive than the invectives
which the conspirators showered upon the heads of those who neither
proffered nor accepted terms of compromise.
Mr. Chittenden's report is accurate in respect to the views that I
presented, but it is incomplete, as I spoke about an hour. When I
began to speak, I advanced slowly up the aisle until I could look into
the faces of the Virginia delegation, who occupied the settee next to
the president's desk. Mr. William C. Rives was one of the Virginia
delegation, a Union man, who sympathized with the border State men, and
hoped by some concession to avert war. When I said that if the South
persisted in secession, "the South would march its armies to the Great
Lakes, or we should march ours to the Gulf of Mexico," the tears came
into his eyes. My remark that the North abhorred the institution of
slavery, wounded the Southern men sorely.
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