Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

1 Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Benjamin F. Wade, and others in the Senate; and John Sherman, Charles Francis Adams, Thomas Corwin, and others in the House of Representatives, made powerful speeches against Mr. Crittenden's propositions, and in favor of universal freedom. One of the most remarkable passages in the great debate was the speech of Sherrard Clemens, of Western Virginia, who took such decided ground against the pretensions of the Oligarchy, that its representatives in Congress called him a traitor. With the most biting scorn, he thus referred to the conspirators in Congress:--“Patriotism has become a starveling birdling, clinging with unfledged wings around the nest of twigs where it was born. A statesman now must not only

Narrow his mind,
And to party give up what was meant for mankind,

but he must become as submissive as a blind horse in a bark-mill to every perverted opinion which sits, whip In hand, on the revolving shaft at the end of which he is harnessed, and meekly travels. To be considered a diamond of the first water, he must stand in the Senate House of his country [like Toombs and his fellow-traitors], and, in the face of a forbearing people, glory in being a traitor and a rebel. He must solemnly proclaim the death of the nation to which he had sworn allegiance, and, with the grave stolidity of an undertaker, invite its citizens to their own funeral. He must dwarf and provincialize his patriotism to the State on whose local passions he thrives, to the county where he practices court, or to the city where he flaunts in all the meretricious dignity of the Doge of Venice. He can take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, but he can enter with honor into a conspiracy to overthrow it. He is ready to laugh in your face when you tell him, that before he was ‘ muling and puking in his nurse's arms,’ there lived an obscure person by the name of George Washington, and who, before he died, became eminent, by perpetuating the immortal joke of advising the people of the United States that it is of infinite moment that we should properly estimate the immense value of our National Union. that we should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; that we should watch for its preservation with jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”

With greater bitterness Mr. Clemens denounced the Abolitionists, and quoted from the writings and speeches of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, in which they advocated a dissolution of the Union. “All hail disunion I” cried Phillips, in one of these. “Sacrifice every thing for the Union? God forbid I Sacrifice every thing to keep South Carolina in it? Rather build a bridge of gold and pay her toll over it. Let her march off with banners and trumpets, and we will speed the parting guest. Let her not stand upon the order of her going, but go at once. Give her the forts and arsenals and subtreasuries, and lend her jewels of silver and gold, and Egypt will rejoice that she has departed.” --Congressional Globe, 1860, ‘61. Appendix, pages 108, 104.