I have ever since entertained a feeling of the highest respect for Virginia. Her abstractions I confess I could never understand, nor did I ever wish to. They are her exclusive property, and she never uses them to the injury of her neighbors. If she chooses to make the resolutions of '98 a matter of importance, I do not know that anybody is injured. I regretted to hear the imputations upon Virginia which some gentlemen have seen fit to make. Menace is not the habit of that ancient commonwealth. She does not indulge in it, and it would not become her. The gentleman from New York intimated that if a State came to him with a menace he would meet it with a menace. In this I agree with him. If Virginia came here with a menace I should meet her with defiance. But happily for us we have no occasion to consider the question in this light. If ever a State came to meet her sisters, to consult for the common good in a proper spirit, Virginia does so now. A military chieftain once, when approaching his death, lamented that he had no children to transmit his name and his qualities to posterity. Virginia will never need to take up such a lamentation. She has children enough. She is the mother of WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, of MADISON, MARSHALL, and CLAY. Rightly and justly she has been called the mother of States. She is the mother of States, and of millions of freemen. I honor and respect Virginia, for she deserves it. She was among the foremost in the Revolutionary struggle; and since it was terminated, she has exhibited a continued example of patriotism and loyalty. Her sons have been among the ablest in our legislative councils, and even to-day she sets a noble example before the country, for the emulation of her sister States. Our interests are inseparably connected with her own. We will acknowledge the fact, and act in view of it. Let her remember, also, that she has a common interest with us. She will do so because she will be faithful to her old traditions as well as to her present duty. I cannot believe that the time has come when it is necessary for us to contemplate a dissolution of the Union. The people are not prepared for such an awful event. We do not yet know how heavy sacrifices they will make to avoid it. Some States have left us I know, but I believe their absence is but temporary. We must have them back, and we will. As for the Border States leaving us in the present condition of affairs, with the present feeling of friendship for them, _that_ I regard as an impossibility. Why should the Border States go out of the Union when three-fourths of the present Congress are ready to give them all the guarantees they ask?