The Constitution has been amended. I wish to mark how it was done, and then note why it was done. There was a time when fears were entertained that wrongs might be done to different sections of the Union under the Constitution as it then stood. Congress listened to those fears, and did not hesitate to propose amendments suggested from outside its own body--to submit them to the people for adoption. It was necessary, in the judgment of Congress, to do this, in order to restore confidence. It was done, and confidence was restored. Is not that precisely our case now? Is not confidence lost in the North and in the South?--not exactly lost, perhaps, but shaken. The credit of the Government is gone. Even our naval commanders are unable to negotiate Government bills abroad--are reduced to the degrading alternative of asking the endorsement of foreign States, in order to such negotiation. Some brilliant individuals have suggested that we have already become so poor that our widows and wives must bring out their stockings. Our last loan was negotiated at twelve per cent. discount. The present loan is not to be taken at any rate, unless the Government descends to the humiliating alternative of securing State endorsements. Our credit is going lower and lower every day, and it will soon come to the point where our bonds will be worth no more than Continental money was. Suppose we do nothing here. Are gentlemen blind to the consequences? Gentlemen, honest and patriotic as I know you are, have you no love for this Union?--have you no care for the preservation of this Government? God forbid that I should say you have none! I know you too well. My relations have been too intimate with you, and have existed too long, for me to suppose it. You do love the Union. I speak for the South and to the South. I know that we can still labor to keep this Government together. If we follow the plain dictates of our judgment, any other course would be impossible. The Virginia Convention is even now in session, and what a convention it is! Disguise as we may, deceive ourselves as we will, it is a convention which proposes to consider the question of withdrawing the State from the Union. Kentucky and Missouri, if we do nothing, will soon follow. If there ever was a time in the history of the Government for conciliation, for patriotic concession, that time is now. The time has come when parties must be forgotten. Let not the word party be mentioned here. It is not worthy of us. Representatives of the States, you are above party--high above. The cords that bind you together are a hundred times as strong as those which ever bound any party. Unless we do something, and something very quickly, before the incoming President is inaugurated, in all human probability he will have only the States north of Mason and Dixon to govern--that is, if he is to govern them in peace.