Instead of scouting this pretension, and utterly spurning it, new concessions to Slavery were gravely propounded as the means of pacification,--like a new sacrifice offered to an obscene divinity. It was argued, that in this way the Border States at least might be preserved to the Union, and some of the Cotton States perhaps won back to duty: in other words, that, in consideration of such concessions, these States would consent to waive a present exercise of the pretended right of secession. Against all such propositions, without considering their character, stands on the threshold one obvious and imperative objection. It is clear that the very bargain or understanding, whether express or implied, is a recognition of this pretended right, and that a State yielding only to such appeal, and detained through concessions, practically asserts the claim, and holds it for future exercise. Thus a concession called small becomes infinite; for it concedes the pretended right of secession, and makes the permanence of the National Government impossible. Amidst all the grave responsibilities of the hour, we must take care that the life of the Republic is sacredly preserved. But this would be sacrificed at once, did we submit its existence to the conditions proposed. Looking at these concessions, I have always found them utterly unreasonable and indefensible. I should not expose them now, if they did not testify constantly to the Origin and Mainspring of this Rebellion. Slavery was always the single subject-matter, and nothing else. Slavery was not only an integral part of every concession, but the single integer. The one idea was to give some new security, in some form, to Slavery. That brilliant statesman, Mr. Canning, in one of those eloquent speeches which charm so much by style, said that he was “tired of being a security-grinder”; but his experience was not comparable to ours. “Security-grinding,” in the name of Slavery, has been for years the way in which we have wrestled with this conspiracy. [_Laughter and applause._] The propositions at the last Congress began with the President’s Message, which in itself was one tedious concession. You cannot forget his sympathetic portraiture of the disaffection throughout the Slave States, or his testimony to the cause. Notoriously and shamefully his heart was with the conspirators, and he knew intimately the mainspring of their conduct. He proposed nothing short of general surrender; and thus did he proclaim Slavery as the head and front, the very _causa causans_, of the whole crime.