And do those gentlemen who make these threats soberly consider how deeply they are pledging themselves and their constituents by them? Threats of dissolution, if executed, become rebellion and treason. The machinery of this government is now moving onward in its majestic course. Custom-houses, post-offices, land-offices, army, navy, are fulfilling their prescribed circle of duties. They will continue to fulfil them until arrested by violence. Should the hand of violence be laid upon them, then will come that exigency expressly provided for in the constitution and in the President’s inaugural oath, “TO TAKE CARE THAT THE LAWS BE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED.” Mr. Chairman, such collision would be _war_. Such forcible opposition to the government would be _treason_. Its agents and abettors would be _traitors_. Wherever this rebellion rears its crest, martial law will be proclaimed; and those found with hostile arms in their hands must prepare for the felon’s doom. Sir, I cannot contemplate this spectacle without a thrill of horror. If the two sections of this country ever marshal themselves against each other, and their squadrons rush to the conflict, it will be a war carried on by such powers of intellect, animated by such vehemence of passion, and sustained by such an abundance of resources, as the world has never before witnessed. “Ten foreign wars,” it has been well said, “are a luxury compared with one civil war.” But I turn from this scene with a shudder. If, in the retributive providence of God, the volcano of civil war should ever burst upon us, it will be amid thunderings above, and earthquakes below, and darkness around; and when that darkness is lifted up, we shall see this once glorious union,--this oneness of government, under which we have been prospered and blessed as Heaven never prospered and blessed any other people,--rifted in twain from east to west, with a gulf between us wide and profound, save that this gulf will be filled and heaped high with the slaughtered bodies of our countrymen; and when we reäwaken to consciousness, we shall behold the garments and the hands of the survivors red with fratricidal blood. And what is the object for which we are willing to make this awful sacrifice? Is it to redeem a realm to freedom? No! But to subjugate a realm to slavery. Is it to defend the rights of man? No! But to abolish the rights of man! Mr. BOWDON. Does not the gentleman think that such a picture as he has drawn would induce the north to yield a portion of the new territories to the institution of slavery? Mr. MANN. I trust that no pictures _and no realities_ will ever induce us to extend slavery beyond its present limits. Beyond those limits, “No more slave territories, no more slave states,” is the doctrine by which I, for one, shall live and die.