But I do not intend to argue the case. I wish to deal with it calmly, but explicitly. I believe the North is ready to stand by the Constitution with all its compromises, as it now is. I do not intend, moreover, to throw out any threats of disunion, whatever may be the result. I do not intend, now or ever, to contemplate disunion as a cure for any imaginable evil. At the same time I do not intend to be driven from a firm expression of purpose, and a steadfast adherence to principle, by any threats of disunion from any other quarter. The people of New England, whom I have any privilege to speak for, do not desire, as I understand their views, I know my own heart and my own principles and can at least speak for them, to gain one foot of territory by conquest, and as the result of the prosecution of the war with Mexico. I do not believe that even the abolitionists of the North,--though I am one of the last persons who would be entitled to speak their sentiments, would be unwilling to be found in combination with Southern gentlemen, who may see fit to espouse this doctrine. We desire peace. We believe that this war ought never to have been commenced, and we do not wish to have it made the pretext for plundering Mexico of one foot of her lands. But if the war is to be prosecuted, and if territories are to be conquered and annexed, we shall stand fast and forever to the principle that, so far as we are concerned, these territories shall be the exclusive abode of freemen. R. C. Winthrop. XLI. NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON. Fellow-citizens! Let us seize this occasion to renew to each other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American Union, and let us recognize In our common title to the name and fame of Washington, and, in our common veneration for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal power, which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in one glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about to construct, be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union! Let the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and reverted, In a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the rising sun--till that sun shall set to rise no more--draw forth from it dally, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every heart throughout the Republic!