This "blood letter" (as it was commonly termed) Mr. Chandler was often called upon to meet in the course of his subsequent public life, and he never failed to justify its writing or to stand by its language. In the extra session of the Senate in March, 1861, John C. Breckenridge alluded to "Senatorial threats of blood-letting," and Mr. Chandler retorted by re-reading Jefferson's letter and re-asserting the purpose to meet attempted treason with force. In the last session of the Thirty-seventh Congress (on Feb. 13, 1863) William A. Richardson of Illinois said in a debate upon a war loan measure: The Senator from Michigan, at the outset of this controversy, declared in a letter to the Governor of the State of Michigan, that this government was not worth a rush without some blood-letting. Standing in array against all our history for seventy years, standing in array against the peace of the country for seventy years, the constitution itself in every proceeding from that time to this being but compromise, he declared at the outset against any compromise for the peace of the country, and he is responsible to a very large extent for the arbitrament of war that is now upon us. He is responsible for those consequences that are now flowing to us from the position assumed then strongly by him at the head of a dominant party in the country. Mr. Chandler was prompt in meeting this attack, and said: Mr. President: I do not propose to-day to go over my record. It has been made before the country and the world. There let it stand. So far as my loyalty and devotion to the country are concerned, I doubt if any man ever seriously attempted to cast suspicion on them. But, as I said before, my record is made. I stand upon it and am proud of it in all its entirety. The Senator alluded to the blood-letting letter, as it is called in Michigan. That letter has been discussed before the people of that State. Thousands and tens of thousands, and, for aught I know, hundreds of thousands of copies of it, were scattered broadcast throughout that State. What were the circumstances under which that letter was written? We had traitors in this body proclaiming from day to-day that this government was then destroyed, and there was no rebuke from the Senator of Illinois or his friends. There was no rebuke from the administration then in power, whom he aided in placing there. They proclaimed that the government was entirely destroyed; and that it should never be restored. Senators proclaimed on this floor that you might give them a blank sheet of paper and allow them to fill it as they pleased, and still they would not live with us under the same government.... Here in this hall and in the other chamber, and on the streets wherever you went, you heard traitors declare that the government was ended, declare that if you attempted to coerce the rebel States it would lead to war. I believed then, as I