"Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave--a degraded,
defeated, emasculated People, frightened by the results of one battle,
and scared at the visions raised by the imagination of the Senator from
Kentucky on this floor? No, Sir! a thousand times, no, Sir! We will
rally--if, indeed, our words be necessary--we will rally the People, the
Loyal People, of the whole Country. They will pour forth their
treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without measure. The
most peaceable man in this body may stamp his foot upon this Senate
Chamber floor, as of old a warrior and a Senator did, and from that
single tramp there will spring forth armed Legions.

"Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen?--the loss of
one thousand men, or twenty thousand? or one hundred million or five
hundred million dollars? In a year's Peace--in ten years, at most, of
peaceful progress--we can restore them all. There will be some graves
reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection. There will be
some privation; there will be some loss of luxury; there will be
somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of life. When
that is said, all is said. If we have the Country, the whole Country,
the Union, the Constitution, Free Government--with these there will
return all the blessings of well-ordered civilization; the path of the
Country will be a career of greatness and of glory such as, in the olden
time, our Fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such
as would have been ours now, to-day, if it had not been for the Treason
for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize."

This remarkable speech was the last utterance of that glorious and
courageous soul, in the National Senate. Within three months, his
lifeless body, riddled by Rebel rifle balls, was borne away from the