the honour of our humblest member, minister, church, presbytery, against
all this impertinently-inquisitorial action. Have you a _prosecutor_, with
his definite charge and witnesses? Have you _Common Fame_, with her
specified charges and witnesses? Have you a request from the South that
you send a committee to inquire into slanders? No. Then hands off. As
gentlemen you may ask us these questions,--we will answer you. But,
ecclesiastically, you cannot speak in this matter. You have no power to
move as you propose.

I beg leave to say, just here, that Tennessee [Footnote: At that time I
resided in Tennessee.] will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave-region. Tennessee has been ever high above the storm, North
and South,--especially we of the mountains. Tennessee!--"there she
is,--look at her,"--binding this Union together like a great, long,
broad, deep stone,--more splendid than all in the temple of Baalbec or
Solomon. Tennessee!--there she is, in her calm valour. I will not lower
her by calling her unconquerable, for she has never been assailed; but I
call her ever-victorious. King's Mountain,--her pioneer
battles:--Talladega, Emucfau, Horse-shoe, New Orleans, San Jacinto,
Monterey, the Valley of Mexico. Jackson represented her well in his
chivalry from South Carolina,--his fiery courage from Virginia and
Kentucky,--all tempered by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian prudence from
Tennessee. We, in his spirit, have looked on this storm for years
untroubled. Yes, Jackson's old bones rattled in their grave when that
infamous disunion convention met in Nashville, and its members turned
pale and fled aghast. Yes, Tennessee, in her mighty million, feels
secure; and, in her perfect preparation to discuss this question,
politically, ecclesiastically, morally, metaphysically, or physically,
with the extreme North or South, she is willing and able _to persuade
others to be calm_. In this connection, I wish to say, for the South to