would enable them subsequently to stand up against foreign competition.” Then, in his most captivating, heart-winning strains, he sought to persuade the Senate that the Force Bill and the bill of peace should go together for the good of the country: the one to “demonstrate the power and the disposition to vindicate the authority and supremacy of the laws of the Union;” the other, to “offer that which, accepted in the fraternal spirit in which it was tendered, would supersede the necessity of the employment of all force.” He closed with a remarkable outburst of personal feeling. “I have been accused of ambition in presenting this measure. Ambition! inordinate ambition! Low, groveling souls, who are utterly incapable of elevating themselves to the higher and nobler duties of pure patriotism, — beings who, forever keeping their own selfish aims in view, decide all public measures by their presumed influence on their aggrandizement, — judge me by the venal rule which they prescribe for themselves. I am no candidate for any office in the gift of these states, united or separated. I never wish, never expect, to be. Pass this bill, tranquilize the country, restore confidence and affection in the Union, and I am willing to go to Ashland and renounce public service forever. Yes, I have ambition. But it is the ambition of being the humble instrument, in the hands of Providence, to reconcile a divided people, once more to revive concord and harmony in a distracted land, — the pleasing ambition of contemplating the
