Mr. SAULSBURY. Mr. President, it is always to he regretted that in the discussion ofquestionsinvo vingprinciples oflaw, whether that discussion takes place in courts of justice or in legislative bodies, feeling should become excited and passion engendered. such questions ought always to he approached in calmness and coolness of mind, and all extraneous influences and considerations should be avoided in the discussion. In a discussion of this kind, which involves principles and interests of some magnitude, it is proper that we should bend our minds to the proper considerations which necessarily arise in it. In the discussion of this question, whether it is proper, in the 1st place, to repeal the act of 1846 retroceding a portion of the DistCol to the State of Virginia, and in the 2nd place, whether we have the power to do it, almost every subject has been brought in. We have been told that the Object of procuring the net of retrocession was to set on foot this great rebellion, as it is called; that it was with the design to kindle up the flames of war; that 20 years and a day ago the people of Virginia and the people of the South were meditating the destruction of this great Government, and that more effect equally to accomplish their purposes they procured from Congress the passage of an act retroceding about 5 miles extent of territory on the opposite shore of Virginia. Mr. President, are great civilWars, are great rebellions which are to convulse a whole land, started by instrumentalities so feeble, so ineffiicient as that? Is it possible that a cool mind can believe that 20 years ago there were 'slotters throughout the southern States to destroy the fabric of this Government, and that in their cogitations, with all their wisdom l as statesmen, they could devise no better or more eflicient instrumentality as a beginning in the work of mischief than to pass a retro cession of a few acres of land on the opposite side of the Potomac? Why, sir, 20 years ago I do not suppose there was a man in the State of Virginia that dreamed of an thing like a disruption of the Union or that desired it. Virginia noble, ancient, glorious Virginia glorious in her ruins, glorious in her historic fame, glorious in the illustrious names that adorn her annals, glorious in the work which her statesmen did in laying the deep foundations of the Republic, covered all over with the glory of revolutionary times she plottin the destruction of that temple of liberty which her own sons reared! Sir, I approve not the action of the State of Virginia wren she attempted to secede from the ‘ederal Union; I indorse no such action as that; but even now her sons may look upon her wasted fields, upon her rained and dilapi dated houses, and they may feel proud that they had their birth place on a soilconsecrated to freedom and a soi which gave birth to the noblest spirits that ever adorned the annals of American histo. While the name of Washington shall endure, while Madison shall be remembered, while the name of the author of the DeclarIndep shall be cherished, and while the other worthy names which have adorned the annals of that State and illustrated its history shall be remembered, the sons of Virginia may feel a noble pride that they are the inheritors of their fume and that Providence has vouchsafed to them the blessing to be born on the same soil. Sir, 20 years ago Virginia contemplated no such movement as that o secession or revolution. When, in 1832, a sister State attempted, not to secede, but to annul an act of the federal Government, who sent the messenger of peace? Whose son was deputized to go down to the refractory State and act as mediator between the Federal Government and that State? It was then that the statesmen of Virginia, ar dent in their attachment to the Federal Union, devoted to the cause and to the principles of constitutional liberty, sent a Leo and said to SCarolina, “Stay our hand; attempt not that which may engen er strife and lead to war.” She was the State that said, “ Let there be peace.” And when the madness and the folly of fanaticism, when the fell demon of abolitionism had again broughtthis country to the verge of destruction, an when maddcned men in the North and maddened men in the South were cooperating together for the accomplishment of a common purpose, the dissolution of the Union, it was then that Virginia again, through the action of her noble states men, said, “ Let there be no strife between us, for we are allbrethren;" and, after ha g1st invited the other States of the Union? I meet in this capital in a peace cenvention, she sent her noblest men here to save your Federal Union, to act in conjunction with patriotic men from every State of the Union. It was no fault of hers that war chme. It was no fault of hers that constitutional liberty was broken down in this country. It was no fault of hers that war raged through the South. From the very foundations of your Government ay, sir, before the foundations of your Gavernment were laid to the time when the fatal step of secession was taken, the example of that noble old Commonwealth was an example worthy of the imitation of all her sister States, and her states men stood a head and shoulders above.the statesmen of any other State in this Union. And now that the foot of power grinds her to the dust, now t her sons are denied a representative upon this floor, now that her people have no one here to plead her cause or to as sert her rights, it becomes those who admire her noble history and the glorious example whichshe has given to her sister States to stand up ahd defend her character when assailed. But, sir, I did not intend to, go into any eulo gium upon the character of the State of Virginia. Whatever of political science I have learned, whatever of the true principles of constitutional liberty I have learned, I have learned from the writings and the teachings of the states men of Virginia. Her noble doctrine of State rights, now derided, is a glorious heritage which her early statesmen left to the present times. He who studies the principleso constitutional law aright, and who studies the principles in which the foundations of this Government were laid correctly, will recur, in all after time, to the sagesof Virginia for proper enlightenment and proper instruction. Mr. President, 2 nestious naturally arise in the consideration of this subject. One is, is there an necessity for the repeal of this act? That is in ependent of all questions of the constitutionality of the act retroceding a portiOn of the DistCol to the State of Virinia. Has the Federal Government any use or that portion of what formerly belonged to the DistCol 1ing south of the Potomac? I have not hear what use they are going to make of it. They do not want it for the purpose of erecting any public buildings upon it. When they get it they do not propose to do a thing with it, except, I suppose, to give it the benefit of congressional legislation. From such benefits, good Lord deliver them! It is not contended that that portion of the DistCol which is still retained under the control of Congress is not sufficient for all the purposes of the national Government. But it is said there are patriots over there who, with longing eyes, are looking to you as their deliverers from the oppression under which they groan b the action of the authorities of Virginia. I hope they are all striots. Those who were not secessionists I ope are patriots now, although there is many a man who did not go hito secession who is as big a traitor as those who did. Those who cooperated with them by their legislative action, by their political action, and did that which necesarily led to the same result, are in the same category with them. If there are any there who were secessionists, I think they have got a lesson they will never forget. I think they will never try that game any more. I think they are about as well reconstructed as you can possibly reconstruct men. I have seen no evidence in Virginia or elsewhere of any disposition on the part of the people again to attempt any op position to any rightful Federal authority. 1 e lieve that on might remove every soldier out of the soutern States today and there would not be a disturbance of the public peace, with the exception of those casual disturbances which occur everywhere. No, sir; that is not the spirit of the people of Alexandria; nor is it tespirit of the people of the South. When the‘southern people said, “We submit to the arbitrament of the sword; we struggled for the accomplishment of a purpose, and we have failed; on have been too strong for us on the field of battle; we give our word of honor that we shall not renew this contest; that in future we will obey the laws of the Federal Government, and support the Constitution of the U.S., ” I) want no oaths from them;I want no other security. I know their high character as men of honor, and that is all the securit that I want.