He was not however afraid of the word "subjugation." Its literal, classical meaning was, to pass under the yoke, but in the popular acceptation it meant that "all the people of the United States should submit to the Constitution and laws." -- Mr.Harris of New York expressed his approval of the resolution "precisely as it was offered.

Every expression in it was apt and appropriate." If slavery should be abolished as a result of the war, he would not "shed a tear over that result; but yet it is not the purpose of the government in prosecuting the war to overthrow slavery." -- Mr.Fessenden of Maine agreed with Mr.Collamer as to the word "subjugation." It expressed the idea clearly, and he was "satisfied with it.

The talk about subjugation is mere clap-trap." -- Mr.Doolittle of Wisconsin said the use of the word "subjugation" in the resolution did not imply that it was not "the purpose of the Government to compel the Disunionists to submit to the Constitution and the laws." -- Mr.Willey of Virginia said that there was a great sensitiveness in his section; that there was a fear among many that the object of the war was subjugation; that "its design was to reduce the Old Dominion to a province, and to make the people (in the language of the senator from Vermont) pass under the yoke." -- Mr.Hale of New Hampshire favored the resolution.

He said the most radical abolitionists had "always disclaimed the idea or the power of interfering with slavery in the States." -- Mr.Clark, the colleague of Mr.Hale, would support the resolution, and would oppose any amendment offered to it, not because he liked its phraseology, but because "it was drawn by the senator from Tennessee, and suited him and the region from which he came." -- Mr.Breckinridge of Kentucky could not vote for the resolution, because he did not "agree with the statement of facts contained in it." He would not go into the antecedents of the unhappy difficulties.
He did not consider that "the rupture in the harbor of Charleston, the firing on the _Star of the West_, and the collision at Fort Sumter, justified those proceedings on the part of the President which have made one blaze of war from the Atlantic to the western borders of the Republic." He did not believe that "the President had a right to take that step which produced the war, and to call (under Presidential authority alone) the largest army into the field ever assembled on the American continent, and the largest fleet ever collected in American harbors." He believed that "the responsibility for the war is to be charged, first, to the majority in the two Houses last winter in rejecting amendments to the Constitution; and, secondly, to the President, for calling out an armed force." -- Mr.Sherman of Ohio replied with great spirit to Mr.Breckinridge.
He said Ohio and Kentucky stood side by side, and had always been friends; but if the senator who had just spoken, spoke the voice of his State, then he feared that Kentucky and Ohio would soon be enemies.

He felt confident however that "the views expressed do not represent the sentiments of Kentucky's patriotic citizens." On the contrary, no person with the authority of President Lincoln "ever forbore so patiently." The people of the loyal States had "forborne with the Disunionists of the Southern States too much and too long." There was not a line, not a syllable, not a promise, in the Constitution which the people of the loyal States did not religiously obey.