meet this enemy of our peace upon the square, and destroy it where it attempts to destroy us, another generation will not pass away till a new rebellion must be quelled, another debt of greater magnitude be added to the present, and the nation must again offer for sacrifice fresh hecatombs of her noble youth. We do not owe these troubles to any essential difference of sectional interests or of the character of the people. With all our diversity of soils, climates, and productions, we are truly homogeneous. The evils in which I am convinced are to be found the germs of the rebellion, would be just as manifest in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, if slavery were there, as in Virginia or South Carolina.... The power given by law in any country, in any State, by which one man is permitted to own another as property is a tremendous one, and far transcending all other rights of property, it will always be, while human nature remains as it is, a stronger lever of social and political influence than all other interests.... It will be the pivot point of success for either party when it becomes wise enough to adopt the Madisonian idea of converting chattels into men.... There are those who look upon ... emancipation as evidence of our national decline and the decay of our constitutional liberty; but to me, Mr. Speaker, it is the surest evidence of our perpetuity as a nation." Blair then went on to urge his colleagues to treat the seceded southern states as "a foreign Government of a thousand years' existence" that was at war with the United States, and pressed Congress to adopt "measures to pursue and destroy the enemy" and "destroy the southern confederacy." During the next major portion of his address, he then presented a lengthy discourse regarding the need for large-scale emancipation of the men, women and children who were still enslaved in the south, based on "the analogous belligerent right of confiscation of enemy's property," and advocated for passage of a new confiscation bill that would facilitate this emancipation before closing his oration with the following words: "This rebellion cannot be put down with soft words and lenient measures. We extended the olive branch full too long, until our flag was disgraced and war commenced by the mad conspirators. We must, by all the means at our command, strike down