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 DELIVERED AT 
 
 pitntington, f . |., |;cto-|odi, 
 
 RICHARD BUSTEED, ESQ., 
 
 FEIDAY, JULY 4tli, 1862. 
 
 0. S. WESTCOTT & CO., PKINTERS, 
 No. 79 John Street. 
 
 1862. 
 

 '0? 
 
/^f 
 
 OEATION. 
 
 We are to-day actors in the grandest drama of real life ; 
 we stand upon the threshold of momentous events, and touch 
 the garment of occurrences which are to shape the future con- 
 dition of a Continent. 
 
 Republican Institutions, and their chief feature, the capacity 
 of man for self-government, are upon trial before the assem- 
 bled world. 
 
 To this strange political and social entanglement the Amer- 
 ican people sustain the relation of both the contending parties. 
 A large minority on the one side have inaugurated, and are 
 carrying on, a war against the Constitution and the Federal 
 Union, and attempt to cover their conduct beneath the shield 
 of a justifiable revolution ; for this purpose, and with a view 
 to disrupt the old government, they have organized rebellion 
 into an appearance of sovereignty, and have sent forth to the 
 world an appeal to " the last argument of kings," and a dec- 
 laration of hatred for, and independence of, the institutions of 
 the United States of America. 
 
 On the other hand, the majority of the people, a majority 
 composed of the better intellect, greater wealth, and more 
 liberal instincts, stand up for the government, under which the 
 nation has grown to be a chief power in the earth, and by ex- 
 pressions of individual opinion and legislative enactment, have 
 solemnly declared, their unalterable purpose, that there shall 
 be no severance of the parts which constitute us one country — 
 that, in the language of instruction to one of their represen- 
 tatives at a foreign Court, there shall be, on all the soil con- 
 
secrated to freedom and baptized at the font of American inde- 
 pendence, or by the American people since acquired, or here- 
 after, in the order of things and the Providence of God, by 
 them to be acquired, " only one nation and one government, 
 and that there is not now, nor has there been, nor will there be, 
 any, the least idea of suffering a dissolution of this Union, to 
 tako place in any way whatever.*' 
 
 Just so distinct are the views of the combatants, and just 
 so irreconcilable the differences which exist between them. 
 
 Nothing is simpler than the proposition that there can be no 
 adjustment of the quarrel, and that the absolute submission of 
 one to the demands of the other, is the only method by which 
 the matter in dispute can be disposed of. 
 
 It is of the utmost consequence to those immediately con- 
 cerned that, in so grave an affair, their cause shall be just, and 
 their motives and aims such as to sanctify the means adopted 
 by them, to^ effectuate the ends they propose. This conse- 
 quence is aggrandized by the fact that the American people 
 have in charge the future of rational liberty, man's equality, 
 and true representative government. For the preservation of 
 each of these, we are responsible to posterity. 
 
 All mankind, and especially the enslaved and oppressed of 
 mankind, are concerned in the civil struggle into which this 
 nation has been plunged by the madness of many and the 
 wickedness of a few. As this struggle terminates, we main- 
 tain national unity and power, or become separated into petty 
 factions, contemptible and puerile, the weakest to be preyed 
 upon by the strongest, and the strongest in turn, to be the spoil 
 of any considerable foreign rival. As it terminates, we are a 
 nation of bankrupts, or unrivalled in the sources of material 
 and political affluence ; as it terminates, the memory and act 
 of our fathers will be revered or derided. God save the Re- 
 public ! 
 
 In this connection I propose to consider, how the struggle 
 
 OUGHT TO TERMINATE, HOW IT WILL TERMINATE, AND WHEN ? 
 
 To present a sufficient answer to the first of these inquiries, 
 
/3o 
 
 it will be necessary to examine the grounds upon which the 
 contestants claim success should of right crown their par- 
 ticular designs. To this it is not material to go into a formal 
 examination of the origin of our government. The origin of 
 the government belongs wholly to the past. It concerns us 
 now to know whether the government is to be maintained, 
 and by what means it is most likely this result can be 
 reached. 
 
 The question before us to day is not as to the causes which 
 impelled the separation of the North American colonies from 
 England, or whether these were sufficient to justify our revo- 
 lutionary ancestors. " The logic of accomplished results," is 
 the completest vindication the men of '76 could desire. Judged 
 by the standard of increased prosperity and good to the race, 
 our fathers have eulogists in every improved human condition, 
 in every success of civilized life, and in every triumph of con- 
 stitutional liberty. They need neither poetry nor oratory to 
 sound their fame. Every gathered harvest — every successful 
 adventure — every increasing source of national revenue — 
 every exhibition of charity or religion — each, in its turn, sings 
 a poean in their praise. The question of concern, as I have 
 suggested, is whether their work shall be allowed to remain, 
 or whether a new state of things shall take its place, and 
 crude experiment be substituted for ripe experience. 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that the founders of the Re- 
 public intended that it should exist for ever in concrete ; that 
 it should be as incapable of incohesion as a ray of light or a 
 glance of the eye. 
 
 Before the convention of the memorable 7th of October, 
 1765, when committees from nine colonies met in New- York 
 to discuss the policy of forcible resistance to the Stamp Act, 
 the idea of an indissoluble Union, as the future destiny of the 
 struggling colonies, had filled the minds of the people. The 
 coming event was clearly discernible. Its lengthening shad- 
 ows proclaimed the doom of tyranny and king-craft, and ere 
 yet purpose had taken tangible outline and shape, Patrick 
 
Henry — gifted with prophetic power, exclaimed, " All Amer- 
 ica is thrown into one mass — where are your land-marks — 
 your boundaries of colonies ? They are all thrown down. 
 The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New- 
 Yorkers, and New-Englanders, are no more. I am not a Vir- 
 ginian, but an American;" and before the adoption of the 
 federal Constitution, and while the states were only linked 
 together as friendly confederates for common defence and 
 mutual welfare, they adopted the title of United Stales of 
 America, and the 13th article of their league declared that 
 their union should be perpetual. This, in 1778. Nine years 
 afterwards, the people of the United States — not the politi- 
 cians, nor the wire-pulling leaders, not the directors of party 
 cauoases, nor the selfish place-seekers — the people of the 
 states, who before were united by the articles of confedera- 
 tion, " in order to form a more perfect union" among them- 
 selves, " establish justice, insure their domestic tranquillity, 
 provide for their common defence, promote their general wel- 
 fare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and 
 their posterity," ordained and established the Constitution to 
 defend the principles of ivhich six hundred thousand men in 
 arms are to day on the fields of sanguinary strife. 
 
 This compact was made by and between the people ; it 
 was intended to be, and is, a perpetual contract of alliance ; it 
 is indissoluble in its nature, as it is in the terms used to ex- 
 press its inseparableness. It is " a covenant running with the 
 land," and the heirs, if they take the inheritance, cannot 
 avoid the conditions which their ancestors imposed upon its en- 
 joyment. The agreement cannot be avoided or altered except 
 in the express manner provided, or by the concurrence of all 
 the parties in interest. It is too late for South Carolina to say 
 to Massachusetts, " I don't like you, and I won't live with you." 
 If the Palmetto state did not desire the association, she should 
 not have entered into the Union. Being in, by God's help, 
 she shall stay. She shall neither bluster out, nor fight out, 
 nor secede out, nor skedaddle out. New- York, too, is a joint 
 
/s/ 
 
 tenant with Mississippi and Georgia, and it looks very much 
 as if the Knickerbockers would enjoy the whole estate of the 
 Tadpoles and Buzzards, hy mere right of survivorship. 
 
 It is asked : Is there, then, no power inherent in a people to 
 change their government ? Are they forever to remain station- 
 ary in their ideas, and so arrest the progress of the mind, and 
 its capacity for improvement ? Certainly not. No such exi- 
 gence has occurred here. The difficulty with rehellion is, that 
 the majority of the people do not desire change, and when 
 they do, the Constitution itself provides how it shall be altered, 
 or amended, or substituted for another. Congress, on applica- 
 tion of two thirds of the members of both its houses, or of 
 two thirds of the legislatures of the several states, is obliged 
 to call a convention for proposing amendments to the Consti- 
 tution, and if these propositions are subsequently ratified by the 
 legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by Con- 
 ventions in three fourths of them, the amendments become 
 part of the organic law. Now it is a well-known legal 
 maxim, ''^ expressio unius est exclusio alterius ;''"' the naming 
 of an express mode by which a thing may be done, excludes 
 its performance in any other than the given manner. And, in 
 the language of Mr. Madison, the Constitution " being a com- 
 pact among the states in their highest sovereign capacity, and 
 constituting the people thereof one people for certain purposes, 
 it is not revocable or alterable at the will of these states indi- 
 vidually, as the constitution of a state is revocable at its in- 
 dividual will, and no state can at pleasure release itself there- 
 from and set up for itself. The compact can only be dissolved 
 by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or 
 abuses of power justly having that eftect." 
 
 When the great North, and the wise East, and the brave West, 
 get ready for inglorious national oblivion, the vain, supercilious 
 and barbaric South, may play the hand of empire alone ; but 
 until then, her boasted chivalry will be made to march and keep 
 step to the music of an undivided Union. When three fourths 
 
8 
 
 of our entire people shall have approved the amendments to 
 the Constitution whicli shall have been proposed by two thirds 
 of their number, the so-called " Confederate States" will have 
 a new constitution, but not until then. Grod hasten the hour ! 
 So let every lover of liberty pray. So only shall we escape 
 the withering sarcasm which taunts us with our boasted free- 
 dom while it points its scornful finger at four millions of hu- 
 man beings in bondage and in chains ! When that day comes, 
 the Genius of Liberty, herself emancipated from the fetters 
 of a written code, will shed a truer light on the American 
 mind. Then shall our anthems to Liberty not be drowned in 
 the dissonant cry of the manacled slave. Our incense will not 
 be driven before the hot breath of an oppressed and servile 
 race, but rise to the throne of God, an honest, as well as 
 grateful sacrifice ! There will be in the new constitution no 
 saving clause, no ambiguous provision in favor of man's right to 
 hold his fellow-man in perpetual bondage ; the waters of freedom 
 will cover the face of the whole empire, and slavery find no 
 rest upon it for the sole of her foot. The source of all our na- 
 tional misfortunes — the disturbing element in our life — the 
 cancer in our body politic will be destroyed forever. Our cause 
 of shame, and sin, and sorrow, will cease further to afHict our- 
 selves, and exasperate humanity. We will then have a con- 
 stitution as well as a country, to which an American can refer 
 with pride. We will have a consistent theory of government, 
 and a Declaration of Independence concurrent in sentiment 
 and expression with the law of the land. 
 
 For one, I desire the change. ' While I will obey and faith- 
 fully observe all that the Constitution of my country requires, 
 I yet wish the supreme law to be founded on the principles of 
 God's eternal justice, and to square with His golden rule. I 
 desire that the law of might shall be the law of right. As 
 the case now stands, my moral nature shrinks while I yield to 
 the command that, if the enslaved escape into a society where 
 freedom is not dependent upon complexion, he shall be deliv- 
 ered up on the demand of his owner, and so a stronger mana- 
 
/Jl^ 
 
 cle put upon him for obeying an irresistible and universal in- 
 stinct ? Men and brethren, ought such things be ? 
 
 " Can such things be, 
 And overcome us like a summer's cloud 
 Without our special wonder ?" 
 
 I frankly confess I want an amendment of the Constitution 
 on this subject, T believe that if this civil war, which the 
 slave oligarchists have fomented, shall, of itself, sow the 
 death-seeds of African bondage among us, the harvest of self- 
 respect the nation will thereby reap, and the consideration it 
 will thereby gain, will be worth more than the cost of the 
 war. 
 
 A most distinguished American, who filled the highest 
 office in the people's gift, and who brought to the discharge of 
 its duties the aid of a blameless life, a cultivated mind, a 
 comprehensive intellect, and a long experience, writing on this 
 subject, says : " The impression produced on my mind by the 
 progress of this discussion is, that the bargain between free- 
 dom and slavery, contained in the Constitution of the United 
 States, is morally and politically vicious ; inconsistent with 
 the principles upon which alone our revolution can be justified ; 
 cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of slavery, in 
 pledging the faith of freedom to maintain and perpetuate the 
 tyranny of the master, and grossly unequal and impolitic, by 
 admitting that slaves are at once enemies, to be kept in sub- 
 jugation ; property, to be secured and restored to their owners ; 
 and persons, not to be represented themselves, but for whom 
 their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of 
 representation. The consequence has been that this slave 
 representation has governed the Union. Benjamin, portioned 
 above his brethren, has ravened as a wolf." 
 
 For these, and my own, and kindred sentiments on this 
 question, I invite from flippancy, ignorance, or sin, some bet- 
 ter objection than calling the person who holds them agitator, 
 abolitionist, and the like. I invite these and all disapprovers 
 
10 
 
 to talk less and think more, and to study the history of their 
 country, and the sentiments and opinions of her statesmen, 
 patriots, and guides. 
 
 That cause is indeed bad for which nothing that is neces- 
 sary, expedient, or good, can be urged as a reason why it 
 should succeed. This is the exact plight of rebellion. Nor 
 traitor, nor sympathizer with treason, can to-day assign any 
 fair, just, or reasonable pretext for the precipitation on our 
 beloved land of a catastrophe so appalling in its proportions 
 that all Christendom is disturbed and anxious. 
 
 Why did these southerners make war upon the country, 
 converting their own domain into a receptacle of stolen goods, 
 and the hiding-place of mercenaries, murderers, and madmen, 
 and ours into one vast recruiting tent ? Tell me, you, cow- 
 ardly and traitorous northman, who talk about peace before 
 the last armed foe has expired on the soil his attainted blood 
 defiles, or of compromise, while yet the walls of our hospitals 
 resound with the groans of the mangled, and are damp with 
 the death-dew of the expiring? Tell me, you, sneaking, 
 hypocritical, mean, envious England, with professions of good- 
 will to us on your false lip, and hatred and all uncharitable- 
 ness to us on your falser heart ? Tell me, you, weak imitator 
 of the virtues and base servitor of the vices of the Bonaparte, 
 with your proffered mediation in a neighbor's quarrel ? Tell 
 me, you, traitors Davis, Pickens, Stevens, and Floyd ? what do 
 you say provoked you to the point where forbearance ceased 
 to be a virtue ? 
 
 What had we of the North usurped that belonged to you ? 
 I inquire not now of what some among us may have said. I 
 challenge any act of usurpation by the non-slaveholding 
 states against your rights as members of the confederacy. 
 Facts are incontrovertible. What had we done ? What pro- 
 vision of the federal Constitution had we violated ? For once 
 lay aside your declamation and abuse, and soberly and truth- 
 fully state your grievances. 
 
 You know, and we know, and the world knows, that we 
 
/J3 
 
 11 
 
 made no encroachment upon your reserved rights as a party 
 to the compact between your fathers and ours. You know, 
 also, that we have been so terrified at your reiterated threats 
 against the family peace and general welfare, that, in our 
 anxiety to preserve national concord, we have sacrificed per- 
 sonal honor and state pride. You called us " mud-sills" and 
 " greasy mechanics," until labor almost began to be ashamed 
 of its Grod-given dignity. Y^'ou beat our representatives in the 
 national council chambers because they expressed the views 
 of those whom they served. Y'^ou denied us freedom of 
 speech in all your borders. This and much else, before the 
 last burden which broke our uncomplaining patience into ac- 
 tive, and, as you are destined to learn, terrible resistance and 
 deserved retribution. 
 
 But what had we done ? How sinned against you ? In 
 1820 you wanted a geographical limit assigned to your pe- 
 culiar institution, and we passed the law known as the Mis- 
 souri Compromise. You got sick of this when it appeared 
 that slavery would not be a gainer thereby, as it was supposed, 
 and begged a repeal of the act. It was repealed. In 1850, 
 you clamored for further legislation in favor of your property 
 in human beings, and the fugitive slave law was placed on the 
 nation's statute book. You were the daughter of the horse 
 leech. You continually cried, "Give, give!" and we gave. 
 We kept giving until we had not an oat left in the bin, and 
 on your demand, gave you the bin too. But nothing would 
 satisfy your rapacity ; you had resolved to quarrel with us. 
 
 Do you remind me that we did not return your escaped 
 slaves ? This is only half the truth. Whenever you came 
 after your chattel, with legal proofs of ownership, we caught 
 and caged him, and sent him back to you, often at our own 
 expense. If you did not think it worth your while to hunt up 
 your runaway, it was none of our concern. Sometimes a 
 man among us, more of a humanitarian than a juris-consult, 
 and better versed in the law of nature than the law of the 
 land, illegally, but conscientiously, aided your bondman to 
 
12 
 
 escape. John Broivn did so, and you hanged him for it I 
 Bat no state, as such, and no authority within a state, ever 
 hesitated or refused to perform its constitutional obligations 
 to you on this head. The contrary of this cannot be truth- 
 fully maintained. 
 
 Do you remind me, also, that some of our free states (would 
 to God yours were all free) passed what are known as the 
 personal liberty bills, and that these enactments were in vio- 
 lation of the Constitution? It is true that they did, and that 
 they were wholly without warrant for it. But, audi alteram 
 partem ! Hear the other side. Not one of these states at- 
 tempted to enforce these laws, nor did the judicial tribunals, 
 in any instance, pronounce in favor of their validity, and 
 several of them very soon repealed the obnoxious enactments. 
 Young Wisconsin has done so even since you plunged us into 
 an internecine war. 
 
 What else have we done ? AVhat other cause of grievance 
 have you growing out of any committed breach of our duty 
 towards you ? 
 
 1 hear you go about complaining that, in 1860, a sectional 
 party at the North elected a President. In your declaration 
 of causes which induced the secession of South Carolina, you 
 state, among other things, that a " geographical line has been 
 drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line 
 have been united in the election of a man to the high office of 
 President, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery." 
 
 This is false, and you know it to be. Mr. Lincoln was 
 elected by less than one third of the entire vote cast. You 
 know this is true. Figures will not lie to help your cause. 
 You set up John C. Breckinridge as a candidate, and tried to 
 bully and wheedle the democratic party of the North into the 
 support of your sectional, time-serving aspirant. In its death- 
 throes, this once great political power redeemed the folly, and 
 expiated the wickedness of a life spent in alternate fear and 
 wort^hip of you. It refused to honor your idol. The vote of 
 this party organization was given to Mr. Douglas, only a few 
 
/3^ 
 
 13 
 
 irreversible " dough-faces" throwing away their patronage on 
 Mr. Breckinridge. The northern states did not unite in the 
 election of Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 If Mr. Lincoln be sectional — if his yiurposes are hostile to 
 slavery, yo2i have brought the calamity upon yourselves and 
 us. The man who omits to do an act he may perform, by 
 which the life of his fellow can be saved, is morally guilty of 
 murder, if death be the result of his omission, as much as he 
 who lies in wait and wilfully kills. You pretend to believe 
 that Mr. Lincoln entertained hostile purposes to African 
 slavery as it exists among you, and omitted to cast your vote 
 for Mr. Douglas, which you knew was the only means to 
 prevent the election of the man you charged with enter- 
 taining sectional views and unconstitutional prejudices! But 
 your want of candor is again transparent. You knew that 
 Mr. Lincoln was on record against the subversion of the 
 constitutional provisions respecting slavery. You knew that 
 in his senatorial contest in Illinois, he had publicly and delib- 
 erately declared himself as disfavoring an unconditional repeal 
 of the fugitive slave law ; as unpledged against the admission 
 of any more slave states ; as unpledged to the abolition of 
 slavery in the District of Columbia, and to the prohibition of 
 the slave trade between the different states. You knew all 
 this when you sought justification for folly in falsehood, and 
 are now in the condition of a man obliged to utter a dozen 
 untruths to save his first false statement from falling into 
 hopeless disgrace. 
 
 I recur to the question, what have we of the North done by 
 way of aggression, usurpation, or abuse of power, which can 
 be urged in palliation of the treason of the South, or the at- 
 tempt to destroy the most utterly benign government that ever 
 blessed a people ? 
 
 Concede now, causa argumenti, that the last presidential 
 election resulted in the choice of a man whose declared opin- 
 ions on the subject of slavery were in opposition to the well- 
 
14 
 
 ascertained provisions of the Constitution. What then ? The 
 upshot of the nnatter is, that a new political party had suc- 
 ceeded in electing its candidate, not by reason of its own 
 strength, but because of dissensions which distracted its ad- 
 versary. The opponents of Mr. Lincoln and of his political 
 sentiments, had a clear working majority in both houses of 
 Congress, and the President elect, for two years at least, could 
 wield but a nominal sceptre. He could not even distribute 
 the spoils of success. The South knew and understood this ; 
 knew that the supreme legislative and judicial power were in 
 its own srasp and interest, and yet, with a duplicity even 
 more remarkable for weakness than meanness, abandons its 
 post, and flaunts in the face of an astonished age its appre- 
 hensions that the guarantees of the Constitution are in danger 
 of being destroyed, and its rights under it, trampled upon and 
 denied ; then, with an audacity of profaneness, unequalled in 
 the annals of blasphemy, appeals to the Supreme Judge of 
 the Universe for the purity and rectitude of its intentions. 
 
 Upon the election of Mr. Lincoln, produced, as I have 
 shown, by the South itself, treason, which had been hatch- 
 ing in secrecy and sin, exhibited a hostile front to the country 
 and the Constitution. South Carolina, the hot-bed of disloyalty ; 
 ever vain, self-glorious and troublesome, led the way. The na- 
 tional fortress erected in her harbor at the national expense, 
 and defended by a mere handful of our soldiers, was exposed 
 to the murderous fire of six thousand perjured scions of chiv- 
 alry, and the national ensign — our hitherto untarnished flag — 
 shot away from its staff, and a bastard rag run up in its dis- 
 honored place. 
 
 The first overt act of trea-on was committed ! The bad ex- 
 ample set by South Carolina was imitated by other states, until 
 step by step, armed resistance to the constituted tribunals of 
 the country, was substituted for obedience to the laws of the 
 land, and civil war, with all its attendant horrors, was forced 
 upon us. 
 
 Enough has been shown to prove rebellion disentitled to 
 
15 
 
 success. It is not an appeal to justice ; it is a resort to force 
 and fraud ; and unless mankind are prepared to confound dis- 
 tinctions between fair and foul, between right and wrong, be- 
 tween good and bad ; unless our liberties are indeed the sport 
 and at the mercy of unscrupulous and selfish demagogues, and 
 unless this world was made for the Catilines, the Borgias, and 
 the Machiavellis of the race, surely this unholy crusade against 
 an enlightened and paternal government, should not be favored 
 with success. 
 
 But how will the struggle terminate? Will the treason 
 succeed ? "Will it ? 
 
 " Oh, country, marvel of the earth ! 
 
 Oh, realm to sudden greatness grown ! 
 The age that gloried in thy birth, 
 
 Shall it behold thee overthrown ? 
 Shall traitors lay that greatness low ? 
 No ! Land of Hope and Blessing, No ! 
 
 " Our humming marts, our iron ways, 
 
 Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, 
 
 The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, 
 The calm, broad ocean of the West, 
 
 And Mississippi's torrent flow, 
 
 And loud Niagara, answer, No ! 
 
 " And we, who wear thy glorious name, 
 
 Shall we, like cravens, stand apart, 
 When those whom thou hast trusted, aim 
 
 The death blow at thy generous heart ? 
 Forth goes the batte-cry, and lo ! 
 Hosts rise in harness, shouting. No !" 
 
 It must terminate in shame and disaster to those who so 
 wantonly paltered with allegiance and imbrued their traitorous 
 hands in brothers' blood. It must so terminate because of con- 
 trolling moral and material considerations applicable to it. 
 The time has not gone by when the success of a cause may 
 reasonably be estimated by its claims on truth, honor, and 
 justice. These are still, and ever will be, cardinal to success ; 
 their absence from any enterprise may be taken as evidence 
 that it will come to naught. 
 
16 
 
 "^For right is right, since God is God, 
 And right the day must win ; 
 To doubt would be disloyalty, 
 To falter, would be sin.'' 
 
 However delayed the final victory may be — however impe- 
 ded by repulse or intermediate defeat — the end is as assured 
 as though the last gun had been fired, or the last sabre drawn, 
 in the flush of ultimate triumph. And this not alone or so 
 much because we are numerically stronger than the foe, but 
 because " right the day must win." The mathematics of 
 morals have as much to do with armies as the tactics of Scott 
 or Hardie. " Courage must be born of conscience," and 
 " Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just." A sense of 
 right in men enables them to achieve acts of valor, which 
 no mere physical capacity could ever accomplish. The pur- 
 pose that is begotten of patriotism and duty carries with it an 
 energy, resistless as the lightning and certain as fate. Cow- 
 ardice is the natural ally of crime ; wrong-doing and fear, are, 
 to each other, as the cloud and the rain. " The wicked flee 
 when no man pursueth," It is " the thief doth fear each bush 
 an officer ;" and it is because of this moral power inherent in a 
 good cause, that the Union arms must succeed. If the United 
 States w^ere prosecuting this war to gratify the lust of empire, 
 or to satiate revenge, or to deprive a people of any of the bles- 
 sings of civilization or Christianity, or to fasten upon them 
 chains of servitude, we might well have misgivings as to the 
 issue. We are not fighting for these, or any of these. We 
 are fighting to conquer a peace, to subdue a rebellion, to extin- 
 guish a treason, to save a country and preserve its liberties. 
 We are fighting on holy ground, for the ark of constitutional 
 freedom. We are fighting for the lands which contain the dust 
 of our fathers, through which our broad rivers run, and over 
 which our towering mountains cast their protecting shadow. 
 We are fighting to relieve liberty — beleagured in the house of 
 its professed friends — and firm, and free, and one forever, have 
 sworn 
 
/^c 
 
 17 
 
 *' By our children's golden future, 
 By our fathers' stainless shield : 
 That which God and heroes left us, 
 Wc will never, never yield ! 
 
 When to this moral aspect of the struggle, we add circum- 
 stances of material or physical advantage, it does not require 
 the gift of prophecy to foretell the end. 
 
 And first, there never has been, in history, an instance of a 
 northern race permanently defeated by a southen one. The 
 influences of climate, the traits of character transmitted by- 
 race, or whatever other subtle cause may be assigned by stu- 
 dents of nature or philosophy, have been sufficient always to 
 produce the result. 
 
 From the time of Attila, or even earlier ; from the days 
 when the monarchs of Assyria over-run Asia, and the Pharaohs 
 of Egypt conquered Nubia and Abyssinia, there has been no 
 grand exception to this general law. Whenever Ihe north was 
 fairly pitted against the south, the south succumbed. Wit- 
 ness even the fall of the Roman Empire, when the incursions 
 of Goths and Yandals overturned the work of the Cfesars ; 
 witness the expulsion of the Moors from Spain ; witness the 
 superiority of northern races, as manifested in the cru- 
 sades ; witness Poland swallowed up, despite of heroic resist- 
 ance, by Russia ; witness the defeat and decline, both long 
 continued, of the Moslem rule ; witness Spain and Italy, con- 
 quered again and again by France, and France herself always 
 beaten, when really matched against England. 
 
 And will the stars in their courses now fight for Sisera ? Will 
 the order of nature be disturbed for the southern race on this 
 continent? Have not southern races heretofore established in 
 America already melted away before the superior prowess, or 
 mettle, or skill, or endurance, of northerners ? Has not Mex- 
 ico confessed herself subject to this law ? Do not Louisiana, 
 and Florida, and Texas, and California, attest that, no matter 
 by whom settled, and by whom claimed, they must belong to 
 the descendants of northern races ? Who imagines that their 
 future history will^ in this respect, belie their past. 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 The south has chosen to throw down the gauntlet, and long 
 as we delayed, bitterly as we regretted the necessity, the 
 gauge is accepted, ^he fight is one to which, unless Nature 
 contradicts herself, there can only be one result. The cold, 
 steady determination of the temperate zone, will, now as ever, 
 be more than a match for the impetuous but transient enthu- 
 siasm of those who come from the regions of the equator. 
 Snow cools fire, but fire never inflames ice. 
 
 There are, however, other and yet more material reasons 
 to predict a victory for the Union ; reasons that need no phil- 
 osophy of race, nor historical knowledge, to aid in their dis- 
 covery or application. The simple reason that is told in Rob 
 Roy's song, that 
 
 " They will take who have the power, 
 And they will keep icho cmiP 
 
 Nations have sometimes ere now had right on their side 
 and seemed to fail. Exceptions may have been apparent, 
 though not real, even to the rule just referred to ; but it has 
 been when the preponderance of power has been so terrible 
 that there was no resisting it ; it was because a greater rule 
 came into play. This rule will help us now. We think we 
 have Providence on our side : so, perhaps, the south think of 
 themselves ; but we know we have the heaviest artillery, and 
 " Hercules himself must yield to odds." 
 
 To back our confidence in our cause, we have the mightiest 
 armies, the largest hosts, the best-equipped soldiers, the most 
 terrible engines of war. It is a contest between twenty mil- 
 lions and eight millions, and of the eight at least two are 
 wishing us to succeed. It is a contest between those who 
 are strong in wealth of every sort — in capital and the products 
 of labor — in the results of skill and the achievements of phil- 
 osophy—in the hardihood that comes from exercise of every 
 faculty, physical or mental — in the confidence that results 
 from a knowledge of this superiority — in resources that, by a 
 Gomparisoa with those of our enemy, or of any people that 
 
/jy 
 
 19 
 
 ever went to war, are inexhaustible. Supplies of men and 
 means pour in till government is embarrassed to know what 
 to do with them. We have generals instructed in the best 
 schools of modern warfare, and troops, at last pronounced by 
 competent and impartial judges, worthy of comparison with 
 the best-disciplined armies of continental Europe. 
 
 What does our enemy oppose ? Not what he did oppose a 
 year ago ; but what does he oppose now ? Large armies, 
 doubtless, composed in part of desperate and brave men, who 
 fight knowing that defeat is ruin — but armies that cannot be 
 replenished. Their all is staked on the hazard of a single 
 throw ; lue can double our armies in ninety days. Their 
 stock of offensive weapons was at the outset equal to ours, for 
 they stole the best we had ; but we have taken back the 
 stolen property, and they have no more arsenals to rob ; no 
 foundries where they can cast cannon on which they dare 
 rely ; no outlet or inlet now by which foreign sympathies can 
 supply the resources they have not in themselves. Their 
 cities are desolate. Their country is in part laid waste ; for 
 no army, friendly or hostile, passes over a country without 
 devastating its fields, and spreading ruin among its inhabi- 
 tants. Its people is impoverished. Its currency is worthless. 
 We are constantly producing new inventions, increasing our 
 power, infusing into our gunnery new principles, and into our 
 guns new force. Theij^ if by chance they hit upon a principle, 
 have no means to apply it, and blow up their Merrimacs 
 while we cover the rivers and seas with Monitors. They mass 
 their armies only to withdraw them before yet greater masses, 
 and throw up mighty fortifications only to desert them before 
 still greater threatenings. If in the field they attack us and 
 fight well, it is yet ever with one result. An unexpected 
 movement may catch us unawares and do us harm ; but our 
 steadier and more resolute men never fail to find their recu- 
 perative energy, and demonstrate their real courage by wring- 
 ing a final victory from what at first seemed defeat and over- 
 throw. 
 
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