TWO SERMONS. 
 
 I. SIGNS OF OUR NATIONAL ATHEISM. 
 II. THE WAR BEGUN. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. D. HELMER, 
 
 I I 
 MILWAUKEE. 
 
 Preached in Plymouth Churdi on the Eveuint^s ol A])ril 21st and 28th, 1861. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 MILWAUKEE : TERRY & CLEAVER, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 BOOKSELLERS AND STATIONERS, 167 BAST WATER ST. 
 1861. 
 
^A5^ 
 
 .\ 
 
 ,^41 
 
 These Sermons are printed as they were first delivered, without 
 change. The second Discourse was addressed to Companies of 
 Volunteers from the First Regiment of Wisconsin Militia. 
 
 
SIGNS OF OUR NATIONAL ATHEISM. 
 
 These are days when the noise of tumultuous events breaks 
 over into the quietude of the Sabbath. As it sometimes happens 
 with our lake, which lies out here, behind the bluffs : when there 
 is a powerful and persistent sweep of the winds across the water 
 you will hear the roar of the excited billows, reverberating along 
 the shore and breaking, in softened thunder, over into the city, 
 pouring the echoes of the storm down the streets, through the 
 windows and doors of our houses, even into the sacred silence of 
 the inmost chamber — so is it now with the tempestuous roar that 
 comes up from the stormy deep of this turbulent nation. The 
 low thunder and the shrill hiss of this popular whirlwind break in 
 upon every sphere of life, resounding through the shop, the 
 counting-room, the office, the court house, the exchange, the mar- 
 ket, the school, penetrating the very vestibule of religion, and 
 invading even its inmost temple. Only one week ago to-day, from 
 morning till evening, and late into the night, groups of men were 
 gathered upon the corners of the streets, waiting for the telegrams 
 from Fort Sumter, and eagerly discussing the latest news, with 
 every demonstration of excitement. Many forgot the house of 
 God altogether ; and some of those who visited the sanctuary 
 were thinking more of the telegraphic despatches than of the 
 Word of God. 
 
 Now, it is in vain to talk of holding back the popular mind 
 from thinking upon this inflammatory subject. Only dead men, 
 and such as are as good as dead — I mean such as are morally, po- 
 litically and patriotically fast asleep — only such men will remain 
 
without a touch of excitement amid this national tumult. And it 
 is in vain, moreover, to talk of excluding the theme from the 
 hoube of God, I should like to see you shut out from this conse- 
 crated audience room the atmosphere, and the light, and the echoes 
 of the noisy street. If you did, you would have a vacuum in 
 which no man could live ; a darkness in which no eye could see ; 
 and the empty silence of sepulchres. 
 
 And just because this theme of the times thrusts itself into the 
 Church, and upon the tranquility of the Sabbath ; just because 
 it is so all-penetrating, it cannot, rightly nor reasonably, be ig- 
 nored and declined. I do not propose to do so easy a thing as 
 merely to excite an already excited people. It is not a very diffi- 
 cult, nor a very venturesome, nor a very heroic deed, to throw a 
 few shavings upon a house already covered with flames. Never- 
 theless, our present affairs have a religious, as well as a political 
 aspect ; and this should not be lost sight of amid the turbulence 
 of the hour. Nay, I think that if, as a people, we do not seize 
 the religious significance of the times, and make that use of 
 events which God intends, we shall be hardened, instead of soft- 
 ened, as we ought to be, by this Divine chastisement. And, so, 
 it is my present purpose to present some thoughts upon the moral 
 and religious aspect of our national difficulties. Not by any 
 means, my friends, shall I venture to speak to you as a politician 
 or a statesman ; but simply as one appointed to expound the Word 
 of God in public, amd apply it to all practical uses. 
 
 As the basis of these remarks, I take from the prophecy of 
 Zephaniah, 1:12: ''Audit shall come to pass at that time, 
 that I mill search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men 
 luho are settled on their lees; that say in their heart, The Lord 
 mill not do (jood, neither will he do evil." 
 
 There are twu classes of lisieners to the Gospel, and they stand 
 upon t)pi)iisite sides. Those of the one class are always ready and 
 l)leased Id hear discourses about the Jews. They appear to relish 
 (J (id's dealings with that chosen people of antiquity; and are able 
 to iippreciate the righteousness of God in visiting iniquity with 
 just retribiitiun, as well as the Divine mercy and forbearance in 
 attempting to bring the nation up into a true religious culture. 
 But fur such hearers you must keep the gospel inside of Palestine, 
 
and outside of the United States. They like the Old Testament, 
 but cannot suffer it to be cumbered with practical observations and 
 modern applications. They will listen attentively to you while 
 commenting on the Jews, so long as you do not intimate, or leave 
 a crack iu the discourse large enough to let a little suggestion fall 
 through, that these truths might apply to men and things in our 
 day. 
 
 Those of the other class cannot endure any reference to the 
 Jews, unless it be followed up with a rhetorical thunder-clap, 
 right overhead, to electrify the dead allusion, and drop a fiery bolt 
 into some magazine of existing evils. They want an American, 
 not a Hebrew, gospel ; and sometimes they carry this modernizing 
 to such an extravagant pitch that they despise and reject whatever 
 is not dug out of the soil right under their feet. Both of these 
 are extremes ; and as usual, the right and the true lies somewhere 
 between them. 
 
 I believe the history of the Jews was designed — and the record 
 by Divine Inspiration accomplished the design — to be a portrait- 
 ure of God's method of dealing with chosen nations There are 
 elected nations and have always been, whom (jod has taken to be 
 special instruments, for the time, in carrying forward his plans for 
 the race. And of all these the Jews have been made the most 
 conspicuous. In them and through them God restored to the 
 world the lost knowledge of His Unity and Universal Sovereignty. 
 He caused them to triumph marvelously over nations which were 
 given wholly to idolatry ; whereby He disclosed to the world that 
 He is Supreme above all gods. 
 
 But in accomplishing these purposes, as is evident from their 
 instructive history, the people of Israel were a rude and unpliant 
 material to work with. See how God found it necessary to smite 
 them again and again, scattering tlie bones of the first generation, 
 after leaving Egypt, in the wilderness, and sending their more 
 tractable children into the Promised Land. Much as God loved 
 the Hebrews; rich and abundant and absolute as were His promises 
 to them, He was forced many times to rain retribution upon their 
 gross, astounding, and abominable iniquities, and at last to scatter 
 them with the whirlwind of His righte<jus judgment, throughout 
 
the earth, where they remain to this day, dispersed, in their monu- 
 mental destiny, as a warning to rebellious and sin-loving nations. 
 
 This is a historic picture that ought to have made all fu- 
 ture nations more wise respecting the will and providential meas- 
 ures of God. It establishes, at any rate, beyond all controversy, 
 that there is a God of Nations ; and that there are national re- 
 wards and punishments meted out justly by this Omnipotent Sov- 
 ereign. And the passage which I have quoted from the Prophecy 
 of Zephaniah, made in the days of King Josiah, is an expression of 
 the fact that God will search out iniquities and punish them. He 
 will punish men and nations who are settled on their lees ; that is, 
 men and nations who continue in sin in spite of all entreaties and 
 admonitions. Sometimes these men and nations say, " The Lord 
 will not do good, neither will he do evil ;" and so they encourage 
 and comfort themselves in their wickedness. Men are fond of 
 putting God out of the way both by their wily sophistries and by 
 their , processes of self-delusion. Yet, a God that does neither 
 good nor evil is no God — is nothing. Just as a man, of whom it 
 could be said that he does neither good nor evil, is no man — is 
 nobody. But this national atheism will be punished ; and will be 
 punished here, seeing there is no throne of judgment set among the 
 stars, in the world hereafter, for the final reckoning of nations. 
 
 The American people — I regret to say it — are chargeable with 
 the immense and heinous sin of National Atheism. They do not 
 profess to be a people without a God ; they have never voted \^ 
 their popular assemblies that '* there is no God." Nay, rather, 
 we stand forth among the nations a so-called Christian people, and 
 if the question were to-day put to the world, " What are the 
 Americans ?" it would be responded from every land under the 
 sun — " They are a Christian nation." I wish this response had 
 no need of a qualification. 
 
 But so much the worse, if we are nominally Christian, and yet 
 may be justly accused of atheism. And we should hardly have 
 expected this so soon after the era — eventful, immortal, and glo- 
 rious — that we love to call " the Revolution." We should not 
 have looked for such a defection from the reputation of our ances- 
 tors at so early a period. They believed in a God of nations and 
 a God of battles. They recognized His sovereignty and His con- 
 
trol in human affairs. They were eminently religious, And yet 
 before a century has marched its hundred years, under the blazing 
 banner of revolving suns, into the eternal world, wc have forgotten 
 it. 
 
 But was it not precisely so with the Children of Israel ? God 
 opened a dry road for their escape through the Red Sea, granting 
 them a miraculous deliverance from their enemies ; and yet how 
 soon were they bowing before the golden calf ! The likeness is 
 striking — yea, more than that — positively startling. The Jews 
 forgot the God who brought them out of the bondage of the Pha- 
 raohs ; and we have forgotten the God who delivered us from a 
 foreign dominion and granted us a separate and free nationality. 
 God sent a just punishment upon the apostate and ungrateful He 
 brews ; and what ought we to expect under like circumstances ? 
 
 But let me speak more particularly of some national traits 
 wherein this atheism discloses itself. 
 
 And, first, I arraign the godless spirit of gain in the commer- 
 cial world. You know very well that we have been chai-ged with 
 being worshippers of the '* almighty dollar." Whether this ought 
 to be considered an unjust or an extravagant accusation, you are 
 as competent to decide as anybody. Certain it is, that this nation 
 has grown rich in an incredibly short period of time. We began 
 like an apprentice or clerk in the vast establishment of nations ; 
 and to-day — almost before we are twenty-one — we are not only a 
 respectable firm, but stand alongside of the oldest and largest 
 houses of the world. We are able to enlarge our business on 
 every hand, and have monty to loan besides. 
 
 Now it cannot but be with a nation as with individuals : those 
 who become rich with such swift accumulations are exposed to 
 mighty temptations. The inspired author of Proverbs says, "He 
 that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." And our 
 Lord said, " How hardly shall they which have riches enter into 
 the Kingdom of Heaven." In which is involved the truth, that in 
 the acqviisition of wealth lie immense hazards to the moral charac- 
 ter. And one of the Apostles said, •' The love of money is the 
 root of all evil." 
 
 Now the possession of property is a good thing as a means — a 
 help — in this earthly life. It is not to be despised nor underesti- 
 
8 
 
 mated as such. But money as an end — the acquiring of gain 
 merely to hold and possess it — the pursuit of riches simply to be 
 rich, is degrading and ruinous to the higher nature of man. And 
 just here, as a people, we have been exposed to the strongest and 
 most perilous temptations. We have made haste to be rich. 
 There has arisen a fungus aristocracy of wealth. It has seemed so 
 necessary a thing to be rich, that there has been a general rush for 
 gold, with an immense disregard of the methods by which it was to 
 be gotten. 
 
 As a consequence, the conscience has grown torpid. A thou- 
 sand expedients have been tolerated in the transactions of business 
 for money-making, that would have been hissed and hooted at else- 
 where. Multitudes have become financial Jesuits — acting on the 
 base assumption that " the end justifies the means." The 
 end being money — get it, honestly if you can, with no more sacri- 
 fice of moral principle perhaps than is necessary, but be sure to 
 get it. 
 
 In this mad haste and hot pursuit men have not paused even to 
 consider the law of equivalents in the acquiring of wealth. Hence, 
 they have gambled in stocks, laid wagers on scrip, frightened and 
 intoxicated the markets, running into the wildest speculations, with 
 the hope of realizing a fortune by the sudden change of prices or 
 by some propitious turn of luck. 
 
 And as a necessary result we have had bankruptcies as abun- 
 dant as autumn leaves. Why, it has come to be quite an enter- 
 taining trick of financial jugglery to break down — to "suspend," 
 this very charitable age denominates it — settle with creditors for 
 so many cents on the dollar — take the balance and start again. 
 
 Then, too, the financial world seems to be visited by a periodical 
 plague. We call these visitations "panics." They are becom- 
 ing alarmingly frequent. This is an age of panics. And no 
 wonder, when we come to observe how money matters are man- 
 aged. Suppose you should go down to the harbor and take the 
 hull of a fishing-smack, rigging it with three masts, tall enough 
 for a man-of-war. Then, spreading your immense sails over the 
 contracted keel, you undertake to navigate the stormy lakes, with 
 every inch of canvas given to the winds. Why, the very first 
 squall would capsize your top-heavy craft. Fishing smacks were 
 
not meant to carry the sails of men-of-war. And yet this has 
 been the attempted navigation in finance. The immensely ex- 
 panded sails of speculation have been lifted up on the narrow 
 hull of legitimate business, and almost every squall has filled the 
 waves with floundering passengers screaming above the tumult 
 of the catastrophe — " panics ! panics !" 
 
 It has resulted from this greediness for gain that many men 
 have become unscrupulous in respect to means and methods ; ob- 
 livious of honesty, integrity and justice, and oftentimes falling 
 into grievous sins and heinous crimes by reason of it. What a 
 gloomy history of robberies, forgeries, and defalcations might be 
 gathered into a book out of the last ten years. 
 
 Well, what have we to say concerning all this ? I have this 
 to say — that no people having such a career can believe in a God 
 of honesty, truth and justice. They may nominally recognize 
 him, but they say in their hearts, " The Lord will not do good, 
 neither will he do evil.'' But we have the word of Inspiration, 
 and I think, something more — even the current events of Divine 
 Providence to prove that Grod will punish the men who utter 
 such atheistic sentiments. 
 
 2. As a second feature, I mention the godless worship of Party. 
 It has been altogether too much the popular sentiment — " Our 
 Party, right or wrong." Why, such a vile sentiment as that is 
 enough to rot down the tree of Liberty, planted by our fathers. 
 And if this magnificent tree, that waves its enormous boughs 
 over this vast continent, and which we proudly looked to see 
 bearing fruit for the healing of oppressed nations, and casting a 
 refreshing shadow far and wide for our weary Humanity — if this 
 tree, I say, shall ever fall, it will be because of decay within — 
 rather than by traitorous strokes upon the bark. 
 
 To be willing, under any circumstances, to do wrong is utter- 
 ly unsafe. But when a people are so corrupt as to elevate the 
 motto, that right must be subordinate to party, they cannot be 
 many leagues off from political shipwreck. The countiy is of 
 immeasurably greater value than any party ; patriotism is a far 
 higher, nobler and better sentiment than partizansliip ; but to 
 assert even the motto — " Our Country, right or wrong " — as 
 many are forward to do — is taking a false and rtangerons posi- 
 
10 
 
 tion. We are not to side with or uphold the wrong under any 
 circumstances. That we are committed against, not only by a 
 higher, but the highest law. Our party — if it is right, and our 
 country, when right, with all that we have and are ; but neither 
 of them — so sure as there is a just God presiding over the destiny 
 of nations — when we conscientiously believe them wrong. But 
 party before principles, party before right and justice and truth, 
 is a doctrine for devils and pirates — not for honest, christian 
 citizens. 
 
 There is also another sentiment, false and foul, and certainly 
 in its tendencies disastrous to our institutions. I mean that 
 which is expressed by the phrase, '"To the victors belong the 
 spoils." Why, this sounds as though we were in the midst of a 
 campaign, and our governmental offices were lawful objects of 
 party plunder. What wonder that we sometimes have piratical 
 officers iu command of the Ship of State, when ourmodes of elec- 
 tion are not much elevated above the maneuvres of professed 
 buchaneers. Spoils ! The positions of the rulers of a great and 
 respectable people — sacred and honorable offices — degraded sys- 
 tematically to the level of booty — the prizes of a meaner than 
 guerrilla warfare ! If we are not beyond shame, it ought to 
 make the country blush. Any people guilty of such things de- 
 serves to become as smoke, not only in the nostrils of a just and 
 holy God, but also of all the nations round the globe. 
 
 Connected with this very motto, and partly growing out of this 
 sentiment, and subject to the same condemnation, stands the cus- 
 tom of employing money in carrying elections. This is one of 
 the more recent developments in our national drift toward, or I 
 should say, into political corruption. Whatever other things 
 parties of a former generation may have been guilty of, they did 
 not devise nor practice such iniquity as this. What is this but 
 wholesale bribery ? Voters sell their ballots to the highest bid- 
 der ; the offices of our Commonwealth are purchased shamelessly 
 by gold — these buyers and sellers in the Temple of Liberty not 
 seeming to be aware that there is an Omniscient God, whose 
 burning eye of detection is looking down out of Heaven upon such 
 wicked and abominable venality. The government at auction ! 
 is this it ? or dare you call it something else ? The government 
 
11 
 
 of these United States put up for the highest bidder — the Stars 
 and Stripes, our country's banner, becoming the auctioneer's flag 
 of this mercenary and ruinous political sale ! God forgive us this 
 enormous crime ! And if it is necessary that He should send us 
 bitter chastisement for this treacherous wickedness, may it lead 
 the people to profound repentance and an utter breaking off from 
 this guilty policy. Herein, and herein only, shall we find deliver- 
 ance and safety. 
 
 Strange, men are sometimes appointed prophets But let me 
 remind you of a political prediction made some twelve years ago 
 by the man who has just retired from the Presidency of these 
 United States. He said at that time, speaking of the employ- 
 ment of money to carry elections — " Should this practice increase 
 until the voters and their representatives in the state and national 
 legislatures shall become corrupted, the fountain of free govern- 
 ment will then be poisoned at its source, and loe must end, as his- 
 tory proves, in military despotism.''^ I ask you now whether this 
 prediction does not seem to be hastening toward its partial fulfil- 
 ment. Does it not look as though history was reasserting its eter- 
 nal principles now ; when in this peaceful nation our sickles are 
 bent back into swords, our pruning hooks into bayonets, our 
 plough-shares converted into battle-axes, and this broad continent 
 of farms has become the bannered and resounding camp of mar- 
 shaled armies ? Believe me, this result is not without its suffi- 
 cient cause. And the betrayal of Liberty, divinely bestowed, by 
 this sale and purchase — a shameless and godless traffic — of the 
 sacred privileges of free citizenship, is part of the seed sown within 
 the past quarter century, which, now upsprung, and ripening into 
 a whirlwind of disaster, we may be forced to reap in a bloody har- 
 vest of battles. 
 
 3 It becomes necessary also to mention, in the revolting list of 
 things that disclose our forgetfulness of God, Official Corrup- 
 tion, as a responsible and guilty element. Bulcrs ought to be a 
 terror to evil doers. The government of any people is a sacred 
 institution, and the men who are chosen to fill its offices ought 
 to be men conscious of moral obligition and the responsibilities of 
 official position. But how has it been with us ? Do we not all 
 know, alas, too well, that upright, high-minded, honorable men have 
 
12 
 
 for years shrunk from entering into our political contests, many 
 times, because they must be defeated, unless they could descend 
 to the base intrigues and unscrupulous measures of mere dema- 
 gogues? Offices have thus been sought for their emoluments. 
 The office itself has been valued and estimated in dollars and cents, 
 and so low has it sunk, that no one is any longer surprised by even 
 the most astounding developments of official corruption. The 
 people have almost come to take such things as a matter of course. 
 They scarcely look for anything else. I sometimes think the only 
 way to create astonishment now is by means of official honesty and 
 integrity, and that seems to awaken the people and cause them to 
 open their eyes sooner than almost anything else. But can any 
 people — 1 care not how well planted in origin, how religiously, 
 patriotically and wisely founded upon constitution and law — can 
 any people long endure, when their officers are men oblivious of 
 religion, of patriotism and a just wisdom ? No ! they cannot : as 
 sure as there is a God of nations ; a God of justice, righteousness 
 and truth. 
 
 Why, in this devastating sweep of official corruption even the 
 sacred oaths of office become the profanest trifles. Men in the 
 highest places of public confidence, with the solemn oath to sup- 
 port the Constitution and the Laws lying upon their souls and 
 registered before Almighty God, have most recklessly violated 
 their official vows and trampled on the very laws they had sworn, 
 before Heaven and earth, to defend and obey. When the rulers of 
 a people are found guilty of such horrible sacrilege and crime as 
 this, what ought we to expect but dissolution and overthrow — if 
 there is a Divine President over human aff"airs — as we believe 
 there is i If men in private life were so regardless of their oaths 
 and vows we should be a nation of robbers, among whom it would be 
 utterly unsafe to dwell. Can you conceive of a lower deep of cor- 
 ruption into which men can fall than the unscrupulous disregard of 
 oaths, taken before God, calling Him to witness; and invoking His 
 retribution upon the violation of them V A man who can do that 
 i-,an do anything else imaginable. 
 
 4. Furthermore, there has grown up with our free institutions a 
 laxity, in thinking and acting, toward law and order. We have 
 developed amazingly in individuality; so much so that we have 
 
13 
 
 probably overgrown semewhat in that direction. This is not un- 
 natural. The pendulum of social and political development is 
 appointed of God to swing beyond the perpendicular. But it 
 must return and will return. We have been like children just dis- 
 missed from the school-room, romping and racing with all our 
 might in the exuberance of an enthusiastic spirit, called into being 
 by unwonted liberties. We have acted sometimes as though we 
 hardly knew wliat to do with ourselves. We were so young, so 
 vigorous, so untrammeled, so madly joyous. The sedate old na- 
 tions, with hoary locks and wrinkled brows and sturdy frames, have 
 stood with folded arms gazing at us, sometimes amused and some- 
 times amazed, sometimes shaking the head and sometimes nodding 
 smiling assent, and sometimes utterly nonplused. But it will 
 hardly do for nations to be boys very long, unless they are unusu- 
 ally good boys. In this ungirding, unbuckling and national loosen- 
 ing we have perhaps let out our girdles and straps too many holes. 
 Not so much a wonder is it, however, for the Kings and Emperors 
 had kept man laced and girded up so tightly that it was almost 
 impossible to breathe, much less to grow and be vigorous and 
 healthy. It was a bad fashion — that political and civil tight-lac- 
 ing ; but this is no reason why we should break our ribs in a too 
 sudden and unlimited expansion, and I think we will not ; but we 
 need caution. 
 
 We have forgotten too much the sanctity of Law, and have failed 
 to remember that Order is of celestial birth. We have stood upon 
 our continent, shaking our fist in the face of the world, vociferous- 
 ly announcing the dogma that we had the right " to do as we 
 please," and moreover, distinctly intended to exercise that right. 
 Consequently, there has been a reflex influence. The seed that we, 
 as the husbandmen of humanity, threw into the air to be scattered 
 upon the old continent, was partly blown back by the wind ; and, 
 having sprung up around our own feet, the harvest is now on our 
 hands. We must reap it and be more careful next time. 
 
 But there has been something very serious in this excessive 
 liberty. We have claimed the right to think and speak and act 
 freely, and 1 hope we never shall be deprived of it ; but, in exer- 
 cising this right we have not always regarded truth and justice and 
 charity. We have too many times placed a higher estimation up- 
 
14 
 
 on our freedom from restraint than upon law and rectitude. And, 
 in this letting down, crime has gone unpunished ; thu penalties of 
 law have often been degraded into mere farces ; we have too many 
 times thrown turf at the offenders, instead of effective fragments 
 of judicial granite ; and criminals have in multitudes escaped jus- 
 tice, especially when shielded and aided by money in their flight 
 and evasion. 
 
 We have been given also to the utmost license of criticism upon 
 our government in all its departments : and we have a right to ar- 
 raign and try the officials, for they are our servants. But especial- 
 ly in our political campaigns there has been a reckless and un- 
 righteous custom of disparaging and villifying rival candidates ; 
 the truth in multitudes of cases being perverted or quite sup- 
 pressed, and unmitigated lies shamelessly and with unblushing 
 persistence held forward to the public gaze, for the mere purpose 
 of purloining votes. And the demagogue presses of the country 
 have, to-day, this grevious sin upon their consciences — if they 
 have any left ; and now, when the nation is imperiled from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, from the great Lakes to the Gulf, it ought 
 to sit heavy upon their souls as the ghost of a murdered victim 
 upon the breast of conscious guilt. 
 
 Such has been the license with which rulers of the government 
 have been discussed that almost all respect and veneration have 
 been destroyed ; and you behold now a measurable reaction, when, 
 on both sides of our famous division Line, excited mobs compel, by 
 threats and violence, a cautious and respectful utterance. We 
 have too many times failed to distinguish between the office, which 
 is sacred, and the man who may happen to fill it worthily or unwor- 
 thily. And to such a pitch has this come, that we have, to-day, 
 the spectacle of a formidable rebellion, baptized with the name of 
 a government based upon the Providence of God. It is baldly 
 stated — and I greatly admire the boldness and plainness of the de- 
 claration, while I utterly discard the idea — that this recent organ- 
 ization of rebels — * " is the firbt government ever instituted upon 
 principles in strict conformity to nature and the ordination of 
 Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society." 
 When it is thus clearly and unmistakably declared by a leader, 
 
 » Speech of A. H. Stephens, Savannah, March 22, 1861. 
 
15 
 
 that the abominable system of African slavery is God's best and 
 only basis for a human civil government, it becomes us to pause 
 and consider whither we are drifting, and whether we are not with- 
 in sound of the breakers. In this marvellous looseness of speech 
 the Fathers of American Liberty are flung overboard by the toss 
 of a few sentences of easy rhetoric. 
 
 6. Besides these things I must mention, also, an enormous con- 
 fidence in the omnipotence of the United States. We have 
 spoken great swelling words in our own praise. We have tolerat- 
 ed and even fostered a stilted and inflated language of self-lauda- 
 tion. We have quite deified America, and cast down our ofi"er- 
 ings at the feet of this national goddess. We have worshiped the 
 almighty America. I said a little while ago that we were accused 
 of worshiping the " almighty dollar ;" but we are chargeable with 
 devotion to another idol ; there is a twin branch to our idolatry ; 
 for we have worshiped also the almighty United States. 
 
 It has seemed to us in our sheltered continental dwelling place, 
 with the sleepless billows of guardian oceans upon either band, 
 and our remoteness from the arenas of the old national struggles, 
 that we were safe and invincible. We have congratulated our- 
 selves upon our unanimity, our patriotism, our numbers, our 
 sagacity, our peaceable dispositions ; and have said, or seemed to 
 say : " who is able to subdue us ? Let the old world combined 
 send forth her swarming armaments, we are sufficient to meet the 
 invading hosts of the world." And so we have become self- 
 reliant, proud, boastful, arrogant, and self-willed. Our enormous 
 confidence in ourselves has undermined and destroyed our con- 
 fidence in Jehovah. We have felt so nearly, if not quite, omni- 
 potent ourselves, that we have not perceived the need of assistance 
 even from a Divine Helper. And we ought not to be surprised, 
 therefore, if we are jarred and shaken out of this soporific self- 
 confidence by the vigorous chastisements of a jealous God, who 
 claims, and will never surrender, the allegiance of all the nations 
 upon the face of the earth. 
 
 6. As last in the list of these atheistical developments I bring 
 forward the results of an unparalleled pro speritrj. We have 
 not, like most other nations, grown up by the natural inciease 
 of successive generations ; but we have occupied an open region 
 
16 
 
 into which the entire Old World has emptied her crowded popu- 
 lations. We have said — " let them come — there is room enough 
 and to spare." And while the increase of our census reports has 
 amazed the world, the augmentation of our wealth and power has 
 confounded all ordinary means and methods of measurement. 
 
 And thus, busy everywhere with our peaceful pursuits, we 
 have settled on our lees and have come to think nothing could 
 greatly disturb us. We have from time to time lifted up our 
 eyes and looked across the oceans to see other nations convulsed 
 with revolutions, tossed and shaken by the earthquakes of war, 
 or rolling confounded upon the tiery billows of political anarchy; 
 and have never dreamed that by and by our turn would come. 
 We have gazed upon those trans-Atlantic wonders, as if they 
 were the scenes of a panorama unrolling before our vision leisurely 
 for our entertainment. Meantime God was calling to us by the 
 voice of battles, and revolts, and anarchic tumults — "Watch and 
 Pray — lest ye enter into temptation. Watch ! lest in such an 
 hour as ye think not — the Son of Man shall come." But we 
 would not hear; we would not watch; we did not pray: and 
 now he is at the door. 
 
 A halcyon period of almost unexampled peace has been granted 
 us in our national growth. The art of war has well nigh become 
 obsolete, our military system degenerating through an ever- 
 dwindling and sinking militia discipline down to the farce of a 
 holiday parade ; till now, when, roused by the dreadful emergency 
 of the times, we begin to clutch for the weapons of warfare, like 
 soldiers who have been awakened from slumbers by an unexpected 
 call to arms. We have proudly boasted that we needed no stand- 
 ing army. While Italy, and Russia, and the Germanic States, 
 and France, and Spain, and England have been marching and 
 countermarching, arming and disciplining, expending immense 
 sums upon their armies, we have thanked our stars, instead of 
 God, that we were burdened with no such oppressive tax of war. 
 But that pleasant dream is over for the present. That lethargy 
 into which we were deeply settling and which undoubtedly was 
 ruinous in its results, has been broken in upon by the terrific 
 thunder-peals of an opening war — and the most dreadful of all — 
 a civil war. Our turn has come. The God of nations and of 
 battles — whom we have so guiltily forsaken, have mercy upon us! 
 
17 
 
 Throughout this brief review, my friends, wo discover that we 
 are chargeable with being atheistic upon the one side and morally 
 corrupt upon the other. We have settled upon our lees. "We 
 have said in our hearts — " The Lord will not do good neither 
 will he do evil." And I believe He has now come to search us, 
 as with candles, and to bring merited punishment upon us for 
 our great iniquities. 
 
 I do not forget that the institution of African slavery, as it 
 exists in our country, is to be regarded as the more immediate 
 occasion of the present outbreak and trouble by which we are to- 
 day shaken from centre to circumference. But wicked and offensive 
 in the sight of God and the majority of mankind as I believe that 
 institution to be, we might have perhaps been enabled to carry it 
 forward until God by some peaceful means should have removed 
 the burden from us, had we not^become so enfeebled in our body 
 politic by reason of our godlessness and moral corruptions. And 
 now, when in our moi'al impotence it seems to be breaking us 
 down, God is coming in the whirlwind to take the matter in His 
 own hand and accomplish the work himself. 
 
 We had almost forgotten, as a nation, that there is a God. Tt 
 is still fresh in our memory how a distinguished Senator pre- 
 sented a resolution so to amend the Constitution as to cause it to 
 recognize the existence of God. And this in America ! the land 
 of the Puritans ; the land upon whose savage shores the Christian 
 discoverer Columbus planted the Cross in token of its submission 
 to the sway of Jesus Christ ; the land of Bibles and Churches and 
 religious institutions unsurpassed ! 
 
 And now, in view of these things, what have we to do ? Repent 
 of our sins and seek the God whom we have forsaken. If our 
 principles have become corrupt, let us renew our allegiance to 
 Truth, Justice and liberty. This is the religious aspect of the 
 Case : and these are the duties which God imposes upon us as a 
 people. And such, I believe, will be, to a greater or less extent, 
 the result of our present fearful trials. Already you hear men, 
 addressing our excited popular assemblies, appeal to the God of 
 our Fathers and recognize the debauchery of the national con- 
 science. The omen is favorable : let us take courage. 
 
 We are in the midst of the horrors of a civil war. Fraternal 
 
18 
 
 blood lias already crimsoned American soil. The drum-beat of 
 mustering armies rolls across the broad continent with the re- 
 volving Sim ; hurrying squadrons are arming and crowding 
 toward the focal points of conflict ; more than thirty millions of 
 people aif^ seething and surging with terrific excitements, while 
 tlie whole land is filled with the roar of a wliirlwind of popular 
 tumult. 
 
 We ought to be deeply aroused by the grandeur of the occasion. 
 It ought to make men even of cravens and native sneaks. This is 
 not the hour for fear and cowardice. But in our excitement let us 
 never loose our patience and justice and fervent charity. These 
 will unfit us for no duties. 
 
 But above all, let us not loose our faith in Almighty God — the 
 God of our fathers. Let us look beyond tlie darkness of the 
 storm and behold, by faith, the rainbow, mounted upon its cloudy 
 chariot, driving the storm swiftly toward the distant horizon, 
 while, all beneath, the green fields and shining hills and glittering 
 forests open into the pleasant light of the returning sun of Peace. 
 God is searching us ; but, as I believe, to correct our sins and not 
 to destroy this generation and bury it beneath tne ruins of our 
 noble institutions. 
 
 None of us ever saw a day like this. We are fallen upon won- 
 drous times. We have thought God was stirring up the Old na- 
 tions ; but behold ! he is stirring up the New also. If we are 
 Christians, there never was a time when we needed such a humble, 
 fervent, importunate, spirit of prayer as now ; when we needed so 
 much courage, hope, faith and love. If we are Patriots, there 
 never was a time when we so needed a new baptism of love for our 
 country and our whole country, as now. The Constitution and 
 the Union are imperiled ; and this great fact, swallowing up all 
 minor difficulties, should unite all patriotic hearts in a noble emu- 
 lation in self-sacrifice and heroism. 
 
 In our patriotism, let us retain the love of God ; in serving our 
 country, let us serve our country's God ; and in standing by the 
 Constitution and the Union, let us stand close by the side of Jesus 
 Christ, our Divine Leader and Master, with this sublime prayer 
 ever upon our willing lips — Thy Kingdom Come. 
 
THE WAR BEGUN 
 
 Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain ; exalt the voice 
 unto them ; shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of 
 the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones ; I have also 
 called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in 
 my highness. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like 
 as of a great people : a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations 
 gathered together ; the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the 
 battle. Isa. 13 : 2, 3, 4. 
 
 This is a vivid description of a nation recruiting and muster- 
 ing for war. The national Banner is unfurled and lifted up as a 
 rallying centre ; proclamations are issued, calling upon the peo- 
 ple to arm themselves for the battle ; God is represented as de- 
 claring that He had commanded and called His chosen regiments ; 
 then there is the sound of mustering squadrons wheeling into 
 line and marching to the rendezvous, like the tumultuous roar of 
 whirlwinds among the mountains. 
 
 The Prophet could hardly have hit our country and our times 
 better, if he had aimed directly at them, by this sublime descrip- 
 tion. So exactly are the experiences of nations repeated in the 
 course of ages. This mustering of forces was for the invasion 
 and destruction of Babylon, and was called for pioplieticaJly 
 some twenty-five hundred years ago. It was God's grand raus- 
 tering-call to vindicate righteousness and justice in the world, 
 and show to the nations that their sins are observed of Heaven, 
 and Avill not go forever unpunished. And when God summons 
 an army into the field, placing Himself at the head ol it, you 
 need not be told that victory is sure. 
 
 Last Sabbath evening I ventured in this place to speak to you 
 concerning evils which belong to the entire nation, au'l which 
 
20 
 
 have been more or less instrumental in bringing us to the present 
 crisis, and wbich we need to repent of, that God may vindicate 
 our cause. And I feel convinced that no one will be able to 
 charge us with a want of generosity or magnanimity in thus, 
 first of all, frankly acknowledging any blame that may justly at- 
 tach to ourselves, as well as others, before pointing our guns 
 directly and unswervingly at the sins of our neighbors. 
 
 I undertake then to-night to speak to you upon these two ques- 
 tions chieily — ''What are we fighting for ?" and " What are the 
 duties of Patriots in the present emergency ?" 
 
 The country is in arms. The peace of the United States is 
 broken. The ominous thunder of approaching battle rolls its 
 dreadful mutterings along the dark cloud of gathering storms. 
 The descending shower will be red. It is to rain blood. There 
 seems to be no shelter for our heads ; and patriots need none 
 when they are fighting for God and their Country. And I be- 
 lieve we are on the side of right, of justice, humanity and of 
 God, Let us see. 
 
 1. We are called upon to defend the existing Constitutional 
 Government of the United States. There is, of course, presump- 
 tion in favor of the government as it exists at present. It has 
 been the protection of our lives, our property, our homes, our 
 civil, social, and religious institutions, for more than three score 
 years and ten. We do not claim that it is a perfect government ; 
 but we have regarded it as an advance upon all those which ex- 
 isted before it. It has been our satisfaction at home, and the 
 boast of our pride when abroad. We have been forward to pro- 
 claim ourselves, even among the Kingdoms and Empires of the 
 Old World, as citizens of the Republic of the United States of 
 America — a free government — yea, the freest and best under the 
 sun. We have gloried in our Constitution — as we had excellent 
 occasion to do. I know there have been those who have execrat- 
 ed it and spit upon it as an instrument framed against the rights 
 of humanity ; but they have probably misconceived its spirit 
 and intention. And we have the instructive spectacle to-day of 
 an eminent statesman upon the Southern side — called now the 
 Vice-President of a new Confederacy — declaring that the Consti- 
 tution is for freedom and against slavery — but a document 
 
21 
 
 freighted with a fatal mistake through the ignorance of its fram- 
 ers. The Constitution stands for Liberty and Eq^uality, but it is 
 wrong. Such is the orthodoxy of the newest political school. 
 
 And this is the Constitution, fellow citizens, which we are now 
 called to take up arms to defend. The Right of Revolution ex- 
 ists, beyond all controversy. When a people are oppressed by 
 the government ; when their rights are disregarded and trampled 
 down ; when remonstrance is altogether in vain ; when earnest 
 entreaty is dismissed with contempt ; when respectful protest is 
 like lifting up the hand against a tempest ; when all such legiti- 
 mate and commendable methods of seeking redress have been 
 tried and end only in failure — then the right of revolution re- 
 mains. But such are not the facts in the case of those who are 
 now treacherously seeking to overthrow the government and des- 
 troy the Constitution. Their cause deserves no higher title than 
 Rebellion. Those who are leagued together in it are simply 
 rebels. We call them traitors — as they are ; and all the black- 
 ness of ignominy that settles in Cimmerian gloom upon the 
 name of traitor, will be found upon them ; and not only that, but 
 the cloud of Divine and Patriotic retribution will burst in tremen- 
 dous ruin upon their heads. Let us, therefore, stand by the Con- 
 stitution and the existing government against this miserable re- 
 bellion. 
 
 2. vVe are called also to defend our Federal Union. This 
 family of States, confederated and cemented in their union by 
 the love of Freedom, is now suffering from the violent attempts 
 of a few of its members to sunder the sacred ties and demolish 
 the magnificent fabric, of which we love to think God him- 
 self was the Divine Architect and Builder. This Union of 
 States, which was transmitted to this generation by a wise and 
 patriotic ancestry, is threatened by a fearful disintegration. 
 There is a new right claimed ; the right of the individual State to 
 secede from the compact at pleasure. If granted, it becomes a 
 self-destructive right. It is destroying the attraction of cohesion, 
 thus permitting every particle of the aggregate to slide out of its 
 place, however much may depend upon it, even if the entire 
 mass is thereby reduced to a sand heap. This principle of Seces- 
 sion is the principle of dissolution, and cannot but prove fatal to 
 
22 
 
 the entire governmental structure. It is Young America on a 
 national scale ; refusing allegiance to parental government ; turn- 
 ing the house upside down; insisting on setting up for himself, 
 after breaking the furniture and carrying off the silver and the 
 parlor ornaments ; and, what is the very crown of this sublime 
 impudence, patronizingly inviting the Old Folks, and some of 
 the other children to come and make it their home with him — 
 provided they will sneak over the threshold and behave them- 
 selves humbly afterward. 
 
 This is the spirit of that Secession which has laid its sacrile- 
 gious hand upon our Federal Union. Will you defend it ? 
 Shall this glorious inheritance from our Revolutionary Sires be 
 snatched away from their posterity, without a struggle ? Shall 
 this Union of States which has commanded the admiration of the 
 world ; which is represented on our national banner "by cluster- 
 ing Stars, known and honored everywhere among the nations of 
 the earth ; shall this Union be torn asunder by the desperate 
 wrench of Secession ? Shall those dim and rainy seven stars 
 of Rebellion be suffered to gather upon the ignominious folds of 
 the Banner of Treason, and thus break up and scatter, beyond all 
 recombination, upon the sky of nations, this radiant Constella- 
 tion of United States ? Never ! And the uplifted voices of twen- 
 ty millions of patriotic freemen are heard, to-day, from granite 
 hill and alluvial valley, from sea-side and river-side and lake- 
 side, from moimtain and prairie, in one tremendous shout and 
 appeal for the Union and Freedom — never ! never ! 
 
 3. But we are called upon, thirdly, to battle for Freedom and 
 against Slavery. The issue is at last clearly stated ; the linCg 
 of combat are distinctly drawn ; and it is well. That fraction of 
 the American people who are to-day enrolled under the flag of 
 Rebellion, with the avowed purpose of establishing a government 
 separate and independent of the United States, claim, as the fun- 
 damental principle of their new Constitution, the Divine right 
 and ordinance of African Slavery. The purpose of the Seces- 
 sionists, therefore, stands before us at last naked and undisguised. 
 It is to establish a government that shall sanction, legalize, 
 enshrine, perpetuate, and defend, this stupendous system of 
 oppression. We of the North who love Liberty and abhor 
 
23 
 
 bonJage, must consent to this strengthening of the chains of 
 oppression and lengthening out of the period of inhuman servi- 
 tude, or suffer the consequences. We are generously permitted 
 to take our choice ; either to surrender our property ; break up 
 the existing federal Union ; bid the seceders, with their hands 
 full of stolen treasures, an atiectionate farewell ; or submit our- 
 selves soul and body to their arbitrary dictation, consenting thus 
 that Slavery shall become national and perpetual in the United 
 States. Consider, I pray you, the pleasant alternative thus pre- 
 sented us. But how shall we do either ? Can we — dare we ! — 
 as patriots, as Americans, sons of freemen and guardians of the 
 liighest civil liberty ever granted to a nation, as lovers of 
 Humanity — dare we accept either servile proposition ? 
 
 And this is the political issue which we have been for years 
 approaching At length it has arrived. Who does not know 
 that this question of African Slavery is the one that has been the 
 prolific source of our national agitations for now a quarter of a 
 century and more ? This iniquitous Institution, thrust upon 
 America by a most wicked love of gain, has thus far been con- 
 tinued for commercial advantages, finding advocates and sup- 
 porters everywhere. The Christian conscience has lifted up its 
 denouncing and warning voice against it, until the almost entire 
 Northern portion of the Confederation has banished this system 
 of oppression from its soil. But it makes a desperate stand in 
 the South. God says to the Pharaohs of oppression — "Let my 
 people go ! " but they cannot let loose from their hands 
 $600,0CO,OO0 of property — even if it is held in human flesh and 
 blood and souls. And the more they feel the pressure of the 
 demands of freedom the more tightly they draw the chains. They 
 ignore compromises, disregard solemn agreements, undertake a 
 system of arrogance and assumption, parade and bullying threats. 
 They buy up mercenary politicians, make cowards of dough-face 
 statesmen ; enter the Senate with revolver and bludgeon, striking 
 down, under the very eyes of the government, the advocate of 
 free speech, free press, and free men. They endeavor to seize 
 forbidden territory to convert it into fields to be covered and 
 ruined by slave labor. They push their traitors into Congress 
 and the Cabinet of the administration, there to carry out a plan 
 
24 
 
 of plunder and despoiling that shall weaken the government and 
 prepare it for an easy subversion. And if, forsooth, Northern 
 men protest against such wrong ; if they begin to speak of their 
 own rights, and to rally for the support of the Constitution and 
 the Union ; if they undertake to defend the very institutions and 
 principles which the fathers of American Independence nobly 
 gave their strength, their property and their lives to secure, why, 
 they are mobbed, murdered, banished, and at length confronted 
 by an armed rebellion, seizing government property and threat- 
 ening the very Capital of the nation. 
 
 This is the enemy that stands armed in our midst to-day. This 
 is the institution and these the principles which they have now 
 taken the sword to defend and perpetuate. And the practical 
 question now is — shall this system of oppression succeed and 
 triumph over justice and liberty ? Shall the great mass of the 
 American people, eighteen millions to three millions, as Secession 
 now stands, yield up all their political rights, their moral con- 
 victions, their freedom of speech and action, their patriotism and 
 their very manliness, to these traitors to their country and enemies 
 of human liberty and equality ? How is such a course possible ? 
 We should become a hissing and a by-word among the nations. 
 Our greatness would be at an end. Our glory would be departed. 
 Instead of a republic we should be an oligarchy. 
 
 It is no longer the abstract question whether Abraham was a 
 slaveholder, and the dismal conclusion, on the other side of a 
 logical chasm which they all have to leap in their arguments, 
 that, therefore, African slavery, as it exists in the United States, 
 is a Divine Institution ; I say it is no longer this abstract ques- 
 tion, but whether the United States shall still exist, a free and 
 liberty-defending Union ; or whether these clustering Stars shall 
 go down forever in the gloom of anarchy and despotism. This 
 is the momentous question which, as a people, we are called this 
 day to answer — and answer finally. 
 
 You who are Commercial men, and are painfully aware of the 
 ruinous times that have come upon us ; you who are tossed upon 
 this sea of agitation like fair-weather barges in a tempest, not 
 knowing what shall become of your business schemes ; you know 
 very well that the source of this convulsion and imminent danger 
 
25 
 
 is the unsettled question of Slavery. What then will you do with 
 it ? Shall it remain for another quarter century a perpetual 
 fountain of commercial disaster ? Or will you say — "Let us dis- 
 pose of this difficulty now and for all time to come ? Let us put 
 at rest forever this sea of turmoil and financial ship -wreck ? " 
 Do you want another series of commercial earthquakes ? Have 
 you fallen in love witii Panics, so that you cannot live happily 
 out of their presence ? 
 
 No ! I feel confident of your sentiments. You demand peace 
 and security. You are heartily sick and tired of these recurring 
 disasters. You say " let us have no more of these financial 
 shocks." And I believe you are ready now to settle the matter 
 — even with pecuniary loss — so that the ghost of it shall never 
 rise again and return to trouble your warehouses, banks and in- 
 vestments. 
 
 It has been proposed, in ituly 1 think, to extinguish a volcano 
 by turning the sea into it. These volcanoes, you know, are often 
 troublesome and devastating creatures in the lands infested by 
 them. They will have their earthquake revels and their eruption 
 jubilees though at the expense of cities, green fields, luxuriant 
 vineyards and multitudes of human lives. So it has been pro- 
 posed to quench one of these Hery and obnoxious spirits of the 
 Subterranean by oneuing the gates and letting in the sea iipon 
 his fires. I know not whether this will be found practicable o'" 
 not. But I think the American people now have the opportunity 
 to extinguish the ever-restless volcano of Slavery. I do not mean 
 by this immediate and unqualified abolition. Bat that as a 
 Servile Institution, opposed in nature and vital spirit to our 
 national liberties and our highest prosperity, it shall lose its 
 aggressive and dictatorial temper, and, restrained within its pre- 
 sent limits, live upon itself, if it can — or die, if it cannot. To 
 this end let the gates be opened and the sea of Freedom begin to 
 flow, with extinguishing streams, into the crater of Oppression. 
 
 Capital is timid : and it has been crying out these many years 
 amid the anti-slavery agitations — "peace ! peace ! only give us 
 peace." But the inevitable issue could not be evaded The 
 conflict between freedom and slavery in America has been, is. and 
 
26 
 
 must be, irresistible. And business men for the most part I 
 think have reached this final and inevitable conclusion. 
 
 hee how prompt and generous has been the response, all 
 through the North, to the President's call for money to defend 
 th(! Union Millions have come forth like magic at the touch of 
 patriotism. We hardly knew how rich we were until now. We 
 were like a Firm that had been doing such an immense business 
 and so pressed by a crowd of customers, that no time had been 
 found to look over the books and see how matters stood. We 
 reckoned we had made a handsome thing of it : but exactly how 
 much it was impossible to tell. Now we begin to ascertain. 
 And amid the multitude of generous offers we read with admiring 
 delight of one solid New Yorker * who quietly and cheerfully 
 offers fourteen millions to his country. Yes ! Commerce has 
 lifted up its hand and sworn that oppression shall be no more. 
 It has solemnly vowed in its banks, and exchanges, and Chambers 
 of Commerce, that this Federal Union must and shall be sustained; 
 that the government o! these United States shall not be pushed 
 from its throne by the traitorous and bloody hand of a Pro- slavery 
 rebellion. And this sublime and solemn vow of American Com- 
 merce shall be fulfilled — God being our helper. 
 
 We know not the particulars of the future course and issue of 
 the war begun between Freedom and Slavery, and by the aggres- 
 sion of the latter, upon American soil. God seems to need no 
 prophets in these days : for He sends us none. But I think it is 
 evident that the people are settling down into the conviction that 
 the time has come for the final overthrow and destruction of the 
 Institution of Slavery. This is not the ready sentiment of hot 
 and fiery men who long ago were impatient to see it destroyed 
 root and branch. But now men of all temperaments, of all 
 moral theories, of all political creeds and associations, have run 
 together with unprecedented lluency into the common and uni- 
 versal opinion and feeling that it is high time to obliterate from 
 our national escutcheon this rlisgraceful blot, and eradicate from 
 our free institutions this uncongenial, disquieting and evermore 
 dangerous element. The sovereign people ot the Free States 
 appear to me to have fully and firmly made up their minds to 
 
 * Tho newspapers say this of Ml'. Astor. 
 
27 
 
 this coaclusioii. Nothing perhaps but such an unprovoked and 
 piratical attack upon the government could have so revolution- 
 ized the discordant s.utimeQis of a free-thinking people. But 
 manifestly it has been done. We are one ; one for the Consti- 
 tution ; one for the Union ; and one for Freedom. 
 
 And let us bear in mind, fellow freemen, that being thus 
 ordained and commissioned in the Providence of God to fight the 
 battles of Freedom on this Western Continent, we are lilted up 
 to the gaze of the world. Nations are watching us. Millions of 
 hearts, over whom royal and imperial scepters wave all round 
 the globe, but in whom are pent up the fires of human freedom 
 and natural rights, waiting only the occasion to burst forth and 
 flame abroad in the conflagrations of revolutions that shall 
 inaugurate new and better eras in despotic governments, are 
 looking to-day with unutterable anxiety to see how this contest 
 between Liberty and Oppression — on this fairest and most pro- 
 pitious field — shall finally terminate. We could not be more 
 conspicuous if our armies were marshalled in tlie sky and marched 
 along the clouds before the vision of the assembled world. 
 
 The poor, the weak and the oppressed of the human race — the 
 millions in Europe and Asia and Africa who are crushed under 
 the thrones of Despotism — are more than spectators in this 
 mighty conflict. They share in our victory and participate in 
 the glorious benefits of the triumph of civil Liberty. We are 
 figthing for those who are not able to defend themselves : and 
 this ought to clothe us with thunder and arm us with lightning. 
 The Tree of Liberty, planted by our venerable fathers upon these 
 hospitable shores, far from the sharp winds and untimely frosts 
 of old tyrannic institutions, we expected to bear fruit for the 
 political healing of the nations. But the ruthless axe of Rebel- 
 lion is now lifted up against it. The first stroke is given : but 
 the sharp edge shall return upon the head of those who aimed 
 the treacherous blow. The tree shall not be seriously wounded ; 
 but the skull of Treason and Rebellion shall be cloven tlirough 
 and through. May God aim the blow and pour of his omnipotence 
 into the stroke. 
 
 4. Our cause, moreover, is the cause of Humanity. We are 
 called to the defense of inan against his enemies. Those enemies 
 
28 
 
 are principles subversive of his highest good ; and, in the con- 
 crete form, those men who consent to be the embodiment and 
 representatives of such principles. 
 
 There have alv/ays been enough to fight for the Divine Right 
 of Kings; enough to do battle for the advantage of privileged 
 classes — for ranks and tiers of aristocracies : but ours is a war- 
 fare for the rights of man as man. We are enlisted in a contest 
 for human liberty and equality. The leaders of the Rebellion 
 laugh at us for maintaining the crazy delusion that all men are 
 created free and equal. This glorious banner-truth of the De- 
 claration of Independence they stigmatize as false. They have 
 found out something new and true within the last twenty years ; 
 namely, that only white men and educated men and rich men are 
 created free and equal. The rest are ordained by Providence to 
 1)6 the servants of the privileged class. Washington, Jefferson, 
 Adams, Franklin and men of their class, we are told, did actually 
 believe in human equality ; but they were deluded. They were 
 so bewibiercd in their moral sentiments as to entertain the opinion 
 that even the poor descendants of Ham, the unfortunate ! ought 
 to possess the natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness : but they were guilty, according to the Apostle of 
 Rebellion, of holding notions contrary to the ordinance of Divine 
 Providence. Look upon it, my friends ; consider ihe matter 
 carefully, for we are fatally involved in it : those who have be- 
 come our enemies, by their own deliberate choice and act, are 
 the avowed supporters of a Divine-right aristocracy. C'olor may 
 be the signal : then if you are black yon are appointed to servi- 
 tude. Ignorance and weakness may be the signals : then if you 
 are without culture and destitute of might you must be enslaved, 
 in ord'jr to fulfil the intentions of Providence. What shall hinder 
 such abominable sentiments — underlying the newly-formed Servile 
 Confederacy — from coming forward by and by and laying their 
 hands upon us or our neighbors — or the generation after us ? 
 
 Would we not be fools and worse than fools, when we might 
 prevent it, if we suffered tyrants to enttT our homes and put 
 manacles on our wrists calling them biacelcts "in the Providence 
 of Grod ?" We feel them oppressive, and are conscious that our 
 hands ought to be free and loose for action, as those of other 
 
29 
 
 men : but are informed that we are appointed of God to wear 
 handcuffs as ornaments. Why, such a philosophy as this, and 
 such sentiments as these, will turn the thinking world into athe- 
 ism, and the unthinking world into barbarism. This is the abyss 
 into which other nations have plunged and wallowed and sunk, 
 to rise no more. 
 
 Against all such inhuman principles the free armies of the 
 North are summoned to wage war. And was there ever a more 
 worthy, a nobler, or more inspiring cause than this ? In the 
 earlier centuries. Christian Europe arose and marched in crusad- 
 ing hosts to Palestine, to resciie the Holy Sepulchre from the 
 profane hands of the Infidels. But there was no Christ in that 
 Sepulchre. The Lord of life and glory had arisen ages before 
 and ascended into Heaven. It was only a Tomb with sublime 
 memories enshrined in it, holy associations clustering around it. 
 But in this new Crusade, with which we are summoned to 
 march, we are to rescue from imprisoning hands the forms of 
 Liberty and Equality, which the oppressors with malignant ener- 
 gy are struggling to incarcerate ; and to demolish the dungeons 
 themselves wnth ruin nnrestorable. 
 
 5. Furthermore, we are culled forth in defence of our National 
 Flag, and to vindicate its dishonored name. We love those 
 clustering stars in their constellated splendor on the blue Heaven 
 of Liberty, and the waving stripes of the red and the white. This 
 banner is more to us than the material t)i-colored silken folds 
 that float gracefully in the sunlight all across the continent from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, and, until lately, waved everywhere 
 from the great Lakes to the Griilf. It has been torn down and 
 trampled upon by the minions of Despotism ; and to-day, cannot 
 be unfurled in the region of Oppression, without being seized by 
 the destroying hand of Treason. But really, my friends, ought 
 we to mourn or ought we to rejoice that this beautiful ensign of 
 Freedom is suffered to wave n© more over the Land of Oppres- 
 sion and the home of the Slave ? We have been ashamed some- 
 times to think what darkness still brooded upon society beneath 
 this banner of light. And, to-day, for the first time since our 
 Fathers lifted up this glorious banner in the name of the Lord, 
 does it wave exclusively over the land of the free. Let the Bat- 
 
30 
 
 tie-snake be the emblem of Servitude, if our enemies will have it 
 so ; the Old Serpent — or any of his earthly kin — might well be 
 borne upon the flag that floats above the rebellious mob of Treason 
 and Slavery, It can coil and hiss and sting and do the Satanic 
 deeds of Treachery ; but it cannot soar sunward through cloud and 
 tempest like the Eagle — the fit emblem of Freedom. 
 
 Now, there is something bublime in lifting up a national ban- 
 ner ; something noble in defending it ; something heroic and mar- 
 tyr-like in dying under its pleasant shadow, and being borne to a 
 patriot's sepulchre wrapped in its lustrous iolds. But this is all 
 so because of that which the banner represents. It is the flag of 
 one's country ; and wherever it floats there we look for protection 
 and for the sacred rights of citizenship. It is to us also the em- 
 blem of Freedom. It is the flag which waved over the armies of 
 the Revolution ; whose sacred Stars, burning dimly through the 
 smoke of many battles, at length emerging from the twilight of 
 war ascended to flame with perpetual beams upon the sky of na- 
 tions. It is the flag of our fathers. It is the flag of Liberty and 
 national majesty, floating from the Equator to either Pole. And 
 long may it wave, in its star-spangled splendor, the emblem of 
 Freedom and Union, gloriously amid the ensigns of the nations, 
 when the Flag of Treason shall have disappeared from under the 
 Avhole Heaven ; when Secession shall lie rotting in its ignominious 
 grave, thrust into it by the avenging hands of freemen and pa- 
 triots ; and when the spirits of the Conspirators shall have gone 
 to stand before the throne of Eternal and irresistible Justice. 
 Well may we defend our Flag, when it is the representative of such 
 grand ideas, of such sublime realities. It is no puerile enthusi- 
 asm, no ebullition of vaporous sentiment, that leads us thus to 
 cherish it and glory in it. But so long as it stands for these ideas, 
 so long as it remains emblematic of these realities, so long as it 
 represents our country, it is worthy of all honor. Liviag, let us 
 abide under its starry folds ; preaching, or praying, or fighting, we 
 will preach and pray and bear arms under it as the flag of these 
 undissevered United States. And may it not be the miserable 
 fortune of any of us, that, dying, we shall turn our eyes in the 
 fading light to look for it and find it superseded by another : but 
 may the generations who shall follow us bear it onward and upward 
 
31 
 
 in the march of Chnstiaii Civilization, till its Stars and Stripes, 
 dimmed in the advancing light of the Millennium, shall fade out 
 under the Banner of the Cross — the emblem of the Salvation and 
 the Union of the Human Race — the Flag of a United World, under 
 the reign of the Divine Prince of Peace. Then, and not till then, 
 for one, am I willing to see the Stars and the Stripes taken down 
 out of the air and rolled iip, to be unfurled no more forever. 
 
 ; And thus, my friends, have I endeavored to answer the ques- 
 tion " What are we lighting for ?" Need we anything further 
 to arouse us and impel us to swift and decisive action ? We are 
 called to decide the question whether we still have a government; 
 whether we possess a country ; and whether we are freemen or 
 the subjects of an aggressive and barbarous Power seeking the 
 overthrow of our Union and our Liberty, by abase and unnatural 
 conspiracy. 
 
 In defence of these dear and sacred rights and institutions, in 
 the name of the God of Justice and Liberty, we have lifted up 
 our Banner upon the mountain of the North ; and we believe the 
 Lord of Hosts is mustering the host of battle. The war is be- 
 gun. How long it shall continue no man can tell. "The first 
 gun is fired, may God protect the right !" The cannonade of 
 Sumpter is the trumpet-call of freemen to arms. I think Ave of 
 the North have not sought this collision with those who were 
 bound by every consideration to be our brethren. Patience, for- 
 bearance, long-suffering even to a degree that has caused us the 
 false reputatian of cowards, have certainly characterized the 
 Northern people. We have been slow to anger ; tardy in the 
 rising spirit of vengeance ; reluctant to lay aside the implements 
 of peace and grasp the weapons of war. But having been forced 
 into the contest by the suicidal madness of a mob, we take the 
 field as a whirlwind takes possession of the skies. And no for- 
 est of rebellious arms shall be able long to withstand the torna- 
 does of patriotic justice and retribution. 
 
 We had begun to think that the Patriotism^of Americans was 
 a thing of history, hardly a shadow of which still existed in our 
 degenerate days. So busy were we with our transport ships, our 
 railroads, telegraphs, manufactories, farms and mines, that we 
 seemed to have grown careless of the country's honor and pros- 
 
32 
 
 perity. We had suffered demagogues and politicians to have 
 matters so entirely as it pleased them, that it seemed as if we 
 were indifferent quite to our civil and political institutions. 
 Many began to feel melancholy and talk mournfully respecting 
 our present condition and our future career. We were lamenting 
 the dearth of heroes and the scarcity of patriots. When lo ! of 
 a sudden, as when the lightning hurls a burning javelin quite 
 through the sky from east to west — we awoke, leaped upon our 
 feet and stood for the Union and Liberty, almost without a dis- 
 senting voice. The dry bones in the valley of Patriotism, were 
 instantly clothed with flesh, and braced with the sinews of might; 
 and, before we could narrate it, the mustering squadrons of free- 
 men joined in the ranks of war. Let us say no more that the 
 Americans of the Free States are wanting in Patriotism. The 
 spirit of the Revolutionary fathers is upon us. The might of 
 those earlier days has descended to us. The blood of heroes has 
 not all run out of our veins, though we have been so repeatedly 
 bled by corrupt and selfish rulers. Thank God ! for the millions 
 of Patriots that this Conspiracy against our government has dis- 
 closed to our apprehensive vision. If the war should end to-mor- 
 row we have something to carry home as a trophy won by the 
 rumor of war — even the rediscovered patriotism of the North. 
 Let us never despair again. 
 
 What, then, is our duty as Patriots ? Why, evidently to 
 stand by the Government at all hazards, M'ith every needed sacri- 
 fice of money, men and life. Our fathers pledged their " lives, 
 their fortunes and their sacred honor" — for liberty ; and can we, 
 after the experience of so many years of political, civil and reli- 
 gious freedom, do less than this ? A poor government is to be 
 preferred to no government at all — to anarchy ; and the govern- 
 ment under which we live we cannot be willing to exchange for 
 any ever yet set up under the sun. We have yet a Constitution; 
 let us defend it. We have still a Union ; let us maintain it. 
 We have our Country still, though shaken by intestine strife ; 
 let us rally for its protection against the whole rabble of Traitors 
 and Conspirators. 
 
 We must not boast and threaten, parade, wave our banners and 
 shout huzzahs ! after the manner of the Fourth of July ; but must 
 
33 
 
 be mon of action, prompt, bold and efficient. We can attend to 
 celebrations afterward, when with our flag waving over the ruins 
 of rebellion, and upon every re-possesscd fortress of the United 
 States, another sacred day has been admitted into our national 
 calendar : the day of the 'Second Conquest by freedom. 
 
 But danger may yet arise from another and somewhat unex- 
 pected quarter. We may behold again the entreating face of 
 Compromise thrust in between the belligerent hosts. There may 
 come one blowing a trumpet and bearing ;i white flag, calling out 
 and saying : "Let us have peace ; let us comj^romise these 
 difficulties." But it is too late, my friends ; there is no possible 
 compromise between right and wrong ; between light and dark- 
 ness; between freedom and slavery. That error is finally exploded. 
 Compromise has been tested, one would think, to the satisfaction 
 of everybody. Should we make another attempt at an adjustment 
 of this sort, it would only postpone a little longer, anil to our 
 damage, the inevitable issue. There never was a better time than 
 now to settle this vexed and vexing question. The millions of 
 the North have made themselves ready to meet it. If the worst 
 must come ; if it is necessary that our Union be re-baptized with 
 patriotic blood ; there is but one voice among us : "Let it come !" 
 We do not want peace at the sacrifice of liberty and right : we are 
 not so ciaven-hearted as to desire an ignominious escape from 
 perilous duties. 
 
 I do not forget the horrors of war ; neither will I magnify them 
 upon an occasion like this. As a Christian and an embas>ador of 
 the Prince of Peace I should like to preach peace ; and I do and 
 will preach it. But the peace which Jesus Christ brings into the 
 the world is not the peace of cowardice, nor unmanly abandonment 
 of one's rights, nor guilty sneaking from the post of danger to find 
 repose in the solitude of selfishness ; but it is the peace that 
 comes in the train of willing sacrifices and noble endeavors in be- 
 half of truth, justice and liberty. There is a peace that God 
 sends sometimes in the track of devastating war. If it were other- 
 wise we should rejoice. If every sword were broken and every 
 gun were burnt, all round the globe, nevermore to be needed, we 
 should be glad. But that time has not yet come. Nay the day 
 m ay dawn, peradventure it is here already, when we must take 
 
34 
 
 literally the words of Jesus : "He that hath no sword, let him 
 sell his garment and buy one." 
 
 So let it be our firm and immutable purpose to repel all guilty 
 leagues with wrong. If the question of African Slavery as a des- 
 potic and aggressive power in our government is not now laid in 
 its grave, no man can tell how soon again the country may be 
 shaken from centre to circumference by the old agitation. As 
 business men do you want a live earthquake under your ware- 
 houses ; which, though it sleep sometimes, wakes suddenly and 
 without warning? As citizens of a free government, do you want 
 to live in the perpetual dread of conspiracy, treason and re- 
 bellion ? 
 
 Moreover I believe the hand of the Lord is in this thing. It is 
 the Lord of hosts who is mustering our armies. He has not de- 
 clared to us his plans for the campaign. But plans He certainly 
 has. Let us seek to know his will in this matter and be guided 
 by it. We are wrought into a tempest of excitement, and we 
 ought to be. I would not counsel any less enthusiasm : more if 
 anything. But throughout it all let us remember that firmness, 
 unfaltering courage, unwavering determination, led on by patriot- 
 ism and a love of liberty, are the qualities that ensure victory at 
 the last. We must not forget that we are a Christian people 
 upon whom the eyes of the heathen world are turned. And if 
 we are required to make war, for selfdefense against our own 
 countrymen, let us fight like Christians. And there are no such 
 warriors as those who take the sword conscientiously to defend 
 the right, who enter the battle-field fresh from communion with 
 God. There is something fearfully sublime in the thought of a 
 Christian hero, arming himself, not for spiritual, but physical 
 victories. Thousands of such are entering the ranks that are to- 
 day forming in defense of our country. 
 
 And now to you, who have come in here to-night from your 
 military encampment, let me address a special word in conclusion. 
 We have not met before : we may not meet again. You go forth 
 to the uncertainties of war. Not uncertain however, as I think, is 
 the final issue ; that must be victory. But the camp and the 
 battle-field are not the parlor and the peaceful street at home. 
 Yet in your departure you have much to inspire you, to encourage and 
 
35 
 
 cheer you on. The rights and the principles which you have 
 tajjen up arms to defend are not insignificant or doubtful. You 
 ha 'c ftalisted in the defense of the Constitution, the Union and 
 Our beloved Country. The banner that waves above your heads 
 is the same thit was carried by your valiant sires. It must never 
 come back, ha zing trailed in the dust under the feet of traitors. 
 Wisconsin expects every man to do his duty. The eyes of the 
 State arc upon you. The honor, the courage, the patriotism of 
 the Northwest are to be maintained and vindicated by you. Tell 
 the enemy, when you meet them, that you are only the vanguard 
 of an invincible host, encamped yet at home and ready to march 
 at a moment's warning. Thousands and tens of thousands, if 
 needed, are in the path of duty ready to follow you. 
 
 As fellow countrymen we are pledged to succor you ; as citizens 
 of the same state we shall sustain you by every means ; as patriots 
 we shall accompany you by our love and sympathy ; as Christians 
 we will pray for you night and day, till you return with glory and 
 victory on your banners. 
 
 I commend you to the blessing and protection of God, the Lord 
 of hosts, the Almighty Ruler of Heaven and Earth, the dear 
 Father of us all. Put yoiir trust in Him. Abide in the shadow 
 of the Omnipotent. Lift up your banners in the ntune of the 
 Lord. Fieht his battles. Do his work. And when the hour of 
 combat shall come ; when the roar of conflict and the tumult of 
 battle are upon you, the Lord Most High be your shield, your 
 Captain, your strength and your trust. And at length, when 
 homeward marching, flushed with the triumphs of a successfxil 
 campaign, may your grateful hearts rise to Him in thanksgiving 
 and praise. And even if He shall spare you the dreadful ex- 
 periences of battle forget Him not. Let God be your best friend, 
 in peace or in war, in life and in death, now and forevermore. 
 
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