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 OUR TRIUMPH AND OUR NEW DUTIES. 
 
 OEATION 
 
 DELIVSBES BY 
 
 CORTLANDT PAMER, ESQ., 
 
 Bloomfield, N. J., July 4, 1865. 
 
 NEWARK, N. J. : 
 
 A. STEPHEN HOLBROOK, PRINTER. 
 
 No. 3 Mechanic Street. 
 
 1865. 
 

 ■'vOf-. 
 
CORTLANDT PARKER, Esq., Newark, N. J. 
 
 Sir: 
 
 We, citizens of Bloomfield, respectfully request a copy of your 
 excellent Oration, delivered before us yesterday, for publication. 
 
 In asking this, we desire to express our approval of the sentiments contained 
 therein, and to say that we believe a more extended dissemination of them will 
 contribute towards enlightening the public mind on questions which will soon 
 come more prominently before it. We are, Sir, 
 Very truly, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 Ira Dodd, 
 A. Matthews, 
 Horace Pierson, 
 D. W. Smith, 
 Bloomfield, July 5, IS 65. and others. 
 
 Newark, July 8, 1865. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 My Address became yours, from the moment of its delivery. It 
 is therefore at your disposal. I shall be most happy if your kindly expressed 
 views of its possible future usefulness be confirmed by experience. I am, 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 CORTLANDT PARKER. 
 
 Ira Dodd, A. Matthews, Horace Pierson, D. W. Smith, and others, 
 citizens of Bloomfield. 
 
ORA.Tionsr. 
 
 At last, after four years of horror, bloodshed, and alternate 
 hope and despair, we celebrate the birth of the nation, with- 
 out misgiving as to its life. We do it with hearts full of pious 
 gratitude ; yet awe-struck, as we look back upon what we 
 have escaped, and forward upon what we are yet to do, ere 
 our triumph is complete. 
 
 What Anniversaries are those we celebrated since that of 
 1860 ! The first was one of unfounded confidence. The 
 earthquake had only just yawned. We had not had time to 
 plumb the depths it revealed. Treason had, so far, triumphed. 
 Sumter had fallen ; and as its flag fluttered down the reveille 
 of patriotism had been beaten, and the stupified North awaked 
 to duty and energy. Seventy-five thousand men had hurried 
 forward to the capital ; more were preparing to go. Disaster 
 after disaster had befallen us, yet we attributed all to surpri- 
 ses. Washington was beleaguered. The Potoniac could not 
 be safely traversed. Lyon had saved Missouri, and perished. 
 Kentucky was yet in doubt, so was Maryland, though the way 
 across her territory was preserved. Big Bethel had taught us 
 the folly of fighting battles under command of militia generals. 
 Winthrop, and Greble, and Ward, and Lyon, were our best 
 known martyrs. Europe sang jubilates over our follies and 
 our defeats, Yet firm in our consciousness of right, resolved 
 at all events to succeed, we acknowledged no defeat, and went 
 to our first great battle, like the bridegroom to his chamber. 
 We kept our Fourth, for the most part, as if we had only to 
 
reveal our real strength, and rebellion would slink dismayed 
 away. 
 
 And so, soon after the occurrence of this festal day, we 
 marched to the fatal field of Manassas. Congress sat expectant 
 of our triumph. With 20,000 men in reserve, within sound 
 of the contending artillery, the great North was ingloriously 
 defeated. It is curious, at this day, to look over the records, 
 read the names of our commanders, and notice in whom we 
 confided, so ignorant were we of men — so causelessly and 
 ridiculously confident. Swaggering imbecility was our chief 
 reliance. "Was there one Greneral, commanding at Bull Eun, 
 who was ever afterward distinguished ? This battle, looked 
 upon abroad as settling beyond reasonable question, the 
 triumph of treason, we now see, sealed its doom. True, it 
 extinguished unionism South, and it performed a corresponding 
 ofl&ce at the North. It gave cowardice and treachery a hateful 
 argument. It laid the foundation for the vile party spirit 
 which since has so embarrassed patriotism. But it stimulated 
 the principle of nationality, as the fall of Sumter had its mere 
 sentiment. It informed the government and the people. It 
 taught the magnitude of our task. Thenceforward the figlit 
 was for life or death, and men were ready to give up every- 
 thing, rather than lose the nation. 
 
 Bull Eun was rebellion's opportunity. Had its army 
 advanced, the capital must have fallen. It was so felt at the 
 time. Three days after, I was at Washington. It was crow- 
 ded with undisciplined soldiers. Consternation and disorder 
 reigned. Eeasoning men knew that the panic-stricken forces 
 of the Union would have retired in dismay, had Beauregard 
 appeared on the other side the Potomac. It was on Wednes- 
 day after the battle that an Aid to McDowell, who was asked 
 if the city was safe, replied, " By to-morrow night it will be !" 
 
 One of the greatest proofs of God's hand in the war, is 
 afforded by the hesitation and delays, at that time, of the 
 rebel generals. It seems, as we look back, amazing. Mary- 
 
land was in sjrmpatliy with them. The intrenchments of 
 Washington were on one side only. Scott was unable to 
 mount a horse. Our other generals were utterly without 
 experience. Yet the rebel leaders permitted us to wait well 
 nigh a year, gathering and disciplining our troops, them- 
 selves far from their base, and surrendering every advantage. 
 We may think what we please of the inefficiency of our 
 leaders, and of many of them most correctly ; but it was nothing 
 compared with that of their's. Had Stonewall Jackson led 
 them then, God knows under whose Presidency we might this 
 day be standing. 
 
 But the sorrowful circumstances of July 4,1861,were nothing, 
 compared with those of the same day in 1862. McClellan 
 driven to action, but tedious and inert, taking no step as if he 
 was sure of its success, had advanced from Yorktown, through 
 Williamsburgh and Fair Oaks, to the very gates of Eichmond. 
 The skill and bravery of his subordinates, especially Kearny 
 and Hooker, had snatched victory twice out of the very jaws 
 of ruin. The country, deceived by correspondents, and these 
 successes, awaited, momentarily, the tidings of decisive vic- 
 tory. Thus did all prepare to celebrate the day, when horror 
 seized all minds, and faith in God almost quailed under the 
 news of the terrific seven days' battle, which resulted in the 
 inglorious establishment of the camp of our defeated army on 
 the left bank of the James, and scattered soitow in every 
 household. Ah ! in what gloom did we celebrate that day ! 
 How little prospect was there that this would come ! Whose 
 faith did not tremble? The miserable shifts with which 
 incompetency strove to conceal disaster, at first sustained 
 most. But the truth soon was revealed to all. The death of 
 the nation was more imminent than ever. 
 
 Up to this time, and longer still, the world was in arms 
 against us and our cause. Skillful diplomacy, conducted abroad 
 mainly by New Jersey's [greatest son, at home by the astute 
 statesman still, spite of the assassin's knife, at the head of Foreign 
 
8 
 
 Affairs, had warded off foreign Governmental intervention. 
 But England's commerce perpetually intervened. Our foes 
 lived on tier supplies, and carried on warfare with her munitions. 
 France was more hypocritically, but not less really our foe. 
 The lovers of freedom in both countries alone prevented 
 recognition. They saw the apple of our discord. They saw 
 that the success of the rebellion meant the perpetuation of 
 human slavery ; its failure, its immediate destruction. This 
 we saw too, but nevertheless hesitated. Deeply revering the 
 letter of our Constitution, and at first unable to see clearly 
 the difference between the powers it confers in war and peace ; 
 embarrassed, too, by the presence among us of many who 
 were ready to believe the abolition of slavery the object, 
 instead of merely the necessary result of the war ; so situated 
 that our government was compelled to move only in the van 
 of advancing and supporting pubhc sentiment, the people and 
 the President shrunk from the act which the Providence of 
 God seemingly indicated a3 his end in the war, and which we 
 now know was necessary to our success. And thus, without 
 sympathy abroad, with factious opposition at home, our army 
 shut up at Harrison's Landing, went on that dreadful summer. 
 Then came Pope's campaign, and its successive disasters, with 
 contemporaneous losses of heroic commanders, impossible to 
 supply. Mitchell died of fever ; Kearny, not simply "bravest 
 of the brave," but greatest of all his compeers in strategy and 
 execution, fell at Chantilly. Defection and disobedience pro- 
 duced disastrous defeat, and Pope gave way to McClellan. 
 Then came the campaign of Sharpsburg and Antietam — the 
 retreat of Lee across the Potomac — the pursuit by all our 
 forces. And then, mightiest weapon of the war — at once array- 
 ing on our side the sympathies of Europe — robbing the rebels 
 of their slaves and their assistance — suppljdng for ourselves 
 4,000,000 of allies in the very heart of the Confederacy — the 
 Proclamation ! 
 
 The history of this document we now know. It was medi- 
 
tated long and carefully. It was the offspring of the Presi- 
 dent's own heart and mind; it is even said that it was the 
 result of a pious vow. He alone was responsible for it, as he 
 was for all great movements ; for never, since Washington, 
 had we an Executive so independent of his Cabinet, as he. 
 He consulted always, but determined himself On this occa- 
 sion, he scarcely even consulted. His Ministers were asked 
 their advice only as to its phraseology, and the time of its 
 publication. A suggestion of Mr. Seward delayed it. It 
 awaited a victory. That victory came at Antietam ; and then 
 the thunderbolt was launched. Patriots trembled at the fac- 
 tious wrath it caused. It insured the government temporary 
 defeat at the polls ; but it was right. It cast away the scab- 
 bard. Slavery said to the nation, " because thou wilt not 
 worship me, thou shalt die." The government said to slavery, 
 "thy death is the pimishment of thy traitorous rebellion." 
 God smiled upon the announcement of a doom so just. The 
 enslaved millions sang hallelujahs in their secret gatherings, 
 and devoted themselves to aid the flag and its defenders. The 
 traitors in the field saw their left arm lopped away, and all the 
 peoples of the earth clapped their hands. 
 
 How instantaneous was its effect abroad can be seen from 
 one fact. Its date was September 22d. The steamer which 
 passed the one which conveyed the Proclamation to England, 
 brought us the news that Louis Napoleon had proposed to 
 Victoria a joint interposition for peace. The next arrival told 
 us that England declined it. There was no doubt why. The 
 British Ministry dared not aid rebels, whose defeat was made 
 synonymous with emancipation. 
 
 Yet it was, beyond doubt, the measure which most hazarded 
 popular confidence in Lincoln. Nor was it immediately fol- 
 lowed by success. Bloody Fredericksburg, where Meade first 
 lifted himself into view, finished the campaign of '62. Chan- 
 cellorsville, where victory, it is said, was in our grasp, had the 
 Commanding General had the nerve to seek it — the long series 
 
10 
 
 of unsuccessful efforts, which Grant made to open the Missis- 
 sippi and capture Yicksburg — these were sad indications of 
 what we might hope from 1863. And how faction and treason 
 triumphed and rejoiced ! How organized conspiracy burrowed 
 and mined ! How foreign sympathy taunted and derided 
 us ! How stout hearts and true, everywhere, trembled and 
 prayed ! And then, shortly before the Fourth, (the move- 
 ment timed, I shall ever believe, to act in unison with secret 
 conspirators among ourselves, banded to make secession 
 national, and substitute Davis for Lincoln,) came the invasion 
 of Maryland and Pennsylvania. How rapidly the hordes of 
 Lee overspread the dismayed country ! How boldly did the 
 traitors boast that they would water their horses in the very 
 Hudson ! How nearly, too, did they execute their threat ! 
 Ah ! what a Fourth day of July was that of 1863 ! Who will 
 ever forget it ? Seymour casting polished gibes and sneers at 
 the failure and the dangers of the government, at request of 
 the Common Council of New York ! Other such orators, 
 throughout the land, discoursing, in kindred manner, while 
 loyalty and right were for the most part silent ; waiting, 
 with much foreboding, to see whether God could mean that 
 a wicked rebellion should triumph. And lo ! while faction 
 and treason openly denounced and sneered at the failures 
 of the administration, or secretly made merry at what they 
 termed its mishaps — while the secret councils of treasonable 
 conspirators were plotting the resistance to law, which culmi- 
 nated in the shocking riot, rapine and hell-copying, that soon 
 after occurred in New York, and in the disorder and lawless- 
 ness of Illinois, — at that moment, when men's pulses almost 
 forgot to beat, the electric wires flashed through the country 
 the glorious news of Gettysburg, and the land -was safe 
 again. 
 
 There are two events in this war (so full of illustration of an 
 overruling Providence,) which stand out conspicuously and 
 9,lmost like miracles, The one is the arrival of the Monitor 
 
11 
 
 at Hampton Eoads, in time to encounter and defeat the Vir- 
 ginia, — David against Goliath ; the other, the victory at Get- 
 tysburg. 
 
 At two o'clock, on the night of June 28th, when the very 
 position of the large invading force was unknown, a new man 
 was placed in command of the Army of the Potomac. Taking 
 the command, in the fear of God, this new General, before only 
 commander of a corps, sent forward his Lieutenants, soon en- 
 dorsed and approved their choice of battle-field, and hurried up 
 his scattered and wearied army to decide the fate of the country. 
 For it was then plain to all the considerate, — it is even plainer 
 now, — that had the traitors triumphed then, the Union would 
 probably have perished. The contending forces were closely 
 matched. Perhaps one slight incident saved the day and 
 all. A corps commander had been ordered to hold a certain 
 position, and defend a mountain which commanded our lines. 
 Some accidental information created fear that there was a 
 misunderstanding. Gen. Meade rode over to assure himself 
 He found his orders not obeyed. At the moment, he perceived 
 the enemy advancing to take advantage of the error. He 
 hiirried up his reserves. The key-point hill was seized and 
 held. And hence the victory of Gettysburg and the ruin of 
 the rebellion. Thenceforward it went down! For, on the 
 same glorious Fourth, Vicksburg was surrendered ! The Mis- 
 sissipi was opened. The Confederacy was severed. And 
 though Lee escaped across the Potomac, Meade cautiously 
 preferring to hold his great advantage, and not to risk defeat 
 by an attack upon an unknown fastness, the days of the Confed- 
 eracy were numbered. Its fall was but a question of time. 
 
 And little by little, never afterwards greatly victorious, the 
 strength of this huge treason dwindled. Lee maneuvered, but 
 was out-witted. Lee intrenched, but gained no advantage. 
 Impatient patriots scolded, but prudence disbelieved their 
 ravings. The domain of the Confederacy gradually contracted. 
 The glorious end was certain. 
 
12 
 
 But more blood was to be shed — more effort to be displayed. 
 July 4, 1864, gave little ground for great rejoicings. True, 
 Lee had retreated to Petersburg, and Grant had steadily 
 advanced. Yet the loss of life was frightful, and men's hearts 
 sickened within them. The last act of the drama was yet 
 postponed. Neither Sherman at the South, or Grant at the 
 North, had won decided advantage ; and the day was not, and 
 could not be confidently celebrated. 
 
 But doubt is gone now ! The land is one again ! With a 
 suddenness almost incredible, the catastrophe has been pre- 
 cipitated. Armies have melted like avalanches. Within 
 thirty days, the Confederacy dissipated, and 
 
 " Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 
 Left not a wreck behind."' 
 
 We stand, as amazed at its downfall, as at its birth. Its 
 huge proportions overwhelmed us. Its instantaneous dissolu- 
 tion awes us. We rejoice with trembling — " Not unto us, not 
 unto us, but unto thy name give the praise, for thy loving 
 mercy and for thy truth's sake. Our God, he is in Heaven. 
 He hath done whatsoever pleased him. Oh ! house of Israel, 
 trust thou in the Lord. He is our succor and defence. Ye 
 that fear the Lord, put your trust in the Lord The Lord hath 
 been mindful of us, and he will bless us. He shall bless them 
 that fear the Lord — both small and great. The dead praise 
 not thee, oh Lord ! — neither all they that go down into silence. 
 But we will praise the Lord, from this time forth, forever 
 more. Praise ye the Lord." 
 
 Nor only the Lord will we praise ! Our hearts are full 
 of gratitude. We will bless and extol forever the true and 
 noble men, full of patriotism and heroism, who have been 
 the instruments of the Almighty in this great work, and 
 whose efforts have saved this great nation — hope of freedom 
 and of the world — from swift perdition. 
 
 First, and most of all, will we forever bless the name — alas ! 
 that the man should be no longer with us — of the good, wise, 
 
13 
 
 pure, iiumble-minded, brave, and duty-loving Abraham 
 Lincoln : — our Moses, in this our pilgrimage ; and like Moses, 
 only permitted to look at the reward he strove to gain. Better . 
 than Moses, in that no aggravation provoked him to undue 
 temper — no dark or sorrowful hour shook his faith in God and 
 his justice — worthier rather to be classed with the great patri- 
 arch whose name he bore, who went forth, not knowing 
 whither he went, committing his way unto God, and looking 
 only at present duty, "believed God." 
 
 If will take ages, even among us whom his assassination 
 roused to a perception of his merits, to enable mankind tho- 
 roughly to appreciate the character of Abraham Lincoln. Its 
 great element was righteousness. Intellectually, there lay his 
 strength. Eead his arguments and State papers. You see no 
 art, no effort at the skill of the rhetorician. What is percep- 
 tible, is his desire first, to speak the truth ; next, to speak it 
 clearly, so that all may understand. Examine his conduct. 
 He was kind and friendly. He might lean sometimes towards 
 a friend whom his guileless soul had proved ; but his constant 
 aim was justice — doing right. He seldom used the phrase, 
 for he despised even appearing Pharisaic. But banishing 
 all thought of himself, unless, indeed, with childish simplicity, 
 and humility, he sought to do his duty. Fearful to profess 
 himself religious — prone to ease his cares with simple-hearted 
 mirth — under his ungainly form, and untutored manners, there 
 was a heart as full of Christian charity, that test of true reli- 
 gion, and of the love of duty and readiness for self-sacrifice 
 as ever beat in mortal breast. Had the wretch who took his 
 precious life, offered it to him before he. struck, on condition 
 of abandoning that struggle for the Union, to which he had 
 unreservedly given himself, he would have simply smiled, and 
 bared liis bosom for the welcome blow. It is difiicult to com- 
 pare him with Washington. In one gi'eat point they were 
 alike. Each loved to do his duty. There the resemblance 
 ends. One was stately, solemn, slow — of but small creative 
 
14 
 
 faculty, elegant in his tastes, moving in conscioTis superiority 
 over his fellow men. He was a type of his time ; for the 
 Eevolution was little more than a struggle of home aristocracy 
 out of place, with foreign aristocracy in place — a struggle 
 arising more from distance than difference. The enthusiastic 
 Jefferson was suffered to incorporate in his Declaration the 
 doctrine of political equality, but few subsequent acts of the 
 men of '76, indicated that it was else than theory. But Lin- 
 coln believed that doctrine. He knew its truth. He knew 
 what he was equal to. He came from the people, and was 
 proud of it. He was no greater, at last, than they. Station, 
 with him, was not honor; it was duty. He was but the 
 trustee for the people — their representative and personation. 
 Hence his singular modesty — his study of the popular heart — 
 his careful effort in timing all his acts, to keep just in advance 
 of the people. It was right, and it was philosophic ; for the 
 people rule, with us, in fact, as well as law. 
 
 Both Washington and Lincoln excelled mankind in instinc- 
 tive accuracy of judgment ; but here, intellectually, the parallel 
 stops. Washington, as a statesman, had little aggressive abil- 
 ity. Even his most important State papers were, according to 
 the fashion of that day, penned by others. Not so with Lincoln. 
 He permitted naught further than suggestion. His peculiar, 
 quaint style, most like to the English of the days of Elizabeth, 
 was his own ; and while the great ones of the earth smiled or 
 sneered, the " common people heard him gladly ;" and, what 
 he sought, understood him and followed him. But why pur- 
 sue the parallel ? Washington was the man for his age. Li 
 this he would scarcely have been valued. Lincoln, likest 
 Franklin of all that day, might not have been then equally 
 appreciated. But the world never produced a man so fitted 
 to satisfy and sway the hearts of the common people of this 
 day, as he ! 
 
 And he is gone ! Gone, just (so it seems to me) when most 
 necessary. Gone at the instant best, perhaps, for his fame. 
 
15 
 
 but worst for us and for the nation ! The very South had 
 learned to respect him. The North so revered him, that when 
 he spoke or acted, men recalled their own opinions, and waited 
 patiently, sure that he was right. And he was so kind, so 
 just, so wise ! 
 
 Yes ! we will bless thee, revere thee, love thee forever ! No 
 matter where thy dust shall rest, thou hast thy home in every 
 heart ! We bless God for thee ! We honor thy manliness, 
 thy perpetual heroism, thy humble faith in right, and love of 
 doing right ! If another gave us our country, thou hast saved 
 it ! Best from thy toils, dear soul ! Thy funeral train will 
 never cease. The world, till time shall end, will venerate thy 
 name and memory, and weep at thy tomb, while in Heaven 
 thou shalt reap the harvest of those who, following their Lord, 
 die for their fellow men ! 
 
 Nor while we weep over Lincoln's fall, and bless Heaven 
 for his virtues and his life, will we forget to hallow the names 
 of the thousands who have died the same death, murdered by 
 the same wicked rebellion. We will not underrate the achieve- 
 ments of those who survive. But war has been cruel indeed. 
 Our dead heroes ! what a band, for number and for merit ! 
 Passing the hundreds of less conspicuous names, what do we 
 not owe to Mitchell, philosopher, orator and soldier : as skillful 
 in strategy and audacious design as rapid and thorough in 
 execution, who mapped the path since seized by Sherman • 
 and to Lyon, saviour of St. Louis and Missouri, and to Kearny, 
 our own Kearny, ever watchful for the foe and for his men, 
 gifted with military prescience beyond all around him, resolv- 
 ing like lightning, and rivaling the bolt in instantaneous 
 execution ; never beaten, though the army in which he served 
 met with nought but defeat ; looking and acting the soldier 
 above all comparison, and whose very death sprang from a 
 caution for his command which he never thought of for himself 
 What do we not owe to Wadsworth, and Sedgewick, and Eey- 
 nolds, and Reed, and Mansfield, and Buford, and McPherson, 
 
16 
 
 and a host of others among our generals, slain or dying in this 
 strife ? And what not to the many, many more, whose virtues 
 and whose deeds are known and recited, each in a household of 
 which he is the idol, where his memory is eating away the life of 
 parent or wife, brother or sister, or other loving heart, more bur- 
 dened because it is forbidden by worldly forms to publish its 
 mourning ? Oh ! let us vow upon this happy day that the mem- 
 ory of these martyrs to our cause shall never die nor fade. Let 
 each State carve on some tablet where through all time they 
 may be read, the names of her sons who are gone. Let each 
 city and village, on the anniversary of this day, call the roll 
 of those of her children whom she has given to their country, 
 and as their names are uttered who have fallen, let the response 
 of the Old Guard be made, " Dead on the field of honor." 
 
 Nor, now or ever, will we forget the living heroes, returned 
 among us, bronzed, scarred, or aged with patriotic labor. To 
 those now here, in the name of the State and its citizens, do I 
 return our public thanks. You have earned a gratitude which 
 we can never sufiiciently display. Words cannot convey it. 
 Welcome home ! that you may feel through all your lives 
 how much of respect and regard you have won by hazarding 
 yourselves for your country. There may be some who will 
 make light of your labors and deserts, or think you foolish 
 for the risks you have run. But with the wise, the good, the 
 patriotic, the dusty and worn blue coat of the soldier is and 
 will be a passport to sympathy, aid and protection in all that 
 is right and desirable. 
 
 I mast not forget to name the great leaders under whose 
 care or guidance your victory has been won — leaders civic as 
 well as military. Stanton, whose untiring energy and match- 
 less executive ability, have never been appreciated, and, in fact, 
 are scarcely appreciable ; who with one hand has clutched the 
 throat of fraud and peculation, while with the other he hurled 
 an unceasing storm upon the adversary. Seward, skillfully 
 warding off Foreign interference — by nature a Diplomat, whose 
 
17 
 
 prudence and sagacity have world-wide reputation ; and Chase, 
 whose management in finance has brought the coantrj tlu'ough 
 this crisis so prosperously that we can scarcely ourselves 
 believe it. "Welles, too, should have our thanks — organizing 
 so quietly, and with so little parade or even notoriety, a Navy 
 so large and useful — while time will fail me only to repeat 
 the names of those, who on land or sea, have immortalized 
 themselves and their country. Farragut, Porter, Dupont, 
 Worden, Boggs, Winslow, Cashing, Rogers, in the Navy, and 
 Grant, Sherman, Meade, Thomas, Sheridan, Wright, Hancock, 
 Howard, Logan, Stoneman, Wilson, Kilpatrick, Custer, in the 
 army, are names with which the world is familiar. And yet 
 even these are most famous rather from greater opportunity 
 than desert. Indeed, heroism, for these four years, has been 
 national. It has, by no means, been confined to the field. It 
 has been everywhere. In families, where Abraham's faith 
 was copied, and the only or the equally beloved son has been 
 urged, rather than held back, from the altar of his country. 
 In hospitals, where delicate womanhood has outdone all the 
 past, in ministering to the sick, the wounded, and the dying. 
 In the very seats of the money-changers, whence treasure has 
 been poured forth at each new call, with a lavishness unprece- 
 dented. At the Polls, where a more decisive victory was won 
 than even at Five Forks or Nashville ; and a grander exhibi- 
 tion of lofty patriotism. For history will say, as Europe was 
 compelled to admit, that the quiet election of November last, 
 was the most sublime sight mankind has ever beheld. It is 
 not right to praise ourselves, but it is right to bless God for 
 inspiring all our hearts so fully and so universally, with moral 
 heroism, and the spirit of self sacrifice for the nation and the 
 race. 
 
 But, my friendsj this day is not simply for thanksgiving 
 or congratulations. These indeed are indispensable. But 
 our work is not yet done. The task of reconstruction is one 
 which calls for the greatest wisdom, patriotism and prudence. 
 
18 
 
 And it seems to me my duty to embrace tkis occasion, 
 to express some views as to what patriotic men should re- 
 quire in resettling and renewing the nation. 
 
 And first, my friends, I submit that all good men should 
 require the utter extirpation of Slavery. Slavery was 
 the sole cause of the rebellion. Perhaps this is not entirely 
 true. The ambition of Jefferson Davis and other Southern 
 politicians who thought it " better to reign in hell, than serve 
 in Heaven," was the immediately operative cause. But slavery 
 was their lever. It supplied the sectional mind with its 
 motive. It had, besides, created the difference between the 
 characteristics of the North and the South. Mercy, the great 
 poet of human nature says, 
 
 " is twice blessed: — 
 It blesses him that gives and him that takes." 
 
 And so with its opposite. Habitual injustice, which is cruelty, 
 is twice cursed. It curseth him that gives and him that takes. 
 And thus, for ages, slavery was carsing the Southern mind 
 and heart, brutalizing it and making it barbarous. Thereby the 
 South was haughty, proud and belligerent. Money -worship- 
 ping among the multitude and place-worshipping among 
 politicians, made the North, for the most part obsequious to 
 the victims of slaveholding, and so these characteristics in 
 each section went on increasing each other, till the South 
 despised us; and those they judged us by, the politicians and 
 the traders whom they used, deserved their contempt. Then, 
 again, slavery made labor dishonorable. Its absence, dignified 
 it Therefore, at the South, poor whites were lazy and ignorant 
 tools of the aristocratic ; while, at the North, aristocracy was 
 impossible, and the multitude hated the principles and 
 characters of the Southern leaders. And hearts blessed by 
 freedom, refused at last to aid in extending human slavery. 
 So, ere we knew it, we were two peoples. Slavery was 
 responsible for this fact. An outbreak one day, we can now 
 
19 
 
 see, was irremediable. Slavery and freedom could not agree. 
 They were in "irrepressible conflict.'" 
 
 If then we would renew the nation, we must extirpate 
 slavery with all the shoots and branches of the accursed tree. 
 Its nature makes it the necessary enemy of our nationality, 
 or any nationality which itself does not control. It cannot 
 act on the theory that the majority must govern. The nation 
 had to be all free or all slave ; and blessed be Grod, it is all 
 free ! 
 
 Now, spite of the war and the proclamation, it ?n ay exist. Its 
 breath is not gone. It is susceptible of renewed life. It lives 
 through State Sovereignty and the guaranties of the Constitu- 
 tion, and only a new Constitution can dash out its brains and 
 life forever. Hence the need of the amendment to the Consti- 
 tution, passed already by almost all the loyal States; rejected, 
 alas ! to our great shame, by New Jersey. 
 
 If some man says I am talking party politics and desecrat- 
 ing this holy day — I answer, more shame for him and those 
 who strive to make such a question a party one. The lover of 
 the Union, the foe of rebellion, the advocate of the doctrine 
 that this is a nation, and not a simple confederation, must 
 talk such politics. You might as well say that a party could 
 adopt the right of secession as part of their platform, and thus 
 interdict good men from discussing it on such a day, as say 
 that their adopting the motive of secession, slavery, should 
 shut our mouths when our necessary theme is the escape of 
 the nation from ruin, and the destruction of its enemies. 
 
 No one wants slavery to continue except rebels and those 
 who sympathise with them — or who cried, hold off, you cannot 
 conquer them. And the cry of those who stand by it is the 
 same which the nation in arms has been fighting. '• State 
 Rights ! — this is a subject left and which must be left to each 
 state alone ; there is no right to pass an amendment to the 
 Constitution on this subject." 
 
 There is no limit, on the correct theory of the Constitution, 
 
20 
 
 to the extent to which amendments to the Constitution regu- 
 larly made, are binding, on any topic not entirely foreign 
 to civil law. The people of this land are sovereign, and 
 they have the right to lodge their sovereignty in such 
 governmental representatives as they please. They have 
 made a double deposit of their sovereignty. So far as re- 
 gards local matters, they have lodged it in state governments. 
 So far as regards national matters, they have lodged it in the 
 national government. And they have the righi to confer upon 
 the governments they create powers on any subject incidental 
 to human society. Or, to express it in ordinary phrase, they 
 have the right to introduce any provision in their great funda- 
 mental social compact, restrictive of any rights capable of ac- 
 quisition. They had a right to say and they did say, in the 
 Constitution that certain powers should reside in the general 
 government, and certain others remain with the States. If 
 they choose they can, following prescribed forms, alter their 
 will in this respect. Following prescribed forms, I say, for 
 that is necessary. They have contracted only thus, to bestow 
 their sovereignty. And when their will is thus altered, it is 
 as if it were so from the first. 
 
 This is implied in the clause introduced into the Constitu- 
 tion for the purpose of restricting the construction of power. 
 It is itself an amendment. It provides that "the powers 
 not delegated to the United States by this Constitution, nor 
 prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- 
 spectively or to the people.'" But one provision was for 
 amendments. That could only be in several ways. It might 
 be by a repeal of power granted to the United States without 
 lodging it elsewhere, or by such a repeal, lodging it elsewhere, 
 or by a conferring of more power on the United States Gov- 
 ernment, in which case it might be taken from the States, just 
 as at the beginning, or from the people. The very fact of res- 
 ervation combined with the power of amendment, confesses 
 authority on the part of the people through an amendment, 
 
21 
 
 to give up or alter or change the deposit of any powers so 
 reserved. 
 
 To apply these principles to the question which suggests 
 their consideration. A new amendment is proposed — to wit that 
 involuntary servitude shall be forever abolished. Is that a topic 
 germane to civil government ? No one will dispute but what 
 it is, since such servitude only can exist through civil govern- 
 ment. God made all men free. Power makes some men 
 slaves, but confers no right to hold them so. That men 
 do through government. The framers of the Constitution 
 scorned to stipulate for such right in the Constitution 
 of a nation created from love of freedom. They found 
 the right created by State authority. They left it so. But 
 they had the right then,— the sovereign people had, — to take 
 from the State (or from themselves in the exercise of their 
 sovereignty through the States,) the power to hold part of 
 their fellow creatures — their fellow citizens — Slaves. And if 
 they had, they have it still, provided only that they do it in 
 the way they agreed to do it, through an amendment passed 
 first by Congress and ratified by a majority of the States 
 in legislature assembled. 
 
 It is astonishing that men should raise a doubt on this topic. 
 What is an amendment ? It is the provided way of making 
 a new Constitution. And cannot the sovereign people of this 
 Union, who agreed thus to express their will, do it whenever 
 they choose ? 
 
 Observe, too, that the Constitution itself shows that the 
 people considered this topic within their reach. It provides 
 for legislation to secure the master his fugitive slave. This 
 in favor of slavery. Again, it provides that the " migration 
 or importation of such persons as any of the States now exist- 
 ing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited to 
 Congress prior to 1808," — a clause which admits the right of 
 prohibiting it afterwards, as has been done ; and which is a 
 regulation of property in slaves. Thus the Constitution treats 
 
22 
 
 the holding of slaves as a subject to be regulated. And if 
 the will of the people can make a National Constitution help 
 secure slaves, cannot the same will, Constitutional forms 
 observed, secure their freedom ? Is the sovereignty of a free 
 people, only competent to rivet human chains, powerless to 
 knock them off? Forbid it reason, justice. Almighty Grod ! 
 whose decree has gone forth, as glorious as that which gave 
 light to the world — " let the captive free !" 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I rejoice while yet I grieve and blush that 
 this subject should be so practical a one with Jerseymen. I 
 grieve and blush because a New Jersey Legislature has, by a 
 party vote, rejected this glorious amendment, and I rejoice 
 because that act has devolved upon the people, on you and 
 on me, the responsibility of deciding finally whether or not 
 this vile cause of strife, this crying injustice, this stigma on 
 the fame of our fathers, this blot upon our Constitution, shall 
 or shall not be wiped away. The vote of New Jersey is 
 almost certain to decide the question for the Union — to settle 
 whether millions of men shall again be bondsmen. Men, over 
 a hundred thousand of whom have risked their lives in sup- 
 port of our laws. Men, many thousands of whom have 
 actually died for our flag, and many thousands more have 
 bled for it. Men, who have protected, fed or guided our brave 
 boys escaping from the horrid torments of rebel prisons ; — 
 have piloted our generals to victory, saved them from defeat, 
 never been otherwise than faithful to us. Men, whom rebellion 
 against us has gifted with freedom ; and who exult to-day 
 with the innocence, gayety and helplessness of children, in its 
 possession. Men, for whose emancipation all civilization 
 rejoices, and to which even traitors now consent. It is, I say, for 
 New Jersey — New Jersey, thousands of whose sons have been 
 murdered by slavery, using the hands of those who avowedly 
 fought for it, to settle — for us, each one of us, men and breth- 
 ren, to help settle, whether this serpent, slavery, shall or shall 
 not be strangled and forever destroyed ! I feel there can be 
 
23 
 
 but one result. The sons of New Jersey will stand on the 
 side of civilization, freedom, their country and their God, If 
 they do not, let us change our State or our name ! 
 
 But, fellow citizens, this is not all which, in the process of 
 reconstruction, devolves upon us in this matter of Slavery. It 
 must not merely be excised. It must not merely be forever 
 prevented. The ramifications of the cancerous virus must be 
 pursued, dragged out or neutralized. And that for our own- 
 safety as well as for justice. 
 
 American slavery not only chained individuals ; it fettered 
 a race. It disgTaced a physical formation. Those who sup- 
 port it claim, boldly, to define the intention of the Almighty, 
 and subject all born on a particular continent below a certain 
 degree of latitude, nay, all who with whatever admixture, 
 share their blood, to the ban of involuntary servitude. If 
 individuals were freed, that did not give them equality before 
 the law. They were not citizens. Their oath cannot be taken. 
 They are placed under guardianship. Poverty re-enslaves 
 them. So may breach of several technical laws, and suffrage 
 is wholly denied them. This is the state of the 4,000,000 now 
 in the South. Shall we leave them so ? These only loyalists, 
 shall we leave them to be governed by those against whom 
 they have rebelled ? or rather whose rebellion they had with- 
 stood ? Shall we endue them with no right except freedom ? 
 Are we safe^ is the Union safe, withdrawing its armies and 
 navy, leaving those to support it, whose lives have been given 
 for four years to its destruction ? 
 
 This subject is full of painful interest and not unmixed with 
 difficulty. It involves both power and policy. But I cannot 
 think the day well spent without venturing its brief 
 discussion. And, first, I remark, that State governments 
 do not now subsist in the lately rebellious States. The Consti- 
 tution of the United States requires every State officer, from 
 the Governor down, to swear to maintain it. That oath is 
 essential. Yet the present State officers have not only not taken 
 
24 
 
 it; they have sworn to destroy it, have taken an oath of 
 allegiance to a pseudo government whose life was only possi- 
 ble through the death of ours. Clearly, then, the States are 
 without legal officers. 
 
 But further than this, their present Constitutions and laws 
 deny the authority of the National Constitution, and admit and 
 assert that of its enemy ; and require all officers to swear and 
 bear allegiance to it. Then, have they Constitutions ? Certainly 
 none, which are operative. They cannot operate without pro- 
 ducing rebellion. If it is said that the old Constitutions re- 
 main, it can be also said that they require governmental ac- 
 tion to set their functions in motion. The situation is, at least, 
 what would have occurred had the people of a State, after 
 legally creating its Constitution, neglected for years to elect 
 officers under it. Some authority must set the wheels in 
 motion. 
 
 If you say, recognize the old Constitution and start the 
 wheels, I answer, that could not be without calling on men 
 who have sworn or recognised allegiance to another Constitu- 
 tion, to use the machinery of this. The State Constitutions as 
 they exist, provide certain requisites to suffrage ; omitting, en- 
 tirely, to specify that open rebellion disfranchises ; while it is 
 plain no Convention could have meant that traitors to a Consti- 
 tution should hold its offices or reap its privileges. Yet all who 
 fought against the United States are in each State traitors against 
 the State Constitution, for that requires allegiance to the United 
 States. If a State has no right to secede, every traitor to the 
 Union was a traitor to his State. This is an important truth, 
 recognized by the laws of New Jersey. They define treason 
 as consisting not only in levying war upon the State, but up- 
 on the United States. And they are right. Our temple of 
 liberty is a structure of composite parts. Its foundations are 
 the universal equality and brotherhood of man. Its walls and 
 lofty dome enclose, guard, defend and confine the States, 
 while they, like mighty pillars, uphold the dome and strengthen 
 
25 
 
 all. But thej, blind Samsons, who strive to tear them away 
 and make them hostile to the noble building of which they 
 were a part, made war thereby not only on the nation which 
 the building represents, but on the States themselves. It 
 would have been a revolution as regards the Union, but not 
 less one against State authority. Conventions of the people 
 were therefore plainly necessary, either to frame a new Consti- 
 tution or re-adopt and renew the animated existence of the old. 
 
 Conventions of the people ? But who are the people ? 
 Who shall determine who are the people ? Enemies, resident 
 within State borders, are not its people; not even, though 
 they profess repentance and friendship. Citizens of foreign 
 lands therein resident are not of the people, confessedly. Are 
 those who have deliberately abjured their citizenship, and 
 whom legal authority has not restored ? 
 
 Who are the people ? All citizens of the States, who have 
 not abjured their allegiance to the old Constitution of their 
 State — the Constitution which acknowledged the United 
 States, — by deliberately, and as citizens, making war upon 
 the National Government. 
 
 But practically the most important inquiry is, who is to 
 determine who are the people ? That must be settled by supe- 
 rior authority, or by circumstances. Had there been no rebel- 
 lion, and no government heretofore, some persons would have 
 spontaneously congregated, formed their Constitution, and the 
 rest would have accepted and lived under it. But that is not 
 now safe. Or if it be, it is not the best way. It is the most 
 likely to promote future strife. And so we cannot reflect upon 
 the matter without seeing, the actual State government having 
 become unlawful, being actually rebellious, that the proper, 
 and in fact, the necessary way is for the government, which 
 they say has conquered them, to accept the situation, and 
 determine who shall be regarded as the people of the State, 
 and form its new Constitution. 
 
 Who should be designated as the people? None, who 
 
26 
 
 helped organize the rebellion ; none, I think, who participated 
 in it, whatever their present penitence. No matter how many- 
 are excluded, no matter how few included. None should be 
 suffered to vote who are not loyal to the State, and ready to 
 accept the new destiny of the South, a land where hereafter 
 there cannot breathe a Slave. Such men will amend the laws 
 of the State so that Slavery will disappear in deed as well as 
 in name ; so that color will no longer disgrace ; so that our duty 
 to those who have helped save us, may be done. I will not 
 enter here into the question of negro suffrage, except to say 
 that it is in my mind a mere question of policy. No man has 
 a right merely as a human being and morally, to exercise the 
 right of suffrage. Some government there must be. They 
 only should be entrusted with it, who are capable of exercis- 
 ing it. It is wrong to give the right of suffrage to the incap- 
 able ; as much so as to give it to the wicked. If a man does 
 not know how to govern himself or take care of himself, shall 
 he nevertheless have the power of governing those who do ? 
 When we exclude minors, lunatics, criminals, unnaturalised 
 foreigners, the female sex, we admit this doctrine to be right. 
 That the blacks are now competent, as a general rule, for suf- 
 frage, I do not believe. And though there are classes of men 
 now voting, of whom the same might be said, does that alter 
 the question ? That many of the blacks are now competent 
 for suffrage, I also believe. Color should not exclude them any 
 more than red hair or any other physical mark of a race. Fix 
 a rule which will include as nearly as possible, all who are 
 fit to vote, and exclude as nearly as possible, all who are unfit. 
 That is the correct principle. And if the rule excludes any, 
 let it not be for a reason* which they cannot help. For my- 
 self, if the agitation of this subject should tend to induce the 
 adoption of the principle that no man should vote who cannot 
 read and write, and that all citizens of the United States who 
 knew how to read and write, without regard to color or lineage, 
 should vote, a step in advance would be gained, worth much 
 of the toil, treasure and suffering of the last four years. 
 
27 
 
 And one thing more I will say, if it is apparent before the 
 work of reconstruction is complete, that in order to protect the 
 people of color in the South, they or any of them should 
 be allowed to vote, it is within the power of the govern- 
 ment to do it, and it should be done. The disloyal may be 
 dissatisfied. If so, it is rather a reason for, than against the 
 measure. But justice and our own safety demand that these 
 poor, helpless, ignorant, innocent people shall not again be en- 
 slaved, either under the law, or, as may easily be done, by 
 legalizing social antipathies and establishing unrighteous in- 
 equalities, in spite of the law emancipating them. 
 
 And, at the risk of fatiguing you, my friends, I feel it right 
 to pursue the subject of our duty to the colored people of the 
 South a little farther. Fully to appreciate what I would say, 
 it is perhaps essential to go among them and study them.. 
 Many of you know that although always desirous of their 
 Emancipation, I never was, indeed I formerly abhorred being 
 called an abolitionist. I never regarded Slavery as 'per se sin- 
 ful, any more than holding an apprentice. The one makes men 
 masters of a portion of another's life ; the other of the whole. 
 Whether the slaveholder was a sinner in that regard or not, de- 
 pended. I have thought, on each particular case. If he sold them ; 
 if he encouraged vice among them ; if he neglected them ; if he 
 failed to regard them as possessed of souls like his own, and 
 did not teach them, improve them, work for their salvation in 
 the other world, and for their highest happiness in this ; if, in a 
 word, sustaining a relation of guardianship, as nearly as pos- 
 sible equivalent to the parental, he failed to discharge its ele- 
 vated duties, then he was a sinner, at whose hand God would 
 require a fearful reckoning. And what we have seen and read 
 of Southern slavery, impresses one most painfully in this view 
 of the matter. The laws and social life of the South have 
 been framed with the plain intent to put back and keep back 
 this whole race in the scale of moral and intellectual being, and 
 most deplorably have they succeeded. As a general thing they 
 
28 
 
 are wholly unfit for self-dependence. They wander about the 
 neighborhood of their homes, as horses suddenly released from 
 the stalls might stray near them, with no more thought for the 
 future, little more care for the present, or apparent benefit from 
 the past. They eat what they can readily find, but when they 
 do not find, they starve. Disease strikes them, and they die 
 like sheep, while the living stare helplessly upon them, 
 unconscious till death comes that it is near. The mortality 
 and disease among them is fearful. It is just as if families of 
 children were deserted ; not a particle better. You talk to 
 them of wprk, and they think you mean, after all, to deny them 
 liberty. You talk to them of self-advancement and for the 
 most part, they are as ignorant of what you say or as incapable 
 of resolving it, as your children. One thing they do appreciate ; 
 and the contemplation of the fact, stirred me even more to anger 
 with the vile system, and its promoters than almost any one thing 
 besides ; they do appreciate the privilege of knowledge. Their 
 anxiety to learn to read is wonderful. The young, middle- 
 aged, old, all are busy with the spelling-book. The old pray 
 to be able to read the word of God. The middle-aged see 
 in knowledge a mysterious talisman whereby they will be 
 equal to their former masters — the young are inspired by the 
 example of their seniors. In a village at Hilton Head contain- 
 ing 3,000 blacks, there are twenty schools. How atrocious 
 the system, which, with the intent to perpetuate itself, has 
 shut the door of knowledge to a whole race, so anxious to have 
 it opened ! How equally atrocious the allegation on the part 
 of its upholders, they first doing their best to make it so, that 
 the race is naturally so inferior, as to be unfit for freedom and 
 for progress! Give these poor benighted ones, light — the 
 light of God's word, not only, but the light of knowledge ; 
 wait till their dim bleared eyes grow used to the sudden gush 
 of the blessed sun— nurse them, for our laws have for 
 centuries kept them as children — let them be educated, in 
 schools, but better yet by the possession of privileges, and 
 
si 
 
 responsibilities — let them see themselves able to win respect, 
 notwithstanding their atrocious crime of a skin darker than 
 our own — treat them, if you will, as inferiors, but as inferiors 
 ought to be treated, with kindness, with encouragement, with 
 Christian charity, not with haughtiness, obloquy and contempt. 
 Do all this, it is our duty. It is but what gratitude demands. 
 It is what self preservation requires. For Eebellion, be it 
 remembered, was Slavery ; the haughty spirit of caste which 
 slavery necessitates. And its utter extirpation is necessary 
 to a cloudless future. 
 
 But these reflections are not what I wished particularly to 
 make. There is an especial duty — a great duty — and a great 
 charity now devolved upon us. It is to care for and regulate 
 these helpless millions ; to see that they have their freedom 
 indeed ; to help them to grow worthy of it ; to educate them to 
 self dependence, to protect them against wrong. Government 
 which usually leaves men to take care of themselves, simply 
 protecting them against aggression, has a positive duty to 
 discharge here, akin to that of popular education, outside of the 
 Constitution, but not in breach of it. How it is to be discharg- 
 ed, I leave to wiser heads. Its difficulties may be mastered by 
 study and patience. The law establishing a Bureau for freed- 
 men is a step, perhaps a complete one, in the right direction. 
 It must be sustained and followed up. And voluntary enter- 
 prise, so nobly exerted in the Sanitary and Christian Com- 
 missions and various other associations springing from and 
 dying with the war, must exert itself in this channel, a duty 
 more incumbent upon us than any kindred one with which 
 we have been familiar. 
 
 Thus far I have called your attention to our duties to our- 
 selves, and the race, to keep whom in assured subjugation 
 treason attacked the authority of law, and the being of the 
 nation, I now invite it to our duty towards those who have 
 committed the great crime of rebellion. 
 
 Of these there are several classes, all guilty before the law, 
 
30 
 
 but widely differing, morally. There are the politicians who 
 conspired and plotted secession. There are the men of intelli- 
 gence who for selfish motives aided them in bringing it about 
 or afterwards in carrying it on. There are the officers of our 
 own army who deserted their flag and carried skill which they 
 owed the nation to the service of those who sought its de- 
 struction. There are the misguided multitudes, who, deceived 
 by the idea that secession was legal, opposed it as causeless, 
 but felt bound to go with their States. There are the still 
 greater multitudes who were induced by poverty, ignorance or 
 excitement to enlist, or were conscripted and driven to take up 
 arms against us. And, among all these, are to be found men 
 who carried on the war with cruelty and outrage, either in the 
 army or directing it. 
 
 There is little difficulty in deciding what to do with most of 
 these. There has been no motive but legal necessity prompt- 
 ing the North. Foreign sympathisers with the enemies of the 
 Constitution, have charged us with making war for territory. 
 If we did, it was for our own territory, in virtue of our alle- 
 giance, and in obedience to its requisitions. It was in mainte- 
 nance of law that we fought ; and we fought without animosity, 
 nay, sorrowing perpetually that it should be so. Therefore, 
 in spite of all we have suffered, we have for those innocent of 
 evil intention, or who obeyed a mistaken sense of duty, nothing 
 but mercy. True, we must guard ourselves against similar 
 conduct on their part, hereafter. Therefore, their pardon 
 should be conditional — especially to aid in destroying the soli- 
 tary cause of strife between us. But they have expiated their 
 offence, and we take them by the hand again as brethren, won- 
 dering only how they could have so hated and fought u.s. But 
 as to those who entered upon this great crime with evil intent, or 
 who carried it on with ferocity and cruelty, what are we to do ? 
 That is one of the great questions of the hour — a question fit 
 to be spoken of on this happy day, when we stand here prais- 
 ing God for our deliverance, and rejoicing over renewed peace. 
 
31 
 
 I would speak calmly, charitably and justly on this topic. 
 I have endeavored carefully to consider what has been said 
 and written, by friends and enemies on both sides of the water, 
 respecting it. And, it seems to me, the answer to my question 
 is plain, if we are true to our allegiance, and recognize it as a 
 duty. Those guilty in this thing, morally as well as legally — 
 those who sought the death of the nation, without a wrong to 
 complain of, with none to anticipate, with none to imagine, 
 against which they did not possess the power of prevention — 
 who sought it for selfish motives, either personal ambition or 
 a desire to perpetuate the right of property which they called 
 slavery — those who meanly and secretly conspired, while 
 enjoying public position and honor and influence, to ruin this 
 great nation, the acknowledged hope of freedom, religion, and 
 the world — such men should be punished, or else all connec- 
 tion between guilt and punishment should forever be done 
 away. Else tear down your prisons, bury the gallows, and 
 blot from the statute books every law which affixes punish- 
 ment to crime. 
 
 Look at this little waif, taken from the letter-file of the 
 chief of these conspirators, and judge respecting his guilt : 
 
 " Selma, (near Winchester, Va.,) Sept. 80, 1856. 
 "My Dear Sir: — I have a letter from Wise, of the 27th, 
 full of spirit. He says the governments of North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, and Louisiana, have already agreed to the 
 rendezvous at Ealeigh, and others will — this in your most pri- 
 vate ear. He says further, that he had officially requested 
 you to exchange with Virginia, on fair terms of difierence, 
 percussion for flint muskets. I don't know the usage or power 
 of the Department in such cases ; but, if it can be done, even 
 by liberal construction, I hope you will accede. Was there 
 not an appropriation, last session, for converting flint into per- 
 cussion arms ? If so, would it not furnish good reason for 
 extending siich facilities to the States ? Virginia, probably, 
 has more arms than the other Southern States, and would 
 divide in case of need. In a letter, yesterday, to a Committee 
 in South Carolina, I gave it as my judgment, in the event of 
 Fremont's election, the South should not pause, but proceed 
 
32 
 
 at once to 'immediate, absolute, and eternal separation.' So I 
 am a candidate for the first halter. 
 
 " Wise says his accounts from Philadelphia are cheering for 
 old Buck, in Pennsylvania. I hope they be not delusive. 
 " Vale et Salute, 
 
 "J. M. Mason. 
 "Colonel Davis." 
 
 "What have we here ? A Secretary of War, in 1856, con- 
 spiring with a United States Senator, and the Governor of 
 Virginia, as well as the Governors of Louisiana, North Caro- 
 lina and South Carolina, to make war on the United States, 
 unless their candidate was elected President ! Having corres- 
 pondence about arms, and about using his office as Secretary 
 of War to furnish arms to Virginia for such a war ! All this 
 as long ago as 1856, and in acknowledged risk of the halter ! 
 And over this volcano men slept four years, while its fires 
 never cooled. No eruption occurred, because these conspi- 
 rators were still in power. But when they ceased to be, or 
 rather when the}^ saw it likely to cease, their old resolution 
 was executed, and this eminently peaceful, peace-loving 
 and happy country, was deluged with the most horrid war 
 over which humanity ever groaned, carried on by its authors 
 with a ferocity disgraceful to humanity. And now, with a 
 Constitution which creates and defines treason, and a law 
 passed under it affixing its punishment, are all these conspi- 
 rators, without one particle of extenuation for their crime, who 
 meditated their treason longer, and executed it with more 
 boldness, skill, and success than mankind ever knew, to go 
 unhung ? 
 
 It is said that this treason was on too grand a scale, and for 
 a long time too successful — that it compelled us to treat with 
 the rebels as belligerents, and recognize the strife as civil war. 
 What of that ? It is a strange thing to say that if the rebel- 
 lion had been unsuccessful in taking Sumter, and immediately 
 repressed, it would be right to punish its contrivers, but inas- 
 much as it became almost invincible — would have been to any 
 
33 
 
 nation but our own — it is wrong. ' And as to our treating them 
 as ordinary enemies, that did not change their status, nor was 
 it so regarded. It was a step of necessity, which deprived us 
 of no right. When nations have acted thus, it was through 
 fear and policy, not justice. Thank God ! these motives need 
 not affect us. 
 
 It is said that other nations have taught us lessons in this 
 matter and various instances are referred to. The deaths of 
 Charles I. and Louis XVI., executions under the forms of 
 law, but against law, by successful rebels, are no parallels where 
 the question is what shall be d6ne with wicked, unsuccessful 
 rebels by the government they meant to ruin. Nor dods the 
 opinion of mankind respecting the remorseless cruelties of 
 Eussia and Austria, of Cromwell in Ireland, of the Kings of 
 France and Spain, at all establish that unjustifiable rebellions 
 should take place, and no one be punished. 
 
 It is said that we shall lo'se sopae of the good opinion we 
 have now abroad if we execute the- law. Let it go. Why should 
 we care about opinion abroad. They cannot understand us, 
 or will not, if they can. And they draw no lines between 
 cases where men rebelled in order to be free, or to remove 
 a grievance, and when they had no peaceful remedy, and cases 
 where men rebel that they niay not be molested in their reso- 
 lution to keep 4,000,000 of people and their descendants slaves, 
 when they had no grievance, and if they had, possessed a 
 remedy. 
 
 These pleas come either from dreamy humanitarians, or 
 secret or open syinpathisers with the defeated rebels. But 
 Humanitarianism is not philanthropy, and as to foreign friends 
 of Davis and the Confederacy, let them howl ! In my mind, 
 we should share the guilt of traitors, did we not punish 
 treason. That is law. Our allegiance requires the efforts of 
 every man, to detect, arrest and punish traitors, as much as to 
 quell them in the field. And we are untrue to it, if we let a 
 silly sentiment or the wishes of others, deter us from our duty. 
 
34 
 
 The magnitude of the rebellion does make one difference. 
 We cannot punish all. But is that a reason when there 
 are degrees in guilt, that its wicked plotters should not 
 suffer ? 
 
 Oh ! my friend, whose eyes are ready to overflow in sym- 
 pathy with any man in distress, who was it that killed 
 your son ? that brave boy who was murdered as he rode, 
 unattended through our lines ? Who starved those other 
 boys, inch by inch, till their poor lives ebbed away in prison, 
 or almost worse, were returned to perish, vainly seeking to 
 swallow the niceties your eager love pressed upon them ? 
 Who shot those others at the windows, up to which they 
 dragged their wasted limbs to take one more look at the free 
 sun of their native land ? Who killed those poor fellows at 
 the dead-line, to which they tottered in suicidal despair, mad 
 through protracted starvation and exposure ? Who massacred 
 at Fort Pillow ? Who made cups and rings of skulls and 
 bones which belonged to oar children ? From whose wicked- 
 ness has come that ocean of blood which covers the land? Who 
 made Virginia a charnel house ? Who strewed her fair 
 valleys with gallant dead ? Who purdered those five hundred 
 thousand, who on the field, or in the dreary hospital, have 
 died through this wanton, wicked rebellion ? Ye wounded 
 and maimed, ye shattered consumptives, ye victims of fever 
 and diarrhoea, dragging your unhappy days along, in hourly 
 prayer for death, ye prisoners, not of hope, who have come back 
 to us, unable to live through privation and despair, ye 
 myriads who mourn all this, wives, children, parents, brothers, 
 sisters, friends, who are responsible for this production on 
 earth of the malice and misery of the damned ? Do we not 
 know ? Did not Davis and Wigfall and Toombs and Slidell 
 and Benjamin and Breckenridge and Miles and Pickens and 
 Keitt and Cobb and Floyd and Wise and many more of 
 accursed fame conspire to bring it about? Have they not 
 carried on the strife with every meanness which Satan could 
 
35 
 
 devise, by plotting the d^tnlction of cities by secret incen- 
 diarism, by. raids from neutral stores of disguised spies upon 
 peaceful villages, by piratical surprises and captures on the sea, 
 by villianous attempts to cast the rushing rail road train from 
 its track, by torpedoes strewed through evacuated positions, 
 sunk in rivers, buried in lines of approach which were sur- 
 rendered or abandoned, by foal conspiracies to devastate our 
 cities, with riot and rapine ? And, if it be true that the last 
 dread act of mean atrocity was not directly approved by the 
 usurpers at Richmond, is it not true that its principle was the 
 same and no worse than that of many acts which were ap- 
 proved ? Morally, was not the assassination of Lincoln the act 
 of those who hatched the rebellion and the spiteful hellishness 
 of which it was the parent? And shall such conspirators 
 escape ? Shall they shelter their crime behind its fearful 
 success ? 
 
 If I know myself, these sentiments are the result of no vin- 
 dictiveness. But a large opportunity of observation has pro- 
 duced the conviction that indiscriminate mercy is public cruelty. 
 True justice and true mercy are identical. Humanitarianism, 
 I repeat, is not philanthropy. Justice must wield the sword, 
 as well as hold the scales. Punishment should follow crime. 
 In the natural world it does, infallibly. It should be measu- 
 rably so, in society. 
 
 The case is new. It is vain to look to precedent. Every 
 rebellion heretofore has been an outburst of the popular heart, 
 aspiring for liberty against slavery, and which had no remedy 
 or escape save the forcible rupture of the bonds of society. 
 The noble Hollanders underwent all miseries, fighting for their 
 religion and the immunities given by their long estabhshed 
 laws. The cruelties of Philip and Alva, are therefore odious 
 to all mankind. Washington and his compatriots fought for 
 untrammelled liberty and announced to mankind that the strife 
 was to establish the political equality of man. Poland, Hun- 
 gary, the Jacobites in England, all rushed to arms for privileges 
 
36 ; 
 
 and law, when war was the only remedy. But these con- 
 spirators, without a wrong, broughli upon this Country its 
 terrible fate, when the laws gave: them full remedy, and they 
 themselves possessed the majority in Congress, in order to per- 
 petuate slavery ! What precedent is there in the past, unless 
 it be that of Catiline ? Not even Ceesar, himself subsequently 
 triumphant over his country's liberties, begged mercy for Mm. 
 He spoke only for the wild youths who were the victims of 
 his arts ; and not so much for them, as against the assumption 
 of judicial power over them by the Roman Senate. And if 
 we would prevent rebellion and treason, it must be treated as 
 crime and disgraceful punishment follow its commission. It 
 is said that Andrew Jackson regretted to his dying day that 
 he did not hang John C. Calhoun, and in view of the past four 
 years, it may well be doubted whether his regret was not well 
 founded. 
 
 There are three great blessings which these dreadful years 
 have brought us. The destruction of slavery ; the annihila- 
 tion of miscalled State Rights and the thorough establishment 
 of the doctrine of nationality ; the recognition of the duiy of 
 allegiance, baptising it in blood, and hallowing it by the 
 memory of the prodigious sacrifices it has cost. Of these 
 three, the last is probably most important ; and it is necessary 
 to its completeness ; — that the holy sentiment that one owes all 
 to his country, and sins most when he lifts his hand against 
 her, should sink deep into the hearts of our children and their 
 posterity — that the disgraceful death of a felon should follow 
 this worst of felony. 
 
 But it is time to close. My topics are inexhaustible, but I 
 must not abuse your patience. Let us keep this happy day — 
 first birth-day after the re-union of a dissevered nation- — as 
 men should who are saved — saved as by fire. Let there be 
 bonfires and illuminations, festivity and mutual congratula- 
 tion, but sobriety withal. And let there be tears, manly 
 tears, of gratitude to Almighty God, who has kept his cove- 
 
37 
 
 nant whicli he sware unto our fathers, and given us a richer 
 heritage, even the heritage of universal freedom ; of grief as 
 we think of the hosts of noble men whose lives have been 
 given for us, and of sympathy for those chiefly interested in 
 their death; yet of grief mingled with pride, that our 
 country had such men to give, and that there were so many 
 found worthy to suffer in such a cause. Let there, also, be 
 the outpouring of every true heart, this day, towards every 
 soldier whom God has spared. Let them see and feel once, if 
 we are so selfish that we cannot show it always, that their 
 toils and dangers and sufferings are appreciated ; and that, 
 as years roll on, they will be held in increasing reverence 
 and affection. Nor let our misled brethren of the South be 
 forgotten. Let us think of their ignorance of us, of the law, 
 and their duty ; of the skill, the malice, and perseverance of 
 the conspirators who beguiled them ; of the sufferings they 
 have endured ; of the poverty and wretchedness in which 
 their folly has engulfed them ; and let us strive to live up to 
 the lofty words of the Master : ' ' Love your enemies, bless 
 them that curse you, do good to them that despitefully use 
 you." Let us think, too, of the poor, despised race, whose 
 freedom all men now see was the end of God's Providence in 
 this war; and beware, lest by forgetfulness of our duty 
 towards them whom this war has especially transferred to our 
 care, we bring again upon us the wrath of the Most High. 
 And let us swear, solemnly, and in this moment of our great 
 happiness, renewed allegiance to our country, the Union, and 
 the law. Let us resolve that its maintenance shall be part of 
 our religion ; that we will teach it to our children ; that it shall 
 be interwoven with our consciousness. Let us adopt the sen- 
 timent of patriotism, as it was uttered by the great Eoman 
 patriot and orator, and practiced by so many of the martyrs 
 we have known : " Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, 
 familiares, sed omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa 
 est ; pro qua quis bonus dubitet mortem oppetere, si ei sit 
 
38 
 
 profuturus ?" " Dear are our parents, our cliildren, our rela- 
 tives, our friends, but all that we love in all of these is embo- 
 died in our country — for whom, what good man would hesitate 
 to welcome death, if by it she could take advantage." Let us 
 meditate solemnly on that awful crime, permitted that 
 men might see the lowest depth of the rebel heart, which 
 deprived his country and mankind of the precious qualities 
 which made up Abraham Lincoln ; and let us, in fine, resolve 
 to obey, as we would the dying command of a beloved father, 
 his last injunction to the people whom he loved — beautiful 
 description of the purpose with which he began his second 
 administration, — "With malice toward none, with charity 
 for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the 
 right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up 
 the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne 
 the battle, and for his widow and his orphans ; and to do all 
 which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, 
 among ourselves and with all nations." 
 
H 33 89 
 
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