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 ADDRESS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 
 
 PyJ^ 1^ OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 To THE People of Pennsylvania : 
 
 The day is rapidly approaching upon which you will be 
 called to choose between rival candidates for the high offices of 
 Governor of the Commonwealth, and Judge of its Supreme 
 Judicial tribunal. To the one is to be committed the executive 
 power of your great and noble State, and to the other a weighty 
 voice in deciding questions closely affecting your most sacred 
 rights of persons and of property. 
 
 To an intelligent exercise of your right of suffrage, it is very 
 necessary that you should clearly understand the difference 
 between the party whose nominees are Andrew G. Curtin and 
 Daniel H. Agnew and the party whose nominees are George 
 W. Woodward and Walter H. Lowrie. It is, therefore, in 
 obedience to a custom, wise and time-honored, that you are 
 addressed by the official representatives of each organization 
 in behalf of their respective principles and candidates. 
 
 It is not vague commonplace but solemn truth to say, that 
 there never was a political contest in America whose issues 
 were so important and so vital to the life of the republic as are 
 those involved in the pending canvass. In other days we pru- 
 
4 ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 dently occupied our minds with questions of State policy, local 
 alike in their interest and their influence; but to-day the citi- 
 Eens of Pennsylvania ascend to the higher and broader ground 
 whereon the nation struggles for its life, and the ballots of free- 
 men were never more weighty with great consequences than 
 those now resting in their hands, containing, as they probably 
 do, not only the question of civil war at our own homes, not 
 only the fate of our Constitution and Union, but the destiny 
 of free government throughout the world. 
 
 It is a source, therefore, of profound gratitude with all re- 
 flecting men that, while all the gentlemen in nomination bear 
 characters alike honorable and without stain, thus entitling 
 them to the fullest presumption of honest motives and consci- 
 entious convictions, yet the lines of division are drawn with 
 such distinctness, the policy proposed is so plainly difierent, 
 and the principles avowed so radically hostile, that no man of 
 ordinary intelligence need hesitate in his choice. 
 
 The history of America before our civil war began, is read 
 and known of all men. In the years of our colonization, we 
 were obedient to the plain purpose of God in reserving this 
 continent as a theatre whereon the capacity of the human race 
 for self-government should be fully and fairly tested ; and the 
 men to whom was entrusted the great experiment in civilization 
 fitly builded their infant States upon the principles of civil and 
 religious liberty. 
 
 When the condition of colonial dependency ceased to protect 
 these principles, the scattered settlements came together in the 
 presence of a common danger, and in the interest of human 
 freedom declared their independence. Joseph Warren, proto- 
 martyr of the Revolution, writing, just before his death, to 
 Quincy, says : — " I am convinced that the true spirit of liberty 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 5 
 
 was never so universally diffused through all ranks and condi- 
 tions of men on the face of the earth as it now is through all 
 North America." 
 
 In this spirit and for this cause our fathers endured seven 
 weary years of unequal warfare, and that their children to the 
 third and fourth generation should understand the purpose of 
 the great struggle in the calm peace which followed victory, 
 they solemnly engraved it above the entrance to the sources of 
 the fundamental law, declaring it to be, " To secure the bless- 
 ings of liberty to the people and to their posterity." 
 
 The government of the United States, thus plainly established 
 to preserve the liberties of its people, contained an element of 
 weakness and discord in the recognition of the legal existence 
 of slavery. It was believed, however, that this evil would soon 
 disappear, and Jefferson vied with Franklin in his efforts to 
 secure a result earnestly desired by all good men. In the 
 course of a few years it was confined nominally, as it had long 
 really been, to the States lying south of the line of Mason and 
 Dixon : and patriots of all parties rejoiced in the hope of its 
 speedy and total disappearance. 
 
 This reasonable hope was destined to disappointment. In 
 1820, the first great concession was demanded by the slave- 
 holding interest at the hands of the national Legislature, and 
 for the sake of harmony Missouri was admitted into the Union 
 as a slave State. Then followed other and greater demands in 
 favor of slavery, urged with increasing arrogance ; and not- 
 withstanding the wonderful prosperity which, like a benedic- 
 tion, attended the North, and the stagnation and decay which 
 began to cover and cling like a curse to the lands tilled by 
 enforced and unpaid labor, a party, small in numbers, but great 
 in the intellectual powers of its leaders and devoted to the de- 
 
6 ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 fence and propagandism of American slavery, by the free and 
 alternate Uwse of flattery and threats, wrung obedience to its 
 requirements from the unwilling hands of American statesmen. 
 
 What followed is a thrice-told tale. The admission of new 
 slave States ; the annexation of Texas ; the war with Mexico ; 
 the consequent accession of great territories in the southwest ; 
 the compromise legislation of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave 
 law ; the repeal of the Missouri compromise ; the lawless inva- 
 : ion of Kansas by the ruffians of the southern border, with its 
 attendant slaughter of peaceful northern settlers ; and the cul- 
 minating efforts of the administration of Mr. Buchanan, to force 
 by the bayonet a pro-slavery constitution, whose provisions 
 were disgraceful to civilized human nature, upon the heroic 
 people of that devoted territory. What were all these but the 
 successive steps in the long and painful descent, whereby the 
 conservative, law-abiding people of the North vainly endeavored 
 to appease and even to satisfy the constant aggressions of their 
 slaveholding brethren ! 
 
 The political history of America for forty years is written 
 in this brief statement of concessions to slavery. We had done 
 much to please its friends. We had surrendered, almost with- 
 out the forms of protest, the chief executive offices of the nation 
 to their keeping. They were filled either by themselves, or by 
 those Northern gentlemen whom they graciously selected for 
 the merit of prompt and unquestioning obedience to their com- 
 mands. The judicial branch of the government, entrusted with 
 the construction of the Federal charter, and the consequent 
 abrogation, when necessary, of all laws. State and national, 
 was composed of judges of their choice. The representatives 
 of the nation at the Courts of Europe had been trained with 
 their training. The conservative branch of the national Legis- 
 lature was unquestionably under their control. 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 7 
 
 We had parted with many plain rights to satisfy them. We 
 endured the. utter denial of free speech, and even of unmolested 
 travel in the Southern States. We waived the protection of the 
 Federal law, which should have covered us as with a shield, every- 
 where heneath the Federal flag, and consented to receive instead 
 the jurisdiction of ruffianly mobs, bred and fostered in slavery. 
 We saw without complaint the North made a vast hunting- 
 ground for fugitives from bondage. We accepted with meek- 
 ness the constant taunts of our social and political inferiority. 
 We permitted our representatives to be threatened with personal 
 violence in the streets of the capital. We stifled our just and 
 sacred wrath when a Northern Senator, graced with all gener- 
 ous culture and bearing the commission of a free commonwealth, 
 was beaten by slaveholders to the verge of death on the floor 
 of the Senate, for words spoken for liberty in debate. Endur- 
 ing all in patience, for the sake of peace and union we sat in 
 quiet obedience to the law, unwilling but submissive pupils, 
 receiving lessons of chivalric honor from Mr. Brooks, and of 
 chivalric manners from Mr, Wigfall, of loyalty from Mr. Davis, 
 and of honesty from Mr. Floyd. 
 
 At last, in the year of grace 1860, the Constitution afforded 
 to the citizens of the lahd the privilege of again expressing by 
 their votes their choice of national rulers. They exercised 
 that right quietly, peaceably, and in perfect obedience to the 
 form and the spirit of all our laws. 
 
 The lawful discharge of this high duty, imposed upon all 
 good men by their country, was declared by a few bad, bold 
 men, to be just cause of civil war. This proposition involved, 
 of course, the startling doctrine that Northern men must vote 
 in the interest of slavery, or its friends would appeal from the 
 ballot to the bullet, destroy the Constitution, dissolve the 
 Union, and deluge all the land with its most precious blood. 
 
8 ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 It must be remembered that the Senate, without whose con- 
 sent no law can be enacted, was pro-slavery. The Supreme 
 Court, against whose judgment no law, if enacted, could avail, 
 was pro-slavery. There was, therefore, no danger possible to 
 the institution ; and it was simply because once in forty years 
 the people had lawfully chosen a President who was believed 
 to be opposed to further concessions to slavery, that an em- 
 bittered and malignant faction, who had been long nursing 
 their treason, declared their purpose to cause to flow all the 
 terrible evils following in the train of this cruel war, which has 
 wasted our substance and placed our chiefest treasures beneath 
 the seals of clay. The utter groundlessness of their complaints, 
 and the want of even a decent pretext for their threatened 
 crime against their country, was placed in full light before the 
 world when Alexander 11. Stephens spoke to the people of 
 Georgia those memorable words, which history will always 
 remember, sealing' with the seal of lasting condemnation this 
 wicked and causeless rebellion. 
 
 " What right has the north assailed ? What interest 
 OF the south has been. invaded ? What justice has been 
 
 DENIED ? OR WHAT CLAIM FOUNDED ON JUSTICE OR RIGHT HAS 
 BEEN WITHHELD ? CaN EITHER OF YOU TO-DAY NAME ONE 
 GOVERMENTAL ACT OF WRONG DELIBERATELY AND PURPOSELY 
 DONE BY THE GOVERNMENT AT WASHINGTON OF WHICH THE SOUTH 
 HAS A RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ? I CHALLENGE AN ANSWER !" 
 
 While the ablest statesman of the south was endeavoring with 
 words like these to stay the hands of traitors raised to dishonor 
 our flag, to destroy our government, and to afflict us with the 
 awful sufferings of civil strife, the Honorable George W. Wood- 
 ward, then and now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
 sylvania, deliberately disrobed himself of his ermine, and 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 9 
 
 walking from the seat of judgment to the platform of a great 
 meeting assembled in Independence Square, ground sacred to 
 freedom, spoke, and over and beyond his audience to the mad- 
 dened partisans of slavery, ripe for revolt and battle, these 
 words of sympathy with their baseless and pretended wrongs : 
 "Everywhere in the south the people are beginning to 
 
 LOOK out for the MEANS OF SELF-DEFENCE. CoULD IT BE EX- 
 PECTED that they WOULD BE INDIFFERENT TO SUCH SCENES AS 
 HAVE OCCURRED ?— -THAT THEY WOULD STAND IDLE AND SEE 
 MEASURES CONCERTED AND CARRIED FORWARD FOR THE ANNI- 
 HILATION, SOONER OR LATER, OF THEIR PROPERTY IN SLAVES ? 
 Such EXPECTATIONS, if indulged, ARE NOT REASONABLE." 
 
 And these words of encouragement, exaggerating the source 
 of strength of which they boasted most : " When you combine 
 
 ALL IN ONE glowing PICTURE OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY, RE- 
 MEMBER THAT COTTON, THE PRODUCE OF SLAVE LABOR, HAS 
 BEEN ONE OF THE INDISPENSABLE ELEMENTS OF ALL THIS PROS- 
 PERITY IT MUST BE AN INDISPENSABLE ELEMENT IN ALL OUR 
 
 FUTURE PROSPERITY. I SAY IT MUST BE." 
 
 And these sad words, sounding like an invitation to treason : 
 " The law of self-defence includes right of property as well 
 as person, and it appears to me there must be a time in the progress 
 of this conflict, if it indeed is irrepressible, when slaveholders 
 may lawfully fall back on their natural rights, and employ in 
 defence of their property whatever means of protection they 
 possess or can command. They who push on this conflict have 
 convinced one or more Southern States that it has already 
 
 come." 
 
 And these sadder words of attempted consecration of that 
 fearful combining of crimes against God and all his creatures 
 which is called American slavery: ''The Providence of that 
 
10 -':-•:• ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 good Being who has watched over lis from the beginning and 
 saved us from external foes, has so ordered our internal relations 
 as to make negro slavery an incalculable blessing to us. Who- 
 ever will study the Patriarchal and Levitical institutions, will 
 see the principle of human bondage divinely sanctioned if not 
 divinely ordained." 
 
 The address thus delivered went forth with the added weight 
 of judicial sanction, and, aided by jnany others of kindred im- 
 port, produced its legitimate effect in convincing the traitors 
 who had hesitated that a large and influential portion of the 
 Northern people were heartily with them in spirit, and only 
 awaited fitting opportunity to become active accomplices in 
 their treason. Then followed in necessary sequence the bom- 
 bardment of Fort Sumter, and the opening of that great historic 
 drama whose shadow, after two weary years of sacrifice of 
 treasure and of life, still darkens all our land ; whose sorrows 
 have reached all our hearts, and whose terrible consequences 
 to the cause of American democracy and of Christian civiliza- 
 tion itself as yet we very dimly comprehend. 
 
 For those words, and only for those words, thus early, pub- 
 licly, and distinctly spoken, tendering sympathy, encourage- 
 ment, invitation, consecration even, to the cause of the re- 
 bellion. Judge Woodward has been placed in nomination as a 
 candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, and the opinions there 
 expressed have been distinctly reaffirmed, and made the present 
 platform of his supporters : the Hon. Charles J. Biddle, their 
 official representative, in his recent address to the people of 
 the State, declaring " this speech to have been vindicated by sub- 
 sequent events as a signal exhibition of statesmanlike sagacity." 
 
 The faction in Pennsylvania, wearing the livery of the good 
 old Democratic party to aid rebellion waged in the interest of 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 11 
 
 an aristocracy of slaveholders, thus openly avows its opinions, 
 and in manifold ways, by speech and press, by the secret oaths 
 of a treasonable conspiracy, by appeals to the prejudices of 
 ignorant men, by calumnies against our brave soldiers and 
 sailors, by denial of their rights of suffrage, and by constant 
 misrepresentations of the aims and results of the war, endeavors 
 to attain its purpose of assisting the armed traitors who are 
 striking deadly blows at the heart of the republic. 
 
 Our opponents well know that the only strength of the re- 
 bellion consists in its military power. Therefore they oppose 
 every measure which tends to strengthen the national armies, 
 and they support every measure which tends to weaken them. 
 If the general government proposes to require white men to 
 render military service, they oppose it as unconstitutional and 
 oppressive. If the general government proposes to require 
 black men to render military service, they oppose it as uncon- 
 stitutional and favoring negro equality. If the general govern- 
 ment proposes to require red men to render military service, 
 they oppose it as unconstitutional and contrary to the usages 
 of civilized warfare ; and they have thus far failed to discover 
 among the races of mankind any people whose skin is of the 
 proper constitutional color to permit the government to use 
 them to shoot rebels and traitors. 
 
 Our opponents denounce the arrest of disloyal persons as 
 violating personal liberty. They denounce the suppression of 
 disloyal practices as indicating military tyranny. They thwart 
 the needed reinforcements of our wasted armies, and the collec- 
 tion of the national revenue by base appeals to the basest 
 impulses of men, and the inauguration of riot, rapine and 
 murder, bringing the terrors of civil war to our very hearth- 
 stones. Thus, by paralyzing the strength and vigor of the 
 
12 ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 mailed hand of the nation, they give essential aid and comfort 
 to the nation's enemies. Their cardinal principle is to embarrass 
 the Federal administration in all its measures for the vigorous 
 prosecution of the conflict, for the prompt suppression of the 
 rebellion and the swift punishment of traitors. 
 
 It is needless to say that their triumph in the pending canvass 
 would 'prolong the ivar. It is confessed at Richmond that the 
 only relief afforded to the darkness and disasters which en- 
 shroud the rebel capital, and the only encouragement to con- 
 tinue a hopeless contest, comes with the occasional gleams of 
 successes of their Northern allies. 
 
 On all other sides despair awaits them. They see two-thirds 
 of their territory conquered and held in subjection ; New 
 Orleans returned to its allegiance ; the Mississippi open ; all 
 their harbors blockaded ; Charleston assailed ; Rosecrans and 
 Burnside moving in triumph, and the great struggle which 
 embraced more than half the Union narrowing to Georgia, 
 South Carolina, and portions of North Carolina and Virginia. 
 The end is not distant. It can only be delayed, and the way 
 to it piled with the bodies of the brave men who willingly taste 
 death for their country, by the triumph of Northern sympa- 
 thizers with treason at the approaching elections. Such triumph 
 would revive the desperate and drooping fortunes of the rebels, 
 inspirit their demoralized and deserting armies, and persuade 
 their rulers to renewed efforts to gather and hurl new levies 
 upon our defenders in the field. 
 
 It follows necessarily that the triumph of our opponents, by 
 prolonging the war, will render necessary renewed conserip- 
 tions, and inc^-ease the burdens of taxation. One way only 
 leads to a shoft war, and a lasting peace, and that is the glo- 
 rious path along which Rosecrans is marching, and Banks, and 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 13 
 
 Grant and Meade. Everything which tends, directly or indi- 
 rectly, to weaken or embarrass these blessed peace-makers is 
 comforting to the enemy, inducing them to refuse submission 
 to the laws, and to continue to waste more of our treasure and 
 murder others of our sons. The future will lay the responsi- 
 bility of lengthening this horrible conflict, with whatever of 
 sacrifice its continuance involves, upon those Northern men 
 who supply its want of bullets by their ballots, and by their 
 sympathy nerve its arm for further blows. 
 
 To these principles, to this policy, to the results they so 
 plainly involve, of a long war, of other drafts and of more 
 heavy taxes, as well as to the candidates who represent them, 
 the loyal men of Pennsylvania are irreconcilably opposed. 
 
 Our platform is brief and plain and comprehensive. We 
 believe that the will of the people, lawfully expressed, is the 
 supreme law ; that no appeal can be permitted from votes to 
 bayonets, and that when such appeal is made, the only hope 
 for the Republic is to crush it by force of arms. We, there- 
 fore, support the war without limitations or conditions as the 
 only means of preserving the national integrity. 
 
 We honor and sustain our heroic brethren in arms, on land 
 and sea, the unselfish heroism whose daily lives surpasses all 
 that is written in the knightly romance of the middle age. 
 They deserve well of their country, and we desire that the banner 
 of the Union shall carry to its defenders, wherever they may 
 be, the right of suffrage — the inestimable privilege of freemen. 
 
 We heartily sustain Abraham Lincoln, the President of the 
 United States, in his efforts to suppress this wicked revolt 
 against the laws he has sworn to enforce. 
 
 For the vigorous use of all men and all means permitted by 
 the usages of civilized nations, to reach peace through victory; 
 
14 ADDRESS OF THE 
 
 for the unequaled maintenance of the national credit, without 
 parallel in history; for the admirable frankness with which the 
 President connsels with the people ; and for the successes 
 which are everywhere crowning our arms, the Federal Govern- 
 ment deserves and receives the gratitude of all who love their 
 country. It alone, with the help of Providence, can save the 
 life of the Republic. It alone, with the same aid, can pre- 
 serve us as a nation. If, therefore, anything is left undone, 
 which some think ought to have been done, or anything has 
 been done which some think should have been left undone, we 
 reserve these matters for more opportune discussion in the 
 calmer days of peace. To-day, while armed rebels threaten 
 the Federal capital, and trample flag and law and Constitution 
 under their feet, we come together without distinction of party, 
 in loyal union, and pledge to the Administration, which repre- 
 sents the government of our fathers, our earnest and uncondi- 
 tional support. 
 
 These are the principles and this is the policy of the loyal 
 men of Pennsylvania. To represent it they offer to your suf- 
 frages our present GovfTnor, Andrew G. Curtin. He needs 
 no eulogy, for he has so borne himself in his high oflSce, that 
 his name is known and honored through all the land, winning 
 the love of the soldiers and the respect and confidence of a 
 patriotic constituency. His great services to the cause of the 
 Union in its most deadly peril, his constant solicitude and care 
 for the brave men he sent to battle, his foresight, his energy, 
 his faithfulness in the discharge of every duty, impelled a 
 grateful people to disregard his declination, and place once 
 more the banner of the Union in his tried and trusty hands. 
 
 In the Honorable Daniel H. Agnew a candidate is presented 
 worthy of the support of all ;iien who desire to maintain the 
 
UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 15 
 
 high character for ripe and varied learning, for unsuspected 
 loyalty to the government, and for adherence to the duty of 
 declaring, not making, the law, which our supreme judicial 
 tribunal won and wore in other days. Judge Agnew is an ac- 
 complished lawyer, is now the Presiding Judge of his district, 
 and his elevation to the bench of the Supreme Court will give 
 additional security to the rights of persons and property. 
 
 Freemen of Pennsylvania : The issue is thus distinctly pre- 
 sented involving the single question of loyalty to the govern- 
 ment under which you live, and the triumph of whose arms 
 alone can give you peace, and again open to you the avenues 
 to that almost miraculous prosperity which attracted the won- 
 dering gaze of the nations. 
 
 It only remains for all good men to perfect the local organi- 
 zations of the friends of the Union, to secure full discussion of 
 the questions in dispute, to bring every loyal vote to the polls, 
 and to use all proper eflForts in their power to secure our suc- 
 cess. If this is done, Pennsylvania is saved to the Union, and 
 the Union is saved to us and to our posterity. 
 
 Thus we gather for the contest around worthy bearers of a 
 worthy standard, written all over with unconditional loyalty ; 
 and under their good leadership we march forward with the 
 faith and hope of Christian men, to the victory which awaits 
 the cause of justice and of freedom. 
 
 In behalf of the Union State Central Committee, 
 
 Wayne McVeagh, Chairman. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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