V— 
 
 5/3 
 
'^T ADDRESSES 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 / 
 
 BY Ills EXCELLENCY 
 
 GOVERNOR JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 HON. EDWARD EYERETT, 
 
 1I0^\ B. F. THOMAS, 
 
 HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MASS MEETING IN AID OF RECRUITING, HELD ON THE 
 
 COMMON UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE COMMITTEE OF 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY, 
 
 ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1862. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 J. E. FARWELL AND COMPANY, CITY PRINTERS, 
 No. 37 CoNGRRSS Street. 
 
 18 2. 
 
^^yi e. 
 
 -272^>t^ 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 BY HIS EXCELLENCY 
 
 CtOVERNOR^JOHN a. ANDREW, 
 
 HON. EDWAED EVERETT 
 
 HO]N". B. F. THOMAS, 
 
 HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MASS MEETING IN AID OF EECEUITING, HELD ON THE 
 
 COMMON UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE COMMITTEE OF 
 
 ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY, 
 
 y. 
 
 ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1862. 
 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 J. E. FARWELL AND COMPANY, CITY PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 37 Congress Street. 
 
 18 6 2. 
 
^ 
 
ADDRESSES. 
 
 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR ANDREW 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 I greet this patriotic and enthusiastic 
 gathering of uncounted thousands of the 
 people of ]\Iassachusetts with the most cor- 
 dial and grateful homage. I would that I 
 might coin my very heart into words, that 
 by some fitting phrase, by some power of 
 real, inspiring eloquence, I might speak to 
 you, heart to heart, man to man, citizen to 
 citizen, brother to brother, — the last word 
 perhaps it may be my fortune to utter before 
 the grand army of Massachusetts now called 
 from peaceful life to join their gallant breth- 
 ren in the field shall march from our reverend 
 and holy soil. 
 
 You are here, drafting yourselves together 
 at the call, — the gathering of the clans of 
 liberty, the heroic sons, the patriotic citizens 
 of jNlassachusetts, parading yourselves to- 
 gether in voluntary pageant, preliminary to 
 the voluntary march. 
 
 But I do not see in this long array of stal- 
 wart men, I do not perceive in these kind- 
 ling eyes and on these glowing cheeks, the 
 mere desire to stimulate by banners and by 
 grand array the zeal and patriotism of other 
 men. I perceive in it the spontaneous ex- 
 pression of individual purpose and of a com- 
 bined and gathering will. These bands who 
 have passed before our sight are citizens 
 of Massachusetts who have already drawn 
 themselves, I trust, to join the army, where 
 soon they will draw the sword and point the 
 bayonet. 
 
 It is your task, your duty and mine, each 
 after the measure of his capacity in the 
 sphere in which Providence may place us, 
 not merely to aid in saving the Union, to 
 restore to its wonted sway the starry banner 
 
 of this Eepublic from the northern border 
 down the Mexican Gulf, and from the At- 
 lantic shore to the Pacific sea, but to fight a 
 battle, to engage in a great campaign where 
 the principles of democratic government are 
 the stake for which we play ; not simply for 
 the perpetuity of institutions formed by 
 man's hands or framed by the scheming 
 brain ; not merely for the preservation of our 
 form of government, liberal and free ; not 
 merely for the perpetuity of holy and patri- 
 otic memories in the past ; but for the pres- 
 ervation and perpetuation of all that makes 
 a people free, a people happy, a nation 
 glorious. 
 
 AVe stand as did the band of Leonidas, 
 the Spartan, just where the hordes are pour- 
 ing down to destroy not merely Greece, but 
 to destroy civilization and to bury liberty. 
 This is a historic hour, fraught with the des- 
 tinies of a nation, and more than a nation, 
 — with the destinies of humanity. Whoso 
 sheds a drop of patriotic blood, whoso strikes 
 a patriotic blow beneath this flag and for the 
 support of the principles and ideas that ban- 
 ner symbolizes, strikes for liberty and for 
 man. 
 
 All over the earth, wherever under the 
 blessed sunshine of the sky man mourns be- 
 neath the yoke of bondage, wherever privi- 
 lege strikes down and tramples with its iron 
 hoof upon the neck of man, wherever right 
 is denied, and power usurps its throne, wher- 
 ever hope with waiting eye but fond, aspiring 
 heart looks up to God, praying for the houf 
 when mankind shall rise to the dignity of 
 its immortal nature, there the waiting heart 
 yearns towards this western world of ours, 
 the only home on this bright green earth 
 
SPEECH OF GOVERNOR ANDREW. 
 
 where with equal right, man standing by 
 his brother, holds with equal hand his own 
 equal share of the power of government and 
 the rights of the nation. 
 
 Men in other days and times have fought 
 for kingdoms, — you fight, each man for 
 himself. Men in other lands may fight for 
 crowns, — each man here fights for the crown 
 of his own honor and for the ensign of his 
 own dignity and power. Whether born upon 
 our soil or in other lands and wandering 
 here, you are citizens of this united govern- 
 ment, equally sharing in the heritage of 
 freedom. Its opportunities and blessings 
 belong to you all. And they who do not 
 include in their calculations of the present 
 or of the future, this element of the saga- 
 cious sense and intuitive understanding of 
 this people of their rights and their capacity 
 to maintain them, have never understood 
 the people, nor ever appreciated those prin- 
 ciples of liberty which we inherit from our 
 fathers, and which under the providence of 
 God we mean to hold. 
 
 And now whoever may prophesy evil, 
 whoever may cast a shadow over our future, 
 wherever any man's hope may wane, and 
 whosoever's heart may quail, I have no sym- 
 pathy with him, I have no share in his prog- 
 nostications of evil, I neither seek his coun- 
 sel, and I spurn him from mine. Whatsoever 
 people are worthy to be saved by their own 
 right hands are able to be saved ; and I see 
 to-day here before me the sure sign, and a 
 certain prophecy, of the early deliverance of 
 our people and the early freedom of our 
 land from the curse which now appals my 
 heart and casts its awful shadow over you 
 all in this grand, enthusiastic, and happy 
 gathering of the people themselves. 
 
 It needs not me to tell you here, why from 
 out your homes, why from all the workshops 
 of this dear old Boston, you have issued, 
 shutting your doors behind you, that you 
 might give this undivided day to the cause 
 of your country. It is because, with one 
 unanimous consent, with one voice, this peo- 
 
 ple have dedicated themselves for their own 
 salvation. What care we for the comforts 
 piled up to be scattered, as we trusted, as 
 an inheritance to our children ? What care 
 we for busy industry, for private ambition, 
 or personal aspiration, or hope, or family, or 
 friends, in the face of the great woe laid 
 upon us all, in the spirit of the Apostle, 
 if we give not ourselves to these things ? 
 
 And now, sirs, it is only that I might 
 venture to speak one single word of hope 
 and encouragement, that I tore myself away 
 from cares and duties which forbid me the 
 opportunity of preparation for speech, and I 
 am here this afternoon much more that I 
 might drink in from the warm breath of 
 your hearty zeal and patriotism, an encour- 
 agement which all who labor daily in this 
 cause do so much need. When the flesh is 
 weak and weary and faint, how it thrills the 
 heart and stimulates the courage and hope 
 of man, to feel the beating heart of a sym- 
 pathetic brother. 
 
 There is no one of you whose hand, I 
 know if I- grasped it, would not be warm, 
 whose words, if they could be whispered in 
 my ear alone would not be " God bless 
 you ! " as mine would be " God bless you, 
 my brother ! " for all that you do for all of 
 us and for all our children. 
 
 But I confess to you, my friends, that I 
 can hardly say that — beautiful and capti- 
 vating and inspiring as this scene is — I can 
 hardly say my heart is here. It is far away, 
 where your friends are to-day, down by the 
 waters of the Kappahannock, on the soil of 
 that Virginia which your brothers' blood has 
 made sacred forever. Fond memory carries 
 us with them, our brothers and our friends, 
 who are to-day upon the soil of the Old Do- 
 minion, holding up the flag of the country, 
 the honor of the nation, the hopes, the 
 rights, and dignity of us all. Who of us, this 
 afternoon, has made up his mind to follow 
 them ? AVho shall pitch his white tent upon 
 the banks of the Eappahannock and march 
 wherever the army of Virginia marches, 
 
SPEECH OF GOVEENOR ANDEEW. 
 
 beneath the flag of the Republic, to carry 
 the principles it symbolizes and the rights it 
 ■would perpetuate ? All this will have been 
 wasted and worse than lost if we do not go. 
 What will be the value of all this gath- 
 ering of the people if this gathering stays 
 at home? What will avail the shouts that 
 have rung in our ears this afternoon, if they 
 do not reach the Massachusetts men, the 
 Pennsylvania men, the Indiana and Wis- 
 consin soldiers, the soldiers of the Union 
 everywhere ? When the battle is thick and 
 the sabres fall fast ; when the shouts of the 
 onset arc ringing over the fields ; when the 
 trampling of the horses are adding confusion 
 to the noise of the battle ; and when gar- 
 ments bathed in blood are bestrewing the 
 plain ; when your brothers, gathering to- 
 gether with perhaps decimated ranks, fight- 
 ing with unequal numbers against the savage 
 foe, threateaing them with death on the 
 field even though prisoners of war, or death 
 in the dreary dungeons — of what avail to 
 them, to tliis cause, to the wives and chil- 
 dren left at home by them — of what use to 
 our future, if we all stay here and do not 
 arise and hurry to their aid? Oh, sir, I 
 say that the hour has come when it is the 
 duty of every man to have a solemn settle- 
 ment between his heart and God. If lib- 
 erty is worth anything, if rights are worth 
 anything, the hour is come when we must 
 have a settlement in heaven, or we have no 
 right to be on earth. I do not appeal to 
 any sentiment of wild enthusiasm. 1 would 
 cast behind me the sentiment of mere am- 
 bition ; I would rise higher than patriotism 
 itself, if it is possible to rise higher than 
 patriotism when it is sublimed by virtue ; I 
 would rise to the highest inspiration of the 
 most solemn hour, and appeal to this peo- 
 ple — the sons of reverend sires, the sons of 
 pious mothers who have dedicated them in 
 prayer to God, and whose spirit hovers over 
 this scene to-day. I would appeal to you 
 all, by every memory, by every hope, by 
 every inspiration of truth and duty, by every 
 
 idea sacred to the heart of man, to settle 
 this question, each for himself, to-night — 
 What can I and what ouyht I most to do to 
 save this bleeding country and restore the star 
 of peace ? 
 
 I have no right or power to dictate the 
 law of duty to any man — not even the 
 humblest man who does me the honor to lis- 
 ten to my voice ; but I appeal to him. Judge 
 ye for yourselves what is right. Fair boy, 
 just entering upon the prime of early man- 
 hood, the down upon your lip, and youth 
 and beauty upon your cheek, magnetism in 
 your eyes, valor in your heart — why linger 
 you here when those dear brothers of ours 
 linger in the hellish dungeons of Virginia ? 
 What holds you here while Savage and 
 Quincy and their compatriots are prisoners 
 in Eichmond ? Why linger you here when 
 the blood of Abbott and Gary and ten thou- 
 sand of our boys is unavenged ? 
 
 What keeps you here while that flag is 
 insulted, and the memory of your fathers 
 spurned, the rights of your people threaten- 
 ed, the dignity and honor of your country 
 debased, the hopes of all your future, your 
 children's children, down to the latest hour 
 of coming time, trampled under foot ? Oh, 
 my God ! what keeps this people from one 
 sudden, one spontaneous, one fiery and burst- 
 ing enthusiasm which should leave no man 
 behind hardly to till the ground and watch 
 the kiue within the stall until this blood 
 shall be avenged, until this foul wrong shall 
 be blotted out, until this terrible rebellion 
 shall be put down by force of arms which 
 no valor can resist, by the mighty masses of 
 the people against which no powers on earth 
 can stand, and against which even the gates 
 of hell itself cannot prevail. 
 
 Well, sir, it is going to be done. It will 
 be done, for I see it in your eyes : the resolve 
 mantles on your cheeks ; it bursts in hur- 
 rahs from your lips, and it will be done. 
 It will be done once and for all time, and the 
 cursed cause of all this wrong shall be sent 
 howling back to the den from which slavery 
 
SPEECH OF GOVERNOK ANDREW. 
 
 was spawned, to curse the earth no more 
 forever. Yes, sir ; and when the American 
 people, wiser than policy, because the wis- 
 dom of honest hearts is combined with the 
 wisdom of clear heads ; when the wisdom of 
 the American people, greater than the wis- 
 dom of politicians, shall have asserted itself 
 in tones no mortal can mistake, the voice 
 shall be heard not merely in the White 
 House at Washington, where is reflected the 
 will of the people, but it shall be heard in 
 the halls of the enemy, and the members of 
 Jefferson Davis shall quiver with unwonted 
 anguish, as he sees, like Belshazzar of old, 
 the handwriting upon the wall. 
 
 You shall write the doom of slavery, as 
 you write the doom of this rebellion, in the 
 blood you have poured out from the living 
 veins and bleeding hearts of Massachusetts 
 men — a price of blood worth more than all 
 possible right to all the bondmen if right there 
 can be in property accursed of heaven — 
 whoever toiled on earth or sighed beneath 
 the sun. How much more shall we pay ? I 
 would like to know how many more Massa- 
 chusetts boys are to lie down in death on the 
 gory plain before the blow shall be struck 
 which gives liberty to you, which gives a fu- 
 ture to your country, as it breaks the chains 
 of the bondman. I never supposed that 
 such talk as that was heresy on Boston Com- 
 mon, and whether it is or not I dare to utter 
 it, for I spurn the friendship of any man 
 who would not have me faithful to the truth. 
 As God has spoken to my heart, so speak I 
 to you. 
 
 But this is not an afternoon for talk ; it is 
 an afternoon for work. It is an hour for 
 stalwart arms to strike. And now, sirs, go 
 home, I pray you ; sleep one night upon 
 your pillows in the quiet peace of a New 
 England home, dedicate yourselves in your 
 evening prayer and your morning orison to 
 Clod and to your country, bind duty upon 
 your foreheads, bear the sacred trust in your 
 hearts, as the Jews of old did the tables of 
 
 the law in the ark of the covenant, sacred, 
 dear, immortal as your souls forever, and 
 then go forth to join the army of your breth- 
 ren, enroll your names upon the immortal 
 scroll which bears the record, splendid, beau- 
 tiful sometimes as the record of a noble life, 
 and sometimes as the record of the heroic 
 death of the thousands of your brethren who 
 have already devoted themselves to this war. 
 Those who stay behind shall watch over 
 those with whom you leave your hearts. 
 They who remain behind shall guard the 
 altar of your homes, and believe me, fellow- 
 citizens, trust us that we will be faithful to 
 the sacred charge you leave with us. 
 
 There is to be no draft, I trust, in Massa- 
 chusetts. No conscripts in the old Bay 
 State. There is to be no draft in the old 
 battle-field, save the draft which the Lord 
 himself makes upon willing hearts answered 
 by the voluntary action of more willing 
 hands. They are coming at the call of the 
 country and of duty from all the shore ; from 
 the mountains of Berkshire — the Switzer- 
 land of Massachusetts — they come down 
 in teeming thousands from the hill-tops ; 
 from the valley of the Connecticut they 
 spring up like the bearded corn in the har- 
 vest time ; from the hills of Worcester they 
 are pouring down to the encampments re- 
 cruits of yeomen ; and all along the coast 
 from Northern Essex to where the waters 
 kiss the shore and waft across the bay, they 
 are coming on. 
 
 Almost all our first quota is reported filled. 
 Thousands more of the second demand have 
 already subscribed their names, many of 
 them have already placed themselves in camp, 
 and I am straining with those who surround 
 me engaged in the Executive duties of the 
 Commonwealth, every nerve, and using every 
 capacity within our reach, in order to march 
 to the field on Monday, the first day of Sep- 
 tember, if that be possible, so that it shall 
 reach AVashington on the very day on which 
 the Presidential draft is proclaimed, the gal- 
 
SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 lant old Sixth Eegiment, of Baltimore mem- 
 oiy. Its ranks are rapidly filling up. I 
 believe it is entitled to the honor of being 
 the first militia regiment of New England 
 that will march to the walls of the Capitol 
 under this new requisition. 
 
 Go you there if you choose, join the Cadet 
 Eegiment if you prefer, the Second Regi- 
 
 ment of Militia if you like it better, the 
 Second Battalion or the Fourth, if they con- 
 tain any whose society you like. But go 
 somewhere. Go now, go together all of you, 
 and heaven bless you, save and preserve our 
 country, and be with our children forever, 
 as God has been with our fathers until 
 now. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 I REJOICE, fellow-citizens, to behold this 
 mighty throng. It shows that the spirit of 
 our fathers is again abroad in the land, and 
 that you are resolved that the Union, which 
 they established, shall not be rent asunder ; 
 that the mildest and most beneficent gov- 
 ernment on earth shall not be sacrificed to 
 the ambition of a few disappointed aspi- 
 rants to office. We have now reached not 
 only the most important week in the his- 
 tory of the war up to the present time, 
 but the week which will most powerfully in- 
 fluence the future. The fate of this year's 
 campaign depends upon the manner in which 
 the call of the President is responded to by 
 the people, and this campaign will go far to 
 settle the question, whether we are to have 
 a short or a long war. 
 
 It is a moment, fellow-citizens, of vast 
 importance, pregnant with consequences, not 
 merely for us, but for our latest posterity. 
 Everything is at stake, for which your 
 fathers and your forefathers counselled, 
 and toiled, and bled, from the day that the 
 Pilgrims crossed the ocean, through the long 
 years of colonial trial, the sharp struggle of 
 the Eevolution, the languor of the old Con- 
 federation, down to that happy consumma- 
 tion, the adoption of the Constitution of the 
 United States. All, all is now at stake. 
 Shall this noblest fabric of human wisdom 
 be allowed to crumble into miserable frag- 
 ments, or shall it be sustained through this 
 dark hour of trial ? shall it sink into early 
 and ignominious decay, or shall it stand in 
 
 its majesty and beauty for ages, so that our 
 children and our children's children shall 
 be enabled to say, " The rain descended, and 
 the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
 beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it 
 was founded upon a rock?" 
 
 There are three courses, — three only, — 
 with respect to the war, which can by possi- 
 bility be pursued by the Government and 
 loyal people of the Union, and as far as 
 depends upon us, we are called to choose 
 this week between them. 
 
 We may, first, admit that we are unable 
 to carry on the war, retire baffled and dis- 
 comfited from the attempt, and sue for 
 peace. Are you ready for that? Or, second, 
 we may furnish the Government with tardy 
 and inadequate supplies, just enough to 
 enable it, upon the whole, to hold our own ; 
 to gain a victory here, to suffier a repulse 
 there ; to capture strong fortresses and pop- 
 ulous cities one day, only to have railroad 
 passenger cars fired into, and invalid offi- 
 cers shot in their ambulances by murderous 
 guerillas the next day, and so let the con- 
 test drag on for twenty or thirty years, like 
 the wars of the French Eevolution, the wars 
 of the Commonwealth in England, or the 
 Thirty Years' War in Germany ; or third, we 
 may give the Government, at whatever cost, 
 the means Avhich it requires, to bring the 
 contest to a prompt and triumphant close. 
 Is not this last the dictate of humanity ; is 
 not this, my fellow- citizens, your wish and 
 firm resolve ? 
 
SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 Now I say, fellow-citizens, it depends 
 upon the manner in which the President's 
 call for reinforcements is responded to, 
 which of these three modes of dealing with 
 the war shall prevail. 
 
 Let us look at them for a moment. There 
 can, I need scarce say, be no hesitation be- 
 tween a long and a short war ; but ought 
 we not to prefer the first-named course to 
 either? Ought we not to yield the de- 
 mands of secession, and sue for peace? In 
 order to answer that question, we must ask 
 another, what are those demands, — what 
 are the conditions of such a peace ? What 
 do the leaders of secession claim of us ? Let 
 me point out to you for a moment, fellow- 
 citizens, their stupendous audacity. 
 
 Eighteen months ago the Government of 
 the United States extended its undisputed 
 constitutional rule from the northeastern 
 corner of Maine to the mouth of the Ilio 
 Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 Ocean, — one might almost say from "sea 
 to sea and from the river to the ends of the 
 earth ; " an area of twenty-one degrees of 
 latitude and sixty of lougit«de. Through- 
 out this mighty domain, there was not a cit- 
 izen but was bound by his allegiance, and 
 if he was an ofiicer, military or naval, or a 
 magistrate of the Union or the State, by 
 his oath, to obey the Constitution and Laws 
 of the United States, "anything in the 
 constitution and laws of any State to the 
 contrary notwithstanding." Over all this 
 vast territory the constitutional government 
 of the United States bore lawful sway, just 
 as fully as the constitutional government of 
 England bears lawful sway throughout the 
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land. On the 6th of November, 1860, a 
 constitutional majority of the people thought 
 fit to pass by John C. Breckenridge, who 
 was offered to them as a candidate of the 
 southern wing of the democracy, and to 
 elect Abraham Lincoln as the President of 
 the United States. Lor this high crime and 
 misdemeanor on our part, eleven Southern 
 
 States, (although by entering into the elec- 
 tion they were bound in honor to abide its 
 result,) have thought proper to declare them- 
 selves an independent, foreign, and belliger- 
 ent power, and have ordered and are now 
 ordering at the mouth of the cannon, the 
 loyal people of the United States, to give up 
 to this foreign power half our territory ; half 
 our sea-coast and the fortresses that defend 
 it and protect its navigation ; the entrance 
 to our iidand seas; and the mouth and a 
 thousand miles of the lower course of the 
 mighty rivers which penetrate to the heart 
 of that portion of the country which we are 
 graciously permitted, during good behavior 
 of course, to retain. Though we have been 
 on the point of war with England more than 
 once within twenty-five years, and that 
 under a southern lead, for some wretched 
 fragments of unsettled territory on the out- 
 skirts of the Union, we are now summoned 
 to give up to a foreign and hostile power a 
 domain half as large as Europe, because Mr. 
 John 0. Breckenridge was not elected Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and in order that 
 Mr. Jefferson Davis may erjoy the blood- 
 stained and guilty honor of presiding over 
 the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 But again, see what a wreck secession 
 calls upon us to make of this noble fabric of 
 confederate republicanism. Our fathers in 
 1789 framed a Constitution of Government 
 for the purpose, among other high aims of 
 civil polity, of establishing " a more perfect 
 Union." The wisest and best of men co- 
 operated in the undertaking ; Heaven smiled 
 on the work. The people of thirteen States 
 then existing ratified, adopted, and declared 
 it the law of the lantl. The country, deso- 
 lated by the war of the Eevolution, sprang 
 into new life beneath its genial influence, as 
 the frozen clods arc clothed with verdure be- 
 neath the gentle showers of April. Twenty- 
 one States have since grown up within our 
 territorial limits, and have thought it a 
 blessing and an honor to be joined to the 
 great family of republics. For seventy-two 
 
SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 9 
 
 years since it went into operation, the coun- 
 try has enjoyed under this Constitution an 
 amount of prosperity without a parallel in 
 the history of the world. Cities have sprung 
 up like an exhalation from the soil ; the sav- 
 age wilderness has been turned into a wheat 
 field as by a miracle ; an immigration, count- 
 ed not by hundreds or thousands, but by 
 millions, of which there is no other example 
 in the annals of mankind, bears witness to 
 the good report which has gone forth of us 
 to the nations. In these seventy-two years 
 not a drop of blood has been shed for a po- 
 litical offence, and making fair allowance for 
 the human frailties of men and of nations, 
 and especially remembering that the one great 
 " spot upon the vestal robe" of the Union, 
 " the worse for what it soils," was placed 
 and kept there under the old colonial rule, 
 our country has really been what, thanks to 
 secession it is now derisively termed, " the 
 Model Eepublic ; " the noblest attempt ever 
 made by man to combine the equal home- 
 bred blessings of a small State with the 
 strength and influence of a great Empire. 
 Shall we allow secession to make a deplora- 
 ble wreck of this noble framework of Gov- 
 ernment? Will we permit the Union of the 
 States to be sacrificed, — • that Constitution 
 which was framed by some of the wisest and 
 best men that ever lived, to be trampled un- 
 der foot, in order to gratify the aspirations 
 to office of eight or ten disappointed south- 
 ern politicians? 
 
 But again. Secession bids us not only 
 cede to her half the territory of the United 
 States, and abrogates at one blow the Con- 
 stitution of Government that held them to- 
 gether, but, in place of this powerful and 
 prosperous Union, now strong enough for ev- 
 eiy legitimate object of domestic or foreign 
 polity, it substitutes at once and of necessity 
 two independent and hostile confederacies, 
 separated by no natural boundary, sure to be 
 involved in eternal border wars, besides car- 
 rying in their bosoms the fatal germ of still 
 further and still more ruinous disintegration. 
 
 All history, all analogy teaches us that if we 
 could patch up a peace to-morrow with the 
 rebel States, it would be but a temporary 
 ti'uce, lasting just so long, and no longer, as 
 might be necessary for them to find a pre- 
 text for a new war of aggression and outrage. 
 Their leaders tell you that they hate, de- 
 spise, and loathe you ; and they have shown 
 you what paltry and imaginary grievances 
 they consider a sufiicient cause of war. How 
 is it possible that you can ever live in peace 
 with them, if this first trial of strength, which 
 has been forced upon us is decided in their 
 favor ? If they violate the obligations of the 
 Constitution and the sanctity of oaths, what 
 respect are they going to pay to the faith of 
 treaties ? If they fly to arms because an 
 election, in which they took equal part, has 
 been decided against them, how can we hope 
 to conduct with them, on amicable terms, the 
 great and often perplexed relations, of inde- 
 pendent States? 
 
 But secession not only makes this whole- 
 sale havoc of the Constitution and the Un- 
 ion, it repeals the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. I need not say that all the States of 
 this Union were, four fifths of a century ago, 
 Colonial dependencies of the great powers of 
 Europe. It is not yet eighty years since 
 England acknowledged the Independence of 
 the old Thirteen States. It is less than 
 sixty years since France ceded to us Louisi- 
 ana and all the mighty region between the 
 Mississippi and the Pacific. It is forty years 
 only since Spain ceded to us the Eloridas ; 
 and fourteen years only since Mexico, — at 
 this moment involved in war with the great 
 powers of Europe and in imminent danger of 
 losing her independence in deed if not in 
 word, — acknowledged our claim to Texas. 
 If we recognize secession we admit the right, 
 not only of the entire Southern Confederacy 
 so called, but of each and every member 
 of it, to resume at pleasure its allegiance to 
 the ancient government, and thus plant a 
 European colonial jurisdiction all along our 
 southern frontier. So completely has the 
 
10 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. EDWAED EVERETT. 
 
 frenzy of the hour extinguished every spark 
 of patriotism in the bosom of their leaders, 
 that some of them have declared their pref- 
 erence of a foreign sceptre over the gentle 
 and beneficent sway of the Constitution of 
 the United States. But whether they desire 
 it or not, whether this madness extends to 
 the many, or, as we may charitably hope, is 
 confined to the few, the recolonization of the 
 States of the South by their former European 
 masters, is an event, if secession should pros- 
 per, highly probable, in fact all but certain, 
 in reference to some of them ; and in refer- 
 ence to none of them greatly otherwise. 
 Break up the Union ; let th« two great sec- 
 tions of the country hamstring each other 
 with the two-edged sword of border war, 
 and what sufficient protection would Texas 
 and Florida have against Spain, or Louisiana 
 against France, or any of them against Eng- 
 land? There is not one of them, if left to 
 themselves and involved in war with a for- 
 eign power, whose independence would be 
 worth a year's purchase. Nothing has so 
 much amazed me in all these disastrous com- 
 plications, as the fact that men of capacity 
 and political experience at the South, and 
 who aspire to the name of patriots and states- 
 men, should not perceive that in abdicating 
 their position as integral members of a strong 
 government, and especially one that wields 
 a respectable naval force, they place them- 
 selves not only at the mercy of the great 
 maritime powers of Europe, but at the mercy 
 of any government able to send half a dozen 
 iron clad steamers to sea. Break down the 
 Union as a great military and naval power, 
 and what protection is left for their alluvial 
 shores ? Are not the arms which are long 
 enough to reach from London, Paris, and 
 Madrid, to Calcutta and the Philippine Isl- 
 ands, and Tahiti, and New Zealand, long 
 enough to stretch to Charleston, and Pensa- 
 cola, and Galveston, and New Orleans ? 
 
 But we have not yet got to the bottom 
 of the cup of humiliation, which secession 
 places to our lips. Most great commercial 
 
 and naval States think that, in addition to 
 the fortresses which guard their home ports, 
 it is necessary to possess some distant har- 
 bors of refuge, and certain remoter stations, 
 that protect the pathway of their foreign 
 trade. England would as soon allow Ply- 
 mouth or Portsmouth to be wrested from her 
 by a foreign power, as she would Gibraltar, 
 or Malta, or Aden, or Singapore, or Hong 
 Kong, or Vancouver's Island. Now the 
 seceding States not only claim the right to 
 withdraw from the Union, which they have 
 no more right to do than Scotland or Ireland 
 has to withdraw from the Union with Eng- 
 land, but they claim the right to carry with 
 them the whole line of fortresses which 
 guard our southern coast, the Florida Chan- 
 nel, the Gulf of Mexico, and the mouth of 
 the Mississippi ; fortresses required for the 
 safety of our commerce ; built on lands 
 purchased and paid for by the General Gov- 
 ernment, and on islands and sites, of which 
 the jurisdiction has been ceded to the United 
 States. Nay, they claim the right to open 
 and shut at pleasure the outlet of the Ohio, 
 the Mississippi, and the Missouri — the most 
 magnificent system of internal navigation on 
 the face of the globe. Acknowledge secession, 
 and not a drove of mules could be sent down 
 from Kentucky, nor a hogshead of tobacco 
 from St. Louis, nor a bale of furs from the 
 Upper Missouri, nor a barrel of pork from 
 Cincinnati, nor a keg of nails from Pitts- 
 burgh, nor a pig of lead from Galena or 
 Dubuque, nor a sack of wheat from Daven- 
 port, but by the gracious leave of this alien 
 power. 
 
 Finally, fellow-citizens, there is a drop of 
 still greater bitterness in the chalice. The 
 triumph of secession involves consequences 
 more painful than any sacrifice of our own 
 material or political interests. Not only are 
 a majority of the inhabitants of the border 
 Slave States firmly attached to the Union, 
 but the mountain ridge that traverses the 
 South, from Maryland almost to the Gulf, is 
 inhabited by an industrious and frugal pop- 
 
SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 11 
 
 ulation wlio support themselves mainly hj 
 the free labor of their own hands. "Western 
 Virginia, East Tennessee, and Western North 
 Carolina, and Northern Alabama have little 
 interest in slavery, and no sympathy with 
 the war which it has forced upon the country. 
 Their citizens consequently have been and 
 are cruelly persecuted by the military des- 
 potism which now rules the South with a 
 rod of iron. Mr. Davis, in his late mes- 
 sage, affects to reproach the Grovernment of 
 the United States and its generals in com- 
 mand with making war upon peaceful private 
 individuals. It is the familiar artifice of 
 wrongdoers to charge upon others the crimes 
 of which they arc themselves guilty. Quis 
 tulerit Gracchos de scdltloiie qucrentes ? For 
 years past, and in profound peace, a man or 
 woman, who should have expressed at the 
 South opinions adverse to slavery, would 
 have done it at the risk of life. A Senator 
 from one of the Southern States made it a 
 matter of boast, that abolitionists coming 
 among them, (meaning thereby every north- 
 ern man not friendly to slavery,) hung like 
 ripe fruit on the trees. Before Virginia had 
 seceded, and while her Ordinance of Seces- 
 sion was pending before the people, Mr. 
 Senator Mason published a letter on the 
 Itjth May, ISGl, with his name, in answer 
 to the inquiries addressed to him, as to the 
 position of those citizens whose principles 
 would not allow them to vote to separate 
 Virginia from the United States. " If they 
 retain such opinions," says the merciful Sen- 
 ator, " thei/ must leave the State/" Yes, 
 dare to defy the oligarchy at Eichmond and 
 vote against separating from the Union, be- 
 queathed to you by your Washington as your 
 dearest inheritance, and we banish you from 
 the State. This wholesale sentence of exile 
 was pronounced before the iniquity of se- 
 cession was consummated, and against the 
 inhabitants of a third part of the territory 
 of the State, men guilty of no crime but 
 that of entertaining certain "opinions." Nor 
 is this all ; army after army was sent into 
 Western Virginia last year to execute the 
 
 decree of proscription ; her villages were 
 burned, her fields wasted, and some of her 
 prominent citizens dragged to Richmond and 
 immured in a felon's jail. The same state 
 of things exists in East Tennessee. Wher- 
 ever throughout the South a Union man 
 ventures to avow himself, the common jail, 
 the scourge, sometimes the halter, is his 
 fate. I know the press at the South aftects 
 to deny the truth of Parson Brownlow's 
 statements. I own I could not myself at 
 first believe that such atrocities could have 
 been practised by men professing to be 
 Christians, nay, by persons in the highest 
 civil and military stations. But I am well 
 persuaded, from numerous other and inde- 
 pendent sources of information, that his 
 accounts are true. Mr. Benjamin, the Con- 
 federate Secretary of State, by a letter of 
 the 25th of last November, addressed to the 
 officer in command at Knosville, directs that 
 all " prisoners of war taken among tiie 
 traitors of East Tennessee," (so he desig- 
 nates the great mass of the loyal people of 
 that region,) " who can be identified as hav- 
 ing been engaged in bridge-burning, are to 
 be tried summarily by drum-head court-mar- 
 tial, and, if found guilty, executed on the 
 spot by hanging. It would be well to leave 
 their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the 
 burned bridges ! " This most humane sec- 
 retary seems to have forgotten, that one of 
 the first acts of his seceding friends in Bal- 
 timore was to burn the bridges on the Phil- 
 adelphia and Baltimore Eailroad, to prevent 
 the troops of the United States from march- 
 ing to the defence of Washington. It is 
 needless to say that this cruel order was as 
 cruelly executed ; while throughout the South 
 thousands of Union men have leen driven 
 into exile, and other thousands are forced 
 into the rebel army, or are languishing in 
 prison, or fleeing before their pursuers to the 
 caves in the mountains. If we now shrink 
 discomfited from the contest, we surrender 
 these our loyal friends and brethren to exile, 
 confiscation, and death. 
 
 No, fellow-citizens, there remains no alter- 
 
12 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 
 
 native but a short and vigorous, or a pro- 
 tracted and languishing prosecution of the 
 war. Shall it be the first, or shall it be the 
 last ? Will you let it go down, a legacy of 
 sacrifice and sorrow to your children, or will 
 you not rather finish it this very year? 
 You can if you will ; you have the means 
 and the men, if you but choose to employ 
 them. I rejoice to behold in this great out- 
 pouring of the people — the old and the 
 young, the rich and the poor, the bone and 
 the sinew, the mind and the heart of the 
 community — the assurance that you are de- 
 termined, that as far as depends on you, the 
 work shall be quickly done ; and in lieu of 
 any words of exhortation on my part, which 
 I know you do not need, let me give you a 
 reminiscence from the time that tried men's 
 souls, 
 
 Boston, as you well know, was, in the 
 year 1775 and a part of 1776, occupied by 
 British troops, and besieged by the American 
 army under Washington. The great ques- 
 tion was how the enemy could be best as- 
 sailed, and among the measures proposed 
 was the bombardment of the town, then 
 almost wholly built of wood. The richest 
 
 man in Boston, John Hancock, was then 
 President of the Continental Congress, and 
 as such transmitted the orders of that body 
 to Washington. " You will notice the reso- 
 lution," said he in his letter, " relative to 
 an attack on Boston. This passed after a 
 'most serious debate in a committee of the 
 whole house, and the execution was referred 
 to you. May God croum your attempt with 
 success ! I most heartily wish it, though 
 individually I may be the greatest sufferer." 
 The fact is, all his property consisted of real 
 estate in Boston ; the destruction of the 
 town would have made him a beggar. Fel- 
 low-citizens he was the occupant of yonder 
 house. Were he living, he might from his 
 windows witness all this glorious sight ; his 
 eyes would swim with tears of gratitude to 
 Heaven, as he beheld yonder banner of the 
 Union floating in the breeze ; his ears would 
 drink with rapture the patriotic strains that 
 have cheered us this afternoon. May the 
 proceedings of this day and this hour be 
 such, that his pure spirit, and that of all 
 his sainted associates, the Adamses, and 
 Franklin, and peerless Washington himself, 
 may look down upon us with approbation ! 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 If you could analyze the feelings of a can- 
 dle upon being lit up just as the sun was 
 going down, you would appreciate my feel- 
 ings in succeeding New England's most ac- 
 complished orator. But you neither expect, 
 nor would you tolerate an elaborate speech. 
 Indeed, if I consulted my own heart, my lips 
 would be sealed. 
 
 When the beauty of our Israel is slain on 
 her high places ; when the sons of our love 
 are perishing in loathsome dungeons ; when 
 armed treason is battering the gates of the 
 capital ; when the nation itself is struggling, 
 gasping for the breath of its life, rhetoric, 
 
 logic, eloquence, even, seem mean and pal- 
 try. Nothing, indeed, is eloquent but the 
 roar of the cannon and the crack of the rifle 
 
 — nothing logical but the sword and the 
 bayonet. 
 
 The issues before the country are of life 
 or death, glory or shame, order or anarchy, 
 union or chaos, a nation or a Mexico. And 
 in this hour of awful peril there is for us 
 but one hope, one way of salvation ; and 
 that is to subdue armed rebellion by arms, 
 
 — to overwhelm it by superior force on the 
 field of battle. 
 
 Processions and banners, touching allu- 
 sions to Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall, sen- 
 
SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 
 
 13 
 
 tiraental resolutions, proclamations begin- 
 ning and ending in words, bills of confisca- 
 tion and emancipation, after much travail, 
 utterly still born, won't do the work. If 
 you mean to save the country, you have got 
 to fight for it. The negro can't do it for 
 you. Providence won't do it for you, un- 
 less you put your shoulders to the wheel. 
 You have got to work out your own sal- 
 vation, — in this case, "without fear or 
 trembling." 
 
 The only alternative is to sue for peace 
 and submit to dissolution ; to betray the 
 sublime trust committed to us by God and 
 our fathers, and to rot into dishonored graves 
 at home. 
 
 If this be so, men of Boston, — patriotic, 
 self-sacrificing men, capable of living and 
 dying for your country, — what wait you 
 for ■? The path of duty lies open before 
 you. Interest, duty, honor, patriotism, the 
 sense of manhood, all point one way — that 
 way leads to Richmond and to victory, — 
 and through victory to Union and peace. 
 Controversy as to the causes of the war, is 
 useless now. Grumbling, carping criticism 
 of the past is mean and disloyal now. Side 
 issues, partizan or philanthropic, are moral 
 treason now. They weaken and divide us 
 in a struggle that requires all our wisdom, 
 all our energy, all our strength, directed and 
 converged to the single work and duty of 
 subduing the foe in arms. Not a man, not 
 a dollar, not a thought can be wasted on any 
 other issue. Xow or never is the salvation 
 of the country possible. Hard words won't 
 do it, threats and curses won't do it, violence 
 won't do it. Nothing will do it but superior 
 physical force in the field, wielded with an 
 energy all the more terrible because it is 
 calm, and knows how to obey as well as to 
 command. 
 
 Fellow-citizens : We have cause for anx- 
 iety, none for despair. AVe have under-esti- 
 mated the strength and resources of our op- 
 ponents. We have greatly under-estimated 
 our own streufrth and resources. Rebellion 
 
 has, we may believe, made its crowning 
 efibrt ; its bucket has touched bottom. The 
 water in our well is yet deep. We can main- 
 tain a million men in the field, and on the 
 sea five hundred ships of war. With these, 
 twenty millions of intelligent, united, de- 
 voted people can vindicate the integrity of 
 the nation and defy a world in arms. 
 
 If you would avoid intervention by foreign 
 powers, the only way is to be prepared for it. 
 Put your million of men into the field, and 
 your five hundred ships upon your seas and 
 rivers. Bear up the old flag, resolved to live 
 under it, to conquer with it, or die beneath 
 its folds. In an hour of your weakness other 
 nations may intervene ; never, if you put forth 
 your real strength, never. 
 
 Would you consent to separation, to give 
 up this glorious Union of your fathers, where 
 will you draw the line ? Are the Gulf States 
 only to be severed ? Your enemy will not 
 consent to that division. Will you give up 
 the Border States ? The Border States will 
 not go. Let me say in the face of the men 
 of Boston, that a nobler, truer, more patri- 
 otic set of men the sun does not shine upon, 
 than the Union men of the Border States. 
 I feel that I know them, and I tell you they 
 will not go. If finally driven from you, no 
 man can say how much of the Great A\ est 
 would go with them, or where the ultimate 
 line of division would fall. 
 
 [Mr. Thomas here enlarged upon the geo- 
 graphical and commercial ties which bound 
 the West to the South, and said there is no 
 safety for us but in clinging to the Union as 
 it was and the Constitution as it is.] 
 
 Let us be manly, be just, be tolerant. It 
 is the» easiest thing in the world to find fault, 
 but not the wisest thing. In conducting war 
 upon so vast a scale, and requiring so many 
 and varied agencies, mistakes and blunders 
 will be made. The race is not always to the 
 swift, nor the battle to the strong. We have 
 a great and powerful people, and at their 
 head an upright, conscientious, unselfish, 
 conservative Chief Magistrate. Let us work 
 
14 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 
 
 and not grumble. Let us labor and not faint. 
 It was the prayer of the great statesman 
 of New England, that when his eyes should 
 turn to behold for the last time the sun in 
 heaven, he might not see him shining on the 
 broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
 glorious Union. Once glorious ; with tears 
 wash out or with fire burn out the word, 
 
 and write /oreyer glorious, born out of tribu- 
 lation and suffering in another, an immortal 
 life. When our eyes shall turn, to behold 
 for the last time the sun in heaven, may we 
 see its rays illumining and kindling every 
 star and stripe of that banner which, like 
 the robe of our divine Master, was wr ought 
 without a seam. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 
 
 I AM here, fellow-citizens, at short notice, 
 and I hope to make a short speech. Would 
 to Heaven that I could make it as short, as 
 sharp, and as burning, as the battle must 
 now be which is at length to bring back 
 peace to our afflicted land ! Would to Heav- 
 en that I could say anything or do anything 
 which might contribute to the success of this 
 occasion and of the cause which it is de- 
 signed to promote ! It is a time when every 
 one of us should ask himself, day by day, 
 and night by night, at morning and at even- 
 ing and at noonday, " AVhat can I say, or 
 what can I do, for my country and for those 
 who are engaged in its defence ? " 
 
 Yet 1 cannot help feeling how powerless 
 are any mere empty words in presence of 
 such a multitude as this, and still more in 
 presence of such events as those which have 
 called us together. The scene around us, 
 and the sounds which have attended it, are 
 more eloquent and more impressive than any 
 human oratory. The rolling drum, the 
 pealing bells, the tramp of marching battal- 
 ions, the shouts of surging multitudes, these 
 are the only sounds to-day which seem to fill 
 or satisfy the ear ; — and the only adequate 
 words which the vocabulary of American 
 Patriotism can supply for such an hour as 
 this are, " Eecruit, enlist, gird on your ar- 
 mor and go forth to the rescue of our breth- 
 ren in the field, and to the deliverance of 
 our beloved country." 
 
 What else can any one say ? Every form 
 
 of argument and of appeal has been ex- 
 hausted. It is vain to review the past ; we 
 cannot recall it. It is vain to speculate on 
 the future ; we cannot penetrate its hidden 
 depths. It is vain, and worse than vain, to 
 criticise and cavil about the present. We 
 must have confidence in somebody. We 
 must not only trust in God, but we must 
 trust in the Government which is over us, 
 and in the generals whom that government 
 has commissioned. Eor one, I mean to hold 
 fast my faith in them all — Halleck, Mc- 
 Clellan, Pope, McDowell, Burnside, Banks, 
 and all the rest — until something besides 
 bad fortune, or malignant rumor, or base 
 suspicions, shall have occurred to shake it. 
 
 Meantime we must not shut our eyes to 
 the real state of the case. The stern and 
 solemn fact is before us, that our country 
 has now been engaged for more than a year 
 past in one of the fiercest and bloodiest wars 
 which the world has ever witnessed. The 
 stern and solemn fact is before us, that 
 three quarters of a million of the loyal men 
 of the land have been found inadequate to 
 overcome the wanton and wicked rebellion 
 which has lifted its parricidal hands against 
 the nation. The stern and solemn fact is 
 before us, that though so many glorious suc- 
 cesses have been accomplished, and so many 
 deeds of heroic daring performed, our gallant 
 army has recently encountered a series of 
 checks and reverses which have once more 
 put almost everything in peril. The stern 
 
SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 
 
 15 
 
 and startling fact is before us and upon us, 
 that the President has been constrained to 
 call for twice 300,000 more men to rescue us 
 from defeat, and to give us a hope of finish- 
 ing successfully the Herculean labor of re- 
 storing the national authority. 
 
 Who can hesitate for a moment what an- 
 swer shall be given to this call ? Who can 
 hesitate for a moment to say, that everything 
 which is needed, everything which is asked 
 for in such an emergency, shall be supplied, 
 to the last man and the last dollar, — even 
 though another 300,000, and still another, 
 should be demanded hereafter ? 
 
 I rejoice, my friends, to be able to bear 
 witness to the feeling which exists in some 
 other parts of our Commonwealth and of our 
 country. Absent from home for sis weeks 
 past, I have visited more than one of our 
 sister States of the North. At BuflFalo, I 
 was in company with some of my old con- 
 servative friends, such as the late Governor 
 of New York, AYashington Hunt, and the 
 late President of the United States, Millard 
 Fillmore. The best illustration of their 
 views is found in the fact that the patriotic 
 ex-President is in actual command of the 
 Home Guard of that beautiful Lake City, 
 and is seldom or never absent from their 
 evening drills. I was at Niagara ; but not 
 even the roaring of that mighty cataract 
 could drown the cries of the country strug- 
 gling in the rapids of this gigantic rebellion, 
 and a new and noble regiment w^as just be- 
 ginning to be organized there, which has 
 now already taken up its march for the 
 Potomac. 
 
 Standing at Saratoga on the piazza of one 
 of the hotels, with the present worthy Gov- 
 ernor of New York, just at the moment when 
 the order for the new draft was first promul- 
 gated, he said to me, " The North has not 
 yet put forth a quarter of its strength. It 
 must now put forth its whole strength." 
 And since the words were uttered, no less 
 than fifty new regiments have been organized 
 in the Empire State, and no less than seven- 
 
 teen of them are already under marching 
 orders for Washington. 
 
 At West Point, I had the privilege of 
 passing a portion of several days in company 
 with our ever-honored veteran chieftain, — 
 Winfield Scott ; and though I may not quote 
 any words of private conversation, I did not 
 leave him without the undoubting assurance, 
 not only that the warmest wish of his still 
 glowing heart was that the new levies of six 
 hundred thousand men should be promptly 
 supplied, but that the sober conviction of his 
 judgment was that with these reinforcements 
 promptly supplied, we could scatter the Con- 
 federate army, scare out their infernal gue- 
 rilla hordes, and finish the war triumphantly 
 at no distant day. 
 
 There, too, I met the generous and true- 
 hearted Crittenden. I accompanied him to 
 the camp of the Cadets, and saw the emotion 
 with which he grasped the hand of the young 
 Kentuckians who clustered around him. One 
 of them was a son of that noble preacher and 
 patriot, Robert J. Breckenridge, of Danville, 
 and another, whose name I am ashamed to 
 have forgotten, but which history will not 
 forget, was a young Keutuckian of only six- 
 teen years of age, who, having been already 
 wounded while serving as a volunteer at the 
 battle of Shiloh, had now come to prepare 
 for future responsibilities by studying the 
 science of war. 
 
 All honor from this great assembly on 
 Boston Common to these loyal and patriotic 
 men of the Border States, who have endured 
 so many of the worst hardships and sharpest 
 trials of this terrible struggle, and who have 
 still been found faithful among the faithless. 
 
 Nor have I been without some recent op- 
 portunity of observing what is going on in a 
 remote part of our own Commonwealth. No 
 sooner had I entered her limits than I was 
 called on to address a war meeting in one of 
 the lovely villages of Berkshire. At Pitts- 
 field, too, I visited the camp of an almost 
 completed regiment. Everywhere the flag 
 was flying, everywhere the drums were 
 
16 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. EOBERT C. WINTHROP. 
 
 beating, everywhere the alarm hell was 
 ringing. And what else — what else can we 
 do ? What else — what else can we say hut 
 *' enlist, recruit, gird yourselves for the 
 battle ! " For myself, clinging t' ^he hope 
 of adjustment to the last moment ; hoping 
 and praying, as I have done, that the policy 
 of man or the good Providence of God might 
 still open a door of escape from this bloody 
 arbitrament of a most unnatural and abhor- 
 rent family quarrel ; and holding myself 
 ever open to conviction, even now, if any 
 way of reconciliation and restoration should 
 present itself — I can see, as the case now 
 stands, nothing, nothing whatever to be done, 
 but to put forth our whole strength, to sum- 
 mon up all the energy we possess, and to 
 overcome and overwhelm this rebellion by 
 every means in our power. 
 
 Boston, I need not say, is alive to the 
 emergency. Though I have been at home 
 little more than four-and-twenty hours, I 
 have seen enough at every corner of the 
 street, I see enough before me at this mo- 
 ment, to assure me that all will be right 
 with her. New England expects every man 
 to do his duty, and the capital of New Eng- 
 land will not be wanting to the call. Let 
 Suffolk and Esses, and Norfolk and Worces- 
 ter, and Plymouth and Bristol, and Berkshire 
 and old Hampshire emulate each other, as 
 they are now doing, in furnishing their full 
 quota, in anticipation of any draft, and his- 
 tory will still record of old Massachusetts, 
 that she was second to no other State in 
 defending that Union, which all the world 
 knows she was second to no other State in 
 establishing. 
 
 In conclusion, let us all remember, my 
 friends, that it is the Union, and nothing 
 more nor less nor other than the Union, for 
 which we are contending. Let us keep ever 
 in mind those excellent words of Mr. Seward, 
 that it is enough now for us to strain every 
 nerve in putting down the Demon of Rebel- 
 lion, without stopping to quarrel among our- 
 selves about any lesser demons, whether im- 
 aginary or real. 
 
 Let us keep ever in mind that noble and 
 still more recent and emphatic declaration 
 
 of our patriotic President, that if there be 
 any man who would not save the Union 
 unless he could either destroy or save some- 
 thing besides the Union — no matter what 
 it is — he is not of that man's party. 
 
 Let us remember that we are not engaged 
 in a war of the North against the South, but 
 a war of the Nation against those who have 
 risen up to destroy it. Let us keep our eyes 
 and our hearts steadily fixed upon the old 
 flag of our fathers, — the same to-day as 
 when it was first lifted in triumph at Sara- 
 toga, or first struck down in madness at 
 Sumter. That flag tells our whole story. 
 We must do whatever we do, and whatever 
 is necessary to be done, with the paramount 
 purpose of preserving it, untorn and untar- 
 nished, in all its radiance and in all its just 
 significance. We must be true to every tint 
 of its red, white, and blue. Behold it at 
 this moment streaming from every window 
 and watch-tower and cupola of our fair city. 
 It has a star for every State. Let us resolve 
 that there shall still be a State for every star. 
 Let this be our watchword, in speech and in 
 song, and still more in the whole civil and 
 military policy of the war, — "A Star for 
 EVERY State, and a State for every 
 Star," — and by the blessing of God, and 
 our own strong arms, we may once more see 
 that flag waving in triumph from the Atlan- 
 tic to the Pacific. 
 
 But let us not forget that the time is short 
 — that what we have to do must be done 
 quickly ; and let us make a short, sharp, 
 strenuous efi^ort, and finish the work at what- 
 ever immediate sacrifice of treasure or of 
 blood. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it 
 to all the world, to bring this terrible strug- 
 gle to a decisive issue with the least possible 
 delay. " Now or never," was the legend 
 upon one of the banners which just caught 
 my eye. It is now or never with the Union; 
 now or never with the Constitution ; now or 
 never with the wide arch of our ranged Ee- 
 public. Let us take a lesson of desperate 
 energy from the rebels themselves, — yes, or 
 from the Prince of Eebels, as he cries to his 
 apostate host in the immortal epic, "Awake, 
 arise, or be forever fallen." 
 
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