.J ; ' o * ^ > -^ L. ?.8s. .;.KiG, Author . Title Imprint. / UNION SPEECH; DELIVERED AT KANAWHA SALINES, VA. ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1856.- BY HENBY RUFFNER. PrBLISBED BY THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANQEMENTS AT THE REQUEST OF THE ADDIENCE. CINCINNATI : APPLEGATE & CO., PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS, No. 43 Main street, 1856. tv El 2.S<, APPLEOA.TB & Co., Printers, 43 M^in stricict, Cincinnati. [^ i ORATION. Fellow Citizens : To-day our nation is four score years of age. Some of her citizens are older. A few are yet living, who in their youth fought for our indep.'ndence. We are a young nation. Every considera- ble nation of Europe is more than ten times as old, counting from the time when the institutions of modern society arose after the dis- solution of the Roman Empire. The principal nations of Asia are of still greater antiquity. It is only iTpon tliis continent that civilized nations younger than ours, have sprung up. But, in one respect, even the Spanish American States are older than our United States. As colonies, they had an earlier beginning; at the outset, they had also great advantages, having a country more attractive to emigrants, and in Mexico and Peru, a native population subject to their rule, and somewhat advanced in civilization. It is scarcely 250 years, since the first English settlement was begun upon the wild shores of North America. For a hundred years the progress of the new colonies was unavoidably slow. A wide ocean separated them from the mother country. No gold and silvei' mines, no plunder of feeble nations, allured adventurers to these shores. When they landed, they had before them an inter- minable forest of wild beasts and savage men. With the axe they must hew down the forest ; with weapons they must defend them- selves against the savages ; with persevering industry they must build houses and cultivate fields, for a living. When at last, after 160 years of toil and trouble, 13 colonies had grown to some degree of importance, the mother country as- sumed the power of controlling them absolutely, and began to tax them as subjects, without allowing them the common rights of British freemen. They resisted ; and finding at last, that the mother country was resolved to force them into submission, they staked their all upon the issue, and on this day, 80 years ago, de- clared themselves to be independent states. After a hard and bloody struggle of 7 years, they, with the aid of France, wrung from their mighty adversary the acknowledgement of their independence. At the beginning of the war, the colonies wej-e just rising into wealth and prosperity. At the close of the Avar, the new states were in a deplorable condition. During 7 years the storm of inter- nal war had swept over them ; towns had been bui-nt, fields wasted, ships destroyed, and immense quantities of other property con- sumed, carried off or wantonly burnt by the enemy. Commerce was almost annihilated. The paper currency of the country was out of credit ; what gold and silver the war had left, was nearly all sent out to buy clothing and other necessaries fur the destitute people. They could manufacture little for themselves. Before the war, mining and manufacturing were scarcely begun, under the jealous restrictions of the mother country. After the war, they could scarcely begin for want of skill and capital. To crown all, the people, the states and the confederacy, were burdened with debts, which they were unable to pay. When the army which had gained their independence was discharged, both officers and soldiers had to go away, half naked, and unpaid for their services. In such a prostrate condition of the country, a wise and efficient government was greatly needed, not only for the several states, but for the United States. There was wisdom enough among the patriots of the revolution, and power enough in the state govern- ments ; but the Articles of confederation, which bound the states together, were essentially defective. The Congress had, it is true, the management of the common defense of the country and its rela- tions with foreign powers. They could also call upon the states to pay money into the Federal treasury. That is, they could tax the states, but the states only could tax the people. The states only could exercise sovereign power within their respective bounds. Hence, if a state failed to perform its federal duties, there was no remedy but military coercion, in other words, civil war. During the struggle for independence, the states were often remiss in complying with the requisitions of Congress. When the stimu- lus of public danger was taken away, they would naturally be more remiss, — and most of all now, when poverty and debt were sore upon them, and when the morals of the country had been sadly de- praved by the war. A number of the states did nothing for the confederacy. Most of them adopted a selfish policy ; adjacent states contended about commercial matters ; those which had the most convenient ports, drew trade and revenue from their neigh- bors ; which led to jealousies and countervailing regulations. In this condition, the confederacy was going to wreck. It was losing confidence at home, and respect abroad. The wise patriots of the time, with Washington at their head, saw the danger of disu- nion and civil strife, and they averted it by procuring the adoption of the Federal Constitution. This instrument changed the whole state of affairs, by making the United States a nation. To the gene- ral government was committed, within certain limits, a sovereign power over the people of the United States. They could tax them, and make laws to bind them. They had the exclusive power to tax ships and imported goods, and to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the states. Having thus the sovereign power of all the common affairs of the country, of raising revenue by taxation, and of executing their own laws, the general govern- ment was enabled effectually to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. This constitution, which divides the sovereignty between the ge- neral government and the state governments ; uniting the people as a nation under the one, and dividing them as states under the other ; making us a unit to the foreign world, and a harmonious plurality at home ; is in theory, and has proved itself to be in practice, the best scheme of government ever devised for a great country like ours. Without such a national government, the states must have been perpetually embroiled with disputes, resulting often in bloody colli- sions, and terminating in military despotism founded on the ruins of civil liberty. The country would have no peace at home, and no respect abroad. What commerce it had on the ocean, would have been at the mercy of foreign nations and piratical freebooters. Its internal resources would have been consumed by military ravage and oppressive taxation. Industry would have been paralyzed ; and morals, both public and privatCj would have been more and more deeply corrupted. Now let us see what progress our country has made, under the benign operation of the Federal Constitution. First, in regard to population: When independence was declared, the country v/as supposed to have three millions of inhabitants. Fourteen years afterwards, when the first census was taken imder the Federal Constitution, the number was ascertained to be some- what less than four millions. Now after a period of 66 years, the population of our country has increased to twenty-seven millions. This is nearly a sevenfold increase within two-thirds of a century. About 120,000 were gained by additions to our territory ; large numbers have come in from Europe ; but three-fourths of the whole increase has been from nature, under the benign influence of freedom, peace, industry and plenty. Such a growth of popiilation is unex- ampled in the history of nations. At first we were ranked, in respect to population and wealth, among the lowesi nations in Christendom. Now we are counted among the highest ; and we are advancing with giant strides to a greatness above them all. Next, in regard to territorial extent, we were laige at the first ; now we are immense. From the British provinces in the north, to Florida in the south, and from the Atlantic in the East, to the 6 Mississippi in the West, we had an ample territory of 800,000 square miles. But two-thirds of this large space was, at the birth of our nation, an Indian wilderness, and much of the other third was very little improved. Now we extend southward to the Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande, and stretch westward across the continent, with an average breadth of 1300* miles, comprehending a space nearly four times as large as our original territory. It embraces all varieties of climate between the extremes of heat and cold. It contains a vast extent of fertile soil, inexhaustible stores of mineral wealth, and great natural facilities for manufacture and trade. With 3500 miles of sea coast on two oceans, and 20,000 miles of internal navigation on rivers, lakes and bays, Ave have natural means for an unbounded commerce amongst ourselves, and with all the maritime nations of the earth. Take it altogether, the domain which God has allotted to our great republic, has the largest extent of richly endowed territory, and the happiest situation for safety, aud for domestic and foreign inter- course, that ever fell to the lot of a imited people. Most Avonderful, too, is the progress made, since our national union began, towards its complete occupancy and improvement. Within the lifetime of some who now hear me, our settlements, with a front of 1000 miles from north to soutli, have advanced from the Allegheny Ridge, 1000 miles westward, to the great buffalo pastures beyond the Mississippi. They have, moreover, rounded the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande, and away beyond the Rocky Mountains on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, they are rapidly filling up another maritime frontier, 1300 miles in length. The result of this westward march of our population, has been the formation of sixteen flourishing states, some of them already equal in population and wealth to some of the small monarchies of Europe, such for example as Denmark, so famous in history, and Greece the mother of arts and sciences. Soon too we shall have five additional states, now in embryo and rapidly coming to matu- rity. All this wide scene of civilized life and prosperous industry has been created in the wilderness, since he Avho now addresses you was born. Whilst the population of our country has been thus multiplying and spreading, the wealth and resources of the nation have increased with a two-fold rapidity. A striking evidence of this may be seen in the magical growth and multiplication of our cities and tOAvns. They flourish because the country flourishes. They are supported by the products of the ♦Note. It is sufficient, if the round numbers used in statements of this sort, approach the truth. country. I refer to them as an index of the increased wealth and business of the community. New York has grown thirty-fold in population ; and not less than sixty-fold in wealth, since the revolution. It is now one of the greatest emporiums in the world ; in population and wealth, it is the third city in Christendom. Philadelphia is fifteen times as large and thirty times as wealthy as it was, when its people first heard the declaration of independence. Few capitals of nations are so great, so rich and so beautiful. When Lafayette first landed in Baltimore, he saw but a village there. Now we see it grown up into a great commercial city of more than 200,000 inhabitants. Cincinnati was not even a village then, nor even at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, nor till several years afterwards. It is now a fine city of 200,000 inhabitants. When Louisiana was a French colony, New Orleans was a tOAvn of little importance, and St. Louis was a trading village among the Indians. New Orleans is now one of the great marts of American Commerce, and St. Louis is hastening to become the greatest inland city on the conti- nent. And what shall we say of Chicago and San Francisco ? A dozen years ago, they were little or nothing, when we last heard how large they were, they were each equal to three New Yorks of the revolution. What they will be a dozen years hence — who can tell ? So almost every where in our new countries, towns spring up to importance, almost before we hear of their existence ; and over the most of our states, cities, towns, and villages, are increasing in population and in business, as if they would never be done. As our towns grow and multiply, so do all the products of industry. Agriculture, commerce, and manufacturers, with all their means and appliances, their instruments, and their processes, show such increase and improvement, as never appeared on this earth before. Let us advert to some industrial aspects of the coimtry. When the Federal Constitution was adopted, no branch of indus- try flourished. Agriculture the first and chief pursuit of the colo- nies, had after the revolution, but a restricted market abroad, and almost none at home. Manufactures scarcely existed, and com- merce had little material to operate on, little encouragement at home, and little scope or safety abroad. Now over what a vast expanse do we see fields teeming with the fruits of agriculture ! Southern industry produces bales of cotton by the million, and hogsheads of sugar by the hundred thousand. Further north, a million of barns are yearly filled with plenty. Manufactories are not less flourishing. Ten thousand water falls and ten thousand steam engines are driving machinery ; towns and cities rise and flourish, as much on the operations of handicraft, as on the exchanges of commerce. No where is more ingenuity dis- £ .--': played in useful inventions and improvements ; no where is more skill displayed in all the operations of industry. Then look at the commerce of these United States, once so poor and feeble. Go to the harbor of New York, and see the shore lined for six miles with ships and warehouses, delivering and receiving the productions of every art and every climate. Go to twenty other American ports and see the same on a smaller scale. And what open sea is there on the wide world — what open port on its shores, where American ships may not be found ? Where may a whale hide himself in all the watery world from the all pervading search of the yankee whalers ? From the ruins of the revolutionary war, our commerce seemed unable to rise, until the Federal Government gave it a start by giv- ing it national protection under " ihe star spangled banner." Now see the result. We have the greatest commercial marine in the world. Heretofore, for ages, Great Britain has been the leading commercial power among the nations. Now she has lost that pre- eminence. Before our age as a national republic has reached three score years and ten, our shipping in the domestic and foreign trade has made our country the commej-cial queen of the world, and with a few years more of peace at home and abroad, she may outstrip all Europe in the race of commercial greatness. Our public navy is inferior to the navies of Britain and France. But though we cannot at present send forth as heavy fleets as those powers, we can in a few months, arm 500 swift cruisers against an enemy's commerce. But after all, nothing more strikingly exhibits the progress of the United States in wealth and power, than the wonderful increase of commercial and traveling facilities over all parts of the Union. Sixty years ago, when the republic was yet confined to her origi- nal boundaries, the greatest danger to the Union was thought to arise from the vast extent of our territory, divided as it was by a broad range of mountains, from which the rivers flowed far asunder into different seas. At that time all our intercourse by land was over rough roads, requiring six stout horses to draw 3000 weight at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles a day. Over the steep mountains between the east and the west, only the half of this could be accomplished, upon the three or four rugged roads of the day. Then, the navigation of our tide rivers was slowly performed with sailing craft. The current of shallower rivers, was laboriously stemmed with poles in keel-boats, batteaux and canoes. The strong deep current of the Mississippi was thought to admit only of a descending trade in flatlioats, the crews of which had to return from New Orleans to Pittsburg, then the only considerable town on the Ohio, by a land journey of sixty or seventy days, in great part 9 through a wilderness of Indians. Subsequently, when towns began to rise on the lower Ohio, some groceries were brought up from New Orleans in large keel boats, called barges. I once saw a vessel of this sort arrive at Cincinnati ; it was in 1815 ; she was said to carry ninety tons, and had been nearly three months on the voyage. She had a crew of more than thirty stout men, who pulled her along by applying their shoulders to a large tow-rope, tied to a tree or a snag, some twenty or thirty rods ahead. But how is it now. Some 1500 steamers, many of them like royal palaces, rush through the waters of our rivers, lakes, and sea- coasts, to say nothing of the mighty structures, which are driven across the ocean by the power of steam. Now the Father of waters may roll his swelling floods from northern snows to the Gulf where tropic winds blow, and scarcely check the speed of the two or three hundred great steamers, which plow his floods from New Orleans to the cities and towns, which stand where forests grew and savages yelled, when the grey-headed men of this assembly were born. Now turn fi-ora the water to the land. Conceive yourselves raised to a height in the air, from which you may take a bird's eye view of our thirty states on this side of the Rocky Mountains. What strikes your view ? Is it here and there a ponderous road wagon, laboring through mud, jolting over rocks, or straining up moun- tain steeps, with horses panting, whip cracking, and driver shout- ino- ? No, that sort of land transportation is nearly obsolete in the more improved parts of the country. But what do you see? From Maine to Florida, from the Atlantic ocean to the great wes- tern prairie, trains of railroad cars, shooting swift as the wind from city to city, from town to town, over plains, over rivers, and through mountains. They are full of people and full of wealth. They run day and night, going further in an hour than a wagon goes in a day. . i j x i Mountains have ceased to be an obstruction to trade and travel. Currents are a very slight impediment to navigation. Distance is of little importance, when men and things can be whirled over five or six hundred miles in a day and a night, and the telegraph can shoot a dispatch over one thousand miles in a minute. The effect of steam conveyance by water and by land is to give five-fold speed to the business of the country, and in that proportion to bring the parts practically nigher together ; whilst the telegraph still farther reduces the inconvenience of communication between distant places. . Besides the commercial importance of these rapid conveyances they make our country invulnerable by foreign invaders. S'lould an enemy's fleet bring over one hundred thousand men to attack New York, or any of our great sea ports, within an hour after the mast- heads of his fleet were seen from a signal post, the alarm would be 10 spread a thousand miles through the country, and before he could get his hundred thousand men ashore, two or three hundred thou- sand would be gathering at the rate of thirty miles an hour to meet them. But that which secures ns against foreign invasion, would make a border war between two sections of our country doubly destruc- tive. Here the invader would have the advantage of breaking sud- denly over an unguarded frontier, with a force assembled in a night from far and near. He might ravage a Avhole county, or plunder and burn a town, before the inhabitants were well aware of his pres- ence. But let us now reason a little on the causes of this unparalleled prospei'ity of our United States. Doubtless we owe it all to the good providence of God, who, in the first place, allotted to us so wide and goodly a heritage, far away from those strong and aggressive nations, who might have crushed our young republic, before it had time to develop its strength. But territorial advantages only afforded room and opportunity for national expansion. It depended, under God, upon the charac- ter and conduct of the people, Avhether or not these advantages should be duly improved. The other nations of this continent have ample room to thrive as well as we. But they indolently slumber over the gifts of nature ; and when they are roused, it is by the trumpet of discord, summoning them to civil war and revolution. Such a peo- ple can not prosper. I would not, as some do, attribute our progress to a physical su- periority of the Anglo Saxon race, to which the majority of the British people and the early settlers in this country belonged. But much — very much — is due to the religious character of the early colonists, and to the principles of civil liberty which they brought with them. The great majority were Protestant Christians, accus- tomed to free thought and action, under a free system of government in Church and State. They gave to colonial society and institutions their first foim and movement. From these the growing colonies never departed, and the revolution only shook off the incumbrance of foreign domination, and gave to the American character and in- stitutions a free development. Prom the beginning, and more in after times, our American population has been composed of divers races. Now, the majority of our citizens are of German, Low Dutch, Irish, Welsh and French descent, with a sprinkling from otlier na- tions of Europe. Yet whatever may have been the origin of those who now com- pose our native population, all have been cast in the American mould, and conform to the national character. The same general spirit of industry, enterprise and personal independence, distin- guishes them from other nations, and makes them undistinguishable cm 11 from one another. It is only the African race, bond and free, who are of so different a tj'pe from the rest, that they cannot incorporate with the mass ; but must remain ever distinct ; not by the will of man, but of God who made us all. But energy of character and freedom of action, even when chast- ened by a government of law and by the teachings of a pure Christianity, would not have made this a great and prosperous country, without the Federal Union, which coiistituted us_ one people — gave us peace with freedom, and expansion with unity — and saved our States from being torn into bleeding fragments, and oppressed by military establishments and enormous taxation. It is to the Union that we owe our growth and our greatness. As separate States, or as .sectional confederacies, we should have wrought each other's ruin; instead of combining all our energies to work out a national prosperity, such as the world has never seen. The Grecian states of old, the German states of later ages, and the Spanish American states of recent origin, are instructive examples of the disastrous consequences of disunion amongst adjacent states, in circumstances like ours, separately feeble for good, but potent , for mischief; and yet capable, by sameness of language and similarity of political institutions, of uniting harmoniously for their common defence and general welfare. The Grecian states, which, united, could defy the mighty empire of Persia, ruined one another by intestine wars, and then fell a prey to foreign invaders. The Greeks have been a degraded people ever since. Germany, which by union would have been invulnerable and the arbiter of Europe, was imhappily divided, from the earliest times, into discordant states, great and small. Consequently, notwith- standing a loose sort of confederation, Germany has been torn by intestine feuds ; her plains have been the battlefields of Europe ; and despotism, supported by standing armies, has oppressed her people. Nothing has kept up the country from utter prostration, but the indomitable spirit of German industry. As to the Spanish American states, you know their wretched history : factions, revolutions ; no security of property — no en- couragement to industry ; fio advancement ; no peace of mind, no hope of better times. Their society is like many parts of their country ; volcanoes discharge fire and smoke above their heads ; earthquakes shake the foundations beneath their feet. So it is and must be, always and everywhere, _ that disunion among small adjacent states, occasions disputes, enmities, hostilities and calamities without end. Our fathers felt the necessity of Union. Their motto was, United we stand; divided we fall:— & pithy saying, true then, true now, and "true lorever. 12 By union, our states were able in the days of their weakness to protect one another. The enemy who struck at the least member of the confederacy, produced a sensation that was felt through the whole body, and the nation was ready as one man to repel the assault. Now in the days of our strength, let an American vessel go from any of our hundred seaports, destined to any port of the wide world. She goes not as a vessel of Massachusetts or of Virginia. She is an American vessel. She bears at her mast-head the flag of our Union. Every man on board sees in the stars and stripes of that banner, as it waves over his head, the pledge of 27 millions of people at home, that they will protect him in his rights, and resent any wrong done to him as if it were done to themselves. The world knows this ; and therefore American ships safely traverse every sea, and American commerce has a range as wide as the world. And in connection with this, what a rich and spacious field does the Union open to our citizens for commerce among themselves ? Free as the air, they can exchange commodities all over our three millions of square miles. Here no state lines are visible ; no revenue officers exact payment for leave to ti-ade. If state taxes are payable by traders, all Americans pay alike in every state. Fifty great marts and thousands of smaller ones, are as freely open to every American, as the door of his own dwelling. The incalculable amount and importance of our internal trade is evinced by tlie immense amount of labor and capital expended on its machinery — the roads and canals, the river improvements, bridges, Avharves, warehouses, sailing vessels, steamers, boats, loco- motives, cars, wagons, and who can tell what all ? Besides the men and horses employed in cai-iying on this immense business. Over all our 31 states, it is ever going on and ever increasing. So wide and busy a scene of perfectly free trade, is no where else to be found. Nothing more clearly demonstrates the benefits of the union, nothing contributes more to its prosperity. Nothing but civil war would be more calamitous, than the interruption of this widely extended free trade among ourselves. And what do its vast amount and its rapid increase denote? Union and peace, civil liberty, energetic industry, and universal prospe^ty, from the Lakes to the Gulf — from the Atlantic Ocean to the Alleghany mountains — from the Alleghany to the Rocky IMountains — fiom the Rocky Moun- tains to the golden shores of the Pacific Ocean. And yet this nation is but in its infancy. Its career of prospe- rity is only begun. It is now just getting under headway. It can now do as much and grow as much in one year, as it would in seven years, when we old men were boys. Its growth in numbeis, wealth and power, is like the growth of money at compound interest — the greater it grows, the faster it grows. ^;is^ 13 The young people of this audience, whose lives may be prolonged to seventy years, will see a greater sight than ever yet has blessed the eyes of patriot or philanthropist. They will see this broad continent teeming with busy multitudes, wherever industry can make corn grow, dig metals, or run machinery. The popula- tion, now great, will have been twice doubled. It will be more than 100 millions. Twenty-five millions of strong men will be at work. An ocean of green fields will wave in the breezes of June Innumerable flocks and herds will pasture a hundred thousand hills. A hundred great cities, thousands of flourishing towns — will be full of life and of business. How many thousand cars will be flying over the railroads, how many thousand steamers will be rushing through the waters, of the Union ; how many thousand ships will be sailing over the seas under the " star-spangled banner" — ;judge ye from the experience of the past. Had any man predicted, fifty years ago, what is now a reality in these United States, his predic- tion might have been taken for an enthusiast's dream. Now, when we see what has been realized, we may say, if God give us union and peace for another fifty years, " the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof is sure." But some predict a dissolution of the Union before that day of American grandeur and glory shall arrive. Some political fillibusters are even now gathering their little forces to break up and revolu- tionize this great and happy land. A dissolution of the Union ! Of these United States ! Do those who talk so heedlessly of a dis- solution of the Union, know what they mean ? Do the sowers of sectional discord know what they are doing ? But turning from the reckless agitators of the day, I would fain ask the peaceful millions of my countrymen ; can you, who as a nation enjoy so many blessings — can you, when you look back on your country's history, and forward to its prospects, those glorious prospects, which a benificent Providence is opening so nearly and so brightly to you and your children — can you destroy this happy Union, and ruin all? I can answer for you, no ! no ! ! no ! ! ! There are sins and iniquities enough in this heaven-favored land, to bring upon us the judgements of God. But let the waters of the ocean rise, if it be •rod's will, and overwhelm this happy republic : Let the central fires of the earth burst forth, if the Almighty has so decreed, and a sea of burning lava cover up the 27 millions and all they possess : But oh ! let not the righteous Judge of the earth doom us to go mad, and fill this land of peace and prosperity with civil bloodshed and ruthless devastation. True it is, alas ! Prosperity has made many thousands of our people reckless. This generation has never seen the war-fiend stalking through the land with demoniac rage in his heart, the sword of slaughter in his right hand, and the torch of desolation in his left. Our fathers felt the woes of such a scene. They mourned over it, when, after a seven years' war in the heart of the country, they beheld it all covered with poverty, debt, taxation, and sadness. To prevent a repetition of such scenes, and the utter ruin of the country, they formed this Union of States. You know what peace and prosperity have been the happy result. Can you throw these blessings away, and rush madly into civil war for any cause now existing, or likely to exist ? No ! you can not, you %vill not. Some few inconsiderate men have talked of a peaceful separation. Peaceful ! separation ! Impossible ! Nothing but maniac violence, can burst the strong bonds of this Union asunder. Can such a body of health and strength be dismembered, and no blood flow from the severed parts ? Never. If there be now any danger of disunion, it arises not from any dictate of interest or of duty ; far from it : but from sectional animosity generated by fanatical opinions, and blown up to rage and violence by passionate or by scheming demagogues. See how thousands in the North and thousands in the South, have been inflamed by the squabbles of the squatters in Kansas ! If the flash of a pound of gunpowder out in the wilderness, can rouse the demon of evil in our States, and set some northern ministers drum- ming up the war spirit ; how will it be, when the dividing line between the North and the South shall be laid with a train of ten thousand tons of gunpowder, tar, pitch and turpentine, which a band of border ruffians may fire at any time ? Will the separation be peaceful then ? When lately a fanatical abolitionist in the Senate of the United States uttered an offensive speech against southern States and men ; and a southern ruffian entered the Senate chamber and beat him half to death ; there was cause enough for indignation against the individuals, and shame for our country's disgrace. But the affair has given occasion to the opposite factions to blow the flames of sectional discord higher and wider. They have on their respective sides made of the northern senatorial factionist a martyr, and of the southern representative club-man a hero ! Does such a spiiit as this indicate a peaceful separation ? No : when the factionists seize all occasions to stir up sectional strife, ^Ml to raise the passions of the people to blood-and-slaughtor point, separation, if it come at all, must come with blood and slaughter. But it cannot come. A few thousand fanatics in the north and as many in the south, however they may brawl and tlireaten, cannot set four or five mil- lions of peaceful citizens to cutting each other's throats. There is too much common sense, patriotic feeling and Christian conscience among them, for that. If the restless spirits of the country are so eager for war, let them go abroad and fillibuster ; let the fiery abolitionists and their disunionist adversaries in the South, go 15 to Cuba, and try the experiment of a slavery and anti-slavery war in that island of slaves, before they destroy the peace and prosperity of their own great and happy country. The result may teach them a useful lesson, and so cool their blood, as to make the survivors willing to let the Union abide in peace. But whether they will or not, the Union will stand. Too many cords of interest, of love and of honor, bind its parts together, to make it separable by human hands. Especially should we, who live near the border line of 2,500 miles, which would divide the North from the South, dread a separation between them. That long dividing line would be a line of fire ; and those who live near it would bear the brunt of all the invasions, burnings, plunderings and slaughters between the hostile sections. Suppose, however, that the agitators should succeed in bringing on a separation ; what should we do then with the " Star Spangled Banner," which is now the ensign of our national union and glory throughout the world ? I will tell you what would make it truly represent our disunited country. Let the red stripes remain, but let the coloring matter be the blood of our citizens. Change the white stripes into black, to signify darkness and woe. Instead of radiant stars in a blue field of peace and love, let 31 firebrands of discord represent the states. Let the space, now filled with heavenly blue, be painted as a field of war, Avith here a party of marauders, burning, plundering and slaying ; and there embattled hosts, and gory death stalking among them ; and in the back ground, not far away, two thrones of military despotism, one for the North, and one for the South, each throne elevated on a moun- tain of slain Americans : let the pillars which support the thrones, be cannon, and the rungs, muskets with bayonets bristling out on all sides ; and let the fields around be full of cinders, bones and blood. Having thus finished the Flng of Disunion, tear it asunder from end to end ; hang one fragment to the masthead of a northern ship, and the other to the masthead of a southern ship, and send them over the ocean to tell the world what America has come to. Then will despots rejoice at the fall of the last and the greatest of all the republics. Fellow citizens, I havl^'feo much confidence in the intelligence, good sense and patriotism of my countrymen, that 1 can pronounce in their name, the moral impossibility of a dissolution of the Union. Before the political firebrands who trouble the countr)^ can set the Union on fire, three millions of peaceful voters — farmers, mechan- ics, manufacturers, merchants, laborers, and others — will have a word to say on the subject. They will not put their lives, liberty and property in jeopardy, to gratify the fanatic zeal or ambitious designs of agitators and demagogues. Notwithstanding the noise made by a few thousand reckless 16 hotheads and unprincipled poh'tical schemers, the millions are de- votedly attached to the Union, their common country, their pride and their safeguard. Yes, if on this glorious fourth of July, the question were put to the vote, shall our Federal Union be dissolved ? millions of voices, souriding like the roar of a thousand Niagaras, would utter such an emphatic and indignant no ! that the factions, now so noisy, would be struck dumb forever. But fellow citizens, the fact is not to be concealed, that the agita- tors are gaining ground ; that political parties are becoming more sectional, and that the fire of discord is spreading to a dangerous extent. Unless the people, the quiet citizens, whose all on earth is at stake, come forth in their might, and rebuke the fiery zealots and political agitators, who disturb and disgrace our national councils, serious mischief may ensue, and wounds may be inflicted on the peace and prosperity of the Union, which will not be healed for an age to come. Happily, the people have in their hands a peaceful and efif'ectual remedy. Let them exclude from office, every brawling demagogue and hotheaded agitator of sectional questions, whatever party name he may choose to assume. Let them admit into the public councils only sober-minded, conservative men, who will behave themselves like christian gentlemen ; will attend diligently to the public business, and either avoid exciting topics of public discussion, or discuss them with courtesy and modeiation. Let any man who shall utter abusive language, or commit personal violence in the hails of Congress, be banished from them, as a disgrace to the nation and to his constituents.. Let the people reject every candi- date who holds extreme opinions on matters of sectional dispute,- and every candidate who will not pledge himself to follow the fare- well advice of the father of his country ; and Avho will not heartily echo the sentiment of the hero of New Orleans, — " The Union must be j^reserved." In time of danger, let this be the political watchword of all who love their country. Then, as I solemnly believe, the voice of the people will be the voice of God, and the Union shall be preserved. Then it shall go on to flourish in peace and prosperity. Then in all the milliom of happy homes in our great republic, may the patriotic song of our fathers be chanted : Columbia! Columbia! to glory arise, The queen of the world, and the child of the skies. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS