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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
KADICAUSM AND CONSERYATISM-THE TKUTH OF HISTORY VINDICATED. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. GEO. W. JULIAN, OF INDIANA, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 FEBRUARY "T, 1865. 
 
 The House being in the Committee ot the Whole on the 
 State of the Uniou, imd haviug under consjdoratiou the 
 President's message — 
 
 Mr. JULIAN said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman : Perhaps no task could be 
 more instructive or profitable, in these culmina- 
 ting days of the rebellion, than a review of the 
 shifting phases of thought and policy which 
 have guided the Administration in its endeavors 
 to crush it. Such a retrospect will help us to 
 vindicate the real truth of history, both as to 
 measures and men. It will bring out, in the 
 strongest colors, the contrast between radical- 
 ism and conservatism, as rival political forces, 
 each maintaining a varying control over the 
 conduct of the war. It will, at the same time, 
 point out and emphasize those pregnant lessons 
 of the struggle which may best supply the 
 Government with counsel in its further prose- 
 cution. The faithful performance of this task 
 demands plainness of speech ; and I shall not 
 shrink from my accustomed use of it, in the in- 
 terests of truth and freedom. 
 
 At the beginning of this war, Mr. Chairman, 
 neither of the parties to it comprehended its 
 character and magnitude. Its actual history 
 has been an immeasurable surprise to both, and 
 to the whole civilized world. The rebels evi- 
 dently expected to make short work of it. 
 Judging us by our habitual and long-continued 
 submission to Southern domination, and con- 
 liding in the multiplied assurances of sympathy 
 and help which they had received from their 
 faithful allies in the North, they regarded the 
 work of dismemberment as neither difficult nor 
 exp€n8ive. They did not dream of the grand 
 results which have proceeded from their mad 
 enterprise. Nor does their delusion seem to 
 have been at all strange or unnatural. Cer- 
 tainly, it was not more remarkable than the in- 
 fatuation of the Administration, and its con- 
 servative friends. The Government understood 
 
 the conflict as little, and misunderstood it as 
 absolutely, as its foes. This, sir, is one of the 
 lessons of the war which I think it worth while 
 to have remembered. This revolt, it was be- 
 lieved, was simnly a new and enlarged edition 
 of Southern bluster. The Government did not 
 realize the inexorable necessity of actual war, 
 because it lacked the moral vision to perceive 
 the real nature of the contest. To every sug- 
 gestion of so dire an event it turned an averted 
 face and a deaf ear. It hoped to restore order 
 by making a show of war, without actually call- 
 ing into play the terrible enginery of war. It 
 trusted in the form, without the power of war, 
 just as some people have trusted in the form, 
 without the power of godliness. It will be re- 
 membered that just before the battle of Ball's 
 Bluff General McClellan ordered Colonel Stone 
 to "make a slight demonstration against the 
 rebels," which might '* have the effect to drive 
 them from Leesburg.'' The Government seems 
 to have pursued a like policy in dealing with 
 the rebellion itself. "A slight demonstration," 
 it was believed, would " have the effect" to ar- 
 rest the rebels in their madness, and re-estab- 
 lish order and peace in about " sixty days," 
 without allowing them to be seriously hurt, and 
 without unchaining the tiger of war at all. The 
 philosophy of General Patterson, who kindly- 
 advised that the war on our part should be 
 " conducted on peace principles," was by no 
 means out of fashion with our rulers, and the 
 conservative leaders of opinion generally. 
 Even the Commander-in-Chief of our Army 
 and Navy scouted tlie idea of putting down the 
 rebellion by military power. He thought the 
 country was to be saved by giving up the prin- 
 ciples it had fairly won by the ballot in the year 
 18G0, and to the maintenance of which the new 
 Administration was solemnly pledg(»d. He be- 
 lieved in " conciliation," in " compromise " — 
 the meanest word iu the whole vocabulary of 
 
E4 5? 
 
 . ;> 
 
 our politics, except, perhaps, the word " con- 
 servative " — and Lad far less faith in the help 
 of bullets and bajouets iu managing the rebels 
 than iu the power of our brotherly love to melt 
 their susceptible hearts, and woo them back, 
 gently and lovingly, to a sense of their madness 
 and their crime. Our distinguished Secretary 
 of State declared that ♦• none but a despotic or 
 imperial Government would seek to subjugate 
 thoroughly disaffected sovereignties." The pol- 
 icy of coercing the revolted States was disa- 
 vowed by the Tresident himself in bis message 
 to Congress of July, 1861. 
 
 Nor did the legislative department of the 
 Government, at that time, disagree with the 
 executive, On the 22d day of July of the same 
 year — and I say it with sorrow and shame— on 
 the very morning following the tirst battle qf 
 Bull Run, the House of Representatives, speak- 
 ing iu the form of solemn legislative resolves, 
 as did the Senate two days later, declared that 
 it was not the purpose of the Government to 
 " subjugate" the villains who began this work 
 of organized and inexcusable rapine and mur- 
 der. Indeed, it was not then the fashion to 
 call them villains. In the very polite and gin- 
 gerly phrase of the times they were styled 
 '■ our misguided fellow-citizens," and " our err- 
 ing Southern brethren," while the rebel States 
 themselves were lovingly referred to as " our 
 wayward sisters." The "truth is, that for about 
 a year and a halt' of this war the policy of ten- 
 derness to the rebels so swayed the Administra- 
 tion that it seemed far less intent upon crush- 
 ing the rebellion by arms, than upon contriving 
 •' how 7iot to do it." General McClellan, who I 
 so long palsied the energies and balked the 
 l)urpose of the nation, would not allow an un- 
 kind word to be uttered in his presence against 
 the rebel leaders. If an officer or soldier was 
 heard to speak disrespectfully of the great con- 
 federate chief, he was summarily reprimanded, 
 while the uurivaled reprobate and grandest of 
 national cut-throats was pronounced a hifh- 
 souled gentleman and mau of honor! Not the 
 spirit of war, but the spirit of peace, seemed to 
 dictate our princij)lcs of action and measures 
 of policy toward the men who luxd resolved at 
 whatever hazard or sacrifice, to break up the 
 Government by force. This policy, sir, had it 
 been continued, would have proved the certain 
 triumph of the rebel cause. With grand ar- 
 mies in the field, and all the costly machinery 
 of war in our hands, our opportunities were 
 Binned away by inactivity and delay, while the 
 rebels gathered strength from our indecision 
 and weakness. A major general in our army, 
 and as brave and patriotic a man as lives, said 
 to me in the early stages of the war that tlie 
 grand obstacle to our success was the lack of 
 resentment on our part toward traitors. He 
 said we did not adequately hate them ; and he 
 urged me, if in any degree in my power, to 
 breathe into the hearts of the people in the 
 l(jyal States a spirit of righteous indignation 
 and wrath toward the rebels coniineusurate 
 with the unmatched enormity of their deeds. 
 
 This spirit, Mr. Chairman, was a military ne- 
 cessity. The absence of it furnishes the best 
 explanation of our failure during the period 
 referred to, while its acceptance by the Govern- 
 ment inaugurated the new policy which baa 
 ever since been giving us victories. 
 
 That this sickly policy of an inoffensive war 
 has naturally prolonged the struggle, and 
 greatly augmented its cost in blood and treas- 
 ure, no one cau doubt. That it belongs, with 
 its entire legacy of frightful results, exclu- 
 sively to the conservative element in our poli- 
 tics, which at first ruled the Government, is 
 equally certain. The radical men saw at first, 
 as clearly as they see to-daj-, the character and 
 spirit of this rebel revolt. The massacre at 
 Fort Pillow, the starvation of our soldiers at 
 Richmond, and the whole black catalogue of 
 rebel atrocities, have only been so many veri- 
 fied predictions of the men who had studied 
 the institution of slavery, and who regarded 
 the rebellion as the natural fruit and culmina- 
 tion of its Christless career. And hence it 
 was that in the very beginning of the war, 
 radical men were in favor of its vigorous prosl 
 ecution. They knew the foe with whom we 
 had to wrestle. In language employed on this 
 floor more than three years ago, they knew that 
 " sooner than fail in their purpose the rebels 
 would light up heaven itself with the red glare 
 of the pit, and convert the earth into a carnival 
 of devils." They knew that "every weapon 
 in the armory of war must be grasped, and 
 every arrow in our quiver sped toward the 
 heart of a rebel." They knew that "all ten- 
 derness to such a foe is treason to our cause, 
 murder to onr people, faithlessness to the grand- 
 est and holiest trust ever committed to a free 
 people." They knew that " the war should be 
 made just as terrific to the rebels as possible, 
 consistently with the laws of war, not as a 
 work of vengeance, but of mercy, and the 
 •surest means of our triumph." They knew 
 that in struggling with such a foe we were 
 shut up to one grand and inevitable necessity 
 and duty, and that was entire and absolute 
 suhjuijation. All this was avowed and insisted 
 upon by the earnest men who understood the 
 nature of the conflict, and as persistently dis- 
 avowed and repudiated by the Government 
 and its conservative advisers. 
 
 liut a lime came when its lessons had to be 
 unlearned. In the school of trial it was forced 
 to admit that war does not mean peace 
 but exactly the opposite of peace. Slowly, 
 and step by step, it yielded up its theories 
 and brought itself face to face with the stern 
 facts of the crisis. The Government no longer 
 gets frightened at the word sul jugate, because 
 of its literal etymology, but is manfully and 
 successfully endeavoring to place the yoke of 
 tlie Constitution upon the unbaptised necks of 
 the scoundrels who have thrown it off. The 
 war is now recognized as a struggle of numbers, 
 of desperate physical violence, to be fought 
 out to the bitter end, without stopping to count 
 its cost in money or in blood. Both the pec- 
 
B 
 
 pie and our armies, under this ne^ dispensa- 
 tion, have been learning how lo hate rebels as 
 Christian patriots ought to have done from the 
 beginning. They have been learning how to ] 
 hate rebel sympathizers also, and to brand them 
 as even meaner than rebels outright. They 
 regard the open-throated traitor, who stakes 
 his life, his property, his all, upon the success 
 of his conspiracy against the Constitution aud 
 the rights of man, as a more tolerable charac- 
 ter than the skulking miscreant who in his 
 heart wishes the rebellion God-speed, while 
 masquerading in the hypocritical disguise of 
 loyalty. Had the Government been animated 
 by a like spirit at the beginning of the out- 
 break, practically accepting the truth that there 
 can be no middle ground between treason and 
 loyalty, rebel sympathizers would have given 
 the country far less trouble than they have 
 done. A little wholesome severity, summarily 
 administered, would have been a most sovereign 
 panacea. On this point the people were in ad- 
 vance of the Administration, and they are to- 
 I day. Their earnestness has not yet found a 
 I complete and authoritative expression in the 
 action of the Government. A system of retal- 
 iation, which would have been a measure of 
 real mercy, has not yet been adopted. Our 
 cause is not wholly rescued from the control of 
 conservative politicians and geaerals. Much 
 remains to be done ; but far more, certainly, 
 has already been accomplished. The times of 
 brotherly love towards rebels in arms have 
 gone by forever. Such men as McGlellan, 
 Bueli, and Filz John Poner, are generally out 
 of the way, and men who believe in iightivij 
 ' rebels are in active command. This revolution 
 in the war policy of the Government, as already 
 observed, was absolutely necessary to the sal- 
 vation of our cause ; and the country will not 
 soon forget those earnest men who at first com- 
 prehended the crisis and the duty, and persist- 
 ently urged a vigorous policy, suited to re- 
 morseless and revolution:iry violence, till the 
 Government felt constrained to embrace it. 
 
 Bat a vigorous prosecution of the war, 5Ir. 
 Chairman, was not enough. While this strug- 
 gle is one of numbers and of violence, it is 
 likewise, and still more emphatically, a war of 
 ideas ; a conflict between two forms of civiliza- 
 tion, each wresting for the mastery of the 
 country. No one now pretends to dispute this, 
 I nor is it easy to understand how any one could 
 ever have failed to perceive it. But the Gov- 
 ' ernment, in the beginning, did not believe it. 
 It tried, with all its might, not to believe it. and 
 to persuade the world to disbelieve it. It in- 
 sisted that the real cause of the war did not 
 cause it at all. The rebellion was the work of 
 chance; a stupendous accident, leaping into 
 life fall-grown, without father or mother, with- 
 out any discoverable genesis. It was a huge, 
 black, portentous, national riot, which must be 
 suppressed, but nobody was to be allowed to 
 say cne word about the causes which produced 
 it, or the issues involved in the struggle. Si- 
 lence was to be our supreme wisdom. Hence 
 
 it was that the Government, speaking through 
 its high functionaries, declared that the slavery 
 question was not involved in the quarrel, and 
 that every .slave in bondage would remain in 
 exactly the same condition after the war as be- 
 fore. Hence it was that, when a celebrated 
 proclamation was issued, giving freedom to 
 slaves of rebels in Missouri, it was revoked by 
 the Government in order to please the State of 
 Kentucky, and placate the power that began 
 the war. Hence, under General H.iUeck's 
 " Oraer No. 3," which remained in force more 
 than a year, the swarms of contrabands who 
 came thronging to our lines, tendering us the 
 use of their muscles and the secrets of itie rebel 
 prison-house, were driven away by our com- 
 manders. Hence it was that our soldiers were 
 compelled to serve as slave-hounds in chasing 
 down fugitives and sending them back to rebel 
 masters, and that General McGlellan, who al- 
 ways loved slavery more than he loved his 
 country, and who declared he would put down 
 slave insurrections •' with an iron hand," was 
 continued as commander-in-chief of our armies 
 long months after the country desired to spew 
 him out. Hence, likewise, so many thousands 
 of our soldiers were compelled to dig and ditch 
 in the swamps of the Chickahominy till the 
 cold sweat of death gathered on the handle of 
 the spade, while swarms of stalwart negroes, 
 able to relieve them and eager to do so, were 
 denied the privilege, lest it should ofl'end the 
 nostrils of democratic gentility, and give aid 
 and comfort to the Abolitionists. Hence it 
 was that the President, instead of striking at 
 slavery as a military necessity, and while re- 
 buking that policy in his dealings with Hunter 
 and Fremont, was at the same time so earnestly 
 espousing chimerical projects for the coloniza- 
 tion of negroes, coupled with the policy of 
 gradual and compensated emancipation, which 
 should take place some time before the year 
 1000, if the slaveholders should be willing. 
 Hence it was that very soon after the Adminis- 
 tration had been installed in power it bt-gau to 
 lose sight of the principles on which it hadtri- 
 umnhed in 1860, allowing four-fifths of the of- 
 fices of the army and navy to be held by men of 
 known hostility to those principles, while the 
 various departments of the Government iu this 
 city were largely filled by rebel sympathizers. 
 Hence it was that for nearly two years of this 
 war the Government, while smiting the rebels 
 with one hand, was with the other guarding 
 the slave property and protecting the constitu- 
 tional rights of the men who had renounced 
 the Constitution, and ceased lo have any rights 
 under it save the right to its penalty against 
 traitors. Hence it was that during the greater 
 part of this time the Administration stood upon 
 the platform and urged the policy of "the Con- 
 stitution as it is and the Union as it was,'' 
 which the nation so overwhelmingly repudiated 
 in the late presidential contest. Hence it was 
 finally, that the songs of Whittier could not bo 
 sung in our armies ; that slavery waa every- 
 where dealt with by the Goverament as the 
 
dear child of its love ; and that our rulers 
 seemed, with matchless impiety, to hope for 
 the ftivor of God without laying hold of the 
 conscience of our cjuarrel, and by coolly kicking 
 it out of doors I Sir, I believe it safe to say 
 that this madness cost the nation the precious 
 sacrifice of fifty thousand soldiers, who have 
 gone up to the throne of God as witnesses 
 against the horrid infatuation that so long 
 shaped the policy of the Government in resist- 
 ing this slaveholders' rebellion. 
 
 liut here, again, Mr. Chairman, the Govern- 
 ment had to unlearn its first lessons. Its pur- 
 pose to crush the rebellion and spare slavery 
 was found to be utterly suicidal to our cause. 
 It was a purpose to accomplish a moral impos- 
 sibility, and was therefore prosecuted, if not. 
 conceived, in the interest of the rebels. It was 
 an attempt to marry treason and loyalty ; for 
 the rebellion is slavery, armed with the powers 
 of war, organized for wholesale schemes of ag- 
 gression, and animated by the overflowing full- 
 ness of its infernal genius. The strength of 
 our cause lies in its righteousness, and there- 
 fore no bargain with the devil could possibly 
 give it aid. Through great sulferiug and sacri- 
 fice, individual and national, our rulers learned 
 that there is but " one strong thing here below, 
 the just thing, the true thing," and that God 
 would not allow these severed States to be re- 
 united without the abandonment, forever, of 
 our great national sin. This was a difficult 
 lesson, but as it was gradually mastered the 
 Government " changed its base." It became 
 disenchanted. Congress took the lead in ush- 
 ering in the new dispensation. A new Article 
 of War was enacted, forbidding our armies from 
 returning fugitive slaves. Slavery was abol- 
 ished in the District of Columbia, and prohib- 
 ited in our national Territories, where it had 
 been i)lanted by the dogma of popular sover- 
 eignty and the Dred Scott decision. Our Fed- 
 eral judiciary was so reorganized as to make 
 sure this anti-slavery legislation of Congress. 
 The confiscation of slaves was provided for, 
 and freedom offered to all who would come over 
 and help us, either as laborers or soldiers, thus 
 annulling the famous and infmnous order of 
 General Halleck, already referred to. The fu- 
 gitive slave law was at first made void as to the 
 slaves of rebels, and finally repealed altogether, 
 with the old law of 1793. The coastwise slave 
 trade, a frightful system of home i)iracy, carried 
 on by authority of Congress since the year 1807, 
 was totally abolished. The right of testimony 
 in our Federal courts, and to sue and be sued, 
 was conferred upon negroes. Their einploy- 
 ment as soldiers was at last systematically pro- 
 vided for, and their j)ay at length maile the 
 same as that of white soldiers. 'J'ho indepen- 
 dence of Ilayti and Liberia was recognized, and 
 new measures taken to put an end to the Afri- 
 can slave trade. In thus wiping out our code 
 of national slave laws, acknowledgihgthe man- 
 Bood of the negro, and recognizing (slavery as 
 the enemy of our peace, Congress emphatically 
 rebuked the policy which had sought to ignore 
 
 it, and to shield it from the destructive band of 
 the war instigated by itself; while it opened 
 the way for further and inevitable measures of 
 justice, looking to his complete emancipation 
 from the dominion of Anglo-Saxon prejudice, 
 the repeal of all special legislation intended for 
 his injury, and his absolute restoration to equal 
 rights with the white man as a citizen as well 
 as a soldier. 
 
 Meanwhile, the President bad been giving 
 the subject his sober second thought, and re- 
 considering his position at the beginning of the 
 conflict. Instead of affirming, as at first, that 
 the question of slavery was not involved in the 
 struggle, he gradually perceived and finally 
 admitted that it was at once the cause of the 
 war and the obstacle to peace. Instead of re- 
 solving to save the Union with slavery, he finally 
 resolved to save the Union without it, and by 
 its destruction. Instead of entertaining the 
 country with projects of gradual and distant 
 emancipation, conditioned upon compensation 
 to the master and the colonization of the freed- 
 men, he himself finally launched the policy of 
 immediate and unconditional liberation. In- 
 stead of recoiling from "radical and extreme 
 measures," and '"a remorseless revolutionary 
 conflict," he at last marched up to the full 
 height of the national emergency, and pro- 
 claimed " to all whom it may concern," that 
 slavery must parish. Instead of a constitu- 
 tional amendment for the purpose of eternizing 
 the institution in the Republic, indorsed by 
 him in his inaugural message, he became the 
 zealous advocate of a constitutional amend- 
 ment abolishing it forever. Instead of com- 
 mitting the fortunes of the war to pro-slavery 
 commanders, whose hearts were not in the 
 work, he learned how to dispense with their 
 services, and find the proper substitutes. These 
 forward movements were not ventured upon 
 hastily, but after much hesitation and apparent 
 reluctance. Not suddenly, but following great 
 deliberation and many misgivings, he issued 
 his proclamation of freedom. Months after- 
 ward he doubted its M'isdom ; but it was a 
 grand step forward, which at once severed his 
 relations with his old conservative friends, and 
 linked his fortunes thenceforward to those of 
 the men of ideas and of progress. Going hand 
 in hand with Congress in the great advance 
 measures referred to, or acquiescing in their 
 adoption, the whole i)olicy of the Administra- 
 tion has been revolutionized. Abolitionism and 
 loyalty are now accepted as convertible terms, 
 and so are treason and slavery. Our covenant 
 with death is annulled. Our national partner- 
 ship with Satan hns been dissolved; and just 
 in proportion as this has been done, and an 
 alliance sought with divine Providence, has the 
 cause of our country prospered. In a word, 
 Radicalism has saved our nation from the 
 political damnation and ruin to which conser- 
 vatism would certainly have consigned it; 
 while the mistakes and failures of the Ad- 
 ministration stand confessed in its new policy, 
 which alono can vindicate its wisdom, com- 
 
inand the respect and gratitude of the people, 
 and save it from humiliation and disgrace. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, these lessons of the past sug- 
 gest the true moral of this great conflict, and 
 make the way of the future plain. The)' de- 
 mand a vigorous prosecution of the war by all 
 the powers of war, and that the last vestige of 
 slavery shall be scourged out of life. Let the 
 Administration falter on either of these points 
 and the people will disown its policy. They 
 have not chosen the President for another term 
 through any secondary or merely personal con- 
 siderations. In the presence of so grand an 
 issue, men were nothing. They had no faith iu 
 General McClellan and the party leaders at his 
 heels. They had little faith in the early policy 
 of Mr. Lincoln, when Democratic ideas ruled 
 his Administration, and the power of slavery 
 held him in its grasp. Had his appeal to the 
 people been made two years earlier, he would 
 have been as overwhelmingly repudiated as he 
 has been gloriously indorsed. The people sus- 
 tain him now, because of their assured faith 
 that he will not hesitate to execute their will. 
 In voting for him for a second term, they voted 
 for liberating and arming the slavi s of the South 
 to crush out a slaveholders' rebellion. They 
 voted that the Republic shall live, and that 
 whatever is necessary to save its life shall be 
 done. They voted that slavery shall be eter- 
 nally doomed, and future rebellions thus made 
 impossible. They voted, not that Abraham Lin- 
 coln can save the country, but that they can 
 save it, with him as their servant. That is what 
 was decided in the late elections. I have par- 
 ticipated, somewhat actively, in seven presi- 
 dential contests, and 1 remember none in which 
 the element of personal enthusiasm had a 
 smaller share than that of last November. One 
 grand and overmastering resolve filled the 
 hearts and swayed the purposes of the masses 
 everywhere, and that was the rescue of the 
 country through the defeat of the Chicago plat- 
 form and conspirators. In the execution of 
 that resolve they lost sight of everything else ; 
 but should the President now place himself in 
 the people's way, by reviving the old policy of 
 tenderness to the rebels and their beloved insti- 
 tution, the loyal men of the country will aban- 
 dou his policy as decidedly as they have sup- 
 ported it generously. They have not approved 
 the mistakes either of the legislative or execu- 
 tive department of the Government, they ex- 
 pect that Congress will pass a bill for the con- 
 liscation of the fee of rebel landholders, and 
 they expect the President will approve it. They 
 expect that Congress will provide for the recon- 
 struction of the rebel States by systematic legis- 
 lation, which shall guaranteerepublican govern- 
 ments to each of those States, and the com- 
 plete enfranchisement of the negro ; and they 
 will not approve, as they have not approved, of 
 any executive interference with the people's will 
 as deliberately expressed by Congress. They 
 expect that Congress will provide for parceling 
 out the forfeited and confiscated lands of rebels 
 in small homestejids among the soldiers and 
 
 seamen of the war, as a fit reward for their 
 valor, and a security against the ruinous mo- 
 nopoly of the soil in the South ; and they will 
 be disappointed should this great measure fail 
 through the default either of Congress or the 
 Executive. They demand a system of just re- 
 taliation against the rebels for outrages com- 
 mitted upon our prisoners ; that a policy of 
 increasing earnestness and vigor shall prevail 
 till the war shall be ended ; and that no hope 
 of peace shall be whispered, save on condition 
 of an absolute and unconditional surrender to 
 our authority ; and the Government will only 
 prolong the war by standing iu the way of these 
 demands. This is emphatically the people's 
 war ; and it will not any longer suffice to say 
 that the people are not ready for all necessary 
 measures of success. The people would have 
 been ready for such measures from the begin- 
 ning, if the Government had led the way. At 
 every stage of the contest they have hailed 
 with joy every earnest man who came forward, 
 and every vigorous war measure that has been 
 proposed. So long as the war was conducted 
 under the counsels of conservatives, and in the 
 interests of slavery, the people clamored against 
 the Administration ; but just so soon as the 
 Government entered upon a vigorous policy, and 
 proclaimed war agHinst slavery, the people be- 
 gan to shout for the Union and liberty. In the 
 fall of 1862, before the Administration was di- 
 vorced from its early policy, the Union party 
 was overwhelmed at the polls. But we tri- 
 umphed the next year, and gloriously triumphed 
 last year, because the Government yielded to 
 the popular demand. The plea often urged 
 that the people were not ready, is less a fact 
 than a pretext. The men who loved slavery 
 more than they loved the Union were never 
 ready for radical measures. They are not ready 
 to-day. On the other baud, the men who were 
 all the while unconditionally for the Union 
 would have sustained the Administration far 
 more heartily in the most thorough and sweep- 
 ing war measures, than they sustained its pol- 
 icy of delaying those measures to the last hour. 
 The truth is, the people have stood by the Gov- 
 ernment for the sake of the cause, whether its 
 policy pleased them or not. Their faith and 
 patience have been singularly unflinching 
 throughout the entire struggle. They would not 
 distrust the President without the strongest 
 reasons. They were ever ready to credit him 
 with good intentions, and to presume in favor 
 of his superior means of knowledge. When 
 General Fremont was recalled from Missouri, 
 and Genei-al Butler from New Orleans, the peo- 
 ple pocketed their deep disappointment, and 
 quietly acquiesced. When General Buell was 
 kept in command so long after his inelliciency 
 had been demonstrated and his loyalty ques- 
 tioned, both by the country and the men under 
 his command, the people bore it with uncom- 
 mon patience and long-suilering. They dis- 
 played the same virtues in the case of General 
 McClellan, and other rebel sympathizers, who 
 found favor with the Admiuiatration long after 
 
the country would have sent them adrift. Sir, 
 this feeling of unconquerable respect for our 
 chosen rulers, this Anglo-Sfixon regard for con- 
 stituted authority, has been evinced by the 
 people through all the phases of the war. Mosi 
 Hssuredly it would not have been found want- 
 ing had the Government inaugurated a radical 
 policy, instead of a conservative one, during the 
 first year and a half of the struggle. The 
 people who endure<l McL'lellan, and Uuell, and 
 Halleck, would have endured Fremont, and 
 Hunter, and Butler. If the conservative Union- 
 ists of Kentucky were not ready for the procla- 
 mation of freedom to the slaves of Missouri 
 rebels, there were millions of people outside of 
 Kentucky who were not ready to have it re- 
 voked. I agree that slavery had done much to 
 drug the conscience of the country with its in- 
 sidious poison. I know that we had so long 
 made our bed with slaveholders that kicking 
 them out was rather an awkward business. 
 As brethren, living under a common Govern- 
 ment, we had long journeyed together, and our 
 habits and traditions naturally took the form 
 of obstacles to a just policy in dealing with 
 them as rebels and public enemies. It was by 
 no means easy at once to recognize them as 
 such. All this is granted, and that in the be- 
 ginning the country was not prepared for every 
 radical measure of legislation and war now 
 being employed by the Government. But it 
 was the duty of the Administration to do its 
 part in preparing the country. Clothed with 
 solemn official authority, and intrusted by the 
 nation with the sworn duty of serving it in such 
 a crisis, it had no right to become the foot-ball 
 of events. It had no right, at such a time, to 
 make itself, a negitivo expression, or an un- 
 known quantity, in the algebra which was to 
 work out the grand problem. It had no right 
 to take shelter beneath a debauched and sickly 
 public sentiment, and plead it in bar of the 
 great duty imposed upon it by the crisis. It 
 had no right, certainly, to lag behind that sen- 
 timent, (o magnify its extent and potency, and 
 to become its virtual ally, instead of endeavor- 
 ing to control it, and to indoctrinate the 
 country with ideas suited to the emergency. 
 Tbe power of the Government in molding the 
 general opinion and feeling was immense, and 
 its responsibility must be measured accordingly. 
 The revocation of the first anti-slavery procla- 
 mation of this war cliilled the heart of every 
 earnest loyalist in the land, and came like a 
 trumpet-call to the pro-slavery hosts to rally 
 and stand together. They obeyed it, and from 
 that event dates the birth of organized copper- 
 head democracy. The I'ebels of the South and 
 their sympathizers in the North felt that they 
 had gained an ally in the President. Had he 
 sustained that measure, would not its moral 
 effect have been at leant as potent on the other 
 aide '! Had his ollicial name and sanction been 
 as often given to tiie cause of radicalism as 
 they were lent to that of pro-slavery conserva- 
 tism would not the country have been much 
 eoouer prepared for the saving aad only policy ? 
 
 If he had said, early in the struggle, "to all 
 whom it may concern," what he says now, that 
 slavery is tbe nation's enemy, and therefore must 
 be destroyed, instead of sheltering it under the 
 Constitution and sparing it from the hand of 
 war, how grandly could he have "organized 
 victory" and multiplied himself among the 
 people ! Sir, our traditionary respect for slavery 
 and slaveholders was our grand peril. It 
 stood up as an impassable barrier in the way 
 of any successful war for the Union. So long 
 as it was allowed to dominate, it unnerved the 
 arm of the Government and deadened the spirit 
 of the people. It made the Old World our ene- 
 my, and threatened us v/ith foreign war. The 
 mission of the Government was not to make 
 this feeling stronger by deferring to it, or to 
 doom the country to a prolonged war and de- 
 plorable sacrifices as the best means of teaching 
 the people the truth. No. The country needed 
 a speedy exodus from the bondajje of false 
 ideas, and the Government should have pointed 
 the way. A frank statement by it of the real 
 issue of the war, without any disposition to 
 cover up the truth : an unmistaka'de hostility 
 to slavery as the organized ctirse, without which 
 the rebellion would have been impossible; and 
 the timely utterance in its leading State papers 
 of a few bold and spirit-stirring words which 
 might have been "half battles," appealing to 
 the courage and manhood of the nation, would 
 have gone far to educate the judgment and 
 conscience of the people, and command their 
 enthusiastic espousal of whatever measures 
 would jjromise most siteedily to end the strug- 
 gle and economize its cost in property and life. 
 Mf. Chairman, I take no pleasure, certainly, in 
 thus freely di>jcu3s-ing the policy of the Gov- 
 ernment in its endeavors to meet its great re- 
 sponsibilities during this war. I have only 
 referred to its mistakes a^ a servant of the 
 truth, and in the name of the great cause 
 which has been made to suffer. I believe, re- 
 ligiously, in the freedom of speech. From the 
 beginning of the war 1 liave exercised the right 
 of frank, friendly, and fearless criticism of tlie 
 conduct of our rulers, wherever 1 believed them 
 to have been in the wrong. I shall continue 
 to exercise it to the end ; and if I should not, 
 through any personal or prudential considera- 
 tions, I would be unworthy of the seat I have 
 occupied on this floor. Criticism has dictated 
 the present policy of the Government, and is 
 still a duty. Thi-i great battle for the rights 
 of man, and the actors in it, must be judged. 
 None of them can " escane history." The 
 fame of none of thein is so precious a.<» the 
 truth, and us public justice, which cares for 
 the dead as well as the living, for the common 
 soldiers slain by thousands, as well as for the 
 genenil and the statesman. The President, 
 his advisers, his commanding generals, and the 
 civilians whose shaping hamis have had so 
 much to do with the conduct of the war, must 
 all of them be weighed in the balance by the 
 people and the generations to come. "The 
 great soul of tbe world is just," and soonor or 
 
later all disguises will be thrown off, and every 
 historical character will stand forth as he is, 
 in the light of his deeds and deserts. The 
 men who have been intrusted with the concerns 
 of the nation in this momentous crisis will not 
 be judged harshly. Much will be forgiven or 
 excused on the score of the surpassing magni- 
 tude and difficulty ot their work. Justice will 
 be done ; but that justice may brand as a 
 crime, the bhinders proceeding from a feeble, 
 timid, ambidextrous policy, resulting in great 
 sacrifices of life and treasure, and periling the 
 priceless interests at stake. I would award all 
 due honor to this Administration, and to the 
 statesmen and generals who have been faithful 
 to their high trusts; but I would award an 
 equal honor to the rank and file of the people, 
 who have inspired its present policy, and to the 
 rank and file of our soldiers, who have saved 
 the country in spite of the mistakes of the 
 Government, the strifes of our politicians, and 
 the rivalries of our generals. These are 
 the real heroes of the war. Untitled, practi- 
 cally unrewarded, facing every form of priva- 
 tion and danger, and animated by the purest 
 patriotism, the common soldier is not only the 
 true hero of the war, but the real saviour of 
 Lis country. 
 
 But a higher honor, if not a more enduring 
 fame, will be the heritage of the anti-slavery 
 pioneers and prophets of our land; for 
 " Peace bath higher tests of manhood 
 Ihan battle ever knew.'' 
 
 Without their heroic labors and sacrifices the 
 Republic, " heir of all the ages," would have 
 been the mightiest slave empire of the world. 
 In an age of practical atheism and mammon- 
 ■wor.-hip, when the Church and the State joined 
 hands with Slavery as the new trinity of the 
 nation's faith, they really believed in God, in 
 justice, in the resistless might of the truth. 
 They believed that liberty is the birthright of 
 all men, and their grand mission was the prac- 
 tical vindication of this truth. They believed, 
 with their whole hearts, in the Declaration of 
 Independence. They accepted its teachings as 
 coincident with the gospel of Christ, and sup- 
 ported by reason and justice. It was their 
 ceaseless " battle-cry of freedom," and they 
 chanted it as " the fresh, the matin song of the 
 universe," to the enslaved of all races and 
 lands. They were branded as fanatics and in- 
 fidels, and encountered everywhere the hoot- 
 ings of the multitude and the scorn of politi- 
 cians and priests ; but I know of no class of 
 men who were ever more far-sighted, whose 
 convictions rested on so broad a basis of Chris- 
 tian morals and logic, and whose religious trust 
 was so strong and so steadfast. For them 
 there was no " eclipse of faith." Just as the 
 nation began to lapse from the grand ideas of 
 our revolutionary era, they began to "cry 
 aloud and spare not," and they never ceased 
 or slackened their labors. Placing their ears 
 to the ground in the infancy and weakness of 
 their movement, they caught the rumbling 
 thunders of civil war in the distance, warned 
 the country of its danger, and preached repent- 
 
 ance as the chosen and only means of escape. 
 They were compelled to face mobs, violence, 
 persecution, and death, and were always mis- 
 understood or misrepresented : but they never 
 faltered. Reputation, honors, property, world- 
 ly ease, were all freely laid upon the altar of 
 duty, in their resolve to vindicate the rights of 
 man and the freedom of speech. To follow 
 these apostles and martyrs was to forsake all 
 the prizes of life which worlaly prudence or 
 ambition could value or covet. It was to take 
 up the heaviest cross yet fashioned hv this 
 century as the test of Christian character and 
 heroism ; and those who bore it were far braver 
 spirits than the men who fight our battles on 
 land and sea. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the failure of men thus de- 
 voted to a great and holy cause was morally 
 impossible. They could not fail. Through 
 their courage, constancy, and faith, they gradu- 
 ally received the co-operation or sympathy of 
 the better type of men of all parties and creeds. 
 They seriously disturbed, or broke in pieces, 
 the great political and ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tions of the land ; and even before this war 
 their ideas were rapidly taking captive the 
 popular heart. When it came, they saw, as by 
 intuition, tbe character of the struggle, as the 
 final phase of slaveholding madness and crime, 
 and insisted upon the early adoption of thai, 
 radical policy which the Government at last was 
 compelled to accept. I believe it safe to say 
 that the moral appeals and persistent criticism 
 of these men, and of the far greater numbers 
 who borrowed or sympathized with their views, 
 saved our cause from the complete control of 
 conservatism, and thus saved the country itself 
 from destruction. Going at once to the heart 
 of our great conflict, they pointed out the only 
 remedy, and felt compelled to reprobate the 
 failure of the Government to adopt it. They 
 judged its policy in war, as they had done ia 
 peace, in the light of its fidelity or infidelity to 
 human rights. By this test tliey tried every 
 man and party, and they need ask for no other 
 rule of judgment lor themselves. The Admin- 
 istration, and the chief actors in this drama of 
 war, of whatever political school, must be 
 weighed in the same great balance. Not even 
 the founders of th'e Republic will be spared 
 from the trial. In their compromise with 
 slavery in the beginning, which is now seen 
 to have been the genu of this horrid conflict, they 
 "swerved from the right."' Posterity must so 
 pronounce ; and the record which dims the 
 luster of their great names will be read in tlie 
 flames of this war as a warning against all fu- 
 ture compacts with evil. Justice to public men 
 is as certain as that truth is omnipotent. It 
 may be delayed for a season ; it may be bidden 
 from the vision of men of little faith ; but its 
 final triumph is sure. To the world's true he- 
 roes and confessors history ever sends its word 
 of cheer : 
 
 " The good can well afford to wait; 
 
 Give ermined kuavcs their liour of crime ; 
 Ye have the future, grand and groat, 
 The safe appeal of truth to lime." 
 
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