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 Copy 1 
 
 TRIAL 
 
 AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 DELIVEEED AT LAKE CITY, mNN., JULY, 1864. 
 
 HON. MELVILLE C. SMITH. 
 
 Peace 1 blessed and gracious peace 1 Men of the United States 
 that boon is to be sought across the battle-field.— H. Winter Datib. 
 
 Not as we hoped ; but what are we ? 
 Above our broKcn droams and plans 
 God lays, with wiser hands than man's 
 The corner-stones of Libebtt. — Whittibr. 
 
 Be jufet and fear not : 
 Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, 
 Thy God's, and truth's.— Shakspeare. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE 
 UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, 
 
THE DIVINE ORDEAL. 
 
 Oil, God of our Fathers, of Justice and Liberty ! 
 Lend the light of thy smile in our Nation's dark night. 
 Broad over her sins, spread thy mantle of Charity, 
 Bless her arm and her faith in defence of the RIGHT I 
 
 Fellow-Citizens : 
 
 This fiery ordeal through which our country is passing — the 
 furnace-heat of affliction in which it is being tried ; the land 
 wet with fratei-nal blood, and trembling beneath the tread of 
 contending armies, spreading sorrow, desolation and death ; 
 while the nation beholds her life flowing out like a mighty river, 
 and stands appalled as she gazes with ghastly eyes into the dark 
 abyss of dissolution — brings-usface to face with the questions 
 we have met to consider. 
 
 Why, tlien, is it, grim War stalks through the land ? Why 
 these gory battle-fields and silent grave-yards ? Why is blood 
 on the nation's garments, and sorrow in the nation's heart ? 
 Three short years ago our land was the abode of peace and 
 happiness. No other was as highly favored — enjoyed as great 
 civil and religious liberty — was as blessed in every ramification 
 of society. As a nation we had grown as by enchantment, and 
 every sea was white with the sails of our prosperity. We were 
 not only cherished with paternal care at home, but even in the 
 remote islands of the sea, felt the strong arm of the nation's 
 protection, till it was better to have been born an American 
 than a King. The vast extent of our national domain ; our 
 untold resources, rapid increase in population, progress in 
 science, .art and literature, under the fostering care of Republi- 
 can institutions, inspiring liberty-loving hearts, the world over ; 
 
4 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 exciting fears of usurpers every where, and forcing admiration 
 and respect even from kings and despots — our country stood 
 forth alike the wonder and admiration of the age. 
 
 OUR NATIONAL DISEASE. 
 
 Such, apparently, was our national condition and thus were 
 we regarded. But beneath all there was a canker gnawing at 
 the nation's heart, a worm eating at its vitals, a venomous ser- 
 pent poisoning its life-blood and corrupting its soul. It was 
 possessed of a devil — slavery ! This is the serpent that 
 entered our Republican Eden, blighting our hopes and blasting 
 our prosperity. This that has palsied the public conscience 
 and dragged the nation to its slaugliter-cart through the blood 
 of its sins and the filth of its iniquities ; this that has clothed 
 the nation in the habiliments of mourning, sunk it in melan- 
 choly, and thrown over it the solemnity of the tomb. This is 
 the source of our sorrows — the heartless fountain-head of our 
 universal lamentation and grief — this that causes strong men 
 to toil with heavy hearts, and soldiers to march the streets 
 with arms reversed, in token of respect to our loved and hon- 
 ored dead. It is the withering curse of Slavery ! — Slavery, that 
 like a foul spectre has invaded every hearth-stone, and with its 
 bloody hand plucked a flower from the wreath that encircled 
 the family altar ; Slavery, that having exhausted the catalogue 
 of lesser crimes, turned national assassin : and even this Re- 
 bellion, wicked and atrocious as it is, is but a symptom of the 
 disease — an outgrowth of this hell-born villainy. 
 
 This war is but a struggle between antagonistic principles, — 
 a hand-to-hand contest between right and wrong, justice and 
 injustice, liberty and slavery, God and the Devil. Stripped 
 of its cob-webs, shorn of its mean subterfuges, it is this — only 
 this. Milton in portraying the conflict between Gabriel and 
 Lucifer had no better example. Heaven and Hell could not 
 have an issue more absolute and perpendicular. No human 
 agency can thrust itself between the opposing forces. The issue 
 is made, the conflict has begun ; Treason cast the die ; Slavery 
 has crossed the Rubicon and challenges Freedom to battle. 
 " By the Eternal " she sliall be met I 
 
TEIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 5 
 
 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY, THE COMBATANTS. 
 
 Behold the combatants ! Look upon the distorted features of 
 Slavery, frenzied with passion, purple with audacity, grim with 
 brutal instincts, and black with sin ! She bends her bow with 
 a poisoned arrow — holds in her skeleton hand the shackle and 
 the brandino- iron ; and at her back are the blood-hound, 
 auction block and burning fagot. She was conceived in sin, 
 brought forth in iniquity, has feasted upon the blood of inno- 
 cence, and is backed by all the imps of hell. 
 
 Freedom, unappalled, is radiant with divine love ; her heart 
 is nerved with unfaltering faith ; she is mailed in tlie armor of 
 justice ; with eagle eye and divine certainty she measures the 
 Moloch which, under Providence, she is to bind and band over 
 to God for judgment. She knows her ancient enemy. Angel 
 hands have already encircled her brow with the garlands of 
 victory and her face is wreathed with the smile of assured tri- 
 umph. Hers is the spirit of Liberty — part of the Divine in 
 man. It combines with his highest and noblest aspirations, and 
 constantly struggles toward the Godhead ; — advancing step by 
 step with tlie progress and development of the race. It is not 
 of low birth or sickly growth. Planted by the Divine hand, it 
 lias been bedewed with the tears of nations, watered with the 
 blood of heroes and enriched by the ashes of noble martyrs ; 
 till now, in the noon of the nineteenth century, it has culmina- 
 ted n an issue between Liberty and Tyranny, good and evil, 
 the divine and devilish, in asublimer conflict, and on a grander 
 arena than the world before ever saw. 
 
 Such, fellow-citizens, are the combatants — such the princr 
 pies and issues between which we are to decide. To prove this, 
 and the better to understand each other, let us go back a little 
 in our national history ; actuated by a spirit of honest inquiry, 
 the lamp of our past experience may throw light on our future 
 pathway. 
 
 OUR NATIONAL BIRTH — SPIRIT OF THE FATHERS. 
 
 What, then, were the circumstances under which our Govern- 
 ment was founded, and what, at that eventful period, was the 
 spirit that inspired the fathers ? 
 
6 TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 The circumstances all converged toward liberty. The nation 
 ■was born of persecution, and .consecrated to Freedom by the 
 the blood of its martyrs. " Fo7' conscience' sah;,^^ they fled from 
 persecution in the Old World that they might enjoy religious 
 liberty in the New. Bidding farewell to home and its endear- 
 ments, they launched their frail bark on an unknown ocean, to 
 plant themselves on a barren and inhospitable shore ; their food, 
 their raiment and their strength, being the immortal principles 
 by which they were inspired. Certainly, if " prosperity begets 
 oppression," strength and success, slavery ; then colonies planted 
 by religious martyrs who braved ocean's storms, cold, hunger, 
 and the tomahawk of the merciless savage, must contain the 
 seeds of liberty. 
 
 Such were the circumstances ; and can we believe that while 
 these infant colonies were struggling for their very life against 
 famine, foreign exactions and brutal savages, or amid the trials 
 and bloody sacrifices of the Revolution, our fathers forgot their 
 faith and proved recreant to their high trust ? God forbid ! 
 Thank Heaven, they need no weak words of mine in their 
 vindication. 
 
 Let us turn to the pages of history, for as Lord Coke has 
 well said, " One man averreth one thing, and another, another ; 
 but the verity is the oxcord." 
 
 Listen to the words of the Continental Congress : — " Let it 
 ever be remembered that the rights for which we have con- 
 tended were the rights of hitman nadire." Read the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, proclaiming that " all men are created 
 EQUAL ;" the Constitution of the United States, solemnly de- 
 claring, that it was made " to establish justice and secure the 
 blessings of Liberty ." 
 
 Note the language of the General Assembly even of the Slave 
 State of Georgia : 
 
 " To show the world that we are not influenced by any interested or 
 contracted motives^ lut hy a general p}iilanthroj)y for all marikind, of 
 whatever climate, language or complexion^ we hereby declare our disap- 
 probation and abhorrence of the unnatural jjractice of slavery in America,'''' 
 
 Listen to the " Father of our Country : 
 
 .'» 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 7 
 
 " I can only say, that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely 
 than I do, to see a jAan adopted for the abolition of slavery.^'' 
 
 Hear James Madison : 
 
 " "We have seen mere distinction of color made, in tlie most enlightened 
 period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised iy 
 man over man." 
 
 Hear James Monroe : 
 
 " This evil (slavery) has preyed upon the very vitals of the Union, and 
 has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has existed." 
 
 Alexander Hamilton said : 
 
 "Natural liberty is the gift of the beneficent Creator to the ichole 
 human race^ 
 
 Franklin said : 
 
 " Slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature." 
 
 Patrick Henry said : 
 
 " I deplore slavery with all the pity of humanity ; I repeat again, it 
 would rejoice my soul that every one of my fellow- beings were emanci- 
 pated." 
 
 Hear tlie following charge from Thomas Jefferson against the 
 British King : 
 
 " He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its 
 most sacred rights of life and libei'ty in the persons of a distant people, 
 who never oflfended him, capturing and carrying them into slavery into 
 another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation 
 thither. This piratical tcnrfare, the opprobrium of infidel pozoei's, is the 
 warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep a 
 market where men should be bought and sold, he has at length prosti- 
 tuted his negative for suppressing any legislative attempt to j)rohibit and 
 restrain this execrable commerce.'^ 
 
 It is useless to adduce further evidence of a fact known to all 
 students of our early history, and not denied, by even the slave- 
 holders themselves. From their many admissions on the floors 
 of Congress, I submit the following : 
 
 " The gentleman refers to the sentiments of distinguished Revolution- 
 ary men, and asks me if I repudiate them. Sir, many of those sentiments^ 
 of course, I repudiate ; many of those sentiments are false in philosophy 
 and unsound in fact.'''' — Ex- Gov. Synith^ of Va. 
 
 " The Declaration of Independence has certain political and social 
 dogmas, some true and philosoj)hical, others fanatical and false." — U. S. 
 Senator Chestnut of S. C. 
 
8 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIC. 
 
 "Negro slavery is but in its infancy — it is a mere problem of our Gov- 
 vernment; our fathers did not understand it. I gkant that ax,l the 
 
 PUBLIC MEN OF THE SoUTH WEKE ONCE AGAINST IT, BUT THEY DID NOT 
 
 UNDERSTAND IT." — AUx. H. Stephens. 
 
 Thus page upon page might be given, proving our fathers' 
 love of liberty, and that they everywhere proclaimed to princes 
 and plebeians, to all nations, civilized and savage, that the rights 
 for which they contended were the rights of " Universal Human 
 Nature." This great fact is shown in all their acts, civil and 
 military. It is the idea that gleamed from their sabers, flashed 
 from their rifles, and thundered from their cannon — this that 
 nerved tlieir sturdy arms and inspired tlieir patriotic hearts. 
 They banished the word slavery from the Constitution ; barred 
 its polluting tread from every foot of national soil ; stigma- 
 tized the slave-trade as piracy ; organized emancipation socie- 
 ties, and looked forward prayerfully and trustfully to its 
 extinction, supposing, in their mistaken magnanimity, they were 
 extending to it the brief hospitality of a transient life. They 
 saw not the monster coiled in the serpent's egg, which the cotton 
 gin was to nourish into life ; nor the rise of wicked men who 
 would fold its coils around the statue of Liberty which they had 
 erected, until feasted and fattened upon the life of the nation, 
 it should, bloated with crimes, turn destroyer. They planted 
 the tree, which, had we properly pruned, would forever have 
 borne the fruits of liberty. Let the nation in its manhood be 
 as true to the spirit, as strong in the faith, as brave in the 
 defense of their Gospel of Liberty, as were the fathers in the 
 days of its infancy. 
 
 SLAVERY — ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 
 
 Slavery from the first has been our evil genius, and is in its 
 very nature, " evil and only evil, and that continually" It 
 chatelizes the black, brutalizes the white, and meanly robs 
 labor of its just reward ; it nullifies the relation of husband 
 and wife ; ruthlessly violates those of parent and child ; and 
 brutally makes merchandise of the bones, blood and souls of 
 men. It pays a premium on the basest licentiousness, by making 
 the sale of one's own offspring a profitable sin ; — incarcerates 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 9 
 
 the mother in a dungeon for teacliing the mutual child of her- 
 self and master to read the bible ; it strikes down every guar- 
 antee of human nature, and makes the charitable instincts of 
 iiumanity a crime ; tramples upon the attributes of the mind ; 
 dwarfs the soul, and lays waste the heart's best affections. It 
 has been well said, " the best of slavery, is but slavery at best." 
 It is the upas, rank with the blood of innocence, and with 
 deaft-dews dripping from its every leaf. It is the sinful em- 
 bodiment of the most monstrous crimes. More it could not be 
 — less tuoidd not be Slavery. 
 
 To us, as a nation, it has been the curse of cm-ses — a cancer 
 that no appliances could purify, no opiates soothe. It diffused 
 its leprous poison, palsying the nation's life, and corrupting its 
 heart — ite virus permeating the whole body, rendering the 
 South over-bearing, tyrannical and brutal ; the North truckling, 
 subservient, and despicable — dwarfing its manhood, yielding: 
 up its rigliis, and meanly submitting to the most unreason- 
 able exactioi\s. They knew " no North, no South, no East, no 
 "West," — no nothing / They mocked at higher law, and ruthlessly 
 trampled on the divine rights of humanity. 
 
 Slavery, at first weak, and existing by mere sufferance, but 
 favored by a congenial soil, vitalized by a wonderful mechan- 
 ical invention — at first tolerated, then fostered by the govern- 
 ment — gradually became a devouring monster. It made war 
 against weaker nations ; issued Ostend manifestoes, robbed and 
 fillibustered ; — demoralized our statesmen and debauched our 
 people ; while the church reposed in its slimy embrace, and it 
 roosted and rotted in the high places of power. It weakened 
 our friends abroad, and our best apologies have caused a blush 
 of shame to mantle our clieeks. It branded its degrading 
 character upon the brow of the nation ; fastened its fangs upon 
 her heart, and is to-day feasting upon her life's blood. 
 
 Here I would gladly drop this part of my subject, but as 
 Slavery and Rebellion are essentially one^ and as the pro- 
 slavery saints of these latter days attempt to defend their 
 atrocious assassination of the Government under the plea that 
 slavery is a blessing, and the rebellion the result of Northern 
 aggression, I must tarry by the way to tread down these 
 
10 TEIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 groundless assumptions, ^oulcl I had time to post the hoohs 
 in fall ; but upon tliis and all other points touched, I am com- 
 pelled, by the brief period allotted, to content myself with a 
 hurried statement of facts, without stopping to present proof ac 
 length, or to make extended comments. 
 
 Slavery a blessing ! How, and to whom ? How is it, tl at 
 there is, relatively, so much more ignorance, — so much iess 
 intelligence in the South, than North — there being, as com- 
 pared to the North, more than ten to one above the age of 
 twenty-one, who can neither read nor write? In Connecticut, 
 one in 568 — in North Carolina, one in every seven.* Massa- 
 chusetts, that State of blind fanaticism, has more volames in 
 its public libraries than all the slave states put together — gives 
 away yearly more to missionary and benevolent societies, and 
 prints and circulates as many newspapers, and has for the last 
 twenty years. One out of 2,362 of the population of Massa- 
 chusetts annually produces useful inventions, while in South 
 Carolina, one to 55,708, — twelve inventions in the whole State 
 all told. In the absence of information as to the character of 
 these, it would be reasonable to suppose the majority pertained 
 to improved shackles and thumb-screws ! 
 
 The direful effects of slavery upon soil, wealth and progress 
 in all their forms, are equally apparent. The little city of 
 Lowell produces fabrics exceeding in value more than one-half 
 the former exports of South Carolina. (She is exporting con- 
 siderably less for some seasons pastl) Tiicrefore, two cities 
 like Lowell, were of more commercial consideration than the 
 
 * It is shown in the tables given by Mr. Olmstead, in his " Sea-board 
 Slave States," that Maine with a native white population of 549,674, had 
 but 1,999 illiterate adults ; North Carolina, with 550,267, had 73,226 ; Mas- 
 sachusetts, with 819,044, had but 1,055 illiterate ; Virginia, with 871,393, 
 had 75,868. In Rhode Island, of 119,975, there were 981 illiterate ; in Lou- 
 isiana, of 187.558, there were 14,950. 
 
 The Census Report shows, that of native white and free colored, in Ala- 
 bama, 8'06 per cent, were illiterate, but in Connecticut only 0'39 per cent. ; 
 in Georgia, " the Empire State of the South,"' as she was called, 7'97 were 
 illiterate, but in Massachusetts, only 022 per cent. ; in South Carolina 5'99 
 per cent, were illiterate, but in New Hampshire, only 0'31, and in Maine, 
 but 0'39 — thus showing that while Loyalty follows Education, Treason and 
 Ignorance everywhere go hand in hand. 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 11 
 
 whole of this braggadocio State. The same lands which in 
 South Carolina, cursed with slavery, bring but two dollars per 
 acre, would, if situated in Massachusetts, bring $100. 
 
 Massachusetts, with a population of 1,231,065, and an area 
 of 7,800 square miles, has a valuation of $815,237,433. Vir- 
 ginia has a population of 1,399,731, and an area of 61,352 
 square miles, and a valuation of only $793,249,681 — less by 
 $21,937,752 than that of Massachusetts, Possessing an area 
 almost nine times as great as Massachusetts 5 water-power a 
 hundred-fold greater ] a soil of unsurpassed fertility ; rich mine- 
 ral deposits ; one of the best harbors on the continent ,• hundreds 
 of miles of navigable rivers ; yet with all these advantages — the 
 elements of an empire within herself — the real estate of the Old 
 Dominion is valued at $57,461,937 less than that of the little 
 Bay State. Her personal propert}^ — even including her 273,170 
 negro slaves, worth, at less than an average valuation, $150, 
 000,000— is estimated at $62,675,543 less than that of Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 Maryland and North Carolina together, having a population 
 of 281,327 greater than Massachusetts, and a joint area of 
 55,500 square miles, have a valuation — including slaves valued 
 at $229,800,000— less by $79,496,034 than Massachusetts. 
 The real estate of Massachusetts, with only 7,800 square miles 
 of sterile soil, is valued at $475,413,165, which is $31,821,345 
 more than the value of the real estate of North Carolina, South 
 Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas combined ! The real 
 property of New York exceeds by more than $10,000,000 the 
 combined valuation of the same kind of property in the States 
 of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, 
 Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas ! 
 
 The three States of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, 
 have a population of 9,133,511, which is 1,438,855 more than 
 the entire population, slave and free, of the eleven rebel 
 States, while these same States have a valuation of $119,781 ,815 
 greater than all the so-called Confederate States. And this 
 is the pitiful showing of the rebel States, even after allowing 
 them the undue advantage of reckoning their slaves boili as 
 property and population 1 
 
12 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN" REPUBLIC. 
 
 Now for a moment contrast New York with Virginia. By 
 the census we find that New York in 1790, contained 340,120 
 inhabitants, and Virginia 748.308. In 1850, just sixty years 
 afterward, the census shows New York to contain a population 
 of 3,097,394, and Virginia, 1,421,G61. 
 
 The exports of New York, in 1791, amounted to $2,505,465, 
 whilst the exports of Virginia were $3,130,865. In 1852, the 
 exports of New York amounted to $87,484,456, whilst tho.sc of 
 Virginia amounted to $2,724,657. The imports of the two 
 States in 1790 were nearly equal. In 1853, New York im- 
 ported the enormous sum of $178,270,999, and Virginia 8399,- 
 004 ! In 1850, the products of manufactures, mining, and the 
 mechanical arts in New York, amounted to $237,597,249 ; 
 those of Virginia amounted to only $29,705,387. In 1850, the 
 value of real and personal property in Virginia, including 
 negroes in the term " property," was $391,646,438 ; the same in 
 New York, exclusive of man-chattels, was $1,080,309,216. 
 
 In 1856, the real and personal property assessed in the city 
 of New York, was in the aggregate, $511,740,491, showing 
 that the city of New York can buy the whole State of Virginia, 
 negroes and " First Families " included, and have a surplus of 
 $120,094,053 for pocket change ! 
 
 The annual cotton crop of tlie South, previous to the rebellion, 
 amounted to $78,264,928. The hay crop of the free States 
 $142,138,998, or considerably more in value than all the coito?i, 
 tobacco, rice, hay, hemp, and sugar-cane of all the slave States 
 imt together! The wheat crop of 1862, while we were strug- 
 gling with this gigantic rebellion, amounted to $250,000,000 j 
 even our potatoes, for the same year, were worth in round num- 
 bers, $100,000,000, or nearly a quarter more than the kingly 
 crop of the South ; and the corn alone to 1449,000,000 — more 
 than five times the value of the boasted cotton crop. Cotton 
 never lias been king — certainly is not now, and never will be. 
 
 Thus, volumes might be cited showing, by facts and figures 
 arrayed in solid columns, that slavery is not only a political 
 and moral evil, but a financial curse to every rood of territory 
 upon which its dark shadow falls, and that beneath its polluted 
 tread, even the soil itself sickens and dies. 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 13 
 
 NORTHERN AGGRESSIONS. 
 
 New York, with a population equalling eleven of the slave 
 States, has had two senators to their twenty-two. Maine, with 
 more than double the white population of South Carolina, has 
 had only an equal number of representatives ,— the South be- 
 ing allowed, in virtue of slaverv, some twenty members on the 
 floors of Congress to ^ni-yrepresent the interest of the slave. Of 
 the high offices, the South had the Presidency forty-eight years 
 to our twenty-six ; President of the Senate, sixty-two, to our 
 eleven ; Speaker of the House, forty-five to twenty-five ; Secre- 
 tary of State, forty to twenty-nine ; Attorney-General, forty- 
 two to twenty-seven ; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 
 fifty-seven to our nine years. 
 
 Thus it is proved that by far the greater part of the time 
 the chief places of power and trust have been held by Southern 
 men. It might also be shown, that they filled a large portion 
 of the small balance with northern tools, selected to do their 
 bidding ! Nor has the South been content with nearly all the 
 high offices, but has claimed the subordinate places as well. 
 Notwithstanding her marked inferiority in numbers, and still 
 greater inferiority in general intelligence, she had in the War, 
 Treasury, and other Departments of the Government, 806 
 clerks, to our 441 ; or nearly two-thirds when she was entitled to 
 only about one-fourth. 
 
 Then consider for a moment the vast amounts expended for 
 Territories in the iuterests of Slavery — Louisiana, Florida, 
 Texas, etc. ; costing the Government — war-expenditures, removal 
 of Indians, pensions, and all included — the enormous sum of 
 $842,764,928. And this, ^vith millions sunk annually through 
 Southern post-offices, makes up a vast aggregate, more than 
 three-fourths of which was paid by the revenues of the North. 
 Oh, " the aggressive North .'"* 
 
 "Well might Senator Hammond of South Carolina say — " The 
 
 * The foregoing statistics are mainly compiled from various public docu- 
 raents. I am also indebted to " Helper's Impending Crisis," to a compila- 
 tion wbicb appeared in tlie .New Tork Tribwie, to Hon, J. J. Perrj, and 
 Miss Anna E. Dickinson, 
 
14 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 North are told, and believe, that we are weak, and in the face 
 of the fact that we have been strong enough to control this 
 Government ever since it was established ; " and John C. 
 Breckenridge state — " We have the courts, laws, &c., all our 
 oivn loay ; " or Mr. Stephens exclaim — " The South never; 
 
 ASKED FOR WHAT SHE DID NOT GET !" 
 
 Freedom the aggressor ! This is adding insult to injury, and 
 ought to more than fill the measure of even slave-holding auda- 
 city. It was. Slavery that basely polluted the shrine of Liberty 
 at which the fathers w'orshiped, and treated with practical 
 atheism the principles they taught. Slavery that made 
 the Supreme Court simply k wicked instrument for recording 
 its decrees, wanting in every element of sound law, and dis- 
 graceful to civilization. Slavery that molded Presidents and 
 Cabinets to its unhallowed demands — laid its polluting hand 
 upon Congress, shaping its dough-faces into vessels of dishonor 
 suited to its own distorted imagination. Slavery that has cast 
 a shadow over the good name of some of our great men ; dug 
 the political graves of many of our little men, like Franklin 
 Pierce, deep in infamy ; and has caused otliers, like Buchanan, 
 to crawl the earth with the brand of Cain upon their brows ; to 
 honest men, objects of loathing and contempt ! Slavery that 
 in its malign influence has raised up political grub-worms that 
 gnawed liberty out of the Constitution — aye, even generated 
 weak and wicked ministers to claim for it Divine origin, and 
 to interpret the Bible as a slave-holding ordinance. 
 
 " A canting crew. 
 So smooth, so godly, and so devilish too, 
 Who armed at once with prayer-books, and with whips. 
 Blood on their hands, and Scripture on their lips ; 
 Tyrants by creed, and torturers by text, 
 Make this world hell in honor of the nest." 
 
 Slavery, mad with ambition and plethoric with sin, sought to 
 abrogate the right of petition ; failing to betray and obtain Cali- 
 fornia, for months fought against her admission as a free state ; 
 connived at, or openly supported the foreign slave-trade ; tried 
 to buy, and showed a strong disposition to steal Cuba, and sought 
 ia Ways unspeakably mean to force slavery on free territory x 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 15 
 
 subjected — as under the brutal code in New Mexico — free wliite 
 persons to be whipped by their employers, and denying them 
 redress in the courts ; inflicting, as in Kansas, cruel and un- 
 heard of punishments for imaginary offences. 
 
 Slavery compelled Northern men when South, to wear pad- 
 locks on their lips, and to forswear their manhood ; while the 
 braggarts of the South could overrun the North, and with inso- 
 lent menaces threaten all who cherish the spirit of freedom. It 
 robbed mails ; mobbed peaceful assemblages ; dragged Garrison 
 by a rope round his neck through the streets of Boston, and 
 murdered Elijah P. Lovejoy at Alton, Illinois; — the dogs of 
 slavery wlio did this dirty work being stimulated in tlieir Chris- 
 tian and Constitutional efforts, by offers from their Southern 
 brethren of fabulous sums for the heads of these persecuted mar- 
 tyrs ! Slavery hung John Brown, who, compared with Gov- 
 ernor Wise, and the best of his accusers, was a hero, a patriot, 
 and a saint. Slavery, that in cases of insurrection required us 
 to peril our lives in returning women and children to a bondage 
 worse than death ; that under the infamous slave-bill made us 
 chase the fleeing fugitive, combined with the impudent as- 
 sertion, that the existence, or even extension of slavery, was 
 none of our business — leaving the unpleasant inference, that we 
 either stole other people's legs to run with, or else had no in- 
 terest in our own ! 
 
 Yielding to its rapacious demands we purchased territory 
 from the French, stole from the Indians, and robbed from Mex- 
 ico. We lavishly gave blood and treasure to force slavery on 
 the red man, and to plunder a neighboring Republic, that we 
 might lay our ill-gotten gains at the feet of this insatiable Mo- 
 loch. We repeatedly settled it by " compromise" but it wouldn't 
 stay settled. 
 
 Territory that belonged to Freedom by divine right — which 
 she afterwairds bought at a poor bargain in the compromise of 
 1S20 — we suffered to be filched from us by the infernal legisla- 
 tion of '54 — in the meantime having sandwiched our menial ser- 
 vice to sin by a fugitive slave act, more hellish in its instincts 
 than ever disgraced any nation on God's green earth which had 
 ability enough to write its own record. It mutilated our litera- 
 
16 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN EEPUBLIO. 
 
 ture ; disrupted our churches ; infused its veuomous poison 
 into tracts circulated by our Bible Societies ; stifled our press- 
 es ; practically suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus ; and, 
 in a large portion of the Union, by turns as suited its caprices, 
 tarred and feathered, or cruelly murdered all who assumed the 
 prerogative of freedom of speech — American citizens being 
 treated in their own country with a tyranny more tyrannical, a 
 despotism more despotic than they would receive at the hands 
 of the most barbarous nation on earth — neither the flag nor tlic 
 Constitution being any protection against the brutalizing effects 
 of slavery. Slavery seized even free men of color at the North ; 
 could, and did, take them from vessels trading at southern 
 ports, impress and sell them to pay their jail fees — under the 
 rule of men-stealers, the Constitution, notwithstanding its guar- 
 antees, being powerless to protect men in theiv freed ovi, but all 
 powerful to reduce free men to slavery ; and when Massachusetts 
 sent Mr. Hoar to test such proceedings before even South Car- 
 olina judges, he was driven from the State by a mob ! 
 
 Thus the disease grew, and the poison spread, and by flattery 
 and frauds, violence and brutality, the South pushed her aggres- 
 sions, the North tamely submitting, begging for rights she 
 should have demanded, bearing wrongs and forbearing censure 
 until an insignificant minority of slave-holders prostituted this 
 great Government to their own base purposes. Thus we lived 
 this hypocritical sham, vainly fancying we could crucify hu- 
 manity, outrage justice, and cheat the Almighty of our inevitable 
 destiny. 
 
 KANSAS. 
 
 This brings us to Kansas, where the darkest and most dam- 
 nable page in our nation's history was written in blood ;— a page 
 the American historian will ever regard with burning shame 
 and indignation, and those of other countries with utter horror 
 and contempt. Here Slavery with relentless energy combined 
 all its malign influences to rob Freedom of her birth-right. This 
 infant Territory, while in its very cradle, was swept by famine, 
 fire and blood. 'Rufiians, thieves and murderers, overran her 
 virgin soil, while the Natiunal Government^ to its everlasting 
 shame and disgrace, was a party to the conspiracy of fraud and 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 17 
 
 violence, by -wlncli she was to be forced into tlie polluting em- 
 brace of Slavery. It sent successive Governors "who, finally 
 shrinking from the brutal work assigned them, were themselves 
 in turn cruelly persecuted. It appointed men to high offices of 
 trust and power whose arms were red to tlie very elbows with 
 the blood of their murdered countrymen. Even meetings were 
 held publicly to endorse and approve the most lawless violence 
 and diabolical outrages, which were presided over, and had for 
 their leading spirits, declared law-makers and others high in 
 autliority. Elections were carried without votes ; authority 
 established without law, and the most outrageous penalties at-, 
 tached to these bogus enactments — making the least offenses 
 against Slavery pupishable with banishment or death ; declar- 
 ing it felony, with long and cruel imprisonment, to give a fam- 
 ishing fugitive a cup of water, and inflicting cruel and malicious 
 punishments for expressing the sentiments of the immortal 
 Declaration of Independence. Men were shot down in broad 
 day-light, and no efforts made to bring the guilty assassins to 
 trial. Thus died Barber, Jones, Dow and others. L.P.Brown, 
 seized by a band of ruffians, seeing they were intent on his 
 murder, begged that he might have arms to contend for his life 
 with any two, four, or even the whole villainous horde. Fiend- 
 ishly denying him this poor privilege they literally hacked liim 
 to pieces. When thus mangled and in the very agonies of death, 
 they spit tobacco in his eyes, and threw him into his own yard 
 to die ! 
 
 This was one of five sons of John Brown who were sac- 
 rificed to slavery. Another, after being killed, they skinned 
 and hung up in what they called a college in Virginia. Do you 
 marvel that John Broivn hated slavery f 
 
 Col. Jennison, so frequently slandered by pro-slavery copper- 
 heads, is from Livingston County, N. Y. — a man of delicate 
 constitution, educated and gentlemanly, by profession a physi- 
 cian. His wife and child being attracted to the door by a bor- 
 der ruffian horde that was passing, were both shot dead. Do 
 you wonder Jennison doubts the divinity of Slavery ? 
 
 But why particularize, where fraud, violence and murder 
 were the rule ; the wholesale commission of which makes up 
 2 
 
1^ TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 this transcendent record of infamy. Of course the Government 
 was appealed to in vain, and although it could call forth the 
 Army and Navy to drive justice from the Boston Court-house, 
 that it might seize an innocent black man, it declared in words 
 of imbecility and infamy, tliat it was powerless to protect its 
 own citizens in Kansas ! And thus an administration that con- 
 tracted and expanded its means of power and perfidy at will, 
 delivered this infant settlement over to tlie tortures of sla- 
 very and death — an act of merciless, cold-blooded atrocity by 
 the side of which common murder whitens into innocence. 
 
 God bless these our suffering countrymen, who through long 
 weary years of blood and persecution were forced to tread the 
 wine-press of oppression, and who, with sijblime faith, divine 
 courage and unfaltering devotion, like the old Covenanters of 
 Scotland, rescued the " Ark of Liberty" with their own blood. 
 May Heaven's curse rest on an Administration that would strip 
 from a virgin territory the Almighty's signet of Freedom ; 
 basely violate a national compact, and break down every bul- 
 wark of Liberty, that it might have fresh fields for its sins and 
 brutalities ! Was not an Administration which was the wicked 
 and eager instrument of Slavery, and wliich used its powers to 
 subvert the principles it was sworn to subserve, well fitted 
 and prepared to tear down, with its blood-stained hands, the pil- 
 lars of the Government itself? 
 
 THE CULMINATION. 
 
 These, fellow-citizens, in brief outline, are the successive steps 
 that culminated in a Rebellion, which, in its perjured wickedness, 
 the vastness of its proportions, its relentless purpose, its fren- 
 zied brutality, in greatness of the issues involved, is unparal- 
 leled in history. Li the grand roll of time our nation's grist 
 has been reached, and is now being ground in the mills of God. 
 " Those mills of God ! those tireless mills ! 
 I hear their ceaseless throbs and thrills : 
 I see their dreadful stones go round. 
 And all the realms beneath them ground ; 
 And lives of men, and souls of States 
 Flung out, like chaflf, beyond their gates." 
 
 Through long years of peace the land had been surfeited with 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 19 
 
 plenty. Low ambition had eaten ont patriotism, and prosperity 
 paralyzed the public conscience. Occasionally some far-seeing 
 soul would cry, " danger ahead !" But we had not Christ aboard ; 
 and for want of a strong moral arm at tlie tiller the old ship 
 of state gradually neared the rocks. At last she struck ; the 
 land trembled as with the throes of an earthquake, and the 
 nation awoke from its sleep of slavery and sin ! 
 
 Thank God ! the death-like, strange repose, 
 
 The horrid paralytic rest 
 
 Is ended, and a Nation's breast. 
 Fired with the old-time spirit, glows I 
 
 The first shot that hissed through the air at Sumter was the 
 sinful embodiment — -the condensed expression — of the vileness 
 of slavery. It marked an epoch in the world's moral history ; 
 for in challenging the nation to arms it summoned itself to 
 judgment. What an hour ! The patriots of the Revolution 
 must have turned in their coffins, and the spirits of Washing- 
 ton, Adams, Jefferson and the mighty dead, gathered over that 
 beleaguered fortress! That shot sounded the death-knell of 
 Slavery, and opened the door for the nation's deliverance. We 
 didn't mean abolition, but the shot did. Neither did our 
 fathers in 1775 intend Independence ; but Liberty when 
 aroused makes thorough work — in the words of John Hampden 
 — " takes no step backwards." 
 
 We bore insults so long, and the night of our degradation 
 was so dark, that many brave souls wearied watching for the 
 coming day ; but the first shot belched by rebel cannon 
 broke the nation's nightmare. The long roll sounded and she 
 stood forth nobly to her work ! Her heart that was pulseless, 
 beat with the newness of life ; traitors were floated like dead 
 wood on the resistless current, or consumed by the burning in- 
 dignation of the people. Old and young caught the spirit of 
 the fathers — Liberty vitalized even conservatism into life — 
 parties were lost in patriotism, and the nation with the sword 
 of justice uplifted, beneath the folds of the time-honored flag, 
 swore Freedom should not perish ! 
 
20 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 " As if the very eailli again 
 Grew quick witli God's creating breath, 
 And irom the sods of grove and glen 
 Rose ranks of lion-hearted men, 
 To battle to the death." 
 
 Slavery here as elsewhere, acted in keeping with her base 
 record, and added to her long black catalogue of crimes this 
 crowning infamy — fathomed this utmost depth of possible sin — 
 without a shadow of cause or provocation. To the very hour 
 she consummated her hell-born villainy by open attack on Sum- 
 ter's starving garrison, she had been treated with a kindness and 
 magnanimity to which she was in no way entitled ; but, as ever 
 before, she was spoiling for a fight — resolved not be reconciled. 
 Her defenders must needs add to the measure of their iniqui- 
 ties. Sacred compromises abrogated, plighted faith violated, 
 constitutional obligations nullified, and outrages perpetrated, 
 were not euougli. They seized property of the Government and 
 interfered with its jurisdiction ; robbed arsenals and treasury ; 
 drove away officers discharging legitimate duties ; raised military 
 and took possession of forts ; and, with their stolen goods and 
 munitions, made war upon an unarmed vessel covered by our 
 flag. 
 
 President Lincoln was a man of known conservative tenden- 
 cies. The almost united North solemnly protested against the 
 charge of Abolitionism. We disclaimed, explained, and apolo- 
 gized to Slavery as though it were the very god claimed by its 
 devotees. The inaugural of the President, his expressed willing- 
 ness to have the Constitution amended ; the votes of both Sen- 
 ate and House, the Peace Congress — all attest our horror of war, 
 our love of peace — our willingness to sacrifice just rights that 
 slavery might be more than safe. Our kindness was met by in- 
 solence ; our protestations fell on deaf ears, and our overtures 
 were maliciously spurned. 
 
 Even after all this, witli a patient forbearance and fatherly 
 kindness, apparently bordering on weakness, the President tried 
 every conceivable expedient to win tlie " erring sisters " back. 
 After acts calculated to rouse the most fiery indignation, the 
 Government so passively submitted itself, that the ti-aitors could 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 21 
 
 find no better pretext for assassination than the sending pro- 
 visions to a starving garrison. 
 
 EARLY DATS OF THE REBELLION. 
 
 How much of history is crowded into the few brief mouths 
 that followed ! How various the emotions it calls up ! How we 
 felt when we heard the old flag had been fired upon — Massa- 
 chusetts boys murdered in Baltimore ! How our blood grew 
 l)ot ; how it came and went as we read of a skirmish, or some 
 new victim to treason and death ! How we grieved for Ells- 
 worth, the Warren of our struggle— how we -lamented Lyon, the 
 Leonidas of the War — how we mourned for Baker, the Hamp- 
 den of Liberty 1 How, by and by, weak souls, poisoned by Sla- 
 very, quibbled over the right of coercion — talked of the superi- 
 ority of Southern chivalry and our poor prospect of success ! 
 How slowly wo put on the mantle of manhood and asserted our 
 equality ; how leniently we dealt with traitors, issuing menial 
 proclamations through our Generals in command, until loyal 
 men blushed from very shame, and felt to cry, " How long, oh 
 Lord, how long !" 
 
 " Wlien wilt tlioii save the peoj)le ? 
 
 Oil, God of Jklercy ! wlien ? 
 
 Not kings and lords, but nations! 
 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ; 
 
 Flowers of the heart, oh God, are they ! 
 
 Let them not pass like weeds away — 
 
 Their heritage a sunless day ! 
 God save the jieople !" 
 
 With what eager malignity Despotism scented the blood of 
 Liberty, and the whole liorde of aristocratic papers, headed by 
 the London Times, howled upon oar track ! With what brutal 
 rejoicing their presses and orators derided us ! " Democratic in- 
 stitutions were a failure." " The Republican bubble had burst." 
 The Goddess of Liberty was assassinated in the house of her 
 friends, and the dogs of despotism rushed with swift feet to the 
 feast of blood. But, behold, the nation was not dead ! Waking 
 from her torpor she rose like a strong man, and with one glance 
 from her eagle eye sent these hounds crouching back to their 
 kennels- 
 
22 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Those were the evil days wlien a wicked ruler of a great city 
 proposed she should set up for herself; when the nation was to 
 be divided into petty states ; the body politic torn limb from 
 limb, and New England — God bless her ! was to bo left out in 
 the cold. We have no fears of that now. All loyal States, at 
 least, have vindicated their nationality. So much lias passed 
 into history, — ^not one confederate State among them. There is 
 no fear of tlie West separating from the East. We are now 
 pledged to each other, not only in long years of glorious history^ 
 but in toils, sacrifices and death, shared on many a battle-field 
 in defense of a common country, and with a love cemented with 
 our blood, and solemnly consecrated by the graves of our heroic 
 dead. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND AND THE SOUTH. 
 
 We never had fears for New England ; we knew she was too 
 patriotic to go out of the Union, and too plucky to be put out. 
 She had no need to remind us of Lexington, Concord and 
 Bunker Hill ; much less to proffer us, so early in the contest, the 
 pledge of her fidelity in Baltimore, sealed with her blood. Re- 
 construct without New England ! — Well, I don't belong in any 
 sense to the " let-'em-go geographers.'" I wouldn't give up to 
 treason the muddiest bayou in Louisiana, the meanest patch of 
 swamp in Florida, while there was an unshattered arm left to 
 defend it. But did my unionism admit of comparisons, before 
 I would part with New England — with glorious old Massa- 
 chusetts — with the most ragged rock in it — I would kick 
 South Carolina, with her nest of secession whelps, into the mid- 
 dle of the Atlantic 1 
 
 Why shouldn't I ? Have I not shown the miserable inferiority 
 of South Carolina in every moral and material aspect ? At the 
 risk of comparisons that may be odious — to copperheads, I will 
 add, that with all her boasted patriotism, Massachusetts fur- 
 nished twelve times as many men as she did in the Revolutionary; 
 struijgh ; and eleven thousand m&re than the whole blatant South 
 put together ! Even Connecticut furnished more than all the 
 South except Virginia. All New England raised nearly double 
 their quota — the South didn't half fill hers. The despised 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 23 
 
 " fanatics of Massachusetts" turned out eighty-three thousand 
 strong for Liberty, and the " glorious old commonwealth of 
 Georgia" 2,679! The South, then as now, was prolific in 
 traitors. It would seem the Almighty condemned it to treason. 
 South Carolina could not protect herself against her own Tories, 
 and to-day there are bleaching in her sands the bones of more 
 New England men who went there to defend her than she fur- 
 nished in the whole war of Independence. I will add for the 
 l)enefit of her copperhead friends, that in furnishing means to 
 prosecute the struggle, and in all other indications of patriotism, 
 the record of the South is equally favorable ! 
 
 And these are the men, forsootli, who assume to be our supe- 
 riors, and to lord over us ! It was before this noble aristocracy 
 of women-w kippers and hahy-stealers that our own bastard aris- 
 tocracy truckled and fawned. Having few friends with our 
 intelligent middle classes, they had many among the rich and 
 mean,"the low and miserable. They attracted the scum on the 
 surfl^ce, the dregs at the bottom— were the ion at Saratoga 
 and Newport, and the political gods of the Five Points ; while 
 the South itself, was like a vast potato field — the best part 
 under ground. 
 
 ' The aristocracy of Nature, I revere, — this base counterfeit, I 
 despise ! These traitors, both North and South, find their coun- 
 terpart only in the Tories of the Revolution. To claim that they, 
 in any sense, represent our loyal ancestors is the basest sacri- 
 lege. Our Fathers loved Liberty and hated S\&yerj—they love 
 Slavery and hate Liberty. 
 
 PATRIOTIC SIRES AND DEGENERATE SONS. 
 
 Again I appeal to the record : — 
 
 George Washington to General Lafayette : 
 
 '• I agree with you cordially in your views in regard to negro slavery, 
 I have long considered it a most serious evil, both sogially and politically, 
 and I should rejoice in any feasible scheme to rid our States of sucli a 
 burden. The Congress of 1787 adopted an ordinance which prohibits 
 the existence of involuntary servitude in our North-western Territory for- 
 ever. I consider it a wise measure. It met with the assent and approval 
 of nearly every member from the States more immediatehj interested in slave 
 labor. The prevailing opinion in Virginia is against the spread of Sla- 
 
24 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 very in our new Territories, and I trust we shall have a confederacy of 
 free States?'' 
 
 Reply to the above by Jeff. Davis : 
 
 " Thus, for a long period, error scattered her seed broad-cast, while rea- 
 son, in over-confidence, stood passive. The recent free discussions, by the 
 press and in the forum, have dispelled delusions which had obscured the 
 minds of a generation, until even among owselves it was more easy to 
 find the apologist than the defender." 
 
 Hear Thomas Jefferson : 
 
 " We must wait with patience the working of an over-ruling Provi- 
 dence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these oui 
 Iretliren. When the measure of their tears shall be full ; when their 
 groans shall have involved Heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of 
 justice will awaken to their distress. Nothing is mobe certainly 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE THAN THAT THIS PEOPLE SHALL BE FREE." 
 
 Answer by Alexander Stephens : 
 
 " Jefferson, Madison, Washington and many others, were tender of the 
 word slave in the organic law, and all looked forward to the time when 
 the institution of slavery should be removed from our midst as a trouble 
 
 and a stumbling block Jefterson rightly saw that the old Union 
 
 would some day break upon this rock The prevailing idea was, 
 
 that the slavery of the African race was a violation of the rights of nature. 
 . . . . But these ideas were fundamentally false \ the foundations of the 
 edifice rested upon the sand. Our new Government is based on quite 
 opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid upon the great truth that Sla- 
 very — subordination to the superior race — is the natural and normal condi- 
 tion of the negro " The stone which the builders rejected is be- 
 come the chief stone of the corner of our new structure." 
 
 Hear Colonel Mason, of Virginia, speak as in the spirit of 
 propliecy : 
 
 Every master of slaves is horn a i^etty tyrant. They bring the judg- 
 ment OF Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or pun- 
 ished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitaMc chain of 
 cause and effect, Providence pimisTics national sins hy national calamities?^ 
 
 Now listen to his recreant Grandson, Senator Mason, author 
 of the infamous Fugitive Slave bill : 
 
 " The mind of the South has undergone a change, and it is now almost a 
 universal belief in the South, not only that the condition of African bond- 
 age in their midst is the best condition to which the African race has 
 ever been subjected, l)ut that it has the effect of ennobling both races, the 
 white and the hlacJc.''^ .... '■'■ 3IaJce the laboring man the slave of one 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 25 
 
 man, instead of the slave of society^ and he would he hetter off. Two hun- 
 dred years of liherty have made the white laborers a pauper landitti — 
 Free society has failed, and that which is not free must be substituted^ 
 
 The venerated John Jay said : 
 
 " While America supports slavery her prayers to Heaven will be im- 
 pious." 
 
 Now note the sentiments of a latter-day saint — Hon. W. B. 
 Gaulden, of Georgia : 
 
 " I believe were it in the power of this country to stril'e down slavery 
 it would put bach cioilizatioti two hundred years^ 
 
 That eloqueui imtriot, James Otis, said : 
 
 " There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the law of 
 Nature, and the grant of God Almighty who has given all men the right 
 to befreeP 
 
 Now listen to this defilement from the lips of that pro-slavery 
 saint, Hon. Lawrence M, Keitt : 
 
 " The sentiments which the great men of the Revolution entertained 
 upon the question of slavery are immaterial to me. The institution had 
 not been discussed; its character and caj)acities had not been tested ; be- 
 sides, they icere imbued with the influence of the French encyclopedists, and 
 
 were affected by the abstractions of the Declaration of Independence 
 
 Slavery was before the Constitution, is above the Constitution, and will be 
 after the Constitution.'''' 
 
 Jefferson said : 
 
 " One day of American slavery is worse than a thousand years of that 
 which we rose in arins to oppose. ... I tremble for my country when I re- 
 member that God is just. . . . The Almighty has no attribute that can take 
 sides with us in a cpntest between enslavers and enslaved." 
 
 Mr. Brown, recent U. S. Senator from Mississippi, said : 
 
 " I want Cuba, Potosi, and other Mexican States ; and I want them all 
 
 for the planting and spreading of slavery. I would spread the blessings 
 
 of slavery, like Hie religion of our Divine Master, to the uttermost ends of 
 
 the earth."'' 
 Mark the language of the venerable John Quincy Adams : 
 "It pei'verts human reason, and induces men endowed with logical 2)0^6^8 
 
 to maintain that slavery is sanctioned by the Christian religion." 
 
 Now that of U. S. Senator Clay of Alabama : 
 "A cordon of free States must never be allowed to surround the Cod- 
 given institution of slavery. The beautiful tree must not thus be girdled 
 that it may wither and die."' 
 
26 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Listen to the sentiments of the Virginia Legislature ; as late 
 even as 1832 ; Mr. Powell said : 
 
 " I can scarcely persuade myself that there is a solitary gentleman in 
 this House who will not readily admit that slavery is an evil, and that its 
 removal, if practicable, is a consummation most devoutly to be wished. 
 I have not heard, nor do 1 expect to hear, a voice raised in this Hall to the 
 contrary.'''' 
 
 In proof of the degrading change since that date, hear U.S. 
 Senator Hunter, also from Virginia : 
 
 " When I first entered the Federal councils, which was at the commence- 
 ment of Mr. Van Buren's Administration, the moral and political status 
 of the slavery question was very difierent JB.*om what it now is. Then the 
 Southern men themselves, with iut few exceiitions, admitted slavery to he a 
 moral evil, and palliated and excused it upon the j)lea of necessity." 
 
 The great Henry Clay said : 
 
 " So long as God allows the vital current to flow through my veins, I 
 will never, no, never — by word or thought, by mind or will — aid in ad- 
 mitting one rood of free territory to the everlasting curse of human bond^ge^ 
 
 The little John Pettit, Senator from Indiana said : 
 
 " If ' old Abe ' will come to me, I'll tell him how to stop this rebellion. 
 
 Extend slavery over every State in the Union and the rehellion will ie 
 
 stopped in sixty dnysy 
 
 John Randolph said : 
 
 " I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North 
 who rises to defend slavery on princii^le." 
 
 Charles O'Connor of New York says : 
 
 " Since the foundation of this Republic, negro slavery has ever leen a 
 main p}illar of our strength to vindicate its essential justice and moral- 
 ity, va. all courts and places, before men and nations, is the duty of every 
 American citizen. ... If this proposition be not true, no honest man 
 ought to desire the permanency of our Republic ; if it le true, the Made 
 republican doctrine is a treasonable and destructive fallacy ".' 
 
 Consider how radical the change since the days of the 
 Fathers, and mark the degrading effects of slavery upon both 
 slave-holders and dough-faces. Mr. Fitzhugh, the celebrated 
 Southern author writes, thus : 
 
 " We do not adopt the theory that Ham was the ancestor of the negro 
 race. The Jewish slaves toere not negroes, and to confine the justification 
 cf slavery to that race, would be to weaken its Scrij)tural authority, and 
 to lose the whole weight of j)rofane authority, for we read of no negro 
 
TEIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 27 
 
 slavery in ancient times. Slayert, black or white, is right and 
 
 NECESSARY." 
 
 The New York Day-Booh thus endorses it, in speaking of 
 poor white people : 
 
 '■'Sell the 2}firents of these children into Slavery. Let our Legislature 
 pnss a laid that whoever will take care of them and their offspring, shall 
 be legally entitled to their services." 
 
 Hear the Richmond Whig speak of the North : 
 " We mud hring these enfranchised slaves bach to their true condition. 
 They have long, very properly, looked upon themselves as om* social in- 
 feriors — as our serfs.''"' 
 
 The Detroit Free Press, chimes in thus : 
 
 " History will relate that we, the North, manufactm'ed the conflict, and 
 forced it to hot-bed precocity." 
 
 Note the principles of the so-called Confederacy, proclaimed 
 by the Richmond Examiner : 
 
 " The establishment of the Confederacy is verily a distinct reaction 
 against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. For Lib- 
 erty, Equality and Fraternity, tee have deliberately substituted Slavery, 
 subordimition and government The South ?iOi/) maintains that Slav- 
 ery is right, natural and necessary, and does not depend ujjon the difter- 
 ence of complexion. The laws of the Slave States justity the holding of 
 white men in bondage." 
 
 Let Senator Clark, of Wisconsin, make the last dough-face 
 response : 
 
 " There never has been anything caxled for by the South, and 
 
 THERE never CAN BE, THAT I WOULD NOT WILLINGLY CONSENT TO" ! 
 
 Towards him, and those like him, considering the outrages 
 borne by the North, I feel as did tlie minister when a noisy 
 brother beseeching converts to come forward, said : " It is free 
 to all ; come without money and without price. I have been a 
 member of the Church for twenty years, and it has never cost 
 me a cent !"• Upon which the minister piously ejaculated : 
 "J/«y God have mercy on your j^oor, rniserahle soul!" 
 
 But enough of such imbecility and sacrilege. I close the 
 record with the testimony of that great and good divine, John 
 Wesley : 
 
 '■'■American Slavery is the vilest that ever saio the sun — the sum of all 
 villainies. Slave-dealers are the loorst of thieves, in comparison with xchom 
 
28 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 highway rollers and houselreakers are innocent. Sustainers of Slav- 
 ery ARE CONFEDERATES OF DEVILS." 
 
 Read page after page of the sublime utterances of the fath- 
 ers, in contrast with the vile expectorations of their degenerate 
 sons. No wonder they do not even pretend to represent our 
 noble ancestors. As well might Satan, from the depths of per- 
 dition, claim to represent the celestial realms from which he 
 departed. 
 
 FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE REBELLION. 
 
 Consider for a moment also, how they inaugurated this Re- 
 bellion. Were they like the fathers " patient, deliberate and 
 forbearing under long sufferings, persuading and supplicating 
 for a redress of grievances in most humble terms ?" On the 
 contrary, have I not shown that the South was always the ag- 
 gressor, while we bowed to her insults and injuries so meekly 
 that she derided, even if she did not doubt, our manhood ? 
 Under the arrogant assumption, or blind delusion that Slavery 
 was a blessing and slave-mongers our superiors, she assumed the 
 right to rule the nation ; and even on the floor of the Senate 
 bludgeoned our representative to death's door for uttering the 
 sentiments of Hancock and Adams. She whipped school-mis- 
 tresses, and mobbed ministers whom we sent in the vain at- 
 tempt to civilize and christianize her people ; while those of our 
 business men who ventured among them, at all tinctured with 
 the liberty-loving spirit of our fathers, were brow-beaten, mal- 
 treated, and not unfrequently murdered ! This is " t]ie Union as 
 it was" ! But there is a limit to human endurance. 
 
 " The cup is full ! They thought ye blind : 
 The props of State they undermined ; 
 Abused your trust, your strength defied, 
 And stained the Nation's name of pride. 
 Now lift to Heaven your loyal brows, 
 Swear once again your fathers' vows, 
 And cut through traitor hearts a track 
 To nobler fame and fi'eedom back !" 
 
 How gradually the North arose under these outrages ! With 
 what anxiety all but craven-hearted things watched that resur- 
 rection ! What music to their ears — what endearing recoUec- 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 29 
 
 tions in the names of Burlingame and Potter — that at last 
 a Northern man had been found willing to shoot the bully 
 Brooks ; or with an appetite take a slice from the contempt- 
 ible Prior ! As for myself, I love peace — it is almost the only 
 thing for which I would fight ; but I never think of those men 
 who stood up thus early vindicating the manhood of the North, 
 Vvithout thankfulness and gratitude. Yes, / love jjeace ! 
 
 " Still, still, wheue'er the battle word 
 Is Liberty — when men do stand 
 For justice and their native land — 
 Then Heaven bless the Sword !" 
 
 Having stated the grievances so meekly borne by the South, 
 shall I add a history of the frauds, perjury and violence by 
 which organized and unscrupulous minorities plucked State 
 after State from the glorious constellation, against the votes 
 and declared wishes of a majority of their citizens, forcing them 
 into the hated Confederacy. The outrages perpetrated on our 
 loyal brothers who thus suffered, will furnish a page for the 
 future historian, over which the ^y&s shall grow dim and the 
 heart sick. 
 
 The cotton States seceded months before Buchanan ceased 
 to disgrace the White House, and even the so-called Confed- 
 erate Congress met in Montgomery early in February preced- 
 ing Lincoln's inauguration. But I need not take time to cite 
 proofs that the Government had done nothing to furnish even 
 ^'pretext for dissolution. They themselves admitted it had not, 
 and boldly proclaimed they had plotted treason for years ! 
 
 The Montgomery Advertiser stated : 
 
 " Secession has been thought of for forty years ; for ten years it has 
 Tjeen the all-absorbing theme^ 
 
 Mr. Keitt said : 
 
 "I have been engaged in this movement ener since I entered political 
 life:^ 
 
 Mr. Inglis said : 
 
 " Most of us have had this matter under consideration for the last 
 twenty ycarsy 
 
so TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Mr. Parker said : 
 
 " It is no spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon us, but it hag 
 been gradually culminating for a long series of years,'''' 
 
 Mr. Rhett said : 
 
 " The secession of South Carolina is not the event of a day. It is not 
 anything produced by Mr. Lincoln or by the non-execution of the fugi- 
 tive slave law. It is a moMer which has been gathering head for thirty 
 years. " 
 
 To the oft-repeated question then, "what did cause the South 
 to secede," I repeat — Slavery. As j'ear after year she de- 
 parted from the teachings of the fathers, and wandered off 
 after this strange god ; as she learned to hate Liberty and pro- 
 claim the divinity of Slavery, she grew restless under her con- 
 tact with Freedom, and hated the Nortli because she did not 
 poison the free air of '76. The South feared the free ideas of 
 the North, not the Government ; and when in the moral pro- 
 gress of events the Nation expressed doubts of the divinity of 
 Slavery, and an unwillingness to extend it as a blessing — as 
 shown in electing Abraham Lincoln — she saw the hand-writing 
 on the wall, and trembled as did the knees of Belshazzar, and 
 being like her bible prototypes, possessed of a devil, rushed into 
 the sea of her destruction. Surely " lohom the gods tvould de- 
 stroy they first make mad.^^ 
 
 She imitated the wisdom of the L'islnnan, who while being 
 lowered into a well, became frightened, and called to those 
 above to hoist him. On their paying no heed he called the 
 louder : " Pull me up !" and at length in a threatening manner 
 shouted : " Pull me up, l>oys, or he jahers Fll cut the rojpe P' 
 The old proverb says, " Truth lies at the bottom of the well." 
 There is wdiere the South will find it, now that she has cut the 
 rope ! 
 
 Had I time to state the facts and figures, to give the statistics 
 of States and parts of States, it would show beyond controversy 
 that the Rebellion is l>ul a reflection of Slavery ; — following 
 its outline as unmistakably as does the shadow the substance. 
 In fact. Slavery is but another name for Rebellion ; its exist- 
 ence is disloyalty at the South ; sympathy for it begets treason 
 at the North, and hatred of democracy and huraanity every- 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 31 
 
 where. In proof that these statements are unquestionable, the 
 following admissions from Mr. Stephens, high-priest of the 
 bogus Confederacy, must sufl&ce : 
 
 " Our new Constitution lias put at rest forever all the agitating ques- 
 tions relating to our peculiar institutions. African Slavery, as it exists 
 amongst us, is the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. 
 This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present 
 revolution." 
 
 Here he unblushingly proclaims that more effectually to pro- 
 tect and perpetuate Slavery, they would destroy a government 
 of which immediately preceding the rebellion, (Nov. 14, I860,) 
 in the Georgia House' of Representatives, he was constrained 
 to speak as follows : 
 
 " I look upon this countiy, with its institutions, as the Eden of the 
 world — the paradise of the unixerse. It may be that out of it we may be- 
 come greater and more prosperous ; but I am candid and sincere in tell- 
 ing you, that I fear if we rashly evince passion and without sufficient 
 cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater or more 
 peaceful, prosperous and happy— instead of becoming gods, we shall he- 
 come demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's 
 throats." 
 
 Again, at Milledgeville, in December following, he said : 
 
 " Where wiU you go, following the sun in its circuit round our globe, 
 to find a government that better protects the liberties of its people, and 
 secures to them the blessings we enjoy ? I think that one of the evils 
 that beset us is a surfeit op liberty, an exuberance of the priceless 
 blessings for which we are ungrateful.'''' 
 
 Even as late as the Georgia Convention of January, 1861, 
 he made these remarkable declarations : 
 
 " I must declare here, as I have often done before, that which has been 
 repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and 
 other lands, that it is the best and freest government, the most equal in 
 its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, 
 and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that 
 
 the sun of heaven ever shone upon When we and our posterity 
 
 shall see om- lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act 
 of yours will inevitably invite and call forth ; when our green fields of 
 waving harvests shall be trodden dovm by tlie murderous soldiery ; the 
 fiery car of war sweeping over our land ; our temples of justice laid in 
 ashes ; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us ; who but this 
 Convention will be held responsible for it ? and who but him who has 
 
32 TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure (as I honestly think 
 and believe) shall he held to strict account for this suicidal act, hy the 
 present generation, and prolally cursed and execrated hy posterity for all 
 coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow 
 this act you now 2'>ropose to perpetrate ? 
 
 " Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reasons you 
 can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments — what rea- 
 sons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will 
 liring upon us ! What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth 
 to justify it ? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case, 
 and to iohat cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest 
 the pAea of justification ? What right has the North assailed ? What 
 interest of the South has been invaded ? What justice has been denied ? 
 and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld ? Can 
 either of you to-day name one Governmental act of wrong, deliberately 
 and purposely done by the Government at Washington, of which the 
 South has a right to complain ? I challenge the answer !" 
 
 Thus it is, that with no cause of complaint, no fancied wrongs 
 even to redress, hut imjMlled ivholly and alone hy the diabolical 
 sjnrit of Slavery, the attempt is made to overthrow and de- 
 stroy " THE BEST AND FREEST GOVERNMENT THAT THE SUN OF 
 
 Heaven ever shone upon." 
 
 I need not stop to argue the question of the right of seces- 
 sion. With those conversant with the history of the forma- 
 tion of the Government, it never had a feather's weight. The 
 nation has embodied its answer in a half million of men under 
 arms. The traitors might leave the country for their country's 
 good ; but think of the absurdity of their stealing immense 
 territories like Texas, Louisiana and Florida — paid for out of 
 the National Treasury — that required all the power of the 
 Government to raise them to the dignity of States, whilst they 
 had hardly people enough to protect themselves against their 
 own alligators ! 
 
 REBEL barbarities. 
 
 Having thus inaugurated this base Eebellion, under circum- 
 stances of unparalleled perfidy, has Slavery shown any abate- 
 ment of its black-hearted instincts? Is it shown in burning 
 an unoifending town like Lawrence, and the indiscriminate 
 murder of all ages, sexes and conditions ; in the butchery of 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 33 
 
 wliole garrisons, as at Plymoiitli and Fort Pillow, and in tli^! 
 merciless slaughter of three thousand unoffending old men, wo- 
 men and children at Brashear City ? Indeed, where has it not 
 shown an utter want of both honor and humanity ? Its de- 
 fenders have violated flags of truce; sent their unexchanged 
 soldiers to tlie field in violation of the rules of war ; poisoned 
 wells and food ; hunted loyal Union men with blood-hounds to 
 fill their sweeping conscriptions ; scourged, beaten, and even 
 hung old gray-haired women for daring to love their country's 
 flag — as in the case of Mrs. Moore and Mrs. Riddle, one seventy 
 and the other eighty-five ; hung men for hesitating to take their 
 bogus currency — old and young for the crime of loving their 
 country — making the father sit beneath the gallows while they 
 strangled his son, and then with jeers and oaths hung the father 
 beside him ; left bodies mutilated by railroad tracks, " slowing" 
 the trains as they passed, amid the cheers, waving of handker- 
 chiefs and exultation of both men and women ; cut off the 
 heads of the dead to make drinking cups — boiling the flesh 
 from bodies that they might the more easily obtain the bones 
 for trinkets and keepsakes ! How they seized and then cruelly 
 shot down innocent citizens at Marshall, N. C, among them 
 Little Willie Shelton, a child of twelve ! He implored the men 
 not to shoot him in the face. " You have killed my father and 
 brothers, you have shot my father in the face ; do not shoot 
 me." He covered his face with his hands. The soldiers re- 
 ceived the order to fire, and five more fell. Poor Little Willie 
 was wounded in both arms. He ran to an officer, clasped him 
 around the legs, and besought him to spare his life. " You have- 
 Jailed my old father and my three hr others / you have shot me 
 in both arras — I forgive you all this — I can get well. Let me go 
 home to my mother and sisters.''^ The little boy was dragged 
 back to the place of execution ; again the terrible word " fire 1" 
 was given, and he fell dead, eight balls having entered his 
 body ! 
 
 God grant that these fiendish murderers may have meted out 
 
 to them speedy and retributive justice, and may He extend His 
 
 protecting arm over our outraged and suffering countrymen. 
 
 Their wrongs and their blood cry out to Heaven for ven- 
 
 3 
 
34 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAIT REPUBLIC. 
 
 geance ; and the Government would be imperatively bound, 
 not only from a sense of gratitude, but by every instinct of jus- 
 tice, to continue the war, if for no other reason than the vindi- 
 cation of these persecuted Loyalists and their deliverance from 
 the blood-stained hands of their traitor enemies. May angels 
 strengthen them in this, the hour of their severe affliction, and 
 in our nation's future, while traitors are left to rot in dishonored 
 graves, may these tried patriots ever be remembered in the 
 grateful prayers of the just and true, and embalmed in the 
 hearts of loyal millions ! 
 
 Officers of the Chicago Marine Brigade state : 
 
 '' At Tensas Bayou we were horrified at finding tlie bumed skeletons 
 of white officers, who in command of colored troops were captured at 
 Milliken's Bend. In many cases these oflicers had been nailed to trees 
 and crucified ; a fire was built, and they suflfered slow death from broil- 
 ing. Other officers were nailed to slabs placed against a house which 
 was set on fli'e by the inhuman demons, the poor sufferers being roasted 
 alive. The charred and partially burned limbs were still fastened to the 
 trees and slabs !" 
 
 Consider for another example the following from the Report 
 of the War Committee of the massacre at Fort Pillow : 
 
 " The rebels commenced an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither 
 age nor sex, white or black, soldiers or civilians. The officers and men 
 seemed to vie with each other in the devilish work. Men, women and 
 children, wherever found, were deliberately shot down, beaten and hacked 
 with sabers. Some of the children, not more than ten years old, were 
 forced to stand up and face their murderers while being shot. The sick 
 and wounded were butchered without mercy, the rebels even entering 
 the hospital buildings and dragging them out to be shot, or killing them 
 where they lay. All who asked for mercy were answered by the most 
 cruel taunts and sneers. No cruelty which the most fiendish malignity 
 could devise was omitted. Huts and tents, in which many of the wounded 
 had sought shelter, were set on fire ; men were deliberately nailed to the 
 floor, face upwards, to the side of buildings, and thus burned to death ; 
 some were even buried alive ! These fiendish barbarities being perpe- 
 trated, not only at the time of the attack, but the next day in cold blood. 
 All these horrid facts being established by the sworn testimony of fifty- 
 seven victims, some of whom were blind, their eyes having been punched 
 out by bayonets, and many actually dying, or on their death-beds. A 
 scene of cruelty and murder without parallel in civilized warfare, which 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 35 
 
 needed but the tomahawk and scalping-knife to exceed the worst atroci- 
 ties ever committed by savages !" 
 
 Having refused to exchange, they have neglected to feed 
 prisoners or to allow us to do so ; confined them in filtliy and 
 loathsome pens, frequently without clothing, where they have 
 been frozen and so often starved as to convert tlieir miserable 
 quarters into dens of starving maniacs — at Saulsbury twenty 
 being driven crazy at one time by their sufferings. Still Avorse 
 at Richmond ! Most of the men returned are mere skeletons, 
 who have to be sent immediately to the hospitals, and many. 
 carried from tlie boats on stretchers, having been designedly 
 subjected to unnecessary amputations and barbarously muti- 
 lated — our surgeons declaring that in many cases not more 
 than one-half or two-thirds returned can possibly live. The 
 reports of the Committees of the Senate and House more than 
 confirm these outrages. They state that it would be impos- 
 sible to exaggerate tlie cruelties committed — that they are so 
 general and persistent as to constrain them to believe — especi- 
 ally since prisoners at Richmond are treated the worst, that 
 the rebel authorities have pre-determined so to reduce our sold- 
 iers by inhuman treatment and actual starvation, as entirely to 
 imfit them for further service. Men are shot down even for 
 violating rules of which they know nothing ; one soldier being 
 shot for simply waving an adieu with his hand to a released 
 comrade. These things have been winked at, if not instigated 
 by Jeff. Davis and those high in authority, and repeatedly sanc- 
 tioned through their public presses ; Richmond papers pro- 
 claiming, ''^Repeat Fort Pillovj ; repeat Plymouth, and it will 
 bring the Yankees to their senses !" Thus, through their own 
 presses, and the words of their own mouths ; through our own 
 high officers, civil and military ; through congressional com- 
 mittees ; by the universal and convicting testimony of dying 
 victims, and in ways innumerable, these inhuman harharities 
 are established hy evidences overwhelming and conclusive. 
 
 A WORD OF EXPLANATION. 
 
 I have had occasion to speak much of evils deserving con- 
 demnation. I have yet to speak of " Copperheads ;" and that 
 
36 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 the sjph'it in wliicli I condemn may not be misunderstood, a 
 word, not of apology, but of explanation. While I despise 
 those mealy-mouthed, willy-wonty, canny-canty, white-livered in- 
 dividuals who never take sides without an " if" or a " hut^^ 
 neither have I any sympathy with unreserved and uncalled for 
 denunciation. As for myself, if I know my own heart, I have 
 too much charity for human nature ; appreciate too highly its 
 rights and sacredness to cause the meanest man living — mark 
 the word — unnecessarily one twinge of pain, one pang of suf- 
 fering, even one unpleasant thought. Regarding as I must the 
 claims of wisdom and justice, I would above all, cultivate char- 
 ity, and spread wide its broad mantle to cover the weaknesses — I 
 had almost said the wickednesses— oi human kind ; would ever 
 remember that we are all children of a common Father, groping 
 our way— slowly through the darkness and soul-crucifixions of 
 sin, though it may be — up, uj) to the realms of universal light 
 and love ; and that every man, be he white or black, elevated 
 or degraded, loyalist or traitor, is my hrother. 
 
 In the light of this gospel I would lovingly cherish the deep- 
 est, most comprehensive sympathy, and pray my heart might 
 ever be a stranger to revenge. May God grant me that ven- 
 eration for His infinite wisdom, justice and love, that through 
 this divine Trinity I may be strengthened to act my part wisely 
 and well ; that I may venerate wisdom comprehensive, justice 
 inexorable, and love pervading all. Justice ! yet so tempered 
 with mercy, that even in the hottest strife, with enemies per- 
 sonal or the enemies of mankind, I may contribute my weak 
 efforts for the punishment of crime, and still in the spirit which 
 ascended from the Cross, prayerfully utter from the innermost 
 depths of my soul — ^^Fathen^ Jorgive them, they know not what 
 they do r 
 
 Must I therefore passively fold my arms while the innocent 
 sufler for the guilty f In this world of conflict am I to make 
 no distinction Ijctween right and wrong, good and evil ? Shall 
 I speak of Benedict Arnold as a misguided patriot, the devil 
 as the gentleman in black, of Copperheads as decently respect- 
 able ? Not a bit ! My duty is to speak the truth, to aid in the 
 punishment of crime even while I would pray for the criminal. 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 37 
 
 I do pray tliat the traitor and the copperhead will forsake their 
 evil ways and stay their bloody liands ; but until they do, it is 
 the solemn obligation of all to labor for their destruction. Nor 
 should an prayers interfere with loading cannon ; " there is a 
 fitness in things," and to-day shot and shell, more than the 
 hymn-book, are the implements of the Christian. " There is a 
 time for all things," and this day and hour is the time to fight 
 without ceasing, and pray all you can. I trust I am under- 
 stood. I would 
 
 " Naught extenuate, and notliing arid, 
 Nor set down aught in malice." 
 
 TIME SERVERS. 
 
 I have alluded to my contempt for time servers, who are 
 " all things to all men," here a little, there a little, and not 
 much anywhere — always ready to compromise between the 
 Lord and the devil, and giving the latter the long end of the 
 whiffle-tree. "We have tbem in tliis war — for us when we win, 
 against us when we lose 5 like the bat, wings up, wings down, 
 bird or beast, according to which is most likely to win^ — who 
 have not manhood or courage enough to make enemies even of 
 traitors. They are like the dying Irishman, who being called on 
 to renounce the devil, replied : " Be jabers, and I am going to 
 a strange country, I do n't know whose hands I may fall into, 
 and I wouldn't be after making any inemies there !" Or, as 
 the Hoosier girl when asked by a beau : — " Sal is anybody 
 courtin on you now ?" replied : " Wal, there's one feller a 
 sorter courtin and a sorter not, but I reckon how its more sor- 
 ter not than sorter." These men are sorter loyal but we all 
 reckon its more sorter not than sorter. 
 
 " They wire in and wire out, 
 And leave the people still in doubt, 
 Whether the snake that made the track 
 Was going South or coming back," 
 
 PEACE MEN. 
 
 Then we have peace men, who if not traitors, would make 
 them if the material were strong enough — who are mildly 
 
38 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 aquatic and timorously lacteal ; who want bullets greased and 
 rammed down with propositions of peace ; constantly crying 
 to Uncle Sam as the Irishman did to the cat : ^^Uould still while 
 I sldn ye aisy V Who pray for the country, as the man did 
 for negro Tom in whom he had a half-interest, — " Lord bless 
 nigger Tom, especially ray Judf !" Who are willing the Union 
 should be reconstructed provided the tail can control ; but this 
 is contrary to nature, as is clearly shown by the pliilosophy of 
 Lord Dundreary, who asks — " why doth the dog waggle hith 
 tail? Becauth the dog ith stwonger than the tail. If he 
 wathen't. the tail would waggle the dog." 
 
 You cry peace ! peace ! when there is no peace. If in bliss- 
 ful ignorance of this fact, let the roar of cannon and the shrieks 
 of the dying open your deaf ears — the glitter of bayonets and 
 the flash of sabres open your blind eyes ! He who now cries 
 " peace " amid the hissing of shot and shell, his voice drowned 
 "by the jeers of his enemies and the groans of his dying com- 
 rades, is too weak for Heaven, too pusillanimous for hell. 
 
 COPPERHEADS. 
 
 I wish I had time to show more fully the treasonable position 
 of tlie classes named, and of Coi^perheads, and how they are 
 despised even by the South whose dogs they are. But they 
 are " known and read of all men." " The poison of asps is un- 
 der their lips ; with their tongues they have used deceit." They 
 promised to make Northern cities run with blood ; to go to the 
 aid of the South even, showing they were mean and malicious 
 enough to assassinate their country, but too coivardly to strike 
 the blow. 
 
 The Tories of the Eevolution were patriots in comparison ; 
 they had a pretext for an excuse ; their friends and kindred 
 were in tlie mother-country ; it was but recently their home 5 
 if the government had persecuted, it had also protected ; the 
 colonies were few in number, and the result doubtful. But 
 Copperheads would assassinate their own country, that they 
 have known only in its blessing's ; with polluted hands would 
 uproot the tree of liberty, beneath whose branches they have 
 been sheltered — would strike down the mother who bore them.; 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 39 
 
 and are as much worse than Tories as he who murders his own 
 household is than he who wars against the stranger. Yet the 
 Tories were exiled ; driven into a dreary province, and went 
 down to ignominious graves, " unwept, unhonored and unsung," 
 each succeeding generation cursing tlieir memories with accu- 
 mulated indignation. And Copperheads will be remembered 
 with burning scorn and contempt ; an indignant people shall 
 scourge them from the Temple of Liberty which they have defiled ; 
 and their children, from very shame, shall refuse to bear their 
 names. They love slavery, and rather than have universal 
 freedom, would celebrate its funeral rites amid the orgies and 
 imprecations of traitors. Hear Parson Brownlow speak from 
 experience : " If I owed the devil a debt to be discharged by 
 the rendering up to him of a dozen of the meanest, most revolt- 
 ing and God-forsaken wretches that ever could be culled from 
 the ranks of depraved human society, and I wanted to pay that 
 debt and get "a premium upon the payment, I would make a 
 tender to his Satanic majesty of twelve Northern men who sym- 
 pathize with this infernal rebellion." 
 
 There are no terms of condemnation strong enough, epithets 
 bitter enough, or words mean enough to express their unspeak- 
 able meanness ! I do n't allow my lips to swear — hate to feel 
 it inside — but such conduct makes me feel like the Quaker, who 
 after trying in vain to catch his hat, said to the on-looking 
 urchin — " Child, if thee swears, just damn yon fleeing tile 
 fifty cents worth !" These Catalines are the offspring of 
 Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, and would betray the 
 nation for thirty pieces of silver smaller than their Copper- 
 head ancestor received for betraying Christ. 
 
 I charge that your lying hypocrisy, your slimy treachery — as 
 false to your friends as you are mean and malignant to your ene- 
 mies — has so aroused the scorn of your Southern co-icorkers as 
 to make an association with you one of the greatest barriers 
 to reconstruction. Abolitionists they respect — you they de- 
 spise! You may continue in your wickedness, opposing the 
 government and aiding traitors, praising even the heaven- 
 defying usurper, whose pedestal of ignoble fame is built of the 
 bones of his dead countrymen, and whose robes of office are 
 
40 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 stiff with tlie blood of murdered patriots. You may underrate 
 and regret our victories — overrate and glory in our disasters 
 — refui^e to tight and discourage others — declare that " oiir sol- 
 diers ought to be shot " — causing rivers of blood, oceans of tears, 
 a whole generation to be robed in mourning, and to go down 
 with sorrow to their graves ; still the nation will sweep on with 
 majestic tread to its glorious future, cutting down traitors and 
 Copperheads that would impede its march, like a mighty jungle- 
 cleaver ; bearing witli irresistible power the flag of our fathers 
 onward and upward to its high destiny. 
 
 " The mower mows on tliough the adder may writhe. 
 And the Copperhead curl 'round the blade of his scythe." 
 
 Mothers ! look upon the murderers of your sons — they 
 strengthened the arm that dealt the deadly blow ; see the marks 
 of blood upon their craven brows, and curse them with a 
 mother's curse ! Sisters who have brothers dead, and you who 
 have exchanged the bridal wreath for sable robes ; who have 
 buried the object of your heart's best love — in the name of his 
 sainted memory add your withering condemnation. Fathers, 
 brothers, add your curse ; children, hold up your little hands, 
 and all, in tlie name of your beloved dead — in the name of 
 our venerated fathers who gave their lives for this noble in- 
 heritance — in the name of this blood-bought liberty — in the 
 name of the Constitution and the Union — in the name of civili- 
 zation — in the name of Christianity — ^in the name of our com- 
 mon humanity and of God, pour on them your withering and 
 accumulated curses, until they shall flee to the mountains and 
 seek the caves of the earth ! ^ 
 
 " Is there not some hidden curse, 
 
 Some chosen thunder in the stores of heaven, 
 
 Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man 
 
 . Who seeks his greatness in his country's ruin ?" 
 
 But let not our sympathy be lost in indignation and con- 
 tempt. Let us pray that the genius of American liberty may 
 descend and bring them up from their filthy surroundings — and 
 pray in faith, believing that now, as in olden times, one may 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 41 
 
 be delivered even from the lowest hell. Perhaps encourage 
 them with the good old hymn : — 
 
 " While the lamp holds out to bum 
 The vilest sinner may return." 
 
 NEW YORK RIOT. 
 
 You will remember the gathering in New York city, in July 
 last, familiarly known as the Riot, or " meeting of the Governor 
 and his friends !" Assisting as I did in quieting that Copperhead 
 meeting, I saio practical manifestation of the tender sympathies 
 of ^^ peace men /" — a fiendish carnival of rapine and blood, of 
 burnings, brutalities and butcheries ! Peaceful men and women 
 void of offense, aye ! even innocent and helpless children, hunted 
 througli that great mart of commerce as though they were 
 beasts of prey. And these " friends " who murdered United 
 States soldiers, hung men to lamp-posts, or burned them to 
 death — threw children from windows and burned orphan-asy- 
 lums,, were characterized by the Copperhead press as the 
 " excited people " — " honest masses stimulated to excess hy a sense 
 of ivrong P'' Somebody c.ii\\Q(\. them " ^n^/r/e/icZs," and the most 
 respectable of the Copperhead press printed the following — I 
 give the exact words : 
 
 " The men who have gone from among us to the war, who to-day guard 
 the Capitol, and hold Lee and his men at bay among the Maryland hills, 
 are just such men as those who have struck terror thi'ough our peaceful 
 streets ; of like passions, swayed by like motives, to be kindled with the 
 same patriotic fire." 
 
 Our brave army of the Potomac just such men as these! 
 actuated by like motives ; such as this off-scouring of creation 
 who are alike the disgrace and curse even of the Sodom of our 
 nation — this out-growth of dark alleys, dens of infamy, cess- 
 pools and by-ways to perdition ; who came wallowing through 
 the slime of their sins, and the filth of their iniquities — this 
 black-hearted horde of mean, low-lived " rapscallions," which, 
 should hell take an emetic it could hardly hope to equal — such 
 creatures like the lieroes that have gone forth to battle! In behalf 
 of the nation, I repudiate it ; and in the name of the noble army 
 of the Potomac, I pronounce it a base, malignant and unmiti- 
 
42 TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 gated lie ! The spirit that prompted it is beneath contempt, 
 and I marvel that Heaven did not palsy the hand that wrote 
 it, and turn the ink witli which it was printed to unwonted 
 blackness ! 
 
 Had Meade been defeated, as they hopefully expected, what 
 terminated in a riot would have culminated in a revolution. 
 Circulars issued the night of July 3d — the tone of their presses 
 — the speeches of their orators — the subsequent expressions of 
 male and female rioters, combined with cheers for Jeff. Davis — • 
 and others, whose names out of respect to their friends I'll not 
 mention — the tearing down and trampling upon the American 
 Flag amid the jeers and curses of the crowd, showed beyond 
 question, cavil or doubt, that they were acting in the spirit of 
 treason, and of their real, though unseen leaders. Hence these 
 frantic efforts to stop the draft ; hence the fiendish malignity 
 manifested towards Abolitionists and negroes ; and the crown- 
 ing fact, that all the rioters arrested were known and noisy 
 partisans of the slave-holder's Rebellion. 
 
 SLAVERY THE GREAT CRIMINAL. 
 
 Slavery is indeed the mother of crimes — the great generating 
 pool of criminals. Copperheads, traitors, riots and rebellion 
 are but its natural out-growth — its logical and legitimate issue ; 
 and are, in their unalloyed wickedness, every way worthy of 
 their diabolical source. The words have yet to be coined that 
 can describe it. It towers above all language of condemna- 
 tion, and in its inborn depravity mocks at all forms of human 
 expression. Satan himself might exhaust his fiendish resources 
 and not do justice to its enormity. 
 
 The title to every human heing is in himself, GOD-GIVEN. It is 
 stamped in every part of his being — written in his very blood, 
 and proclaimed in his every heart-throb. That power whicli 
 assumes to take it from him, whether an individual or a nation, 
 is a robber and an assassin. To attempt it, short of a decree 
 from the Almighty, is hell-born audacity ! All our country's 
 wealth ; its costly edifices ; its structures of towering magnifi- 
 cence, are insignificant in the sight of God, compared with the 
 shivering black woman who pleads at the base of our Capitol ; 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 43 
 
 and to-day, under Providence, this nation is being taught, in the 
 severe school of affliction, the sacredness of human nature. 
 
 Oh, Slavery! Thou incarnation of sin! Thou accursed 
 fiend that infused poison into our country's cradle, corrupted 
 her youtli, brutalized her manhood, and gangrened the body 
 politic to the very bone 1 that now, fired by malignant instincts 
 ■would drive the shafts of persecution and malice to the very 
 coffin-lids of the fathers, and rob tlieir sons of a noble inheri- 
 tance — the day of thy judgment has come! What canst thou 
 plead in thy defense ? what good thing hast thou done, or evil 
 left undone? what redeeming virtue hast thou? what canst 
 ^thou say why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon 
 thee, according to the law of God's justice ? America will bear 
 thy polluted stain no longer, and has sworn to heaven that 
 thou and thy foul offspring, secession, shall be buried in the 
 same grave ! 
 
 PATRIOTISM — OUR SOLDIERS. 
 
 Now let us turn to a more inviting subject. Preeminent as 
 has been our nation heretofore in civilization and enlighten- 
 ment, it will be more distinguished hereafter for the transcend- 
 ent patriotism of its people and heroism of its soldiers. In 
 loans to the Government, through sanitary commissions, and in 
 ways innumerable, the people have manifested a spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, and poured forth their treasure with a prodigal 
 liberality beside which that of ancient Rome and Greece grows 
 dim ; while our brave armies have encircled the brow of the 
 nation with a halo of glory. Never can we repay the unnum- 
 bered heroes, Avho, bidding farewell to home, friends and ail- 
 that men hold dear, have gone forth to offer up their blood as 
 holy incense on their country's altar — who throwing themselves 
 into the deadly breach, in blaze of sun, in blinding snows, in 
 hunger and thirst, have borne long wearisome marches, forded 
 swollen torrents, stood on the lonely night-watch, languished 
 in filthy prisons, and nobly faced privations, pain and death 
 that the nation might live. These, indeed, are the demigods of 
 Liberty. Theirs is the quiet, unassuming and heroic virtue — 
 dazzled by no mad ambition, yet firm as adamant, in the sub- 
 
44 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 lime faith that they are figliting the battles of God and liberty. 
 You looked in their faces as they marched from home to the 
 tented fields, with music of fife and drum and glittering steel> 
 with firm tread but witli hearts overflowing with emotion. 
 They pressed your hands — you watched their receding banners, 
 as they fluttered in the breeze, and from the depths of your 
 hearts prayed God to protect the loved ones. Months and 
 years have gone by ; many have died gloriously in battle, others 
 of lingering disease, and not a few have been murdered by our 
 " Southern brethren."— Even now the air is thick with the 
 smoke of battle ; the green sod of Virginia and Georgia is 
 matted with their blood ; their bodies lie unburied on the cold 
 earth, and their souls have gone to their reward. — Some are 
 maimed and helpless ; many, thank God ! still live to receive 
 our gratitude and blessings — battle-scarred and war-worn ; 
 still, with undying patriotism, ready to fight for liberty and 
 their country. 
 
 Behold their deeds of valor ! See the old Massachusetts 
 Second in the deadly conflict at Gettysburg ; its commanding 
 ofl&cers killed, and wlien five standard-bearers Avere shot down 
 in succession, the staff was grasped by one after anotlier with 
 such eager heroism that the old flag never touched the ground ! 
 
 Contemplate that artillery officer in the South-west, who, 
 when his comrades were killed, calmly seated himself on his 
 cannon, fighting, revolver in hand, surrendering only to death ! 
 
 Behold the brave, beautiful and talented " Boy Brittan," on 
 the blood-washed deck of the Essex ! He was Master's Mate 
 to Commodore Porter. Twenty minutes before the surrender 
 of Fort Henry, amid the storm of shot and shell, he was re- 
 quested by his Commander to take to the casemates. He 
 begged the privilege of remaining at his side ; and, while with 
 cutlass in hand, cheering on the tried men at the guns, a cannon- 
 ball carried away the back part of his head, but mercifully 
 sparing his beautiful face, radiant, even in death, with the 
 smile of assuredvictory ! 
 
 Hear General Rice say to his soldiers, " Turn me over, that I 
 may die face to my country's foes !" 
 
 See Major Barnum of the Twelfth New York, wounded and 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 45 
 
 apparently dying, asked by a friend if lie had any message, 
 answered, " Tell my wife my last thoughts were of her, my boy, 
 and the flag !" 
 
 Behold that soldier bleeding at every pore and in the last 
 agonies of death ; his wife bending over him asks, " Is the 
 country worth all this?" The patriot summoning all his 
 strength replies — " Ten thousand times this,^^ and dies ! 
 
 Thou accursed Copperhead ! It takes such blood as this, to 
 wipe the crimson stain of thy guilt from the nation's brow. 
 
 I bow to American soldiers with a respect and reverence I. 
 could not yield to king or monarch. Well may the nation 
 honor them — their heroic patience, their sublime faith, their 
 undying patriotism ; well may we bedew their graves with our 
 tears ; their way to glory is one of suffering and sacrifice : far 
 from kindred, tortured with thirst, no friendly voice to admin- 
 ister comfort, no kind hand to give a cup of water, or staunch 
 their wounds ; no solace but death's fevered dreams bringing 
 up home and the dear ones whom they will never meet till in 
 the better land ! Many a noble one has died thus ; others have 
 returned to us weary, wasted, bronzed and battle-scarred ; — 
 mere shadows of the stalwart men they were ; wan and weak 
 tliey totter through our streets like aged men. Let the nation 
 give them her sympathy and protection. Let her enshrine in 
 her heart the living and the dead, and crown them with flowers 
 of affection. Heaven bless our soldiers ! 
 
 "From blasts tbat chill, and suns that smite, 
 From every plague that harms ; 
 In camp, in march, in field, in fight, 
 O God, protect our men at arms !" 
 
 PATRIOTIC WOMEN. 
 
 Consider likewise the patriotism of our women — not the 
 fiendish frenzy shown by their sisters reared under the influence 
 of Slavery, but the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice, serene patience 
 and sublime faith. How they have toiled to relieve the suffer- 
 ings and promote the comfort of our soldiers ! How many a 
 wife and mother among our poor country-women has struggled 
 one long weary year after another, tortured by suspense, and 
 
46 TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 agonized with the fear that the beloved head and hope of the 
 family might never return I With what anxiety — battle after 
 battle — she glances over the long list of the dead, and how at 
 lonely eve tears have come unbidden, as her little children have 
 offered up their nightly prayer for the father's safety and re- 
 turn ; and yet, poor, desolate and alone, for her country's sake 
 patiently enduring all, without murmur or complaint. How 
 have even widowed mothers given up their only sons, orphaned 
 sisters their brothers, and the new-made bride the dearest offer- 
 ing of her heart, it may be to fall in battle, perchance to linger 
 in prison, or to die amidst scenes of cruelty and suffering, the 
 mere thought of which makes the cheek blanch, the brain reel, 
 and the soul sick. 
 
 Consider Mrs. Belle Reynolds following her husband through 
 the terrible battles of the South-west — with a brace of pistols 
 for her own protection, and appliances for our mangled soldiers ; 
 laboring night and day after some awful carnage, not knowing 
 whether her husband is among the living or the dead ;-— acting 
 with such dauntless and persistent bravery that the Governor 
 of Illinois commissioned her a Major in the army. 
 
 Hear Mrs. Booth after the cruel butchery at Fort Pillow, and 
 the murder of her husband who was in command. She takes 
 the flag stiff with blood and presents it to the fourteen noble 
 survivors who were drawn up to receive it, addressing them in 
 these immortal words—" Boys, I have given to my country all 
 I had to give — my husband — such a gift ! Yet I have freely 
 given him for freedom and my country. Next to my husband's 
 cold remains, the dearest object left me in the world, is this 
 flag— the flag that waved in proud defiance over the works at 
 Fort Pillow ! Soldiers ! this flag I give to you, knowing that 
 you will ever remember the last words of my noble husband : 
 'Never surrender the flag to traitors!'" 
 
 The wife of General Wallace summoned to the bloody field 
 of Shiloh, and finding her iiusband dead from his wounds, with 
 her heart crucified with such agonies as only a bereaved wife 
 can feel — moved by the sufferings around her — crushed back her 
 own sorrows, and labored all night to relieve the wounded and 
 dying companions of her brave, dead husband. Well may it be 
 
TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 47 
 
 said — " Woman, thou angel of humanity ; last at the cross and 
 earliest at the grave !" 
 
 COLORED SOLDIERS. 
 
 I need not speak of the policy of arming the black man. 
 Time has solved that. The question was, what could we do 
 with the slaves ; the question is, what could we do without 
 them ? At Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, 
 Fort Pillow, Petersburg and Fort Wagner, they have written 
 tlicir record with their blood — extorting even unwilling grati- 
 tude and admiration. Many have been their acts of personal 
 bravery. 
 
 See Robert Small risking a cruel death in taking the 
 steamer Planter out of Charleston harbor — remember Tilman 
 who almost single-handed and alone conquered a pirate crew 
 and brought both prisoners and vessel safe into port. Or that 
 heroic black on the Pawnee, who, while passing shell from the 
 magazine lost both legs by a ball, yet resolutely held the shell 
 in his hands, crying — " pass along the shell, never mind me, 
 my time is up!" Or the brave Sergeant Kearney, the color- 
 -bearer of the glorious Massachusetts 54th. Said the noble 
 Sliaw — " I cannot tell you where to bear the flag, but it . '1 
 be safe to keep it near me" — and when that brave Colonel 
 fell most of his guard fell with him. The heroic Kearney who 
 had tlie flag, which Governor Andrews gave to his keeping, fell 
 shattered with balls ; still bearing the banner aloft, he tore the 
 flag from the staff, and foot by foot, this colored hero dragged 
 his mangled body to the camp, and gasping said, ^' Boys, I fell, 
 but the old flag never touched the ground !" 
 
 It was beneath twenty such soldiers, that rebel malice buried 
 the gallant Shaw. His parents wisely left him in the grave 
 with his brave comrades. What a heroic death! wliat an 
 honored grave! Who, appreciating its sublime significance, 
 would exchange that silent, solemn resting-place, amid the 
 sands of Carolina for the noblest monument of antiquity ? 
 
 " The bones of those black soldiers, who with him 
 Charged into Death, and met it, calm and grim, 
 
48 TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Lie silent there above liim ; and the bones 
 More honor give than sculptor's graven stones. 
 Let marble rise there, also ; but the dead 
 Form still a nobler jiile above his head." 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Placing principles before men, and believing, as I do, that 
 the nation should give its undivided energies to the war, it was 
 no part of my present purpose to make a political speech. I 
 need not now stop to vindicate, either the character or admin- 
 istration of Abraham Lincoln. The people having determined 
 to continue him as President four years longer, there will be 
 ample time for both, before his reelection in November nest. 
 During that all important political campaign, I expect to have 
 the pleasure of again addressing you, and shall hope, not only 
 to vindicate the administration against the charges of its dis- 
 loj^al enemies, but also to show their treacherous conduct by 
 indisputable facts from the record. I will now say, however, 
 that while I could wish he had dealt more rigorously with 
 traitors, I believe that among our patriots — and they are legion 
 • — there are none more devoted, more pure or patriotic than 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 victory a question op time. 
 
 Since Grant untied the knot in the Mississippi, at Vicksburg, 
 allowing, in the words of the President, " The Father of waters 
 to go unvexed to the sea," the nation has felt assured of 
 ultimate triumph ; and certainly now, with more than half the 
 territory originally claimed by the rebels in our possession, and 
 our victorious legions hanging like a storm-cloud over Atlanta 
 and Richmond, the least hopeful must realize that it is but a 
 question of time. I have never felt that the nation was sick 
 unto death ; nor have I looked for a speedy peace. Being a 
 war of jyrinciple, it must necessarily be desperate and exhaust- 
 ive ; but in sacrifices and blood the nation shall pass the Red 
 Sea to its deliverance. 
 
 Universal experience teaches that all wars, however brilliant 
 and successful, are unequal in their progress to the expectations 
 of the people. Therefore, let us possess our souls in patience, 
 
TRIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 49 
 
 knowing the " last ditch " will ere long be reached. We shall 
 probably encounter checks— it may be disasters— but shall 
 never return to the policy and dark days of our " first Napo- 
 leon ;" nor to his anaconda, which, under his sootliing tactics, 
 did not even flop its tail once in a twelve-month, and when 
 stirred up by a foe, was, under the peculiar strategy of its man- 
 ager made to face the wrong way, and squeeze the keeper in- 
 stead of pressing the enemy ! What dark days those were ! 
 How patronisingly we treated the Rebellion ! What tender- 
 ness to traitors ! Our soldiere, weary from a long day's march, 
 ■were detailed to guard rebel garners, and not unfrequeutly 
 were found next morning, murdered at tlieir posts, or dangling 
 from the limb of some neighboring tree ; while, by purchasing 
 of traitors, we poured forth our treasures to invigorate the Re- 
 bellion ! When the black man risked more than life that our 
 army might not bo misled, or betrayed, he was mercilessly 
 delivered over to a fate worse than death. Save the fearful 
 inroads of disease and the destroying angel, how terribly 
 " quiet " was all on the Potomac ! How that noble army ditched 
 and died ! How patriots prayed that it might have a leader 
 worthy of itself, and liow thankful all are that such a leader 
 has at last been given — in a Grant who " moves on the enemies 
 works \ " keeps his foes before him ; and will " fight it out on 
 this line if it takes all Summer " — the chosen Moses that is to 
 lead our armies to the long promised land ! 
 
 Of him who for years paralyzed that heroic army, I will not 
 trust myself to speak. I leave him to the avenging pages of 
 history, which, I trust, the discretion of his friends and the 
 generosity of his foes will forever leave undisturbed. 
 
 OUR POSITION AND RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 In his own good time and way, when worthy of it, God will 
 save the nation ; and well may the thoughtful patriot watch 
 our moral progress with even more anxif ^^an the advance 
 of our armies. In the light of the great prinu.^ js at issue, we 
 cannot over-rate our individual and national responsibility. 
 With varied hopes and fears, the eyes of the whole world are 
 upon us — the despot desiring our destruction, the down-trodden 
 4 
 
50 TEIAL OP THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 our succass. We contend against the imprecations of the 
 wicked, but are aided hj the prayers of the good. Let us be 
 equal to this great responsibility and fulfill our high destiny. 
 Let us make no attempt to cheat the Almighty, but build on 
 a sure foundation, recognizing one great human heart, one broad 
 universal justice. Avoiding the mistake made by the fathers 
 of laying one corner-stone on Plymouth rock, and another on 
 the quagmire of Southern slavery, let us build on the granite 
 of God's justice, and in the spirit of universal liberty. 
 
 Standing by the graves of our fathers, drawing wisdom from 
 the spirit of the past, light from the living present, faith and 
 courage from the eternal future, let us swear to perfect their 
 noble design. To this end, let every one strengthen our brave 
 brothers in arms. Fathers, aid them with your counsel ; mothers, 
 pray for them in your heaven-born influence ; young man, young 
 woman, at home and abroad, by the wayside and the fireside, 
 in public and in private, stand for this imperiled cause. Stand 
 for your brothei^, struggling for your country and mine, and 
 treat with unmitigated scorn the vile thing who dares let one 
 word of reproach escape his polluted lips. Let nothing chill 
 your enthusiasm for the right — ^your utter abhorrence of treason. 
 
 Heaven has ordained that our nation shall be saved only by 
 vigorous means and thorough work. Slow to fight, let us show 
 Slavery we fight but once ! and that in the language of the 
 great English statesman — " No sword is sharper than that 
 forged from the plow-share, no spear more deadly than that 
 from the pruning hook." 
 
 " Slow to resolve, be swift to do ! 
 Toad) ye the False bow fight the True ! 
 How bucklered Perfidy shall feel 
 In her black heart the Patriot's steel ; 
 How sure the bolt that justice wings ; 
 How weak the arm a traitor brings ; 
 How mighty they, who steadfast stand 
 For Freedom's Flag and Freedom's Land I" 
 
 We are testing on a bloody battle-field the brutal challenge 
 that " free laborers are a pauper banditti" — Slave mongei-s the 
 only true aristocracy — that freedom is a curse and slavery or- 
 
TRIAL OF THE AirERICAN REPUBLIC. 51 
 
 dained of (Jrod ! — are meeting barbarism with civilization — 
 slave-pens with school-houses — unscrupulous tyranny with 
 •liberty ! Better for us and the race that the heavens be- 
 come as brass over our heads ; that pestilence devastate our 
 land ; that Famine, with its cold, bony hand, lay waste the 
 nation — even tliat it be blotted from physical existence, than 
 that we prove recreant to our high trust. 
 
 " We are living, we are dwelling, in a grand and awful time ; 
 In an age on ages telling, to be living is sublime. 
 Will ye play, then, will ye dally, 'sdth your music and your wine ? 
 Up ! It is Jehovah's rally : God's own arm hath need of thine! " 
 
 Let us then, relying on Him, grasp hands for justice and the 
 Union ; steadfast and unwavering, in war as in peace, in tem" 
 porary defeat as in victory. 
 
 FIRST PURE, THEN' PEACEFUL. — CONCLUSION'. 
 
 It seems under Providence to have been necessary, that 
 battle-field after battle-field should \ watered with the blood 
 of our beloved — leaving hearths andVearts desolate, and piling 
 up hecatombs of the dead — that the ark of our liberty should 
 be tempest-tost, till it reel and quiver beneath the storm, to 
 teach us that high and low, black and white, must sink or 
 swim together. But with our flag now purified by this bap- 
 tism, the " Old Ship of State " — clad in the full ai-mor of 
 justice, with Liberty as its guiding star — shall bear its pre- 
 cious freight across this bloody sea triumpliant. God is, indeed, 
 " on the side of the strongest battalions," but the strongest bat- 
 talions are eternal principles of right. Mere physical force 
 and material outlines come to naught, but the spirit of truth is 
 ever victorious. Our bodies decay, our bones fret to dust, the 
 soul wins the immortal victory ! 
 
 When the fire of this Civil War shall have consumed the 
 corrupting dross of Slavery, then, and not till then, will the 
 Nation be welded in perfect union and love. Then no longer 
 will the wail of the bondman mingle with the shout of the free- 
 man ; the altar-fires, kindled by the Fathers, shall never grow 
 dim ; the graves of our brave and beautiful will have borne 
 their fruit ; the din of war shall be stilled — the blood of battle- 
 
62 TRIAL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 fields dried up — the clouds lifted from the troubled face of our 
 beloved country — the Goddess of Liberty appear crowned with 
 a diadem of six and thirty stars — the oppressed of all nations 
 gather beneath the folds of the old flag, as under the cooling 
 shadow of a great rock, and ours shall be, indeed, " the chosen 
 land of liberty ! " Men and angels shall rejoice — the morning 
 stars sing together — the birds warble a more joyous song — 
 the air of heaven seem purer and brighter, and all Nature join 
 to swell the glad anthem of our Nation's Deliverance ! 
 
 Hark ! there comes the sweep of wings ; 
 
 Holy angels hover near ! 
 Earth their heavenly chorus rings, 
 — " Glory to the Eng of Kings, 
 
 Peace and Purity are here 1"