Entered according to Act ot Congress, in the year 18G4, by LINDLEY SPRING, in 
 the Clerk's Office of the District Court of tho United States for the Southern 
 District of New York. 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 DKLIVKRED ON 
 
 THE 4th OF AUGUST, 1SG4 (FAST-DAY), 
 
 AT TUK 
 
 COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK. 
 
 BY LINDLEY SPRING. 
 
 •* There's none ever feared 
 .That the truth should be heard, 
 But they whom the truth would indict" 
 
 There is in the land a large class of people, who, be- 
 fore,, the war begun, were busy conspirators against 
 the Union ; they hated the flag ; denounced the Consti- 
 tution, as a league with hell and a covenant with death ; 
 boastfully resisted and practically annulled laws which 
 were passed to give effect to its fundamental condi- 
 tions. Their sickly patriotism could not stand alone — 
 all at once, as at the blast of a trumpet, it sprung up, 
 a prodigy of strength and demonstration. 
 
 Moved by the novelty of their sensations, stung by 
 remorse for past delinquencies, our model patriots now 
 work wonders ; wrapped in the full drapery of " hate's 
 polluted rag" they strut the tragic stage and spout 
 their part — and spout it well : 
 1 
 
2 
 
 ' : Let mc alone, good Syphax, I'll conceal 
 My thoughts in passion ('tis the surest way), 
 I'll bellow ont for Rome, and for my country — 
 And mouth at Caesar 'till I shake, the Senate ; 
 Your cold hypocrisy's a stale device — 
 A worn-out trick— would'st thou be thought in earnest? 
 Clothe thy feigned zeal in rage, in fire, in fury." 
 
 These, mainly, clamor for continual war ; at times, 
 they call for peace, but they call in accents which " blab 
 the heart's malice." 
 
 Their Peace is a fury— she of the dripping sword 
 and blood-dyed raiment. Discord and revenge attend 
 her ; death and destruction mark her progress ; flam- 
 ing villages ; wasted fields ; regions where not a 
 happy human voice is heard, where nothing is, but la- 
 mentation and mourning, woe and bitterness, or the 
 silence of the grave — these are her consolation. She 
 is wedded to perpetual hate ; the spoils of subjugation 
 and captivity are her dowry, and carnage is her bridal 
 feast. 
 
 Such is the Peace they invoke. 
 
 We do not pretend to any extravagant ardor of self- 
 devotion at the altar of our country, much less to this 
 newly hatched, but full-fledged, loyalt}', which, like a 
 brood of greedy chickens, goes cheeping around the 
 public crib. 
 
 Sincere and affectionate regard for the land of our 
 birth, our ancestors, and our graves, for the civil insti- 
 tutions which have secured so many and so great bene- 
 fits, is natural, nay more, it is inevitable. 
 
 The same spirit, blended with a sense of pride and 
 exultation, we may fairly be supposed to cherish toward 
 the whole country, its affecting history and traditions, 
 its great achievements, its beneficent institutions, its 
 venerable names. 
 
 In this connection we can not 'but remember, that 
 the people against whom we now wage a war of almost 
 unmitigated ferocity, have peculiar claims on our for- 
 
 QUA*? 
 
bcarancc and consideration ; that they are our breth- 
 ren, the descendants of those very men who, in closest 
 fellowship with our ancestors, wrote the history of this 
 nation with their swords, sealed our political redemp- 
 tion with their blood ; whose wisdom, self-devotion, 
 sufferings, and courage secured our liberties and estab- 
 lished this great nation. But for them, where would 
 have been our country? Where, this very day, our 
 power to wage a merciless crusade against their 
 children ? Even now we call them " fathers," and do 
 not blush. 
 
 According to such old-fashioned notions as these, we 
 claim to love our country ; but we respectfully decline 
 all title to that raging patriotism which, like the cur- 
 rency of the day, carries all its security on its face, 
 pays only in promises, and is chiefly used to gull the 
 people. 
 
 The Peace we. invoke is a very different character 
 from that which has just been described. 
 
 Our Peace is a heaven-born, heaven descended Grace; 
 her countenance is beautiful as the morning ; her rai- 
 ment is white as the snow ; she carries the olive branch 
 in her hand ; and the dove flies securely to her breast; 
 Faith, Hope, and Charity are her handmaids; unity and 
 concord, life, light, and prosperity attend her steps 4 
 along her path the wilderness blossoms as the rose, 
 and the waste places smile ; cities rise up to do her 
 reverence, and the ripe fields bow their heads ; the 
 land is full of pl< nty ; wisdom exalteth the nation ; 
 all the people rejoice and shout together : " Glory to 
 God in the highest, peace on earth and good-will to- 
 ward men." 
 
 Solomon says, * It is an honor for, a man to cease 
 from strife, but every fool will be meddling." 
 
 The professed object of tins war is, to restore the 
 Union. 
 
 If the means employed obviously defeat the end, the 
 
4 
 
 reason for employing them ceases, and the means 
 ought to cease. 
 
 The case is too sad for mif th, or we might venture 
 to be a little mirthful over the absurdity, of an at- 
 tempt to secure a union of equals, of freemen, friends 
 — a union of consent and self-government — by force ; 
 especially when that force is so exerted as to ex- 
 tinguish every sentiment necessary to such a condi- 
 tion, and provoke those which are repugnant to its 
 existence. 
 
 A union of force and free-will constitutes a hybrid, 
 which, if not sterile, can breed monsters only. 
 
 The war has been going on for more than three 
 years, and every intelligent, candid observer of events 
 feels that it has utterly failed of any substantial re- 
 sults tending to a restoration of the Union ; feels that 
 restoration to be a great deal farther off to-day than it 
 was the day the first fleet lay off Charleston harbor, 
 the day the first hostile foot pressed the soil of Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 Maryland, conquered before she had time to rise, 
 lies a captive bound ; the form of union is there — an 
 abject, mutilated, disfigured form indeed, but the 
 soul has fled. 
 
 Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, large por- 
 tions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia have been 
 "restored" — say, rather, desolated, converted into hos- 
 tile camps ; but is there union ? Have you made 
 friends or enemies ? Such questions mock us ; laugh 
 at our folly, and deride our expectations. 
 
 Even while we speak, over those western fields the 
 terrible conflict is renewed; the subjugated have risen. 
 Again the whirlwind sweeps northward, its thunder 
 shakes the Capitol. And what does it prove ? It proves 
 that, to the freemen of these United States, there is no 
 middle ground bejtween Liberty and Death. 
 
 The real object of the war is not the restoration of 
 
5 
 
 the Union ; but the abolition of slavery, the overthrow 
 of State rights, and the creation of a military govern- 
 ment. 
 
 We are becoming more and more familiar with the 
 conditions of the contest ; one by one, all flimsy pre- 
 texts are thrust aside, and the original, unchanged, 
 logical purpose stands disclosed in all its ghastly 
 features of submission or extermination. 
 
 Submission we have made impossible, except on 
 terms that no freeman should ever have proposed, and 
 no freeman can ever accept. 
 
 To make subjects, slaves, dependents on our bounty 
 for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, of whole 
 communities, a race of people, our equals and former 
 fellow-citizens, were in us, not political murder mere- 
 ly, but political suicide. We have no fear that it can 
 be done. What then ? Extermination ? 
 
 Do they know, those who use this word so glibly, 
 the meaning of it ? Have they fathomed its depths ? 
 Explored its horrors ? Made an estimate of its diffi- 
 culties ? Nay, mure, thank God, of its impossibilities ? 
 
 This is not the Dark Ages, nor are these a little, 
 feeble, unarmed band of fugitives of the Apennines; 
 but eight millions of free people — a people accustomed 
 to liberty and the use of arms, courageous, and war- 
 like. They inhabit a territory of more than a million 
 and a half of square miles ; a vast region every way 
 defensible by nature and art. They have the best of 
 military leaders, all the appliances, arms, and muni- 
 tions of war; and are inspired by every sentiment cal- 
 culated to stimulate their zeal and invigorate their 
 resistance. They can not be subjugated. 
 
 Shall history teach us nothing l { 
 
 Philip of Spain, the mightiest monarch of his age, 
 with all his power, was unable to subdue the Nether- 
 lands. There were — high military genius, unlimited, 
 resources in men and money, veteran armies, a fierce 
 
6 
 
 courage, bitter religious hatred, against a handful of 
 people, a petty country, a mere plain without forests or 
 mountain defenses ; hut that handful of people was 
 superior to all the powers of despotism ; for it was 
 sustained by stout hearts, a united purpose, an indomi- 
 table will, the resolution to be free or die! Against 
 such defenses those proud armies dashed themselves 
 in vain, even as the waters of the German Ocean dash 
 against the dikes of Holland. The cruel struggle 
 lasted many years ; it was conducted much after the 
 present fashion ; but those rebels maintained fheir 
 liberty, and, in due time, Spain herself was made to 
 feel the invader's wasting sword. 
 
 Fifty years ago, Poland, unhappy Poland, was 
 stricken down, and divided as a spoil to her con- 
 querors; yet Poland, weltering in blood, struggles on, 
 and, but yesterday, threatened to involve all Europe iu 
 her cause. 
 
 Greece saw her cities burned, her fields laid waste, 
 her people slaughtered, her youth sold into captivity, 
 her virgins made the inmates of some Turkish harem; 
 yet Greece survives, and her cruel master owes his 
 existence to the jealousy of rival nations, and not to 
 his own strength. 
 
 The thirteen colonies threw off the yoke of Great 
 Britain. It was another 'mighty nation against another 
 handful of people. There was no great oppression; but 
 our fathers resolved to be free, to render their children 
 free, and free they became. 
 
 The consideration of this subject calls to mind cases 
 simil.ir, almost innumerable. The most affecting, in- 
 structive, and ennobling pages of history are those 
 which narrate their story. But, 
 
 Suppose we succeed in our project, what shall we 
 gain ? 
 
 We shall gain a desolated South. 
 
 We .shall gain a race of freed blacks ; which, ac- 
 
7 
 
 .cording to all experience, soon returns to its condition 
 of native barbarism, whenever able to cimsult its in- 
 clinations. 
 
 We shall gain a still greater national debt, which 
 must be either repudiated to the rflin of thousands, or 
 sustained by a system of the most oppressive tax- 
 ation. 
 
 We shall gain a distracted country, a subverted 
 government, a great standing arm}', and a master. 
 
 We shall gain an inheritance of hatred, revenge, and 
 perpetual enmity ; the reproach and contempt of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 What shall we lose ? 
 
 We shall lose our most profitable neighbors and 
 best ^customers — our natural friends and allies ; we 
 shall luse years upon years of prosperous industry 
 and intercourse ; we shall lose our own self-respect, 
 and the respect of mankind ; and we shall lose our 
 liberties. 
 
 In the language of one of the placards of the times, 
 Will it pay 
 
 That the real object of the war is the destruction of 
 slavery many deny in terms, but affirm in effect, by 
 saving that slavery is the cause of the war. and that 
 there can be n > peace until it is abolished. 
 
 Such an argument as this would justify David for 
 putting Uriah in the front of the battle, that he might 
 peaceably enjoy Bathsheba ; or Ahab, for compassing 
 the deatn of Naboth, that he might possess his J vine- 
 yard in quiet. 
 
 It was the reasoning of the wolf at the brook : the 
 lamb muddied the water, therefore he devoured it. 
 
 It is a highwayman's plea, and would justify him in 
 taking that gold which was the cause of temptation, 
 violence, and crime. 
 
 It is the flimsy excuse of covctonsncss, jealousy, and 
 intermeddling. 
 
8 
 
 Slavery does not meddle with us, but we meddle 
 with it. 
 
 Naboth did not meddle with Ahab ; but Ahab med- 
 dled with Naboth, for he coveted his vineyard, the 
 inheritance of his fathers, to have it for a garden. 
 
 The illegality and injustice of a war for the abolition 
 of slavery in this country has been often and fully dis- 
 cussed, the points are few, plain, conclusive, and 
 familiar. The argument may be considered closed ; we 
 do not propose, at this time, to open it. 
 
 To those who seek an apology for supporting the 
 war, in the condition of things it has produced ; we 
 answer : 
 
 That which in the beginning was wrong, no results 
 proceeding therefrom, no length of time, can make 
 right. 
 
 To those actuated by antipathies of race and the 
 jealousies of labor, nothing more need be said than that 
 such motives confess the crime. 9 
 
 Those who are moved by philanthropic considera- 
 tions, if any such there can be, had better direct their 
 attention to some quarter where they would be more 
 highly appreciated, or more necessary ; where there 
 would not be such a glaring violation of plighted faith, 
 the obligations of good fellarwship and good neighbor- 
 hood ; and where their experiments would be attended 
 with less disastrous consequences. ' 
 
 There is Africa, for instance, probably worse off to- 
 day than ever she was ; no very disastrous consequences 
 would be likely to attend an amiable crusade in that 
 direction, except to the crusaders. 
 
 Or Great Britain ; she has no special claims on our 
 gratitude, or good faith, or good fellowship. There are 
 to-day millions of her subjects, in mines, factories, and 
 workshops, held to a perpetual slavery worse a great 
 deal than that of this country. 
 
 There is Siberia, too, among the exiles. Doubtless 
 
9 
 
 our illustrious Russian ally would highly appreciate and 
 reward any benevolent designs in that^irection. Or, 
 if our philanthropists must be doing, andwill rest satis- 
 fied with the tame excitement of hunting on their own 
 grounds, they can find, all around them, lying in their 
 own grease, an unctuous collection of freed negroes, 
 who, under the bland influences of liberty, are fast dy- 
 ing out ; unless soon caught, there will be nothing left 
 of them to catch, except the scrofula. 
 
 The cost of the war is a reason why it should cease. 
 
 The consumption of human life is enormous, whole 
 armies have been slaughtered in the field, or sent to 
 the hospitals to die ; there are hundreds of thousands 
 maimed for life, or incurably diseased. And how shall 
 we count the childless, the widows, the orphans, and 
 those otherwise left destitute ? We can obtain nothing 
 which will compensate for such losses and bereave- 
 ments as these. 
 
 The cost in other respects is ruinous. The money, 
 labor, and produce of the whole country, parted with 
 for a paper consideration, to be consumed, fired away 
 in powder and shot. 
 
 Thus, while destroying the substance of the South, 
 we waste our own — burn the candle at both ends. 
 Surely never were people so busy in the work of self- 
 destruction, nor so mad. 
 
 Our mode of warfare is unchristian, inexcusable, dis- 
 graceful, and furnishes a very strong reason why the 
 war should cease. 
 
 We have fought their armies with all our might — 
 we have attacked and taken their fortified and defended 
 places. This is, at any rate, manly ; it is war. 
 
 We have declared contraband all the munitions and 
 material of war, and all supplies destined for their 
 armies and strongholds. This, too, is war ; but much 
 have we done which is not war, but barbarism. 
 
 We have declared contraband the subsistence of the 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 whole people, armed and unarmed, combatants and 
 non-combatanjp, young and old, male and female ; and 
 all medicines, even chloroform, the gift of humanity to 
 man's misery, and salt, so indispensable to every family. 
 Yes, some of the greatest conquests of the war have 
 been over this highly explosive material. 
 
 Doubtless, the water of the running brooks, the rain, 
 the light and the air of Heaven would be declared con- 
 traband, if there were not some doubts of the efficacy of 
 the embargo. 
 
 Nor is this all ; we have done much more and much 
 worse. 
 
 We have made war upon the whole people without 
 discrimination, and against their property of every 
 description. We have destroyed their landmarks, 
 their public records, deeds and other evidences of 
 property. We have cut down their fruit trees and 
 trees of shade and ornament about their dwellings, 
 destroyed their gardens, fences^ and growing crops ; 
 their machinery and implements of agriculture. What 
 could be taken away has been taken away, even to 
 the milch cow for the family and the horse for the 
 mill. 
 
 We have spoiled them of their wearing apparel and 
 jevels, of the furniture of their houses, of their family 
 plate and pictures ; even of that sacred fund which 
 the mother hoards in secret for pious uses, of their pub- 
 lic libraries, their works of art and science. 
 
 We have carried indiscriminately, fire, famine, plun- 
 der, and destruction over a great extent of their country. 
 
 We have burned their defenseless and undefended 
 towns, villages, and isolated dwellings, driving the 
 terror-stricken and impoverished inhabitants to the 
 woods and fields for shelter. Nor have we spared those 
 asylums for the insane, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, 
 which even savages hold sacred. 
 
 We have violated and destroyed their churches and 
 
II 
 
 their graves — done all iii our power to expose their 
 helpless families to the worst horrors of a servile insur- 
 reetion. 
 
 We have made war on women, taken them prisoners, 
 treated them brutally, held them as hostages for negro 
 raiders, under threats of ignominious death. 
 
 We directed the surprise of -their capital city, 
 «*not for occupation, but to have it destroyed, by fire of 
 the incendiary, its unarmed people abandoned to the 
 tender mercies of a fierce soldiery, and their rulers 
 slain. 
 
 We seduce slaves to take up arms against their mas- 
 ters, under delusive promises of a freedom which they 
 can never enjoy ; those whom vvc can not seduce we 
 compel and restrain — these soldiers, if such they should 
 be called, we thrust into the field or the fort, subject to 
 more than the ordinary perils of war — knowing full 
 well, that, of necessity and by the law of nations, the 
 Southern people can not regard such soldiers as ordi- 
 nary prisoners of war. We know, top, that such sol- 
 diers, when not cowards, are as wild beasts, ignorant of 
 civilized warfare, au4, we also know that this tends to 
 aggravate the horrors of the war out of all proportion 
 to any benefit that can be expected from it. 
 
 These things we have done, to the degradation of 
 the profession of arms, without necessity, for we are 
 twenty millions of free white people against our adver- 
 sary's eight millions. We receive constant accessions 
 by foreign emigration ; they do not. 
 
 We pause over this enumeration of particulars with 
 horror and shame ; no wonder the people of France call 
 us monsters. 
 
 Is this the nineteenth century — and this the boasted 
 and boastful republic of America, the home 'of civiliza- 
 tion, religion, and humanity ? 
 
 Is the world upon, its backward march, and do these 
 vandals of the North lead the way ? 
 
12 
 
 If such uses as these are justifiable, then is the use 
 of poison justifiable, or any other infamous means re- 
 sorted to in the worst of times, by the worst of people, 
 to supply the deficiencies of incapacity or cowardice. 
 
 They are in themselves a confession of weakness ; a 
 confession of our inability to wage this war to success, 
 except by means of treacherous apts, which derive no 
 authority from virtue, or courage, or superior numbers ; 
 and against which, neither virtue, courage, nor superior 
 numbers can always be secure. 
 
 They are means which civilized society everywhere 
 denounces, as it denounces the assassin and the pirate ; 
 they are every way detestable, and without excuse. 
 
 What said the astonished Camillus, to the schoolmas- 
 ter who would betray the children of the Falerians into 
 his hands ? 
 
 "Neither the people, nor the commander to whom 
 thou hast come, thou wretch, with thy villainous offer, 
 are like thyself. War, indeed, is, of necessity, attended 
 with much injustice and violence ; but war has its laws 
 as well as peace, which all good men observe ; nor 
 is victory so great an object with us as to induce 
 us to incur, for its sake, obligations for base and im- 
 pious acts. A great general should rely on his own 
 virtues, and not on other men's vices. 
 
 " We carry arms, not against persons of such age as 
 these, who, even in the storming of towns, are ex- 
 empted from injury ; but against men, who have arms 
 in their hands as well as ourselves, those thou hast 
 conquered, as far as in thee lay, by an act of unex- 
 ampled villainy, I shall conquer them as I conquered 
 Veii, by Roman methods, by valor, by labor, and by 
 arms." 
 
 Saying this, he ordered rods to be put in the hands 
 of the children, the man to be stripped and scourged 
 back to the city. 
 
 In the war between Caesar and Pompey, the latter 
 
13 
 
 made proclamation, that all who did not join him 
 should be treated as enemies. Coesar, on the contrary, 
 proclaimed that all who did not join the enemy should 
 be treated as friends. 
 
 Which was the better or the wiser man was shown by 
 the result. 
 
 Abbe de Marolles, in his memoirs of Henry IV. of 
 France, says : 
 
 " No march of his soldiers ever pillaged a single 
 village, much less desolated whole provinces." 
 
 When Bardolph was hanged for stealing a Pyx, of 
 little price, King Henry V. said : 
 
 "We would have all such offenders cut off, and we 
 give express charge, that, in our marches through the 
 country, there be nothing compeljed from the villages, 
 nothing taken but paid for ; none of the French up- 
 braided or abused in disdainful language. For where 
 lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler 
 gamester is the soonest winner." 
 
 What has been the result of our mode of warfare? 
 Traverse that land and see. Wherever our armies or 
 our predatory hordes have gone, there is wide-spread 
 desolation, and misery, and hate ; nothing relieves the 
 terrible monotony of the picture, save the patience, the 
 endurance, the fortitude, of its people, their high courage 
 and fixed resolve to perish rather than endure the 
 loathed embraces of those who have inflicted such in- 
 juries and sufferings upon them. 
 
 But we have not finished, would that we had. 
 
 When, as conquerors, wo have entered and possessed 
 a city, one would suppose that a people so abounding 
 in the highest qualities of manhood would respect the 
 misfortunes of an adversary whom war had placed in 
 their power. An adversary, whose cause we may feel 
 bound to condemn ; but whose courage, self-devotion, 
 and fortitude in defending that cause we* should surely 
 respect. 
 
14 
 
 In such a case, all wanton signs of triumph are, of 
 course, suppressed; there is an exercise of magnanimity, 
 moderation, forbearance ; every available means of 
 conciliation are resorted to, in order that we might 
 have a speedy return to that state of harmony so essen- 
 tial to the " restoration" we profess to desire. 
 
 Prudence, if not manliness, dictates such a course. 
 
 Neither the dictates of manliness nor of prudence 
 have been followed. 
 
 The insolence of triumph has characterized our con- 
 quests, and unmitigated oppression darkened every day 
 of our dominion. 
 
 The occupation of New Orleans, for instance, will 
 furnish volumes of infamy. . 
 
 It appears to have been the design of the authorities 
 so to govern that city as to goad the people to madness, 
 and furnish pretexts for general confiscation and exile. 
 
 A brutal despotism prevailed there, with unlimited 
 plunder, and prodigal, shameless living. 
 
 Nothing was omitted to insult and degrade, pillage 
 and distress, which the ingenuity of little minds, coarse, 
 cruel, vulgar natures, and bad hearts could suggest. 
 
 The surrender stipulated for the protection of private 
 persons and property. And yet the people were impover- 
 ished by forced loans, military exactions, fines, forfeit- 
 ures, and downright robbery. They were forbidden to 
 earn a living, except on terms repugnant to conscience 
 and feeling. 
 
 They were placed at the mercy of spies, eves-droppers, 
 and informers ; the man was mad<3 to betray his master, 
 and the maid her mistress. 
 
 Families of inoffensive, helpless people, forbidden to 
 take anything away but the clothes they wore, were 
 turned out of comfortable homes in order that some low 
 official and his trull might be installed there. 
 
 Severe, degrading, and infamous punishments ; a 
 military dungeon, imprisonment at hard labor, with ball 
 
15 
 
 and chain, a beggared exile, was the sentence of many 
 hundreds of the best citizens, for the expression of an 
 opinion, for contumacy and contempt in refusing to ex- 
 press an opinion, lor the attractions of a bribe or a 
 confiscation. 
 
 There was no defense against caprice, or vulgarity, 
 or cupidiiy, or malignity, or the petty exercise of power, 
 or against any sort of vileness, unless it was money. 
 
 Innocence was no security, nor weakness, nor sex, 
 nor age, nor dclicac'y,«or virtue; nothing except poverty. 
 
 In short, the rule was worthy of its hero; but that 
 we, who are so sensitive to the opinions of mankind, 
 should loudly proclaim of that man : " Well done, thou 
 good and faithful servant," and should confer upon him 
 the laurels of a victor, is singular, if it is not shameful. 
 . As with New Orleans, so, in proportion to its size.* 
 and wealth, has it been with Norfolk, and other cities. 
 It is a painful and blasting record, not one-tenth part- 
 of which can be disclosed now. 
 
 The rule of the civilized world toward a subjugated 
 people is, that, so long as they demean themselves 
 peaceably, the}' shall be, not only undisturbed, but pro- 
 tected. We adopt a different plan. To live peaceably, 
 to be law abiding, to fulfdl all the duties of a citizen, 
 are no security to those who will not say what they do 
 not mean, nor swear what they can not intend. 
 
 Is this union, or the way to restore it, or is any such 
 union worth having? 
 
 To all of these things, guilty actors and sordid flat- 
 terers answer : 
 
 "These are rebels, and rebels have no rights; no, not 
 to wife, nor child, nor possessions, nor life, nor anything. 
 Neither have wife, nor child, nor kindred, any rights." 
 
 Such is the language of Omnipotence, or of blasphe- 
 my ! Are ye God, or do ye stand in the place of God ? 
 Is it by you these " rebels" live and move and have 
 their being ? Is it your breath they draw, your buu 
 
16 
 
 they enjoy ? Does your rain water the earth, and were 
 the green fields spread by you ? Is it by your strength 
 they toil and gather substance, ye pensioners on the 
 bounty of an hour ? 
 
 Rebels have no rights to anything derived from those 
 against whom they wrongfully rebel; further than this, 
 your proposition has no right to go. 
 
 Everywhere, in all ages, the language of tyranny 
 and its sycophants has been the same. The Parliamen- 
 tary debates of England, during our Revolutionary War, 
 would furnish suggestive reading for the present day; 
 for then, as now, there were those who said that " rebels, 
 had no rights." We will quote a paragraph from a 
 speech of John Wilkes, in 1775 : 
 
 11 Whether their present state is that of rebellion or 
 \)f a fit and just resistance to unlawful acts of power, 
 resistance to our attempts to rob them of their property 
 and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare ; this 
 I know, a successful resistance is a revolution. Rebel- 
 lion, indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy, but 
 revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious 
 warrior." 
 
 Of all the people in the world, we should be the last 
 to say, that rebels have no rights — for shame ! Cease 
 trampling on the graves of your ancestors and my 
 ancestors! Cease to revile those sacred memories, to 
 cast contempt on our most venerable traditions. 
 
 Rebellion ! Rebels ! Memorable words 1 All over 
 the world, in every tongue, tyrants know them well 
 and fear them greatly. They have pulled down many 
 a haughty throne; stricken the fetters from many a mis- 
 erable captive; and done more to establish truth and 
 right, and good government, to deliver mankind from 
 every sort of darkness, misrule, and oppression, than 
 all the principalities, powers, and dominions since the 
 Deluge. 
 
 The next suggestion is addressed to your resentment, 
 
17 
 
 vexation, and pride ; it is an artful suggestion : " What 
 right have these people to break up the best govern- 
 ment that ever existed ? 
 
 Suppose it to be true that they have broken up the 
 best government that ever existed, does that create 
 any right in us to treat tbem as wild beasts ; to seek 
 their extermination ; to wipe out in blood and smoke 
 a civilized, Christianiaw^people ? No ; never. Nature 
 revolts at sucli horrible pretensions, and Nature's God 
 will never bless them. 
 
 But let us consider this proposition a little. Because 
 this is the best government that ever existed for the 
 North, does it follow that it is best for the South ? And 
 who are the proper judges, we, or they ? Because it is 
 the best for us, have we a right to impose it on those 
 for whom it is not the best? If so, what becomes of. 
 the right to resist any degree of oppression and tyran- 
 ny, of the right to rebel in any case ? What becomes 
 of our boasted liberties, of our right of self-government, 
 of our Declaration of Independence ? 
 
 The greatest .despot that ever lived might say the 
 same thing of his rebellious subjects, and with truth, 
 for it might well be the best government in the world 
 for him. 
 
 Was it ever before known, heard, or read of, that a 
 community of eight millions of people, or the half of 
 that number, with almost perfect unanimity, persisted 
 in rejecting "the best government that ever existed," 
 choosing t"> encounter every peril and privation rather 
 than submit any longer to it ? The suggestion is too 
 wild and irrational to deserve a thought. 
 
 Is that " the best government" which can not, or 
 does not, keep the peace between its members; where 
 there is perpetual wrangling, dispute, and danger of 
 open violence ? 
 
 Can that be the best government where one portion 
 of the people perseveres, offensively and injuriously, in 
 
18 
 
 meddling" with the affairs of the other portion, and 
 insists on the whole being governed to suit its own 
 interest and prejudices, regardless of others ? 
 
 Can two walk together except they be agreed ? 
 
 It is the struggle of selfishness which has agitated 
 the wor d from the beginning, old as right and wrong, 
 oppression and resistance, old as the universal appetite 
 which provokes the strong to devour the weak. 
 
 During our Revolutionary War, the armies of Great 
 Britain ■ occupied nearly all of our capital cities, from 
 one to five years, they were quartered in many of our 
 peaceful inland towns, and passed through a large ex- 
 tent of our country. 
 
 Suppose that, because " Rebels had no rights,'- and 
 because they had broken up " the best government that 
 ever existed," Great Britain had made as merciless a 
 use of her strength as we have made of ours, where and 
 what would have been Boston, Providence, Hartford, 
 New Haven, New York, Newark, Princeton, Philadel- 
 phia, liarrisburg ? Where, and what the principal 
 ' towns and villages of all these States? In what con- 
 dition would they have left this land, these homes, and 
 the heart* of the people. 
 
 There were not wanting advocates for such a course. 
 Turn to the sehool books, and read an extract or two 
 from the Earl of Chatham's speeeh against employing 
 Indians in the watN 
 
 "It is perfectly justifiable, says a noble lord, to use 
 all the means that God and nature put into our hands. 
 I am astonished, shocked, to hear such principles con- 
 fessed, to hear them avowed in this House, or even in 
 this country ; principles equally unconstitutional, in- 
 human, and unchristian. 
 
 " As members of this House, as men, as Christians, ' 
 we are called upon to 'protest against the barbarous 
 proposition. 
 
 " What ideas that noble lord may have of God and 
 
19 
 
 nature, I know not; but I know that such abominable 
 principles are equally abhorrent to religion and hu- 
 • inanity. 
 
 "Turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient 
 connections, friends, and relations, the merciless canni- 
 bal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child ! 
 Send forth the infidel savage ! Against whom ? Against 
 your* Protestant brethren, to lay waste their country, to 
 desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and 
 name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war 1" 
 
 Again, in another speech he says : 
 
 " If illegal violences have been, as it is said, com- 
 mitted in America, prepare the way — open the door 
 of possibility — for acknowledgment and satisfaction; 
 but, proceed not to such coercion, such proscription ; 
 cease your indiscriminate inflictions; amerce not thirty 
 thousand ; oppress not three millions ; irritate them 
 not to unappeasable rancor for the fault of forty or fifty. 
 Such severity of injustice must forever render incur- 
 able the wounds you have inflicted. What though you 
 march from ^own to town, from province to province? 
 What though you enforce a local and temporaiw sub- 
 mission, how sha 1 you secure the obedience of the 
 country you leave behind yon: in your progress ? How 
 grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of conti- 
 nent, populous in number, strong in valor, liberty, and 
 the means of resistance V 
 
 Again, John Wilkes : " I call the war with our breth- 
 ren in America an unjust and felonious war, because 
 the primary cause and confessed origin of it is, to at- 
 tempt to take their money (slaves) from them without 
 their consent, contrary to the common rights of all man- 
 kind, and those great fundamental principles of the 
 English Constitution, for which Hampden bled. I as- 
 sert, Sir, that it is a murderous war, because it is an 
 effort to deprive men of their lives for standing up in 
 defense of their property and their clear rights. Such 
 
20 
 
 ,& war, I fear, Sir, will draw down the vengeance of 
 Heaven on this devoted kingdom." 
 
 A few years ago, the speeches from which these ex- 
 tracts have been taken were familiar to every school- 
 boy, the sentiments they expressed received our hearty 
 assent and admiration. It is no longer so. 
 
 Many will deny that there is any parallel between 
 our Revolutionary War and the present war. 
 . They are parallel, as far as you have any right to 
 carry the comparison. They are parallel much further 
 than is necessary to secure your conviction. 
 
 The thirteen colonies formed a very important part 
 of the British Empire, their inhabitants were British 
 subjects, and the right of that Government ^to attempt 
 their conquest and subjugation was, at least, in a po- 
 litical sense, every way superior to any right we have 
 to attempt the conquest and subjugation of the people 
 of the South. They are not our subjects, never were, 
 and, we trust, never will be. 
 
 We shall not attempt to carry the parallel to the 
 rights and wrongs of the respective parties, nor to their 
 several modes of warfare. There, indeed,' all compari- 
 son is deGed by the extravagant proportions of the 
 present case. <* 
 
 But there is method in this madness. The party 
 which controls the nation and manages the war does 
 not intend to have a restoration of the Union. Their 
 projects_aim at empire — some kind of strong govern- 
 ment is to be formed in which the people are to have 
 about as much share as the figures in a puppet show. 
 The precise shape of that government will depend on 
 circumstances, but the plot is certainly in existence, 
 and working. The return of the South, as equals, would 
 defeat it ; as subjects or dependencies, would promote 
 it ; therefore, subjugation or extermination are resorted 
 to. The people of the South must be driven to extremi- 
 ties, forced into perpetual exile, or killed, or otherwise 
 
21 
 
 ground so fine as to be impalpable. Their places and 
 possessions are to be occupied by what are called, 
 " the sons of freedom," a lank, hairy" hungry race — livid 
 importations from New England. They may be called 
 army vultures, who do very little of the fighting, but for 
 whom almost all of the fighting is done ; they are cun- 
 ning dealers in famil} r plate, pictures, jewels, libraries, 
 household furniture, pianos, petticoats, and such like 
 contraband of war. These are to constitute the South- 
 ern aristocracy. The serfs are already provided; four 
 millions of stout, acclimated blacks, who have already 
 been informed that, white the tenure of their service is 
 changed, their obligation u to serve is not changed, n 
 in other words, that they have only changed masters. 
 
 Should this nice little extermination plan fail, our 
 imperialists fall back on the next best thing 
 
 Between the Njyrth and the South they have opened 
 a gulf of hatred, loathing, and contempt, which can not 
 be passed. They will take good care that it never is 
 filled up. Thus the unity of the North is to be enforc- 
 ed. Liberty disappears before the march of military 
 power, the persuasive influence of a national currency, 
 a national banking system, a national debt, national 
 bonds, national imposts and taxes, national everything, 
 is to complete our subjugation. 
 
 New England, through her representation in the 
 Senate, is to continue, as now, master of the situation. 
 Her manufactures, her merchants, and her ships increase 
 and multiply, the war goes bravely on, till Yankee am- 
 bition, avarice, hatred, and fanaticism have free course 
 and are glorified. 
 
 All this, be it remembered, in the name of the Lord, in 
 behalf of Liberty, Union, the Constitution, and the Laws. 
 
 Another plea for peace is found in the demoralizing 
 influence of the war upon society. 
 
 It distracts and divides families ; it separates very 
 friends. It makes people rogues, cheats, and liars. It 
 
22 
 
 casts a blight on Christian character, and opposes 
 Christian influence. It deadens the amiable sensibili- 
 ties, quickens every evil passion, encourages the most 
 barbarous sentiments. 
 
 Three short years ago, who would have believed that 
 the refined, delicate, and tender-hearted women cf this 
 land could be so transformed as to exult over the hor- 
 rors of this war, and the success of its vilest measures; 
 or that, heretofore, worthy and pious men, elders and 
 deacons of churches, and even clergymen, should ap- 
 prove, advocate, exhort, a war of extermination against 
 a people of the same race, liberties, civilization, ami re- 
 ligion, including a vast number of Christian brethren 
 and ministers. 
 
 Or, that citizens of New York, most of them, in pri. 
 vate life, humane, upright, good men, could volunteer 
 public honors to the despot of New Orleans ; one who 
 returned from the scene of his indefatigable exploits 
 loaded with plunder, infamy, and the execrations of an 
 oppressed and ruined people ; a being of whom it may 
 be said, without exaggeration, that out of his own coun- 
 try there is no portion of the civilized globe where his 
 presence would be tolerated ; no, not even in Russia. 
 
 Or, that there could be found anywhere among us, 
 even in New England, ministers of the Gospel, feeding 
 their flo*cks (by night), who would dare to point to 
 their well -filled shelves, as spoils of war from the libra- 
 ries of ministerial brethren of the South, and to the 
 wearing apparel and adornments of their wives and 
 daughters, as contraband, godly confiscations of ward- 
 robes belonging to ladies of the South. 
 
 " Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; 
 and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacher- 
 ously with thee. 
 
 " When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be 
 spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal 
 treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee." 
 
23 
 
 We make great pretensions to the manly qualities — 
 among these, magnanimity and a generous courage 
 stand pre-eminent. The honor of nations, the peculiar 
 glory of heroes ; they soften the rigors of war, and, 
 more invincible than arms, consummate its victories. 
 
 How is it that now we find neither time, space, nor 
 occasion for -the practice of these virtues ? 
 
 The prevailing temper of the public mind is ungener- 
 ous and revengeful, fierce, bloody, and implacable. 
 
 We triumph with bitter and unbecoming exultation, 
 alike over victories on the field of battle against armed 
 men, and victories of desolation over the unarmed and- 
 defenseless. Our joy is dashed by no touch of pity, 
 remorse, or regret. Flags innumerable stream from 
 window, tower, and steeple; there are bonfires, illumi- " 
 nations, fireworks ; the people throng the churches, 
 .mingle the blood of brethren with their sacrifice, and 
 give God thanks in a spirit better suited to the halls 
 of Odin than to a temple of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Until Cassar's time, Rome refused to triumph in her 
 civil wars. She thought them occasions for grief, 
 rather than occasions for rejoicing? Caesar's triumph 
 was one of the causes of his downfalL 
 
 When Israel had overcome Benjamin, " the people 
 came to the house of God, and abode there until even, 
 before God, and wept sore, and said: 
 
 " Lord God of Israel, why is 4his come to pass in 
 Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in 
 Israel." 
 
 It is sad to reflect that this condition of the public 
 mind has derived its chief food and stimulus from, the 
 great body of the Protestant clergy of this land. That 
 from their precept and behavior it receives counte- 
 nance, encouragement, and support. 
 
 From the very beginning none have been more 
 prompt to enter the political arena — " cry havoc, and 
 %i slip the dogs of war none have followed up the 
 
24 
 
 war with more eagerness and constancy ; none have 
 attended the Administration with more obsequious 
 steps, nor yielded heartier approbation and support to 
 its most extreme and questionable measures ; lending 
 to it and to them all the influence of their sacred 
 character and functions. Noue have done more to call 
 forth the worst passions which this war has gendered, 
 and none have done so much to consecrate them. 
 
 The war has no better friends, and peace, sweet 
 peace, no worse enemies than they. 1 
 
 We approach this subject with great reluctance, but 
 we can not avoid it. It stands in our path ; confronts us 
 at every turn, with menacing aspect and determination. 
 
 How can we hope to reach the heart or the judg- 
 ment, when man points to those who absolve him for 
 the neglect or the abuse of both ? How hope to draw 
 the worldling to that wisdom whose ways are pleasant- 
 ness, and her paths peace, when his spiritual adviser 
 pulls him back ? 
 
 What better excuse does society need, for the in- 
 dulgence of plausible errors and vices, than the ex- 
 ample and precepts*of those who speak in God's name, 
 and assume to declare his will. 
 
 Reverend fathers and brethren, we address you in 
 sorrow rather than in anger. Ye know not what ye 
 do. Ye have allowed yourselves to be committed to 
 this bloody business* by a vociferous patriotism, which 
 is no patriotism at all, but rank treachery to country 
 and to laws — a patriotism which is all impiety, selfish-, 
 ness, and infidelity. ^ 
 
 If this were a war of self-defense, your relations to 
 it and to society would be very different from what 
 they are ; but it is not. It is a war of aggression ; » 
 a «war of fanaticism, hatred, and revenge ; a war of 
 covetousness and ambition ; a war of conquest and 
 subjugation ; a war for government and empire. It 
 is an unrighteous war, for an unrighteous purpose, 
 
25 
 
 waged in an unrighteous and savage manner. You 
 can not support it without being partakers of its 
 guilt — accomplices in all its crimes. 
 
 Are men so lamblike, so patient and long-suffering, 
 so full of love, so averse to all violence, that even from 
 the sanctuary they must be harangued, aroused, ex- 
 cited, and dismissed to deeds of slaughter ? Angels 
 and ministers of grace, defend us I 
 
 You have a commission to preach peace and good- 
 will. You have no commission to preach war. 
 
 What have you to do with the rude contentions of 
 men, but to assuage them ? 
 
 Your Master's kingdom is not of this world. When 
 you mingle in its strifes, you oppose his authority and 
 example. 
 
 When you employ your holy office in such a busi- 
 ness, you dishonor both it and Him in whose name you 
 assume to stand. 
 
 Put up thy sword ; it suits not with the cross. 
 
 We have listened with pained hearts as you dictate, 
 now to God, and then to your congregation, in behalf 
 of this " holy war," and against this " accursed rebel- 
 lion" — these wicked rebels, " the sons of Belial." 
 
 " God is the God of battles," therefore, say you, it 
 is our right and duty to invoke his blessing on this 
 war and on all its measures. 
 
 And it has been well attested to us, that one of you, 
 more blasphemous than his fellows, after reading to his 
 congregation the curses of David, closed the book with 
 this remark : M If he did not believe that these prophe- 
 cies were intended for the South, he would not accept 
 the Bible as God's Word." 
 
 Is such language and behavior calculated to allay 
 the general heat, or to aggravate it ; to subdue the pas. 
 sions, or to stimulate them ? 
 
 Is such the sort of food on which you fatten the lambs 
 of your flock for Heaven ? Happy lambs! 
 2 
 
26 
 
 God is the God of battles I Where do you find this 
 written ? Not in the Bible. But throughout that 
 sacred book it is proclaimed, in repeated and rejoic- 
 ing numbers, that He is the God of peace .and recon- 
 ciliation. Why do ye deify war ? And why do ye per- 
 vert the Scriptures ? 
 
 God is the God of battles, not in any special sense, 
 but as he is the God of everything — even of hell. 
 
 But because God is the God of battles, does it follow 
 that it is our right and duty to invoke his blessing on 
 the war and on all its measures ? What chop logic is 
 this ? If the war is a righteous war, and the measures 
 taken for its prosecution are righteous measures, we 
 have a right to invoke and expect his blessing on them 
 both ; therefore, 
 
 It is our duty to take our cause before God, seek his 
 counsel and direction ; ask him to bless, defend, and 
 prosper the right. 
 
 We are not to put words into the mouth of the Al- 
 mighty ; not to prejudge our cau"se, enter judgment 
 in our own favor ; come into his presence with a copy 
 of the decree, and demand a writ of execution. 
 
 In a general sense, then, God is the God of battles 
 and of war, therefore he is. the judge of both ; sooner 
 or later he will judge those, who, for years, have plot- 
 ted and labored night and day to foment discord among 
 brethren, and bring about the present evil times. 
 
 " This Holy War I" " From whence come wars and 
 fightings amongst you ? Come they not hence, even of 
 your lusts that war in your members." 
 
 " Accursed rebellion 1" " Wicked rebels I* " Sons 
 of Belial !" 
 
 What right have you, speaking in Christ's name, to 
 employ such rude language as this ? 
 
 All wickedness is the violation of God's law. He it 
 is, and not man, who declares wherein such violation 
 consists. Where in the Bible is there a definition of 
 
27 
 
 these terms, or an illustration, or a precept, which au- 
 thorizes the use of them in fanning the fires of an 
 accursed strife? 
 
 Is it found in the language of Abraham to Lot : " Let 
 there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, 
 and between my herdmen aud thy herdmeu, for we be 
 brethren. Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If 
 thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right ; 
 or, if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the 
 left r 
 
 Is it found in the narrative of that rebellion in which 
 Lot was engaged when taken captive and rescued by 
 Abraham ; who slew his captors, and thereupon re- 
 ceived the blessing of Melchisedek, the priest of the 
 Most High God ? 
 
 Or in the repeated rebellions of the Israelites 
 against the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Midianites, 
 and others ? Or in that celebrated revolt of the ten 
 tribes ? 
 
 The uarrative of that revolt deserves your special 
 notice. If political preachers were so inclined, what 
 a sermon could be written upon it, and what parallels 
 drawn ! 
 
 The ten tribes, excepting a remnant gathered in Je- 
 rusalem, were agriculturists. During Solomon's luxu- 
 rious aud expensive reign, they had suffered from severe 
 taxation and other burdens ; for then, as now, labor had 
 to support capital. 
 
 On the accession of "Rehoboam to the throne, they 
 came to him, saying : " Thy father made our yoke 
 grievous ; now, therefore, ease thou somewhat the 
 grievous servitude of thy father and his heavy yoke 
 that he put upon us, and we will serve thee. 
 
 "And Rehoboam consulted with the old men that had 
 stood before Solomon, his father, and they counseled 
 him, saying : 
 
 " U thou wilt be a servant unto this people, and wilt 
 
28 
 
 serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to 
 them, then they will be thy servants forever." 
 
 But he forsook the counsel of the old men, and con- 
 sulted with the young men that were grown up with 
 him, men of his own party, and according to their coun- 
 sel he answered the people roughly ; denied them all 
 redress, and threatened still greater burdens, saying : 
 
 " My little finger shall be thicker than my father's 
 loins." 
 
 When all Israel saw that the king hearkened not 
 unto them, they said : 
 
 "What portion have we in David? Neither have 
 we inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, 
 Israel \» 
 
 So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto 
 this day. 
 
 But Rehoboam was not disposed to abandon his gov- 
 ernment over Israel, for we find that he sent to them a 
 tax collector, Adoram, who was over the tribute, and 
 they killed him ; and it appears that they did not even 
 respect the person of the king, for we read that Reho- 
 boam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 What had occurred " fired the heart" of the king, and 
 confirmed his resolution to bring back the tribes which 
 had seceded from him ; for he straightway gathered a 
 mighty army, one hundred and eighty thousand chosen 
 men, which were warriors, to fight against the house 
 of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam. 
 But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God, 
 saying : 
 
 " Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, King of 
 Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, 
 and to the remnant of the people, saying : 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord : Ye shall not go up, nor fight 
 against your brethren, the children of Israel, for this 
 thing is from me." 
 
29 
 
 Can you find any authority for your behavior in the 
 sermon on the mount, or elsewhere, in the New Testa- 
 ment ? Where ? 
 
 Whatever were the merits of this war at the begin- 
 ning whatever were then its objects or pretended ob- 
 jects ; whatever question there then was of its right- 
 eousness ; it lias, since then, been put beyond question, 
 and, so far as one of the parties to it is concerned, be- 
 yond merit. 
 
 On our part it has become a war of extermination. 
 
 On the part of our adversaries it has become a war 
 for their lives, their families, their homes, their pro- 
 perty, their altars, and their graves ; a war for their 
 civil rights and liberties. They fight for everything 
 which renders life desirable ; for all that is calculated 
 to inspire the soul, exalt the courage, iuvigorate the 
 defense. They fight by the glare of their burning vil- 
 lages and wasted fields to stay the march of desolation. 
 
 If all this does not make their cause righteous, and 
 our cause wicked, then is moral sense confounded, and 
 language has lost its meaning. 
 
 Wo are pretty familiar with the reasons you give for 
 your coarse. They are all of the earth, earthy; political 
 reasons, every one of them. 
 
 When our Saviour said, " Render unto Caesar the 
 things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are 
 God's, he did not undertake to determine what were 
 Cnosar's, he came for no such purpose ; in another place 
 we read, that he submitted to a wrong, paid unjust 
 tribute, rather than make any disturbance. Are you 
 better and wiser than he ? And have your studies and 
 mariner of life been such as to qualify you to propound 
 and determine grave political propositions ? 
 
 Without hazarding an opinion on such a delicate 
 subject, we will briefly notice some of the reasons, or 
 excuses referred to. 
 
 You tell us " the laws must be obeyed." This was 
 
30 
 
 the argument of the Jews to Pilate : " We have a law, 
 and by that law he ought to die." It was the language 
 of the Inquisition. It has been the language of tyranny 
 and persecution all the world over. Despotism gene- 
 rally moves with a retinue of forms and ceremonies, 
 and in the name of law and government. 
 
 " Wisdom is better than weapons of war, and mercy 
 is better than sacrifice." * 
 
 Again : " The life of the nation is at stake." What ? 
 Can the life of a nation, by any possibility, consist in 
 the desolation of a country as extensive as all Europe, 
 and the extermination of its inhabitants ? 
 
 Was ever such a hecatomb to " the life of the nation" 
 conceived of before? If this be the life of the nation, 
 surely it will stink in the nostrils of humanity for ages. 
 
 The life of a nation is in the life of its people, their 
 happiness and affections. A government which is not 
 founded on these, deserves to stand, no, not for a single 
 day. 
 
 Again : "The Union must be preserved." This argu- 
 ment served pretty well for a season, but now, we pre- 
 sume, it has ceased to impose upon even the most cred- 
 ulous of your number ; for those in whose train yqu are 
 have spoken very plainly what they do not intend to 
 have, we wish they would be as explicit in saying what 
 they do intend to have. 
 
 The Union, as it was transmitted to us — a union of 
 freemen, of equals, friends ; a union of reciprocal rights 
 and interests, of fidelity, of honor, of justice, and har- 
 mony — a union strong through the virtuous enjoy- 
 ment of liberty, Ueloved by its citizens, respected by its 
 friends, feared by its enemies — all good men would con- 
 sider to be among the greatest of earthly benefits. 
 
 But a union of masters and subjects, of unequals, of 
 enemies, of discords and differences, of perpetual hatred, 
 revenge, and strife ; a union of oppression, with suffer- 
 ing — of fierce exultation, with bitter abasement ; a union 
 
31 
 
 with abject ruin on the one hand, and arrogant pros- 
 perity on the other ; a union strong through its con- 
 quests over rights and liberties ; a union abhorred by 
 one third of its own people, respected by no power on 
 the globe, and feared only by the weak ; a union bear- 
 ing the seeds of its own confusion — such a union as 
 this presents an unnatural and loathsome conjunction ; 
 it would deserve to be rejected from among the nations, 
 even as Heaven rejected the devil and his angels. 
 
 Here, reverend fathers and brethren, we leave you> 
 If we have said anything harsh, we regret the necessi- 
 ty as much as any one possibly can. 
 
 You have compelled this discussion, by an unwar- 
 rantable and pernicious meddling in secular political 
 affairs. 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord: I have not sent these prophets, 
 yet they ran ; I have not spoken to them, yet they pro- 
 phesied. But if they had stood in my counsels, and 
 caused my people to hear my words, then should they 
 have turned from their evil ways, and from the evil of 
 their doings." 
 
 Peace hath other enemies besides those already no- 
 ticed. 
 
 There are those whose property is engaged in the war, 
 and who think their pecuniary safety involved in its 
 
 success. 
 
 The time is coming, when they will realize the truth 
 of the proverb : "Better is a little with righteousness, 
 than great revenues without right." 
 ' As this war is now conducted, it must involve the 
 whole country in social, political, and pecuniary ruin, 
 whether it succeed or fail. 
 
 The vast paper baloon in which you ride so high, 
 must come down some day, the sooner that event occurs 
 the lighter will be your fall, and the quicker your re- 
 covery. 
 
 There are those who live and profit by the war. Their 
 
32 
 
 name is legion, and they swarm daily ; most of these 
 are insensible to any other argument than that which is 
 addressed to the pocket. If you point to the storm 
 which is coming, it only makes them all the busier. They 
 must make hay while the sun shines. 
 
 There are those who are opposed to a government of 
 equals, who are opposed to any union which does not 
 lean to their side, who want a strong government of 
 which they are masters. We have already referred to 
 these people. They are mainly of New England, or 
 New England descent and traditions. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War, it became manifest 
 that Massachusetts fought for independence, but not for 
 Republican liberty. Her preference was for a monarch- 
 ical form of government. This preference took a more 
 decided shape at the close of the war, in what was known 
 as the Federal or black cockade party, of which John 
 Adams, then Vice-President, was the chief. Mr. Adams 
 became President in H97, and forthwith exerted all the 
 power of his administration to give effect to his favorite 
 policy. The press was muzzled ; the editors punished, 
 by fine and imprisonment, for opposing the measures of 
 the Federalists ; freedom of discussion was interfered 
 with ; a standing army was raised, under pretext of 
 a war with France ; no Democrat was to be trusted ; 
 enormous taxes and stamp duties were laid. It was, 
 in many respects, the history of the past three years, 
 in miniature. 
 
 The Constitution well undermined, it was expected 
 that there would be no barrier to consolidation ; the es- 
 tablishment of privileged orders, offices for life, and 
 even hereditary succession. 
 
 From that time to the present, that Federal party, 
 under various names, has been in existence and work- 
 ing. 
 
 The Embargo Act was made a pretext for a dissolu- 
 tion of the Union, and a union with Canada, under the 
 
33 
 
 protection of the British Crown. Then came the pur- 
 chase of Louisiana, it also was a grievance, calling" for 
 dissolution and a monarchy. 
 
 There was a plan formed for a separate government 
 in New England, to extend, if practicable, so as to in- 
 clude Pennsylvania. The States were to be secured 
 through their governors and legislators ; the Legisla- 
 tures were to repeal the laws authorizing the people 
 to elect representatives to Congress ; they were to de- 
 cline electing senators ; and thus, gradually, the States 
 were to withdraw from the Union and set up for them- 
 selves. 
 
 The people were instigated to forcible resistance to 
 the Administration, and juries after juries acquitted 
 the culprits. A separation was openly discussed and 
 stimulated in the public prints, and a convention of 
 delegates from the New England States was intended 
 and proposed. 
 
 In November, 1808, John Quincy Adams was a pri- 
 vate citizen, residing in Boston. Mr. Giles, and several 
 other members of Congress, wrote to him confidential 
 letters on the state of affairs. In his answer, he was 
 led to enlarge upon the views and purposes of certain 
 leaders of the party which had the management of the 
 Legislature in their hands, he said : " That their object 
 was, and had been for several years, a dissolution of 
 the Union and the establishment of a separate confed- 
 eration, he knew from unequivocal evidence, although 
 not provable in a court of law, and that, in case of 
 civil war, the aid of Great Britain would be as surely 
 resorted to, as it would be indispensably necessary to 
 the design." 
 
 In Mr. Adams' letter, in defense of this statement, he 
 says : " That project, I repeat, had gone to the length 
 of fixing upon a military leader for its execution; and, 
 although the circumstances of the time never admitted 
 of its execution, nor even of its development, I had yet 
 2* 
 
34 
 
 no doubt, in 1808 and 1809, and have no doubt at this 
 time, is the key to all the great movements of those 
 leaders of the Federal party in New England'from that 
 time forward to its final catastrophe in the Hartford 
 Convention." 
 
 The next witness is John Henry, a British secret 
 agent, employed, in 1809, in the New England States, 
 but more especially at Boston. His business was to 
 foment disaffection to the General Government ; to in- 
 trigue for the purpose of bringing about resistance to 
 the laws, and eventually, in concert with a British 
 force, to destroy the Union and bring the eastern part 
 thereof into a political relation with Great Britain. 
 
 Henry was received in New England with great 
 heartiness and hospitality ; he testifies fully to the ex- 
 tent of the plot, and the hostile designs of the Federal 
 party ; his correspondence is full and interesting ; it 
 will be found in the third volume of the American Re- 
 view, and the fourth volume of the Abridged Debates of 
 Congress, by John C. Reeves. 
 
 It was this same party which caused New England 
 to oppose the Government in the war of 1812 ; to do 
 all in her power to thwart, retard, defeat, its successful 
 prosecution ; to adhere to our enemies, giving them 
 aid and comfort. 
 
 The Boston banks endeavored to defeat the Govern- 
 ment loans, by draiuing the Middle and Southern 
 States of their specie. A great portion of this specie 
 was drawn into the British Provinces, to pay for gov- 
 ernment bills, and for smuggled goods ; or forwarded 
 to the agents of the Government of Canada. Commer- 
 cial intercourse with the enemy was carried on with- 
 out attempt at concealment. 
 
 A combination was formed to prevent Congress rais- 
 ing money for the war. Those who would subscribe 
 to the loans were denounced in the public prints as 
 infamous. 
 
35 
 
 On motion of the Hon. Josiah Quincy, (in 18G2 a 
 lively war man) the Senate of Massachusetts resolved 
 that they could not pass a vote of thauks to Captain 
 Lawrence, for the capture of the Peacock, "it being 
 considered by them as an encouragement and incite- 
 ment to the continuance of the present unjust, imneces- 
 sar}% and iniquitous war." And also resolved, " As 
 the sense of the Se'nate of Massachusetts, that in a war 
 like the present, waged without justifiable cause,' and 
 prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and 
 ambition are its real mtjtiivs, it is no't becoming a moral 
 and religious people to express any approbation of 
 military or naval exploits which are not immediately 
 connected with our sea-coast and soil." 
 
 In this connection, we notice that New England was 
 exempted from the enemy's blockade, and all other 
 hostile proceedings : 
 
 June 1, 1813, Commodore Decatur, with his fleet, was 
 chased into the harbor of New London, by a greatly su- 
 perior force, and there closely blockaded to the close of 
 the war. Twice, in tempestuous weather, he endeavored 
 to elude the blockaders and get to sea ; each time he 
 was foiled by treason from the shore, signaling the 
 British, fleet by blue-lights, which were answered by 
 the firing of guns. 
 
 Said the Boston Gazette: " Is there a patriot in Ame- 
 rica who considers it his duty to shed his blood for 
 Bonaparte, for Madison, for Jefferson, and that host of 
 ruffians in Congress who have set their faces against us 
 for years, and spirited^up the brutal part of the populace 
 to destroy us ? Not one. Shall we any longer be held 
 in slavery and driven to desperate poverty by such a 
 graceless faction ? Heaven forbid 1" 
 
 Said another Boston journal : " To the cry of dis- 
 union, the plain and obvious answer is, that the States 
 are already sqiarated. The bond of the Union is already 
 broken by President Madison." 
 
36 
 
 Nor were the clergy, the Third House, or the House 
 of Lords, idle on that occasion. Their highest powers 
 of denunciation and abuse had full exercise in the ser- 
 vice of Great Britain. 
 
 Says the Rev. Elijah Parish, D. D., in a discourse 
 delivered at Byfield, April 7, 1814 : 
 
 " The Israelites became weary of yielding the fruits 
 
 of their labor to pamper their splendid tyrants. They 
 
 left their political woes. They separated. Where is 
 
 our Moses ? Where is the rod of his miracles ? Where 
 » 
 
 is our Aaron ? * * * Such is the temper of the 
 American republic, so called, a new language must be 
 invented before we attempt to express the baseness of 
 their conduct, or describe' the rottenness of their 
 hearts. * * * New England, if invaded, would be 
 obliged to defend herself. Do you not, then, owe it to 
 your children, and owe it to your God, to make peace 
 for yourselves ? 
 
 " How will the supporters of this anti-Christian war- 
 fare endure their sentence ; endure their own reflec- 
 tions ; endure the fire that forever burns, the worm 
 which never dies, the hosannahs of Heaven, while the 
 smoke of their torments ascends forever and ever V 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Osgood, of Medford, in a discourse 
 preached June 27, 1812, said : 
 
 " His mind was in a constant agony at the guilt of 
 the war — its outrages against heaven ; against aJl 
 truth, honesty, justice, goodness ; against all the prin- 
 ciples of social happiness. Were not the authors of 
 this war, in character, nearly akin to the deists and 
 atheists of France ? Were they not men of hardened 
 hearts, seared consciences, reprobate minds, and des- 
 perate wickedness ? 
 
 " If, at the command of weak or wicked rulers, they 
 undertake an unjust war, each man who volunteers his 
 services in such a cause, or loans his money for its 
 support, or by his conversation, his writings, or any 
 
37 
 
 other mode of influence, encourages its prosecution, that 
 man is an accomplice in the wickedness ; leads his 
 conscience with the blackest crimes ; brings the guilt 
 of blood upon his soul, and, in the sight of 'God and his 
 laws, is a murderer." 
 
 The Rev. J. S, Gardiner, Rector of Trinity Church, 
 Boston, July 23, 1812, offered off as follows : 
 
 " It is a war unexampled in the history of the world, 
 wantonly proclaimed on the most frivolous and ground- 
 less pretenses, against a nation from whose friendship 
 we might derive the most signal advantages. 
 
 u Let no consideration whatever, my brethren, deter 
 you at all times, and in all places, from execrating the 
 present war. As Mr. Madison has declared war, let 
 Mr. Madison carry it on. 
 
 " The Union has been long since virtually dissolved, 
 and it is full time that this part of the dis-United 
 States should take care of itself." 
 
 We next come to the Hartford Convention. It as- 
 sembled 15th December, 1814, remained in session 
 twenty days, and made a report, accompanied by a 
 series of resolutions. From the report we extract a 
 few cardinal paragraphs : 
 
 " If the Union be destined to dissolution, by reason 
 of the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it 
 should, if possible, be the work of peaceful times and 
 deliberate consent. Some new form of confederation 
 should be substituted among those States which shall 
 intend to maintain a federal relation to each other." 
 
 " Whenever it appears that these causes are radical 
 and permanent, a separation by equitable arrangement 
 will be preferable to an alliance by constraint among 
 nominal friends, but real enemies, inflamed, by mutual 
 hatred and jealousy, and inviting, by intestine divisions, 
 contempt and aggression from abroad." 
 
 " In case of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable in- 
 fractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty 
 
38 
 
 of a State, and the liberties of the people, it is not only 
 the right, but the duty of such a State to interpose its 
 authority for protection in a manner best calculated to 
 secure that Snd" 
 
 " When emergencies occur, which are either beyond the 
 reach of the judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit 
 of the delay incident to their forms, States which have 
 no common umpire must be their own judges, and exe- 
 cute their own decisions" 
 
 Every one of the New England States was represent- 
 ed in this convention. 
 
 The Federalist merged in the old Whig party, they 
 in the Republican, all having the same commercial, 
 manufacturing, and shipping interests to protect, and 
 all pursuing the same policy. It is a policy of exclu- 
 sive benefits and protections, as if the many were made 
 for the few, the poor for the rich, the producer for the 
 non-producer. 
 
 They constitute your monopolists of every kind; they 
 have been continually pressing such changes in the 
 character of our Government as would secure their su- 
 premacy, and convert the nation into a close political 
 corporation for their especial benefit. 
 
 For the Union they care nothing, except as it coin- 
 cides with their interests. 
 
 In 1812, it was impious to carry on war against a 
 foreign enemy. Why ? It was against their interest. 
 
 In 1864, it is impious to make peace with your* own 
 brethren. It is against their interest. 
 
 Greediness and ambition are at the root of the whole 
 matter. 
 
 In 1843, the Legislature of Massachusetts resolved, 
 that, because Texas was annexed, Massachusetts was 
 out of the Union. / . 
 
 On the 1st of February, 1850, a New Hampshire 
 senator presented a petition, praying for a dissolu- 
 tion of the Union, and it received, in the Senate, the 
 
39 
 
 votes of John P. Halo, Win. H. Seward, and Salmon P. 
 
 Chase. * 
 
 In the House : of Charles Allen, Massachusetts ; 
 Charles Durkee, Wisconsin; Joshua R. Giddings, Ohio; 
 R. K. Goodenovv, Maine; G. W.Julian, Indiana; Preston 
 W. King', New York, and I. M. Root, Ohio. All men of 
 this Federal Republican party. 
 
 The same party it was which so bitterly opposed the 
 Mexican war. Horace Greeley called our soldiers "jour- 
 neymen cut-throats," and Thomas Corwin hoped " they 
 might be met with bloody hands, and welcomed to 
 hospitable graves." 
 
 In 1858, said Governor, now Major-General N. P. 
 Banks, the blushing hero of Louisiana, said : 
 
 " I can conceive when this Constitution shall not be 
 in existence. When we shall have an absolute military 
 . dictatorial government, transmitted from age to age, 
 with men at its head who are made rulers by military 
 commission, or who claim an hereditary right to gov- 
 ern those over whom they are placed." 
 
 All the leaders of the Republican party can tell you, 
 in the words of Mr. Stevens: " that this talk of restor- 
 ing the Union as it was, under the Constitution as it is, 
 is one of the- absurdities which I have heard repeated 
 until I have become about sick of it." Or, in the words 
 of Vice-President Hamlin : " We have a class of men 
 amoug us in Maine, who very much want the Constitu- 
 tion as it is, and the Union as it was. * * * I am 
 very sorry, indeed, that, they can not have it. There 
 is no possible way in which they can have it. It is a 
 mere demagogism, mere clap-trap; it is nonsense; it is 
 not very good nonsense." 
 
 There are acts which speak louder than words: the 
 revolutionary, imperial designs of the Republican party 
 — the attempted subjugation of States by force of arms 
 — the decrees of the Executive, especially that concern- 
 ing the recognition of State governments, on the appli- 
 
 ) 
 
40 
 
 cation of one-tenth of their voters — the subordination 
 of the civil to the military power. And here we would 
 call attention to the promptness with which the afore- 
 said Major-General Banks has inaugurated the new 
 dictature, by proclaiming in Louisiana: " That military 
 law is the fundamental law of the land." The open 
 denial or disregard of State rights; military conscrip- 
 tion; contempt of the Constitution, as exhibited in the 
 creation of a State out of Western Virginia; making 
 paper money a legal tender for the payment of debts; 
 repeated and outrageous violations of personal liberty, 
 and many other instances. 
 
 There is, then, that extensive system of national 
 legislation to which we already referred. 
 
 Everything that is done, legislative and executive, 
 judicial and military, tends to the absolute dependence 
 of the whole country, and of all the States, on a grand 
 central government, whose Executive has already been 
 invested with absolute powers, by an act of Congress 
 which exempts his acts from judicial investigation ; him 
 and his minions from punishment. 
 
 The land, the very air, are full of the sounds, sights, 
 and omens of despotism, and its significant menace 
 may be read in the name of the iron war ship now ly- 
 ing at our docks : Dictator ! May she sink at her 
 moorings unless that name bo changed. 
 
 We will close the proof on this point, by quoting from 
 an editorial in a certain number of the New York Daily 
 Times, headed, " The Conscription a National Benefit 
 
 "Yet it is a great national blessing that the con- 
 scription has been imposed. It is a matter of prime 
 concern that it should now be settled, once for all, 
 whether this Government is, or is not, strong enough to 
 compel military service in its defense. 
 
 u More than any other thing, this will determine our, 
 durability as a republic [1], and our formidableness as 
 a nation. 
 
41 
 
 " Once established, that, not only the property, but 
 the personal military services of every able-bodied citi- 
 zen is at the command of the national authorities, con 
 stitutionally exercised [!], and both successful rebellion 
 and successful invasion are at once made impossible 
 for all time to come. 
 
 " From that time it will be set down as a known fact, 
 that the United States is the most solidly based [de- 
 based [!] government on the face of the ea^th." 
 
 If this be not military despotism, what is it ? 
 
 These conspirators against the republic, have trav- 
 eled fast and far, but they do not feel quite secure, 
 Peace, even now, might frustrate all their plots. War 
 is necessary to insure their success. 
 
 Ye Union shriekers I Ye denouncers of this unholy, 
 damnable, causeless rebellion I Ye worshipers of the 
 institutions of our fathers 1. Ye adorers of the sacred 
 flag ! Ye contemners of " that accursed doctrine of 
 State rights !" Ye fierce promoters of this holy war ! 
 Ye Federalists and descendants of Federalists, what 
 think you of the record ? 
 
 The last of the enemies to peace, whom we shall men- 
 tion, are the Abolitionists. 
 
 This, also, is an old breed, hailing from that land of 
 consolation, New England, aforesaid. 
 
 When the Puritans first settled in that country they 
 found it necessary to commit a good many acts of cru- 
 elty and injustice against the natives and owners of the 
 soil. It was thereupon deemed expedient to give the 
 Colonies the character of a sacred mission. So the colon- 
 ists became the chosen people, like unto the Israelites 
 in the land of Canaan ; and their mission was to drive 
 out the heathen, kill or make captive, and possess their 
 lands. From that time forth this way of thinking be- 
 came a peculiarity of the Puritan character. Their 
 theology, their school of morals, their conscience, are 
 always found on the best of terms with their interest. 
 
42 
 
 The Puritans bad need of slaves, and the Indians 
 made good slaves, for want of better. Then came the 
 negro ; he was much more tractable and every way 
 more useful than the Indian, so the Indian was ship- 
 ped to the West Indies and sold ; it was their duty 
 to deliver the land from the heathen. The proceeds 
 of the sales answered for an adventure to Africa ; the 
 outward cargo was well invested in a lot of benighted 
 Africans for home, who were thus brought under the in- 
 fluence of the Gospel. 
 
 This negro trade grew and prospered. Our traders 
 dealt wjth all parts of the^country, and all the colonies 
 were pretty well stocked with slaves. During all this 
 time it never entered into the minds of our friends that 
 slavery was a sin, or. anything unusual ; their slaves ■ 
 were strictly governed, sold at auction, reclaimed, when 
 runaway, by Fugitive Slave Laws, and everything else 
 of that sort. 
 
 In the convention which framed the articles of the 
 Confederation of 1778, the North proposed a tax on 
 population, and that slaves should be included in the 
 estimate. To this the South objected, that slaves were 
 property, sold, bought, and paid for as such. John 
 Adams replied : 
 
 u It is of no consequence by what name you call your 
 people, by that of freemen or of slaves ; the difference 
 as to states is imaginary only ; in some countries the 
 laboring poor are called freemen, in others they are 
 called slaves ; but the difference as to state is imagin- 
 ary only. What matters it whether the landlord, em- 
 ploying the laborers on his farm, give them annually as 
 much money as will buy them the necessaries of life, or 
 gives them those necessaries at short hand V 
 
 In the next convention, onr friends found it convenient 
 to consider slaves as property, and such they insisted 
 on their being considered. 
 
 In that convention, the votes of New England, not- 
 
43 
 
 withstanding the protests of Virginia, Delaware, and 
 other Middle States, fastened the African slave-trade 
 upon the country for twenty years ; and it was the 
 people of New England who carried that slave-trade 
 on. \ 
 
 Massachussetts was the first to find out that negroes 
 were not profitable, and the first to dispose of them. In 
 due time, her example was followed by the other North- 
 ern States 5 Emancipation Laws were passed ; the 
 great bulk of the marketable negroes were sent South 
 and sold ; the foreign slave-trade had expired by lim- 
 itation of law ; there was nothing more to be made out 
 of that business, and the account was closed ; but 
 another account was soon opened — the Abolition ac- 
 count. 
 
 This had its origin in political jealousy of the South. 
 It has been fostered by ambition, covetousness, sec- 
 tional hatred, and sustained under the pretense of re- 
 ligion, philanthropy, and patriotism. 
 
 The only sincere and consistent Abolitionists that we 
 know of are to be found in the society of Friends ; to be 
 sure, they are sentimentalists, and know little or noth- 
 ing of the mischiefs they deplore, whether they are 
 real or unreal, or what degree of exaggeration there is 
 in them ; but they are, in the main, honest ; they do 
 not seek to do evil, that fancied good may come ; they 
 did not slaughter the Indians, that they might possess 
 their lands ; nor did they ever make domestic slaves of 
 them, nor sell them into foreign bondage ; they never 
 were engaged in the African slave trade ; nor did they 
 ever, that vvc know of, sell their domestic slaves away 
 off South ; give a title, take the money, then turu 
 round, deny the ownership, and denounce the owner. 
 
 We would not, for a moment, liken these people, mis- 
 taken though they be, to that New England creature 
 bearing the name of Abolitionist, which is all hypocrisy 
 and all cruelty ; which these many years has enriched 
 
44 
 
 itself from the profits of all the crimes it assumes to 
 denounce ; and more ! 
 
 Prate not to us of a sincerity and benevolence, or of 
 a' religion, which urges on its terrible crusade of free- 
 dom, reckless of consequences, like another Jugger- 
 naut in its bloody progress, with a tumultuous crowd of 
 fierce idolators enjoying the sacrifice. 
 
 Pernicious infidels that ye are, in politics as in morals. 
 Ye learn nothing, deny everything, and are false to the 
 bottom of your hearts. You can not create, but you 
 can destroy, and leave society amid the ruins ; per- 
 fectly willing to set the world in a blaze, if you can 
 roast your eggs by the fire. 
 
 The chief men and apostles of this sect are what is 
 called preachers, a very peculiar and privileged peo- 
 ple ; whatsoever they bind on earth is bound in heaven, 
 and whatsoever they loose on earth is loosed in heaven. 
 To them all things are remitted, and they can remit all 
 things, whether it be fidelity to God, to country, or to 
 laws. In matters of abuse, anathema, and denunciation, 
 they claim a prescriptive right and exercise the largest 
 liberty. They rave prodigiously, and, like the losing 
 Pythoness of old, froth and mutter fearful rhapsodies. 
 They are exceeding wroth and righteous against an in- 
 stitution of which they know nothing, except as it ex- 
 isted among themselves ; to them slavery is " the sin 
 of all sins f " the sum of all villainies " that ac- 
 cursed thing ;" " the spawn of hell and child of the 
 devil." They would dethrone Deity, and tell you that if 
 God ever established human bondage he is no God of 
 theirs ; that a religion which recognizes human bond- 
 age is no religion of theirs. 
 
 Who and what their god is, we can not certainly 
 say ; their inclinations are various and fickle. As a 
 general rule, whatever claims affinity with that which 
 they style " self-evident truths," is sentimental, emo- 
 tional, •'passional, and the like, may expect an altar 
 
45 
 
 and a statue in their pantheon, which is the pantheon 
 of " moral development." 
 
 The present object of their worship is a huge con- 
 glomerate of false sentiments and vile passions ; a 
 dark, repulsive, obscene monster, which reminds us of 
 the abominable figures of pagan idolatry. It is an in- 
 satiable beast, thirsty and gluttonous, though particu- 
 lar. Its drink is blood — rivers of blood ; and for meat 
 it devours the people and their substance, to the rav- 
 ishing harmony of lamentation, woe, and bitterness. 
 The whole land is now busy feeding this divine crea- 
 ture ; he becomes grosser and more beastly every day, 
 yet never is satisfied, but ravenous still. 
 
 Such are some of the enemies to our peace. 
 
 But why are all these people so restress — so labo- 
 rious ? Why do they resort to every contrivance of 
 artifice and misrepresentation ? Why do they compass 
 sea and land with apologists, seeking for proselytes ? 
 Why are they so eager in protestation ; so vociferous 
 and declamatory ; so intolerant of opposition and so 
 bitter ? Why so suspicious and fearful ? Why do they 
 see King Richard in every bush ? 
 
 u Row is it with me, when every noise appalls 
 me ?" 
 
 Innocence fs not wont to be thus disturbed ; nor is 
 a good cause so very malignant, apprehensive, and im- 
 portunate. 
 
 It is the bloody business which informs against 
 them. They are fearful and troubled in their own 
 minds.; their vision is perplexed. Like Belshazzar 
 they dread to see the hand-writing on the wall. They 
 tremble. The joints of their loins are loose, and their 
 knees smite one against another. 
 
 An evil conscience will not let them rest. The pro- 
 phetic spectre of a ruined country stalks in grim ma- 
 jesty before them. The voice of their brother's blood 
 calls out against them from the ground. 
 
46 
 
 Success is the only relief they have ; and, what a 
 desperate relief that is ! Through blood, breast high— 
 an Egyptian plague of blood — and, beyond that, re- 
 morse, recrimination, hatred, strife, darkness. Yet, 
 they must not, dare not, fail, if all the powers of hell 
 be called to aid them ; for failure is perdition ; it pre- 
 cipitates that period, sure, to come, when, with Cain, 
 they will be compelled to cry out : "My punishment is 
 greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me 
 out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy 
 face shall I be hid ; and I shall be a fugitive and a 
 vagabond upon the earth ; and it shall come to pass 
 that every one that findeth me, shall slay me V 1 
 
 In what we have said, are there not found persuasive 
 arguments for peaces-sweet peace ? 
 
 Some will laugh to scorn the dangers we have de- 
 clared. They will point to our prosperity as never so 
 great. Trust it not, it is unnatural, deceitful, and one 
 day will be swept off as with a breath. J Tis like 
 flowers which bloom in the crater of a slumbering 
 volcano. 
 
 Some will point to our resources as infinite ; to our 
 strength and energy ; to that combination of national 
 power which never yet has been withstood. 
 
 Remember, that to all things there is ari end. Thus 
 Athens trusted, and Carthage, and Rome, and many 
 others. Their trust betrayed them, and they fell. 
 
 Others, agitated by emotions of a different character, 
 chagrined, overpowered, by the magnitude of the evils 
 which have befallen the land of our love and pride, 
 seek their resolution in despair — follow the counsels of 
 that dark spirit, who, 
 
 " Rather than be less, cared not to be at all." 
 
 The sentiment was worthy of the soil. We adopt 
 no such forbidding determination. It may suit the 
 spendthrift, the gambler, the suicide. It is not fit for 
 
47 
 
 men. Hurl such counsels back to the place from 
 whence they came. 
 
 " If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength 
 is small." 
 
 No one can tell what is before us. The present is 
 terrible, and humiliating. The future looks dark, very 
 dark. Our country is divided — whether again to bo 
 united, God knoweth ! 
 
 Suppose it prove otherwise ; have we not territory 
 enough for the most ambitious ? Augustus Csesar 
 voluntarily withdrew his legions and curtailed the em- 
 pire. 
 
 The result verified bis sagacity and judgment. It 
 consolidated the power and prolonged the existence of 
 Rome. 
 
 Great Britain lost nothing when she lost the Colo- 
 nies. She exchanged troublesome subjects for pro- 
 fitable allies. 
 
 Behold this extended north land, it is ours to possess; 
 this fertile soil, it is ours to improve ; this salubrious 
 climate, it is ours to enjoy ; these highways to the 
 sea ; these spacious harbors ; these embraciug oceans ; 
 this great and industrious people ; these useful neigh- 
 bors ; these moral and intellectual enjoyments ; these 
 precious gifts of law, liberty, and religion. Are all 
 these nothing, that they are to be abandoned to despe- 
 rate resolves ? 
 
 The madness of the times will pass away, and better 
 men will come to light. 
 
 " What constitutes a State ? 
 Not high raised battlements, or labored mound, 
 
 Thick wall, or moated gate ! 
 Nor cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned, 
 Where, laughing at the storm, proud navies ride; 
 Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. 
 No ! Men— high-minded men — men who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain ; 
 These constitute a State !" 
 
 If we are to continue under the domiuion of our pas- 
 
48 
 
 sions, the sooner this wretched carnival closes the 
 better ; for the end must come. Our nation will fall, 
 and her liberties be driven forth as evil spirits, to grope 
 among the tombs of abused departed greatness. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, turn from those who clamor for un- 
 sparing and perpetual war — destruction and misery 
 are in their path. 
 
 Listen to the voice of reason, conscience, and human- 
 ity. Listen to the sounds of woe from those war-smitten 
 regions. Listen to the spirit of brotherly love and • 
 charity. Listen to the admonitions of prudence and 
 sound judgment. 
 
 Listen to the voice of the revolutionary fathers, as it 
 sounds from their consecrated graves, pleading with 
 you : Spare, ye children ! Oh, spar,e! for the sake of the 
 sacrifices we have made in Freedom's cause, for all of 
 you. The temple which at great cost we reared, why do 
 ye thus pollute and destroy ? Blast not our memories 
 with fratricidal strife 1 Drench not our graves with 
 fratricidal blood ! Was it for this we periled fortune, 
 life, and sacred honor? For this we toiled and suffered, 
 in winter's withering cold, and summer's blasting heat ? 
 For this we offered up our lives on many a desperate- 
 deadly field ? Forbear! By all that is sacred in the past, 
 dear in the present, hopeful in the future ; in the name 
 of your common humanity; your common religion; your 
 common liberties, we command you, to forbear ! 
 
 Listen to the voice of angels singing : Peace on earth 
 and good-will toward men. 
 
 Listen to Christ, the great teacher : Blessed are the 
 peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of 
 God. 
 
 lEx IGtbns 
 
 seVmour durst 
 
 4 po*