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 REPRINTED FROM THE REBELLION RECORD. 
 
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 1862. 
 
 Price 3 cts., or $2 per hundred. 
 
IN JCriFE PREFJRjriON, 
 A COMPREHENSIVE AND SUCCINCT NARRATIVE. 
 
 History of the War for the Union, 
 
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 yith References to OfHcial IDoc-aments in the "EEBELLION RECOBD.» 
 
 Illustrated zoitli Portraits, Maps, and Diagrams, 
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 THE 
 
 BIRTH AND DEATH OF NATIONS; 
 
 A THOUGHT FOR THE CRISIS. 
 
 In the primitive ages of the world, long 
 before the dawn of history, while Prometheus 
 lay cliaiued to the rock, and the men of Shi- 
 nar, dispersed by the divine anger, settled 
 themselves in new habitations, there was sent 
 into that far-off eastern land, the earliest home 
 of the race, a messenger from the celestial 
 powers. With a virgin's head and face, she 
 had the stalwart body of a lion and the strong 
 wings of an eagle. She had been taught by 
 those primeval intelligences and instructors 
 of the gods, the Muses, and knew all the wis- 
 dom of the ages, past and to come ; and her 
 commission was to stand on the waysides, and 
 in the great thoroughfares of the people, and 
 put questions — riddles — to the passers by. 
 Questions, doubtless very apt, significant, and 
 necessary to be put, but often to that infant 
 race, most obscure, enigmatical, and difficult 
 of right answer. And yet there was no es- 
 cape; answered they must be, wisely, justly, 
 and to the point, under penalty of a sudden 
 and sure destruction, — for such was the inexor- 
 able decree of the inscrutable Powers that rul- 
 ed that ancient world. To-day even, whoever 
 likes, and can afford it, may see her colossal im- 
 age cut out of a black basaltic spur of the Lib- 
 yan mouatains, overlooking the Nile, a neighboi* 
 
 and meet companion of the great Pyramid of 
 Cheops. 
 
 To the Greeks the Sphinx was the offspring 
 of Chimera. In disparagement of her authen- 
 ticity, the sceptics call her a Myth, as if the 
 Myths were not the oldest and most indestruc- 
 tible facts in the history of the world. But by 
 whatever name she may be called from that 
 remotest period of the ethnic formations of 
 humanity, the beginnings of nations, even unto 
 this day, have her arduous questions been pro- 
 pounded, and always with no jot or tittle of the 
 old penalty abated— a right true answer or cer- 
 tain overwhelming ruin. 
 
 On no habitable summits of the earth, in any 
 age of human liistory, have questions of a higher 
 import or involving mightier interests, secular 
 and eternal, been put to the sons of men, tlian 
 those that to-day so urgently i)ress themselves 
 upon the consideration of the people of these 
 United States. Nor can their just solution be 
 any longer avoided or delayed, under forfeit- 
 ures more disastrous and deplorable than any 
 people ever before were called upon to pay. 
 For this is the nineteenth century of the Chris- 
 tian era, and we live under its Master's unfail- 
 uig word — " Unto whom much is given, much 
 will be required." Very necessary is it then, 
 
56 
 
 REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 
 
 that we should lift ourselves intelli<?ently to the 
 moral level of these (jucstions, ami in the faith 
 that truth alone has the right to reign over the 
 world and to govern its tacts, without attempt- 
 ing to anticipate or forestall the final disposi- 
 tions of the Infinite Pi-ovidenco, make our 
 answer fearlessly, in the light of that Woed, 
 and of history. 
 
 And first of all, in the order of events as 
 well as of the argument, it is demanded of us 
 to answer by what i:ight we call ourselves a 
 nation, and claim to hold and rule as one indi- 
 visible DOMAix, all these broad territories, 
 stretching from ocean to ocean. 
 
 The question is asked upon quite another and 
 higher authority than that of any Confederate 
 States' president or congress. Nor does the 
 roar of their cannon constitute the most urgent 
 reason for its ])rompt answer. That became 
 necessary oidy in consequence of the obdurate 
 dulness of the national ear to "tlie still small 
 voices.'! Even so has it been from the begin- 
 ning — " the still small voices " once become in- 
 audible, and the Supreme Powers must needs 
 commission the loud and ever louder ones, even 
 unto the roar of whole batteries of rifled cannon. 
 Already at Sumter, Bull Pain, and elsewhere 
 have these batteries belched forth such a denial 
 of the nation's right to national existence, as 
 leaves no doubt of the internecine nature of the 
 hatred that so vents itself, and demonstrates 
 the imminency of the crisis that urges ns to a 
 thorough examination of the grounds upon 
 which the great battle must be fought, in order 
 that ovr batteries may be planted u])on the im- 
 movable foundations laid by the fathers, and 
 our cannon charged, not alone with the ele- 
 mental forces of carbonized saltpetre, but, con- 
 snbstantial with these, with the far more invin- 
 cible logic of that Divine Word, which in the 
 beginning became flesh in this nation, and will, 
 in defiance of all the powers of darkness that 
 assail it, have free course and be glorified in its 
 history. 
 
 Let us, then, to begin with, clear onr minds 
 of that atheistical, impious, secession vagary — 
 that a nation is a species of heterogeneous, 
 accidental aggregation of men or of states, held 
 together by a sort of "balance of interest trea- 
 ty " or contract of co-partnership, entered into 
 for the purpose of establishing and carrying on 
 the hitherto highly profitable business of stump- 
 speech making for "Buncombe," securing "the 
 spoils of victory " in certain annual games of 
 ballot-box stufling, and breeding "colored chat- 
 tels " for the shambles of king cotton. This 
 notion of the essential nature and purposes of 
 our national existence, has now for several 
 years been entertained, and by many distin- 
 guished politicians and leaders of the people, 
 with no little energy, reduced to practice in 
 these United States, — with what eflect begins 
 to be apparent enough. No more false or fatal 
 emanation from the bottomless pit ever lodged 
 itself in the human understanding, and the 
 necessity of dislodging it with the truth seems 
 
 just now very urgent indeed, to tie present 
 writer. 
 
 The TRUTH being that, even in the most rig- 
 orous scientific definition of it, a nation is an 
 organized body, and by no means a mere ag- 
 gregation of individual men or independent 
 communities ; and so, like every other organ- 
 ized body, must, from the very nature of things, 
 incorporate its own distinctive organic force or 
 Idea. Indeed, it is only in virtue of this dis- 
 tinctive organic idea, that it becomes a nation 
 at all. To this merely formal statement of the 
 truth, history, irradiated by the light of eigh- 
 teen Cliristian centuries, adds a far sublimer 
 derivation and broader scope. It declares, that 
 in the great epochs of the world, the Omnipo- 
 tent Providence confides to a chosen people the 
 revelation of a great truth, a great regenerative 
 IDEA ; and that from thenceforth, that idea be- 
 comes for that people the germ of its national 
 life and civilization — its soul, without which it 
 could no more be a nation, than the human 
 body could be a man without the human soul. 
 For in this more excellent sense, a nation is but 
 a larger form of humanity, a grander Cosmos 
 or receptacle of the Divine Presence in the 
 world. And it is this Presence, this fundamen- 
 tal Idea, which constitutes the real substance 
 of the national life, and determines the legiti- 
 mate character and course of the national de- 
 velopment and civilization. 
 
 This presence of a divinely posited funda- 
 mental Idea, as vital force in the ethical evolu- 
 tions and growth of nations, is the highest, 
 grandest fact in the history of the race. The 
 sublimest theme of the oldest Scriptures is this 
 doctrine of the genesis of all things from the 
 Spirit " moving upon the face of the deep ; " 
 the first product being light, thought, idea — 
 and then the idea emerging into articulate word, 
 a FACT in time. Not only the solid earth, upon 
 which to-day beats the heavy tramp of our 
 armies, was so founded, but so were embodied 
 and established all the several nations that have 
 dwelt upon its surface, even unto that one 
 whose " covenant of life " bears date on the 
 fourth day of July, 1776, and contains these 
 ever-memorable words, then first in the provi- 
 dential unfolding of the ages made audible to 
 the ears of men : 
 
 " All men are created equal, endowed by 
 THEIR Creator with the inalienable eights 
 
 of life, liberty, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPI- 
 NESS." 
 
 "America," said the great Earl of Chatham, 
 in a memorable debate in the English House 
 of Lords in 1770, " was settled upon ideas of 
 liberty." By what Promethean struggles has 
 every simplest truth, every human right, to get 
 itself established on the earth ! "What a ca- 
 reer had that English humanity to run from 
 whence America sprung, before even the dim- 
 mest adumbration of human liberty could 
 emerge into articulate expression, and obtain 
 for itself some faint acknowledgment as natural 
 human right ; some dubious authority as the 
 
DOCUMENTS. 
 
 /^^^ 
 
 57 
 
 Common Law ! And even now, it is only 
 wlie:-o tluit la\v prevails that any such liherty 
 exists. For wherever the civil or Roman law 
 13 supreme, such liherty as it recojrnizes exists 
 only as a franchise, as founded in the idea of a 
 grant from lord or sovereign to his snhject; and 
 the idea has proved itself stronger than all the 
 might of the people. No numher of French 
 revohitions, not even a "reign of terror," has 
 been able to prevail against it. Is it not neces- 
 sary, then, to believe in the solidity and 
 strength of ideas ? Tlie very fact is, that the 
 whole interminable web of human history is 
 woven, " upon the roaring loom of time," of 
 nothing else but ideas. 
 
 Doubtless the words of tlic wise old states- 
 man were most true : " America was indeed 
 settled upon ideas of liberty," but not of liber- 
 ty only. Ideas of a still broader scope and 
 grander aim, wrought silently but strenuously 
 in that settlement ; ideas originating in the 
 advent of the divine Manhood into the world, 
 and the sublime transfigurations thereby effect- 
 ed in the status and history of the race ; ideas 
 of the equal dignity and worth of the common 
 humanity, in its own spiritual substance, as the 
 begotten of God, the bearer of his image, the 
 continent of his presence in the world, and, by 
 right of its own nativity, endowed with the 
 faculty of '' life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness." In no merely pagan age, under no 
 merely pagan development, could this idea have 
 been evolved. All the previous ages of Hebrew 
 and heathen longing and endeavor were neces- 
 sary, doubtless, to the great gestation and the 
 coming of that " fulness of time." But tlien, 
 as a condition precedent, the highest, divinest 
 man must have the humblest parentage, the 
 lowest birthplace, most necessitous life, and 
 most ignominious death. So much must be- 
 come a fiict of history, and to this fact must be 
 conjoined the idea, not less a truth, that this 
 humblest, most stricken man was a Divine 
 Presence — the very Logos of God — the Liglit 
 of the world. This, and eighteen hundred years 
 beside, of human eti'ort and travail, of human 
 failure and divine grace, were required to re- 
 habilitate human nature with its original divine 
 right of sonship to God, and to evolve the great 
 regenerative idea upon which America was 
 founded, and in which lie cnwombed tlie germ 
 and vital forces of its whole national life, civili- 
 zation, and well-being. 
 
 "What less than this idea of the consubstan- 
 tial equality of all men — of man in his own 
 substance as man, wititout regard to the acci- 
 dents of birth, fortune, education, or com- 
 plexion — could have supplied a ground broad 
 enough upon which to found a nationality, 
 whose membership from the beginning was in- 
 tended to embrace the outcasts and expatri- 
 ated of all the other nations and races of men ; 
 and to whom should be given a whole con- 
 tinent for work-field ? 
 
 The advocates of what is called conservatism 
 in England, which has come to mean a blind 
 
 perpetuity of legalized wrong, seem just now 
 to take heart and jubilate amazingly over what 
 they call a " failure of the democratic experi- 
 ment." The men who for eight hundred years 
 have held the proceeds of the great robbery 
 committed by the hordes of William the Con- 
 queror, and the men who have cunningly filched 
 and funded the profits of the labor of the Eng- 
 lish worker for the same time, may naturally 
 enough rejoice over even a semblance of failure 
 of a system founded in ideas of human erpiality, 
 and the right of the humblest man to enjoy the 
 benelits of his own labor. But let them be as- 
 sured that, whatever may he tlie issue of the 
 jiresent struggle in this country, tliere is not 
 the least ground for their jubilation. In the 
 first place, the " disruption " ujion which they 
 rely has arisen wholly out of a practical repu- 
 diation of the ideas upon whicli our "demo- 
 cratic institutions " were founded, and by no 
 means out of any inherent defect in these ideas. 
 In the second place, if the conspirators of the 
 South should succeed in making the disruption 
 I)ermancnt, and in founding a State upon a sys- 
 t(!m which accomplishes even a worse robbery 
 of human rights than that upon which older 
 aristocracies are founded, it will not in the 
 least constitute a failure of "democratic insti- 
 tutions," but rather purify and reinvigorate 
 them, giving them new scojie, power, and dig- 
 nity, in the face of which no such system could 
 long endure. 
 
 The truth is, that the perpetual mutations 
 and revolutions that so convulse and atBict 
 European society have their source in the an- 
 tagonisms arising out of the circumstantial, the 
 accidental, in human condition, and the over- 
 whelming predominance of the class interests 
 upon v/liich that society is founded. Only upon 
 that which is in itself durable, only upon the 
 permanent element in human nature — the equal 
 dignity and worth of manhood in its own spirit- 
 ual substance — can any nationality or social 
 polity lie founded, which shall at once be per- 
 manent in its own nature and admit of a free 
 development in all of its conditions. This is 
 the ground of Christianity — the ground upon 
 which God founds his own government of the 
 world — the ethical evolutions of his own provi- 
 dence, and, as a great product of that provi- 
 dence, of our nationality and free democratic 
 institutions. 
 
 And so we reach the answer to the question, 
 as to the nature of that right by which we are 
 authorized to call ourselves a xatiox. The 
 Tvjht inheres in the idea contained in the great 
 Declaration — "All men are created equal, en- 
 dowed by their Creator with the inalienable 
 rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness," — and is insei)arable from it. But no 
 spiritual entity, no idea, can be maintained in 
 the world, without giving it a body — Avithout 
 making it a fact. And herein consists the hu- 
 man function in the etiiical evolutions of his- 
 tory. The idea is the gift of God — to trans- 
 mute it into fact, into institutions, manners, 
 
58 
 
 REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 
 
 and laws, is the work of man. In no other 
 way can the fundamental idea of our nation- 
 ality be maintaiued and made to bear its legiti- 
 mate fruit, but by making it, in all its grand and 
 beneficent meaning, the basis of the actual 
 st^ite and condition of the whole body of the 
 nation in all the relations of its membership. 
 In this idea consists the true life and real unity 
 of the nation, its life and unity in its immortal 
 substance. The ethnic formation, the body of 
 the nation, is but the product of this idea, and 
 that portion of it only in which the idea lives 
 and is faithfully developed hold the right of 
 nationality — are, in fact, the nation. 
 
 Very important is it at this conjuncture in 
 our national history, that all men should clearly 
 comprehend the nature of this life and the na- 
 ture of that by which it may be fatally injured 
 and subverted. By no amount of material 
 power, by no number of battalions, can it be 
 seriously affected or endangered, so long as the 
 idea in which it subsists is retained in fall force 
 and virtue to vivify the hearts of the people. 
 On the other hand, that which attacks, weak- 
 ens, and tends to obliterate this idea, is to be 
 regarded as the implacable enemy to whom no 
 quarter can be given. For as surely as the 
 great oak of the forest begins to wither and 
 decay the moment it ceases to obey the vital 
 force contained in the germ from whence it 
 sprung — the moment it ceases to groxo in ac- 
 cordance with the law of its own organic life 
 — so surely does a people begin to fall into ruin 
 the moment it ceases to develop the fundamen- 
 tal idea of its own nationality, to work out its 
 own appropriate civilization and history. 
 
 Can there be any doubt, then, as to our sn- 
 premest, most sacred national obligations ? 
 What else from the beginning had we to do 
 but faithfully to execute the great providential 
 trust confided to us, to make the broadest 
 meaning of that solemn Declaration fact in our 
 history ? Was not this the immutable condi- 
 tion of the covenant made by the fathers with 
 God and humanity, in virtue of which we be- 
 came invested with the divine rirjht of nation- 
 ality, and for the faithful performance of Vi'hich 
 they solemnly pledged, not only their own, 
 but, as its representative head, " the life, the 
 fortune, and sacred honor " of the nation? 
 
 lias that solemn pledge been kept? Have 
 we as a people fulfilled the conditions of that 
 covenant of national life ? What, in truth, has 
 been hitherto the purport of our national en- 
 deavors ? Not to speak here of the unparal- 
 leled development of our material interests and 
 our really great achievements in wliatever ap- 
 pertains thereto ; not to speak of the genuine, 
 manly work performed with " axe and plough 
 and hammer," or of its appropriate reward, 
 abundant crops of " Indian corn, and cotton, 
 and dollars " — with our much vaunted fiiek 
 PRESS, I'ULPiT, and isai.lot box — what have we 
 really done, up to this year of our Lord, 1862, 
 toward the accomplishment of the great provi- 
 dential undertaking committed to our hands ? 
 
 The ear of the ancient Inscrutable Questioner 
 listens for a right true answer ; and however 
 deeply the national brow may be suffused with 
 the blush of shame, a right true answer is su- 
 premely necessary to the future safety and 
 well-being of the nation. And the TEUxn, 
 coined into the gentlest admissible terms, de- 
 clares that to us as a people, whatever else we 
 may have done of good or left undone of evil, 
 belongs the distinguislied infamy of having 
 given birth to the device and developed into an 
 institution, a scheme of human degradation in 
 which a human soul is held bereft, not only of 
 all civil liberty and rights, but of all its natural 
 attributes — is held to be not a 2yerso?i, but a bit 
 o? property — not to possess even a human life, 
 but only that of a beast, and as a beast, is kept 
 for breeding other beasts, (often with white 
 men for sires,) for the public markets of the 
 world ; a scheme Avhich rolls back the civiliza- 
 tion of two thousand years, blots out the cen- 
 tral idea of Christianity, and reestablishes a 
 worse than pagan barbarism; and all this 
 in the face of the great announcement made 
 eighteen centuries ago of God's all-beneficent 
 intention to redeem, emancipate, and glorify 
 the nat^ire of his ofl'^spring — hmnan nature. 
 For what other meaning is there in that divine 
 assumption of this nature, in its humblest con- 
 dition ? what other significance in the bewil- 
 dered history of these centuries ? 
 
 A cruel system of servitude did indeed exist 
 among the ancient nations. But its fundamen- 
 tal idea was the idea of atithority — authority 
 absolute and monstrous, but still of authority 
 and not of projjerty. In ancient Greece, where 
 the slave had no political or civil rights, his 
 quality as a human being, as a man, was re- 
 spected. It was only in Korae, that ultimate 
 flower of all pagan cupidity and rapine, where 
 slavery existed on a scale so monstrous as al- 
 most to defy belief, that something like the 
 Amerian idea prevailed. But even in the 
 Eome of the emperors, the manhood of the 
 slave was not totally annihilated. The old 
 pagan master regarded his scrvi rather as min- 
 isters to his comfort or luxury, than as the sub- 
 jects of traffic or a source of revenue. " In the 
 household of an opulent senator," says Gibbon, 
 " miglit be found every profession, either lib- 
 eral or mechanical. Youths of a promising 
 genius were carefully instructed in tlie arts and 
 sciences." And yet, God in history never taught 
 any truth more clearly or more emphatically, 
 than that Roman slavery was the great enemy 
 by which that grandest fabric of pagan civili- 
 zation, the Roman nationality and empire, was 
 utterly overthrown and subverted. 
 
 As the primeval perfidj', the primal thought of 
 evil, which culminated in the first revolt of arro- 
 gant selfishness and ju'ide, had birth in the high- 
 est circles of created intelligences, so it would 
 seem that only among a people founded upon 
 ideas of liberty and tlic equal dignity and worth 
 of manhood, could a scheme so atrocious as 
 Southern slavery be brought forth. An arch- 
 
DOCUMENTS. 
 
 /3~/9 
 
 59 
 
 angel only conld become the father of lies. 
 Only the inner light of a people to Avliom the 
 divine Manhood had been revealed, could be- 
 come such utter darkness. 
 
 Surely a most strange and portentous result 
 of national endeavor, in view of the point from 
 whence the nation set forLli npon its career, is 
 this American slavery — this institution of the 
 spoliation of human nature. For the gist of the 
 great evil does not so much consist in the out- 
 rage committed against the civil rights of the 
 enslaved, atrocious as that is, as that in their 
 persons an irretrievable ofFciico is perpetrated 
 against our common humanity, and thence such 
 a fatal injury to the vital idea of our nationality 
 and civilization, as, if persisted in, wo may not 
 even hope to survive. For if tlie trutu set 
 forth in that solemn national Declaration shall 
 not succeed in making all men in tliis land free, 
 then the false shall triumph in making all men 
 slaves. This is the inexorabledivine law, of which 
 all human history is but the illustration. The 
 great false pretence, which the nation still so 
 insanely persists in — the great lie it so shame- 
 lessly holds in its right hand — by a fatal law of 
 accretion shall draw to them all other perfidies, 
 until the national heart and consciousness shall 
 become so darkened and depraved that no sense 
 of truth, human or divine, no love or reverence 
 for any human rights, liberty, or manhood shall 
 remain, and the national life and history shall 
 become a very "devils' chaos instead of a God's 
 cosmos." In the communities where the malign 
 and lying spirit of slavery has taken the most 
 complete possession of the understandings and 
 hearts of men, this transformation seems already 
 to have taken place. So utterly has all sense 
 of the most sacred human rights and obligations 
 been extinguisheJ, all fealty and patriotism cat- 
 en out, as to make the most atrocious villanies 
 appear like innocence, and treason against the 
 grandest fabric of human liberty ever erected 
 on earth, like tiio noblest of civic virtues — nay, 
 more, like the most sacred and divinely imposed 
 duties. Says the Kev. Dr. Palmer of New Or- 
 leans, a man of learning and thought, and a groat 
 authority in these communities, " The great 
 providential trust to the t^'oiith is to conserve 
 and 2)erpetuate the institution of domestic sla- 
 very. Let us take our stand on the iiionEST 
 MORAL OKOUND, a7id j)rorlaim to all the world 
 that ice hold this trust from God. In defending 
 it, to the South is assigned the high position of 
 defending before all nations, the cause of religion 
 and all truth.'"' 
 
 AVliat else is this, but the ravings of the mad- 
 ness and dcmentation engendered by slavery ? 
 What must be the condition of a people, whose 
 seers and prophets have become so profoundly 
 unconscious of their own utter domoralizatiou ? 
 By a like process have perished the most pow- 
 erful and proudest nations of antiquity. And 
 so inevitably must this nation perish, unless it 
 can be awakened to its true peril and moved to 
 expurgate and cast out forever the insidious per- 
 fidy, the fotal lie, that corrupts and consumes 
 
 its vitals. For let not these people be deemed 
 worse by nature than others. It is but the 
 blind and malignant spirit of slavery that speaks 
 with their tongue, and with their hands brand- 
 ishes its weapons. Is this a spirit any longer to 
 bo paltered with ? Ought we any longer to cfi- 
 tertain its insidious, treacherous sophistries? 
 If that were possible, could wo allbrd, even at 
 the price of the restitution of the external unity 
 of the nation, to lose the light and glory of its 
 internal life — at the price of saving our national 
 body, can wo atibrd to barter away our national 
 soul? 
 
 We stand then at this pass. Wo know from 
 whence and upon wliat conditions we hold our 
 right to national existence and well-being. We 
 know, beyond a peradventure, the im])lacable 
 enemy that seeks their destruction. We know- 
 even, that by a necessity of its own nature, it 
 cannot do otherwise than destroy them utterly, 
 unless itself be destroyed. What else, in fact, 
 is that open treason to tlie external unity of 
 the nation, that to-day with so much " pomp 
 of circumstance " sets its battle in array, but 
 the outward expression of the far more danger- 
 ous treason that now for many years has been 
 building its intrenchments in the national heart 
 and sapping the very foundations of the national 
 civilization and strength? What else, but the 
 necessary outbreak of that subtle and malign 
 perfidy that for a generation has burrowed in 
 tlie national understanding, spawning its lies 
 and sowing them broadcast through the land, 
 until now, like the dragon's teeth, they sjn-ing 
 up armed men — traitors. Or, does any man 
 not stone-blind, believe that if to-day the Fnica 
 were to be restored, and Avith it the pernicious 
 cause of its disruption placed again under the 
 guarantees of the Constitution, the nation would 
 not thereby bo set back, to begin the great war 
 over again, unless slavery had thus .secured to 
 itself the mastery of the National Government'/ 
 This is its supremest necessity, and the instinct 
 of this necessity, conjoined with a conviction 
 tliat the mastery of the National Government 
 had escaped from their hands, compelled tlio 
 slavemasters to undertake disunion at all risks. 
 On this ])oint we have done these men a kind 
 of injustice. Slavery can no more exist under 
 a government of practical freedom, than liberty 
 can exist under a government mastered by 
 slavery. It is but the common exigency of 
 every legally established hiiman wrong. To se- 
 cure itself against the attacks of light and 
 truth, against the perpetual encroachments, 
 " coercions " of human progress, it must be 
 master of the power that makes the laws. 
 Under whatever political system or form of 
 government, therefore, slavery shall hereafter 
 be permitted to exist on this continent, whether 
 in a Southern confederacy or a restored Union, 
 it will, it must, from a necessity of its own self- 
 preservation, be master of the Government and 
 national institutions, and through these, of the 
 national life, civilization, and history. There 
 is then no alternative for this nation ; either its 
 
60 
 
 REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61 
 
 OAvn original, divinely endowed life must be 
 surrendered up, or it must conquer and destroy 
 its unappeasaljle enemy, slavery. 
 
 That the nation possesses the requisite ma- 
 terial lioiccr to make this conquest, is not gen- 
 erally questioned, at least in the loyal States — 
 to say ViOVi'.uv^ oi i\\G perennial strength\i\\\QY(i\\i 
 in the great idea of our nationality, -which still 
 abides witli them, and day and night cries out 
 for its riglit to conquer in this war. The ([uos- 
 tion about which men seem to doubt, and our 
 public functionaries hesitate, is, ha.s the nation 
 the right to use the means of conquest which 
 it possesses? It is said the national Coiistitu- 
 tion forbids it; that, by some extraordinary 
 ineptitude, this great palladium of liberty has 
 the povrer only to cover and protect slavery. 
 If this were true, the decisive answer would be 
 that the Constitution was made for man, and 
 not man for the Constitution. But it is a great 
 defamation of that justly to be respected in- 
 strument. In its own nature, as a form of 
 national government, as the supreme law of the 
 nation, it recognizes the nation's right of self- 
 preservation, and to the use of all the means 
 necessary to that end. It recognizes the exist- 
 ence of the present most atrocious war, Avagcd 
 by the princes of the powers of slavery against 
 the nation's life, and autliovizes the sovereignty 
 whicb it creates, to clothe itself with tlie rights 
 and powers, known and acknowledged by all 
 civilized nations as the laws of war ; and with 
 which all .States and communities in a state of 
 war are invested, whether it be a natioiial or a 
 civil war. So that the powers of the National 
 Government, administered in strictest conform- 
 ity with the Constitution, are just so far en- 
 larged by a state of war, as are all the powers 
 conferrred by the laws of war. To disregard 
 these laws, and the powers which they confer 
 in time of war, is just as unconstitutional, in 
 the truest meaning and intent of that instru- 
 ment, as it would be to exercise them in time 
 of peace, Nor is it by any means a matter of 
 mere option with those upon Avhom the people 
 have devolved the duty of carrying into eifect 
 the rights and powers of their Government, 
 whether or not these povrers shall be exercised. 
 On the contrar}^, by their ofiicial oaths, by all 
 the most sacred obligations that can bind the 
 consciences of men, they are bound to see to it, 
 that, in the present exigency, the nation sutlers 
 no lo'js, loses no advantage, that might arise 
 out of the exercise of these constitutional war 
 powers. 
 
 Already has the judgment of the nation and 
 of history been pronounced upon the dastardly 
 excuse, "a want of constitutional power," for 
 the failure to suppress the rebellion in its very 
 inception. No reversal of that judgment is 
 possible, so far as James Buchanan is concerned, 
 whatever may be the issue of the present strug- 
 gle. In the history of this country, in tlic 
 memory of all the coming generations of incn, 
 his name while it lasts, will stand associated 
 with the most worthless of his race— will serve 
 
 as a by-word to illustrate the most utter desti- 
 tution of all trutli, valor, and manliness in high 
 station, the most pitiful, pertidious, and coward- 
 ly official failure that ever disgraced human na- 
 ture ; unless, indeed, he shall have the good for- 
 tune to be forgotten in the presence of some still 
 more infamous official delinquency that awaits 
 future developments in the history of our public 
 functionaries. For, leaving out of the question 
 the maxims of the highest order of statesman- 
 ship, the briefest consideration of the laws of 
 war and the jjowers thereby conferred upon the 
 National Government, will serve to demon- 
 strate, that if the servants of the peo])le, who 
 have been intrusted with that sacred duty, fail 
 to destroy the cause of the war and thereby 
 save the life of the nation, a repetition of his 
 excuse — " want of constitutional power " — will 
 not avail to save them from still profounder 
 depths of public execration and infamy. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, yielding himself to the induce- 
 ments with which the minions of slavery have 
 so well known how to seduce or intimidate 
 northern politicians, refused to take the first 
 step against the insidious approaches of the 
 enemy. In Tiis last days it was Virginia's love 
 for the Union that served their purpose to in- 
 fatuate and blind tlie pitiful "old public func- 
 tionary." But all his life long he luid been 
 their willing bondman and hireling. As wages, 
 they had given him the presidency, and as some 
 semblance of excuse, lie might set up the old 
 maxim " honor amongst thieves." On the other 
 hand, Mr. Lincoln, even when he accepted the 
 presidential candidacy, knew of the threats of 
 the slave oligarchy to overthrow the government 
 and destroy the nation. It was from the loyal 
 people of the Fi'.ee States that he received 
 liis great office, in the face of these threats, 
 and under the clearest and most solemn engage- 
 ments, that even the peacrfxil encroachments 
 of slavery should be withstood and combated, 
 with all the means and jiowers thus i)laced in 
 his hands. While he put on his robes of office, 
 slavery wiili the most audacious celerity be- 
 came treason, then open rebellion, and to-day 
 with its great army besieges the National Cap- 
 ital — tlie implacable public enemy of the nation. 
 Mr. Lincoln, u.idike Mr. Buchanan, did indeed 
 "put his hand to the plough," and with a just 
 sense of his position, took a first step in the right 
 direction — ai)pealed to the patriotism of the na- 
 tion. Instantly it became a])parent enough to 
 whom belonged the memories of the llevolu- 
 tion, and tiie inheritance of the institutions and 
 government founded by Wasliington and his 
 compatriots. Th.e lines (^f loyalty were found 
 to coincide exactly with the boundaries of sla- 
 very. AVhile on the one side of these boun- 
 daries, the response to his appeal was a shout 
 of derision, of hatred and deliance of that gov- 
 ernment, on the other, twenty millions of free- 
 men, acknowledging it as their most precious 
 possession, with one heart and one voice rose 
 uj) to its defence. ^Ir. Lincoln got more than 
 he asked. With urgent alacrity, the nation en- 
 
DOCUMENTS. 
 
 /^^/ 
 
 61 
 
 dowed its government with all its possessions 
 and all its power. An army of the sons of tlio 
 people, such as no monarch ever owned, has 
 now for months, with burning heart, awaited 
 its orders to execute the righteous judgment 
 of Eternal Justice against tlio great treason. 
 On the part of the people there has been no 
 shadow of failure — no quailing— no hesitancy. 
 It is tlui Government only that seems to falter. 
 There rims a rumor through the country, that 
 tlie same insidious, treacherous inHuences which 
 spellbouiul Mr. Buchanan to his ruin are at 
 this very hour laying close siego to the heart 
 of Mr. Lincoln. To-day, it is said, the same 
 old arcli-liar and dehuler, assuming the guise 
 of Kentucky's love of the Old l/nion, is at work 
 blinding the eyes and binding the hands of the 
 President, and so expects to gfdn the time 
 necessary to send his embassies abroad, and en- 
 gage the services of other and mightier forces 
 to achieve for him the conquest he seeks — our 
 national ruin. In the presence of their great 
 sacrifices, is it strange that this rumor should 
 stir all loyal hearts with an inexpressible an- 
 guish and indignation ? Abundantly provided 
 witii a great nation's armed strength and will 
 to vindicate and reestablish God's justice and 
 the rights of human nature in this land, and 
 so become the founder of a grander civilization 
 and well-being than ever before blessed man- 
 kind, no man in any age of history ever stood 
 upon a sublimer eminence than Mr. Lincoln. 
 If, under any inducements, from wlience soever 
 thoy may arise, whether from Kentucky, the 
 bottomless pit, or the impotency of his own 
 heart, he shall prove recreant to the great 
 trust, and cower, and finally fail iu his great 
 office, God pity him ! for what words would 
 serve adequately to portray the ignominy of 
 his doom. 
 
 Meantime, if one may believe the "Washing- 
 ton newspaper reporters, there goes on at the 
 White House a jovial round of feasting, flirting, 
 and dancing. Hilarious stories are repeated 
 and old jokes bandied from President to minis- 
 ter, and from minister to President, and through 
 the wreaking fumes and smoke of cabinet coun- 
 cils, no oflicial eye discerns " the fingers of the 
 hand " that comes forth to write upon the 
 wall. 
 
 It is by no means my purpose here to enter 
 into any special exposition of the laws of war, 
 but only to indicate a few general principles, 
 j and the nature of the powers conferred by these 
 laws upon every form of government iu"a state 
 of actual war. 
 
 According to the highest authorities on the 
 laws of nations, these rights and powers are do- 
 rived from one single principle— from the ob- 
 ject of a just war, which is to prevent or punish 
 injury ; tliat is to say, to oUain justice ly jforce. 
 "In order, therefore, that a belligerent power 
 may bo entitled to the benefits of these rights 
 and powers, the war that it wages must be 
 just, and prosecuted for a just and legitimate 
 end. Thence, the end being lawful, he who has 
 Sup. Doc. 5 
 
 the right to ])ursue the end, has the right to 
 employ all tlie means necessary for its attain- 
 ment, provided oidy that these means are not 
 in themselves contrary to the laws of nature." 
 
 " That is to say, since tbe object of a just 
 war is to suppress injustice and compel justice, 
 w^c have a right to put in practice against our 
 enemy every measure that will tend to weaken 
 or disable him from maintaining his injustice. 
 To this end, we are at liberty to choose any 
 and all such methods as wo may deem most 
 efficacious. We have thence a right to deprive 
 our enemy of the possession of every thing 
 winch may augment his strength, and enable 
 him to make and carry on tiie war. And if 
 that of which wc have a right to deprive our 
 enemy can help u?, we have a right to convert 
 it to our own use, or to destroy it, whenever 
 that is necessary to tiio main object, which is 
 to disable our enemy and destroy the cause of 
 the war. 
 
 " And thence, ultimately, all other methods 
 proving insufficient to conquer his resistance, 
 we have a right to put our enemy to death. 
 And this ujton the siini)lc ground, that if wo 
 were obliged to submit to his wrong rather 
 than hurt him, good men would inevitably be- 
 come the prey of the wicked." 
 
 " Under the name of enemy is comprehended 
 not only the first author of the war, but like- 
 wise all those who join, abet, or aid in the sup- 
 port of his cause. So also, as between belliger- 
 ent powers actually at war, all rights, claims, 
 and liabilities aflect the whole body of the com- 
 munity, together with every one of its mem- 
 bers." 
 
 At this moment, slavery liaving organized its 
 powers into a regular form of government, with 
 all the functions of sovereignty, and embodied 
 and sent into the field a military force, if not 
 equal to that of a first-class Eurojjean power, 
 formidable enough to hold in check the great 
 army of the nation, it is difficult to comprehend 
 what real advantage can possibly arise to the 
 national cause in ignoring the fact, and con- 
 ducting the great struggle on the theory, which 
 seems to prevail in the Wasliington Cabinet, 
 that the rebellion is but a tcTni>orary insurrec- 
 tion and not a civil war. To the rebels them- 
 selves and their concealed allies in the loyal 
 States there inure great l)enefits fr<>m this the- 
 ory. For while slavery is left free to hurl its 
 deadly missiles at the nation's heart, tho asgis 
 of tho Constitution is made to cover and protect 
 tho heart of the great treason. On the other 
 hand if, in spite of all constitutional or legal 
 quibbles, this is a renl war — a civil war, then 
 tho rights and powers arising under the laws of 
 war clearly belong to the National Government, 
 are indeed as truly within tlie purport of the 
 Constitution, as if conferred by express pro- 
 vision, and in the words of our wisest states- 
 man, John' Quinoy Adams, " ahnndantlij siijfi- 
 cient to hurl the institution into tlie guI/V^ 
 
 While slavery remained upon its own ground, 
 obedient to the Constitution, a due regard for 
 
62 
 
 REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 
 
 the requirements of tliat instrument might just- 
 ly be held to restrain the National Government 
 from dealing with it, as in its own nature it de- 
 served. ])ut the moment it threw oft" its obli- 
 gations to the Constitution, and set at defiance 
 the authority of the nation, the question of its 
 existence became ■wholly discharged of all con- 
 stitutional prohibitions and restraints; and 
 from thenceforth the National Government Avas 
 imperatively bound to take possession of it as a 
 national affair; to deal with it, as with any 
 other question vitally aftecting the national 
 well-being, on its own merits, and dispose of 
 it with an enlightened, fearless, and far-reaching 
 statesmanship. 
 
 But what a bottomless slough of absurdities, 
 are even honest men compelled to swelter in, 
 when once they have put their hand in that of 
 .slavery, and allowed themselves to be led by it! 
 It is said the rebels Jiave indeed committed a 
 great outrage upon the Constitution, but that 
 that is no reason why the loyal people of the 
 Union, and their Government, should do the 
 same thing hy aholisMng slavery^ the Constitu- 
 tion containing no express provision gitiny them 
 that poicer. As if the Constitution did contain 
 an express provision authorizing the blockade 
 of Southern ports, or filling them np witli stone- 
 filled hulks — the burning of the rebels' dwell- 
 ings, imjjrisoniDg and slaying his white chil- 
 dren, and sweeping his whole laud with the 
 besom of destruction. Only one act, it seems, 
 imposed by the terrible exigencies of war, is un- 
 constitutional, and that is, the destruction of 
 its cause, Slavery ! No wonder that the great 
 heart of the world swells with a suppressc" 
 shout of derision at such acumen and states- 
 manship. Wak and its laws alone, justify and 
 make constitutional any of these acts. And 
 much more do they justify and command the 
 utter extinction of its acknov/ledgtd cause. 
 
 War has been justly termed tlie " scourge of 
 God." And regarding it from the grounds of 
 the broadest Christian statesnumship, it may, 
 indeed, be pronounced an evil in itself, in its 
 own nature, so enormous, as never to be justi- 
 fiable except on the ground that the continued 
 existence of its cause is a still greater evil. I 
 believe the universal conscience of Christendom, 
 if appealed to, would confirm this position. To 
 destroy the existence of the cause, is then the 
 only legitimate aim and end in the prosecution 
 of any war. It follows, that a war carried on 
 for any other purpose, or with any other intent 
 than that of destroying or removing its cause, 
 is not only unjustifiable, but a great mistake, or 
 a great crime. Only on the ground that sla- 
 very, the admitted cause of the present war, is 
 such an evil, and that the war is aimed at its 
 extinction, can it be justified before God and 
 mankind. 
 
 The existence of an apparent doubt on this 
 point in the minds of the men, upon whom 
 rests the momentous responsibility of conduct- 
 ing the war to its liighest, grandest issues; and 
 their paltering liesitancy to carry it on, upon 
 
 its own basis, as wau, and for the achievement 
 of a great and just end, is the source of dis- 
 heartening anxieties and doubts, that wound 
 and stagger the popular confidence of the loyal 
 States. Nor is this by any means its only mis- 
 chief. It gives occasion for an undeserved de- 
 famation of Kepublican Institutions, and cou- 
 tempt of our national chnracter and aims 
 abroad, that threaten us with the loss of the 
 respect of other nations, if not with their active 
 hatred and hostility. 
 
 Nor, on another ground than any hitherto 
 set forth, can this jiariimount question be any 
 longer left to be trified Avith by epauletted ofla- 
 cials, high or low, without peril to the suprem- 
 acy of the civil power of the nation, and shame 
 to the representatives of the people. The 
 pov.'crs conferred by the laws of war belong, 
 ];rinuu-ily, to the supreme authority of the 
 State, and, under our form of government, by 
 no means, without its authorization, to any one 
 cf its administrative or executive functionaries. 
 The Constitution itself takes on these powers, 
 and Congress is its proper organ for their dis- 
 tribution — for giving them practical authority. 
 Besides the fact, that the legislative power is 
 alone adequate to the determination of the 
 great question — is alone adequate to foresee 
 and provide for the future of the slave as well 
 as of the nation — it is the most sacred duty of 
 the jicople's representatives, in the presence of 
 the great military force called forth hy the ex- 
 igencies of the hour, to watch wnth a most 
 jealous eye every attempt of its chiefs to over- 
 step their function, as the arm and servant of 
 the civil power. Most calamitous and deplor- 
 able, indeed, would it be, if the war to restore 
 the external unify of the nation should end, 
 not only in reinstating its cause, as a supreme 
 power in the State, but in giving the people a 
 military autocrasy for their free republican in- 
 stitutions. In a Avar carried on for the main- 
 tenance of authority only — for em2)ire merely, 
 this is an evil consequence, greatly to be feared. 
 On the other hand, let your battle he for a 
 great idea — let your army he inspired by a 
 great sentiment of human justice and liberty, 
 and the danger is cut oft" at its very source. 
 
 But why should the people of the United 
 States, or their Government, seek to shuffie off 
 the " inevitable logic of events," or squander 
 the providences of God ? The conspirators 
 against the life of the nation plant themselves 
 openly, squarely, on the ground of slavery. 
 The Avar they Avage is trammelled by no men- 
 tal or moral reservations, no ambiguity of pur- 
 pose. To make slavery triumph on this conti- 
 nent, and to found upon it a social order and a 
 State, is their loudly-vaunted aim in its prose- 
 cution. The malign spii'it has taken comi)lcto 
 possession of their soids ; they believe in it, 
 are terribly in earnest about it, ready to die 
 for it ! On the other side, on the part of the 
 nation and its Government, Avhat great purpose 
 is set forth to justify, inspire, and sustain them, 
 in the prosecution of so gigantic a struggle? 
 
/^r-^ 
 
 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 63 
 
 s it to restore tlio rebellious States to the 
 Jnion, iiud slavery to the safep;uar(ls of tlic 
 Constitution? To reestablish tlic fatal, malif,'- 
 lant evil, not only in all its original power, but 
 roin the very nature of things to give it re- 
 lewed strength and vigor! For they fall into 
 most pernicious error who imagine, that in 
 5()nie accidental or fortuitous way, slavery is to 
 receive its death-wound in this war, even al- 
 thougli it may end iu its reestablishment. _ Let 
 no sucli monstrous delusion be entertained. 
 The ethical Providence of the world never re- 
 turns upon its own footsteps. God wastes not 
 a single one of His dispensations, repeats not 
 one of man's neglected opportunities. Slavery 
 must die, and die now, by the enlightened will 
 of the nation, or the nation itself must die- 
 must have its own heart eaten out by its poi- 
 3onous, deadly virus. 
 
 But without reference to this inevitable and 
 Bnal consummation, what a solecism iu human 
 affairs docs this war present, when viewed 
 from its own ground, as war, in the light of its 
 own logic ! In the history of the world was it 
 ever before proposed to " conquer a peace " by 
 carefully maintaining the cause of the war? 
 Was it ever before proposed " to weaken and 
 disable " a powerful enemy by becoming the 
 keeper, and enforcing the labor, of four mill- 
 ions of his subjects, for his sole benefit and 
 sujjport? To ''■overcome his resistance^'' by 
 •ompelling a supply of the very means without 
 ^hich he would become utterly helpless ? 
 •u[)i)0se, for an instant, that these four millions 
 f unwilling workers, from whose labor the en- 
 •my draws his daily sustenance, were in a 
 ight to have the color of their skin changed to 
 le Caucasian hue, and these white men were 
 ) send a message to the commander-in-chief 
 " our armies, that they were loyal men, lovers 
 ■" liberty and the Union, and only awaited his 
 f rmission to rise in their might and with one 
 11 swoop destroy the cause of the war, and 
 le malignant power of the enemy. And sup- 
 )se that this commander-in-chief should re-, 
 'se tlie proffered assistance, and insist that his 
 nstituiional duty was, to employ his groat 
 ,>my in standing guard over these wiUing al- 
 rts of the nation, and compelling them to serve 
 *^d support its implacable enemy. What judg- 
 lent would a skilful strategist, an able gen- 
 'al, pass on such a plan for carrying on a great 
 •ar? What would be the sentence of the na- 
 on and of mankind on such patriotism and 
 catesmanship ? And yet, is not this a sober 
 tatcment of the facts, as they present them- 
 /elvcs at this moment, with this ditference only 
 —that the men, who, the other day, with cries 
 of Joy, ran to embrace our army oil the shores 
 of Port Royal while its enemy fled, had not all 
 cuticles of the su[)posed color ? 
 
 By what unparalleled infatuation is it, that 
 even yet, after all the overwhelming proofs of 
 the execrable character of slavery, the under- 
 standings and hearts of our public men arc en- 
 thralled and awed in its presence — bound ab- 
 
 jectly, as by a spell of Circe, to cringe and bow- 
 to its dial;olical intimations. Under the pres- 
 sure of the great exigency created by it, our 
 rulers have noc hesitated to set aside tlie most 
 sacred rights guaranteed by the Constitution. 
 In the name of national safety they have not 
 hesitated to suspend the great writ of freedom, 
 the habeas corpus, for two luindred years held 
 sacred by all men speaking the English tongue, 
 and to put manacles on the hands of American 
 citizens. But to refuse any longer to stand 
 guard over the rebel's slave, or, in the name of 
 liberty, the rights of human nature and of na- 
 tional existence, to permit his shackles to be 
 knocked otY, is a thing only to be thought of 
 with fear and trembling — to be excused by all 
 sorts of phrases, and to be waited for, until it 
 gets ifse//^" transacted in some way not to excite 
 the latent treason of the half-suppressed rebels 
 of the Border States, who, in the name of the 
 old master, slavery, and with the old insolence, 
 are still permitted to dictate the policy of the 
 national Government, and give the word of 
 command to the national armies. While the 
 earnest convictions of the loyal people of the 
 free States, who furnish these armies, arc tlout- 
 ed as fanatical and not to be regarded, on the 
 ground, apparentlj', that their ])atriotism and 
 love of country are unconditional. 
 
 Is it not time, O men of America, rightful 
 heirs of the great inheritance, that we slioiild 
 rouse ourselves to a sense of the true nature 
 of the enemy we have to overcome, and of the 
 deadly perils that environ us? Look, I beseech 
 you-, at the battle-field, upon wliich we are called 
 to pour out the blood of our sons — for wlio of 
 us has not there a dear son ? — what a spectacle 
 does it present! On the one hand stands the 
 great army of slavery, openly, boldly, proudly, 
 in the name of Slavery, warring for its tri- 
 umph. On the other hand stands the army 
 of freedom, covertly, abjectly, in the name 
 of Union, waging " a vague and aimless fight," 
 but still for Slavery ! I 
 
 " One guards tliroiigli love its cliastly throne, 
 And cue tlirough fear to revertnce grown." 
 
 How, think you, must such a battle end? 
 Shall not slavery, that "dares and dares and 
 dares," not rather triumph, tlian liberty that 
 cowers and hides herself? Or, rather, shall 
 not liberty disown the cowardly, craven souls, 
 that dare not fight openly in her name, and 
 yield them up to become, in very fact, the 
 " mudsills " of that hideous throne they so rev- 
 erence ? 
 
 We may not flatter oui-sclvcs: on this plan 
 of the battle we need not hope to ooncpier. 
 The inestimable sacrifices wo offer will be but 
 vain oblations. To the Eternal Justice there is 
 no sweet savor in them. O friends, Ave must 
 not allow our children to be so driven " like 
 dumb cattle " to the shambles. Let us demand 
 an open fight on the ground of the great decla- 
 ration : " All men are created equal, en- 
 dowed BY TUEiK Creator with the inaliex- 
 
64 
 
 REBELLION RECORD, 1860-61. 
 
 ABLE RIGHTS OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT 
 
 OF HAPPINESS." Only in the strength of the great 
 idea which it contains, have we the riglit even 
 to ask to conquer. Only in its name dare we 
 send forth our brave sons to die. Only with 
 the consolation that they fell in the cause of 
 liberty and the rights of humaaity, shall we be 
 able to assuage the griefs that must wring and 
 break our hearts at their loss. 
 
 And you, elect of the people, who but now 
 so eagerly persuaded them that you were the 
 qualitied of God, and lit to keep watch and 
 ward at the doors of that oapitol, the chosen 
 temple of liberty and the rights of humanity on 
 this continent— is it not time that you should 
 lift yourselves to the level of the great issue ? 
 In the ethical evolutions of our national history, 
 a second great era presents itself — another 
 "time to try men's souls" stands face to fyc& 
 with the present hour. The question, is not 
 now, as a high official personage seems to think, 
 a merely technical, attorney one, of construing 
 the letter of the Constitution, but of refouuding 
 the nation, and rehabilitating the national in- 
 stitutions and Government. Slavery by its own 
 act has outlawed itself. The determination of 
 its future status settles the whole matter in issue. 
 To restore it now to the Union — to receive it 
 again under the guarantees of the Constitution, 
 would be nothing less than to refound the na- 
 tion upon it — to make it the basis of our na- 
 tional institutions and the corner-stone of our 
 future civilization and history. This calami- 
 tous consequence is of the very nature of things, 
 and can by no means be evaded when once the 
 ignominious restitution shall have been accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Beside, who, except those " that have eyes 
 and see not," can fail to understand the provi- 
 dential intimation. These colored men of the 
 South are the men whose blood should pay the 
 price of their own redemption. If, in the pres- 
 ent supreme Iiour, "there can be no salvation 
 without the shedding of blood," they also should 
 have the privilege of making the great' sacrifice. 
 It is the needed discipline and necessary prepa- 
 ration for the possession of freedom, that they 
 who seek it should be willing to die for it. It 
 is for you to give them the opportunity — to 
 organize and guide them into the ways of civil- 
 ized warfare, instead of leaving them to grow 
 into an irrepressible mass of barbarism, by and 
 Dy to burst into a wild and all-devouring con- 
 flagration. For the sake of our common human- 
 ity, it is your most sacred duty to take posses- 
 sion of their destiny, bound up as it is with that 
 of the nation, and, by your wisdom and fore- 
 sight, guide them on their road to freedom, and 
 curs to national regeneration and glory. 
 
 Hitherto, we have been able to answer to the 
 reproaches of our fellow-men, on account of 
 slavery, that its existence ante-dated the exist- 
 ence of the nation, and that it was but an ex- 
 traneous incident in its history, for which the 
 founders were not I'esponsible. But if now it 
 shall he voluntarily taken back into the bosom 
 
 of the nation, we shall deserve, as we shall most' 
 surely receive, the open scorn of all mankind. 
 
 But why should we not, in this imminer'j 
 crisis of our national existence, lay to heart tho '^ 
 great lesson of the ages — that the eternal Provi- 
 dence, that shapes all human will and eftbrt 
 into history, even from a necessity of its own 
 nature, cannot do otlierwise than pursue, with 
 an unappeasable divine hostility, all false pre- 
 tences and lies — cannot do otherwise than blast, 
 with a celestial, eternal hatred, the grandest 
 human structures attempted on such founda- 
 tions — sending false nations as easily as false 
 men to judgment and eternal doom. 
 
 Many centuries ago, in another far-off land, 
 a favored people stood, like us, in the very 
 pitch of a great national crisis. The all-benefi- 
 cent Providence '-had presented to them, like- 
 wise, the opportunity of refounding their nation- 
 ality upon a basis of eternal truth — that "truth 
 whereby all men are made free." The final 
 question was put to them with the same terri- 
 ble emphasis that to-day ia put to us : " Whom 
 will ye have, Barahhas or Jesus called the 
 Christ ?" " Not He," they cried, " but Barabbas. 
 Away with him to the cross ; Barabbas is our 
 man — give us Barabbas." And they got Barab- 
 bas, and with him such guidance as a thief and a 
 liar had to give. We know the result. A na- 
 tion for whom the DeTca Logoi had been written 
 by God's own finger — who had stood at the 
 nether part of the mount and seen with their 
 own eyes " that God answered with a voice ; " 
 — a people who had Abraham to their father, 
 and a long line of divinely inspired men foi 
 teachers and guides ; after eighteen hundred 
 years of perpetual dispersion and dilapidation, 
 from the hour of that fatal choice, are now, it 
 is said, " prophetically crying ' old clo', oldclo', 
 in all the cities of the world." 
 
 And to-day, even in this very hour, in all th( 
 thoroughfares of the people, upon the ver> 
 threshold of that capitol where you, their elect, 
 deliberate to become more renowned than any 
 Roman Senate, or to sink into ignominious con- 
 'tempt and forgetfulness, stands the old Inexorable 
 Questioner, and demands a right true answer 
 to the final, fateful question, "Whom will y> 
 serve, slavery or freedom?"