Qass 
 
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A 
 
 ^f;e gaticrit's §iil(.ot antr its §ecbi0ii 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN AUSTIN-STREET CHURCH, CAMBRIDGEPORT, 
 AND IN HARVARD CHURCH, CHARLESTOVVN, 
 
 On Sunday, Nov. 13, 1864; 
 
 Bemg Uje Suntjag foIIoSuing tfje PrestlJEntial lElection. 
 
 BY GEORGE E. ELLIS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 WILLIAM V. SPENCER, 
 
 131, Washington Street. 
 
 1864. 
 
iAn Mution's ilVallot auiD its Decision 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DKLIVEKEI) IN AUSTIN-STREET CHURCH, CAMBRIDGEPOKT 
 AND IN HARVARD CHURCH, CHARLESTOWN, 
 
 On Sunday, Nov. V6, 18(54-; 
 
 Being Uj£ Suntjau fallatomg tijc 13r£0tt)ential lElcrtion. 
 
 BY GEORGE E; ELLIS. 
 
 BOSTON: ■ 
 
 WILLIAM V. S P E N C E K, 
 
 131, ^Vashington Street. 
 
 1864. 
 
Z^^C/^^-'^' 
 
 ^■ 
 
 
DISCOURSE.' 
 
 Acts i. 24, 26 : " And they praj-ed and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts 
 of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen. . . . And they gave 
 forth their lots." 
 
 There is a striking contrast between two scenes presented to 
 us in Gospel history, in the record of both of which we read 
 of the casting-of-lots. There is all possible 'difference be- 
 tween the two applications or meanings of that same phrase 
 in the two incidents. In the one case, an issue was staked 
 on what is called " blind chance ; " in the other, on a deliber- 
 ately solemn expression of a devoutly guided will in forming 
 a judgment. The Roman soldiers, the mechanical officials 
 at the Saviour's cross, when that tragedy was over, " cast lots " 
 for his garment. The eleven apostles, purposing to fill one 
 vacancy in their former fellowship, to preserve the national, 
 traditional sanctity and associations with the number " twelve," 
 gave forth their lots. 
 
 In both cases, so far as was visible to the eye, the method of 
 decision was the same. The word "lot" is suggestive to us 
 of an appeal to chance. To cast a lot, to throw, to toss, to 
 stake a venture on the die, are all tokens that men commit 
 to the decision of hap what they will not dispose by intel- 
 ligence or choice, or the decision of the higher Will. Any 
 tool or implement or test will serve for that use. But when, 
 instead of the word " lot," we use the word "ballot," we begin 
 to discern a difference; and the difference mounts and strength- 
 ens, till all thought of an appeal to chance leaves our minds, 
 the more we interpose of human preference, purpose, or will. 
 The rude soldiers on Calvary were entitled to the spoils of 
 
 * Reprinted from the " Monthly Religions Magazine." 
 1 
 
4 THE NATION S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION 
 
 their victim. Some of the lesser ones they could distribute. 
 The seamless robe, the most coveted, could not be divided, 
 They put to trial in their own way a familiar hazard in their 
 own game of life, when they tossed the sticks or the dice to 
 decide which of them should ^ain the prize. It would ill- 
 become the winner, if he should wear it. All chance prizes 
 are apt to suggest incongruity in their use. 
 
 We can hardly call the other scene a trial by lot. There 
 were no dice there. Chance was excluded from the appeal ; 
 and a wise, discerning, and guiding Power above was asked to 
 overrule the decision, not on a throw or by a count, but in the 
 hearts of human arbiters. The eleven apostles selected by 
 name two men standing nearest their own special fellowship, 
 and both alike fulfilling the specific requirements of the case, 
 both alike qualified, both unobjectionable, for exactly the same 
 work and service. They bowed in prayer for God's best guid- 
 ance in rebuking private partialities, and suggesting any 
 ground, were it but the slightest, for preference. And then, 
 after bowing before God, they signified their choice. For any 
 thing we know, the result of the ballot was perfect unanim- 
 ity. Such may be the difference between the lot and the 
 ballot. The intervention of the human choice and will is one 
 element of the difference ; the recognition of the divine over- 
 sight is another. 
 
 What is the significance of that trial and decision by 
 the ballot which has just been made by our citizens counted 
 by millions ? Would that we could pronounce it to be a 
 complete and infallible decision, on the part of every indi- 
 vidual on either side in it, between absolute right and wrong ; 
 between full wisdom and blind folly ; between sure good 
 and the sum of evils ! It would be a convenience, if, in any 
 human controversy or contest, a dividing line were manifestly 
 drawn so straight and sharp and deep, between the conflict- 
 ing elements which are ever warring in this world with their 
 respective champions. But common experience, to say noth- 
 in"- of charity, forbids us to look in human affairs for such an 
 anticipation of the judgment. Honest and high-souled pa- 
 triots and Christian men were found on both sides of this 
 
THE NATION S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. 5 
 
 party-issue. Its own complications, and the known qualities 
 of human nature, not only prove, but account for, the fact, 
 that the individual men of the gaining and the losing side 
 are not to be classified by the distinction of righteous or un- 
 righteous, wise or foolish, in their characters and afHas. One 
 who sincerely so believes, however, may modestly venture 
 the avowal of his belief, that the result of the great balloting 
 would not have been different, if some shadowy warden of 
 the polls had overmastered the voting so that all the wise and 
 good and righteous had actually voted on one side. But again : 
 we discard the imputation and the claim which would go with 
 such a pretence as a matter of fact. Let there be not only 
 magnanimity, but fair, right admission in the case. Let not 
 the driving-out of what we call one evil spii'it bring in 
 seven others. Let us soothe the irritations of the strife 
 among ourselves, and give over opprobrious names, and pre- 
 vent the suppuration of wounds which may all heal with an 
 unimpaired vigor for the whole body. The honored Chief 
 Magistrate, to whom accrues so high a tribute from the decis- 
 ion, has set a beautiful example of graceful and kindly recog- 
 nition of right purposes and honest aims in those who did 
 not vote for him. So effective has been that token of a 
 right spirit in him, that not a few who are the subjects of it 
 would be glad now to give him the votes which they cast 
 against him. 
 
 But though a balloting among men on great political 
 or party issues does not sharply and completely divide 
 between the champions of wisdom and folly, of good and 
 evil, it does engage and put to trial all the mixed and con- 
 flicting measures of those warring elements which are found 
 in each individual man who takes part in it. To one 
 who can read human nature thoroughly and deeply, how 
 easy the solution of marvels and proclivities and variances 
 which to most of us are so baffling ! Men make up their 
 minds, they say : they form their opinions : they mature their 
 judgments : and then they pronounce, and act accordingly. 
 There are but few citizen voters who would not resent a 
 denial of this claim on their part. And yet to how many 
 
6 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 abatements and qualifications is it justly subject ! The most 
 that it can be made to mean is, that a voter, through force of 
 some overbalancing influence, motive, or reason, decides on 
 which of two sides he will dispose himself. The character 
 of the reason, bias, or purpose which controls his decision, 
 may range over the whole scale of good and evil. You only 
 multiply units when you count a million. A ballot on a 
 party-issue, whether cast by tens or millions of men, is but 
 a larger testing and exhibition of all the complicated elements 
 of human nature in each single man. A party, however 
 large, however exalted its professions, must regard itself as 
 falling, proportionately, just so far short of absolute freedom 
 from bias or error, and of absolute infallibility of judgment 
 and principle, as would the best man composing it in his own 
 private capacity. Our whole race has not a vice or a virtue, 
 a passion or an infirmity, a quality of wisdom or of folly, of 
 which each man has not in himself the germ in some stage of 
 its growth and fruitage. Still we understand better the mixed 
 elements and biasses of will and judgment, and the abate- 
 ments and excesses of the good and the evil of human na- 
 ture, when brought out in the crowd, than when manifested 
 in an individual. 
 
 Yet there is a significance, a moral of an intelligible 
 character, in the result of that huge ballot. Whatever 
 there was at stake in the trial transfers all its import to 
 measure that meaning of the decision as on one side, rather 
 than the other, of the alternative at issue. The voice of 
 the nation, expressing its will and purpose, approves, and 
 therefore proposes to pursue resolutely and at all costs, the 
 military policy which it has already tried for four years. 
 The people must be understood as ratifying, not repenting of, 
 not even murmuring over, or asking to reconsider, a course 
 of which it has had fair experience. The majority is a de- 
 cisive one ; and under its expressive verdict, if the question 
 were tried again this week, it would doubtless be yet larger : 
 so re-assuring is the influence of such a decision on those who 
 make it, while it also has a converting power on many of 
 those who withstood it ! 
 
THE NATION S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. T 
 
 If ever we ascribe to the verdict of men, counted one by- 
 one to millions, a significance bearing, if not on the absolute 
 right, yet at least on their convictions of what is right, we 
 can scarce deny or depreciate the weight of that decision 
 now. Those who, after experience of war, resolve to con- 
 tinue it, must, at least, be regarded as more resolute than 
 those who begin a war. All means and efforts were engaged 
 to make the decision an intelligent one, and to bring the 
 elements which entered into it within the comprehension of 
 ordinary minds. The burden which the nation is bearing, 
 and that which it would need to assume, with the sure ratio 
 of its increase and severity, with the consequent vexations 
 and risks, were candidly disclosed. The resources, also, of 
 the nation were deliberately estimated on the basis of its 
 reserved energies, as in part a matter of statistics, and, for 
 the rest, of reasonable hypothesis. Deference was paid to 
 the high standard of common intelligence among the native- 
 born voters, by laying before them, in carefully prepared 
 documents, the materials for unbiassed judgment. The 
 usual artifices of a political campaign were subjected to all 
 the restraints and cautionary measures which are consistent 
 with liberty for both parties. Even the popular harangues 
 were, in general, of a high tone ; and only a very few of the 
 public speakers were so far misled by their own ill temper or 
 their selfish aims as to leave recorded against them legitimate 
 reasons, if not for political, at least for social, proscription. 
 The opposition did good service towards insuring the same 
 intelligence of decision, by presenting all the cogent reasons, 
 all the actual obstacles, as well as all the bugbear and ficti- 
 tious apprehensions, Avhich might warrant its own measures, 
 or qualify the convictions, the purposes, or the zeal of the 
 party in power. There was less than ever before of that 
 inconsistency between our professed reliance upon the intel- 
 ligence of the masses, and the tricks and cajoleries, the 
 trumpery catch-words and silly devices which address them- 
 selves to those who help to fill the net, without being 
 conscious that their destined use is that of bait. If, as is 
 affirmed by those who should know, some hundreds of hired 
 
8 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 torch-bearers appeared, for the same fee, in the city proces- 
 sions of both parties, they will have occasion only to remember 
 which party happened to have the pleasanter weather for 
 its night-tramp, and the more rallying creature-comforts for 
 protection against a cold. Those who, in reviewing the 
 struggle, are curious to pursue it into its private and personal 
 partisanships, may employ their ingenuity, with or without 
 their charity, in accounting for the position of this man or 
 that, by a smouldering animosity, or a laid-up grudge from 
 former antagonisms. Nor will individual instances be lack- 
 ing, to be discussed between the generous and the suspicious, 
 of conversions and avowed convictions and new positions 
 attached to the names of public men. 
 
 Such of us as are happily exempted by profession or 
 principle or temperament from the more exciting and pas- 
 sionate experiences connected with such a struggle, may find 
 in it rich materials for quiet thoughtfulness and for profound 
 speculation. On the whole, the occasion was one which we 
 all feel and know is burdened with momentous and near 
 consequences. As it Avill enter into history, who of us Avould 
 not be glad, if, in the calm and security of some other scene 
 or age, he might read the matured issues of the nation's 
 balloting and its decision ? 
 
 From the clustering homes of our northern and western 
 lands, in crowded cities, snug towns, and scattered rural 
 dwellings, have come those whose ballots have wrought this 
 decision. Many of them were cast after prayers as sincere 
 as those which preceded the choice of an apostle. Those 
 ballots were dropped by hands which have been wrung in 
 woe over the desolations of the war made in those thousand 
 homes. The populous metropolis of the land, the centre of 
 all disturbing and dangerous influences, cast a ballot in which 
 some forty thousand majority were counted by the opposition, 
 — coming from foreigners by birth, — as yet unskilled in our 
 highest patriotism, and from exiles, and sympathizers with 
 sedition, resident there. But that local majority was more 
 than neutralized outside the capital, in the rural regions of 
 the State, by its native-born and educated inhabitants. The 
 
THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 9 
 
 voice of the people is not the voice of God ; but only the 
 voice of God can silence it. And only his will in manifest 
 demonstration can thwart its purpose. Such is the signif- 
 icance of this ballot. It is not the triumph of a divine 
 decree, but it is the ratifying of an Intelligent resolution of 
 
 man. 
 
 There was an alternative for choice, — a positive two- 
 sided issue submitted to the people for their ballot. That 
 alternative on the one side was simple ; on the other, vague 
 and complicated. On the one side it was this : Shall we 
 pursue our mlHtary policy unchanged in method or design 
 or leadership, with the one sole purpose of crushing rebellion, 
 and saving and vindicating the nation I On the other side, 
 the alternative, as presented by a party composed of hete- 
 rogeneous and discordant elements, was not simple, but 
 compound, confusing, not definable, except by many distinc- 
 tions and qualifications. To some who espoused the op- 
 position, its aim was hardly distinguishable, except as to 
 leadership, from that which the Government was pursuing, 
 and the people have ratified. But a leading motive or pur- 
 pose scarcely consists with joint or distracting motives or 
 even wishes not approving its own direct and sole design. 
 And so an opposition which professed only a desire for some 
 change in the conduct of the war entered into fellowship 
 with those who pronounced the war a crime and a failure, 
 hopeless, and therefore to be given over by other efforts for 
 peace. 
 
 So incongruous and discordant were the elements of the 
 party in opposition, that, in the event of its political success, 
 it would have found within its own ranks and councils, 
 under some modifications Indeed, though essentially the same 
 irreconcilable alms and .purposes, and the same differences 
 of opinion as to methods and means which constituted the 
 grounds of its antagonism to the party in power, — now no 
 longer a party. Precisely the same strife which has been 
 convulsing the politics of the nation would have been trans- 
 ferred in a more condensed, but by no means a more tracta- 
 ble, or a less distracting or alarming form, into the sharper 
 
10 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION 
 
 discords of a cabinet and an Administration dictated to by 
 those who might claim to have given them the power. 
 There was really no issue between the two parties, the sub- 
 stance of which was not manifest in the incorporated, but 
 not assimilated, elements of the party in opposition. Of what 
 sort the precipitate from such a combination -would have been, 
 even those who compounded it could not reasonably predict. 
 The decision of the nation has adopted the simpler alternative 
 of the issue. 
 
 And yet, though the resolve to pursue the war unchanged 
 in councils and in leadership sounds and is simple in its 
 statement, it is one to which many discordant elements con- 
 tribute, and which is full of perplexities and anxieties in its 
 details. It avows what we purpose to do, and then it throws 
 us back on our ways and means. Its purpose is to put the 
 maintenance of our American National unity foremost in 
 resolve, and in political and military measures and enterprises. 
 The whole soil of the United States of North America is 
 regarded as held in fee by the nation ; and all who live on 
 its territory are held in allegiance to its laws and edicts. 
 Under certain just restrictions of right policy and humanity, 
 the question of territorial integrity and unity takes precedence 
 of all others. The purpose is, that the law of the nation 
 shall extend over the M'hole of it, whatever may befall the 
 inhabitants or the peculiar institutions of any rebellious por- 
 tion of it, — town or state, individual or confederacy. If 
 people abroad find it difficult to comprehend the idea which 
 underlies this resolution, it may be because it is an American 
 idea nationalized by the American people. We have all 
 learned how dull and slow even our English kinsfolk have 
 been to apprehend this idea of ours. They are beginning, 
 however, to take it in ; and their learning it now inay save 
 them trouble for the future. 
 
 It claims special notice, that, in this stern trial of purely 
 American principles on so broad a field and Avith such 
 momentous national issues, we should have had a purely 
 American Chief Magistrate. Our President is an indigenous 
 man, the product of our own soil and circumstances, in a 
 
THE nation's BALT,0T AND ITS DECISION. 11 
 
 region where the pecuKaritles of place, of hifluences, and 
 products are most distinctively characteristic. He is no 
 courtier, no scholar, no trained expert in the manners of 
 academies or drawing-rooms. His features would baffle the 
 moulding skill of classic Grecian art, and perplex the chisel 
 of genius, in fashioning their marble counterpart. Marble 
 Avould not be the suitable material for their presentment. 
 In vain Avould the Roman toga attempt to round into easy 
 grace of shape and attitude the angularities of his limbs. 
 The canvas which is to be animate with his portrait must be 
 content to be excluded from all galleries of beauty. Talley- 
 rand would be impressed with the waste rather than with 
 the lack of direct self-committal in his plain-spoken words. 
 He is, indeed, home-born, home-bred, the product of our 
 own soil, and of that, too, beyond the mountain-ridge of the 
 primary deposit. The wits and trillers of the press, and many 
 silly story-tellers, have shown a poor ingenuity in fabricating 
 reports of him and his sayings, designed to heap ridicule on 
 him. His lack of the graces and of the polish of artificial 
 manners, his plain-spoken ways, and his shrewd aptness in 
 blunting impertinent or obtrusive approaches by facetious 
 indifference, make him an easy victim for those skilled in 
 the little arts of malice and slander. But he has already 
 made the mark of character, and won the homage rendered 
 to straight-forward, high-toned integrity. The statesmen 
 and diplomatists of the old world, after taking time to place 
 him and to analyze him, have now discerned the specific 
 cast and genus of the man ; and they accord to him an 
 honor which State craft and official dignity by no means 
 imply, even if they consist with it. History is ransacked 
 in vain for a parallel to him, though, in its revolutionary 
 annals, it gives us, in its representative characters, many 
 striking contrasts to him. Destined, we may Avell believe 
 him to be, to a wide and an exalted iame ! A man of a 
 godly and revering frame of heart, ruling his own spirit, 
 unselfish and faithful towards his fellow-men, pure and 
 devoted in ministering the most, conspicuous office of gov- 
 ernment on the whole earth, — such he seems thus far to 
 
 2 
 
12 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 have proved himself. And his trial has been sharp and 
 stern. If such as he has been he still shall be, — and there 
 is a pledge of prolonged identity in the man, and of perse- 
 verance in the style of his virtues, — then, when he becomes 
 a character of history, to say nothing of the attractions of 
 the picturesque in personal history, or the diagnosis of a 
 marked individuality, — will he not stand among the world's 
 very greatest and very best ? How men among us with 
 human hearts can turn him into a jeer, call him a tyrant, 
 malign him as a trimmer or a demagogue, — is not indeed a 
 wonder ; for folly in all its shapes is naturalized among us : 
 but it is a sad token of the lack of all manly nobleness 
 and generous sympathy. What cares and burdens, what 
 responsibilities and anxieties, what days and nights are his ! 
 
 But the choice of a leader is not the disposal of the conflict, 
 nor the solution of the dread perplexities of our future. 
 There is a dim and difficult way before us. The thronging, 
 deepening anxieties of the national struggle appal the hearts 
 of many ; and only those of lightest hope and weakest judg- 
 ment would presume to indicate any near result, or to shape 
 its conditions. The future can be cheered or forecast by 
 us only through the positive assurances and facts which the 
 present gives as encouragement. 
 
 In looking on into the future, and conceiving and labor- 
 ing for any prospect or plan for the solution of the mighty 
 result, there are two sources or grounds of our wise reli- 
 ance : first, a confident hopefulness of a desirable and a 
 rewarding issue for the conflict ; and, second, an intelligent 
 and bold acknowledgement of the many practical difficulties, 
 embarrassments, complications, and tangled conditions of the 
 struggle. 
 
 We need first and most the strenjrth and leadinjr of an 
 unwavering, full-freighted hope, true confidence, humble, 
 thoughtful, chastened, as may be, held under allowances for 
 all divine overrullngs of our ignorance or our wishes ; but 
 still a confident hope, a conviction, that the dread struggle 
 will repay Its cost, and be crowned with a triumphant success. 
 Let that hope be seated in our hearts ! It will be to us 
 
THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 13 
 
 strength, cheerfulness, solace, and provision under all that 
 lies between us and its full fruition. And the past and the 
 present will furnish warrants for that hope. AVe have re- 
 traced no step, yielded no resolution, depreciated or distrusted 
 no motive, which has thus far guided us. The will and pur- 
 pose of the people have been declared by ballot. In face of 
 all the known and apprehended exactions of the struggle 
 projected into the undefined future, under the burden of an 
 increasing drain of men and money, of taxation and personal 
 sacrifice, the voice of the people is, that the strife against 
 rebellion should be vigorously pursued, and that the same 
 mind and will and lead which have thus far directed it shall 
 retaiu the power, skilled by practice, and approved in resolve 
 and aim. A strong and reasonable hope in any enterprise 
 which engages the energies of men centres in the conscious- 
 ness of ability and purpose within themselves. Have not 
 most of us thought and felt, all along the course of this awful 
 fraternal strife, that, if we have so great a cause to be saved, 
 it must have in itself some self-saving power ; a vitality and 
 vigor which will re-enforce us while we are serving it ? ■ There 
 must be a virtue, an energy, in our national cause, which has 
 a potency in itself, using us as instruments for its success, for 
 its triumph. This prompting of patriotism as a spirit lying 
 behind and within the inspiration of men and women, not 
 only of armies, but of those who fill them and feed them 
 and pay them, and minister to their wounded, and honor 
 their dead, — this spirit of patriotism is the mightiest weapon 
 of war. Like the sun, it feeds its own flames ; and men 
 do not see or know how its unwasted supplies are secretly 
 renewed. We are often reminded in these peaceful, thriving 
 regions, that we do not realize the war. No ; nor do we 
 know the resources within us on which we have not yet 
 drawn. Our hope has power and grace behind it. 
 
 The question of cost in money, the enormous outlay, the 
 heaping debt, will not impair or chill that hope. Putting all 
 thought of repudiation or national bankruptcy out of view, 
 we can contemplate the possibility, if stern necessity should 
 require, that the great majority of those who hold the pecu- 
 
1-1 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 iiiary national obligations slioiilcl, by voluntary proffer and 
 petition to the Government, propose to surrender every 
 money-claim for the sake of the country, for the sake of pos- 
 terity. And as to men, — men for the camp and field and 
 for the ships, — the men stand behind the ballots which rep- 
 resent the people's purpose one way, to secure its fulfilment 
 in another. 
 
 The second ground of our wise reliance is found in a bold 
 and intelligent facing of all the practical difficulties before us. 
 They are many and huge ones. It requires courage to face 
 them in their dim, bewildering vastness and terror. But it 
 would not be wise to attempt to shape them, for they are 
 misty at best ; and some of them will never become solid, and 
 others of them M'ill vanish. But we must face many of them 
 as realities, stern and perilous ; and we must say to our- 
 selves, as one by one they take shape, this is to be mastered 
 and disposed of. Of one thing we may be certain, as illus- 
 trated by personal and universal experience of the relations 
 between foreboded and actual evils, that no more dismal 
 realities can be visited upon us than those which have 
 been made familiar to our apprehensions by the dark predic- 
 tions of some among us who have opposed the national 
 purpose, or the conduct of the war. Many of us, in the 
 exercise of our best intelligence, settled in our minds the 
 irrevocable decision, that, as failure would be total and 
 permanent ruin to us, all inflictions and calamities short of 
 that were to be regarded as conditions for averting it, and 
 therefore to be submitted to, without halting or even protest. 
 The object which we have in view has steadily become more 
 definite, more dear, and more sacred, as effort and sacrifice 
 have carried us deeper into its vitalities. Our cause has won 
 an element of inexpressible potency for appeal and resolution 
 in the precious and endeared offerings made to it. Its 
 youngest victims stand as our sagest councillors, the purest 
 priests at the nation's altar, the most hopeful prophets of 
 sure triumph. The Christian conscience of the people, with- 
 out the help of cunning casuistry, but with the full, calm, 
 earnest conviction of a heart-purpose, assures us that a grand 
 
THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 15 
 
 and holy inspiration of humanity overrules all other motives 
 and aims of the war. The majority of our soldiers in 
 field and camp, with heads bared, and faces turned heaven- 
 ward, may affirm that they are fighting for a cause in which 
 their present foes are to have a full share of good with them- 
 selves, and that the sum of blessing to each depends upon 
 our success. 
 
 Whether this war shall prove, on the nation's part, to have 
 been a crime or a righteous enterprise, depends upon what 
 is yet to transpire as the Avay and the terms of peace, and 
 not upon mere reference to its origin, nor upon its method 
 up to this stage of it. If we shall feel bound conscientiously, 
 not from necessity, to close it, yielding the point and the 
 prize of the Rebellion to those who stirred it, then it is now a 
 crime. Our refusal at the first, our delay, our resistance to 
 grant what we shall ever be induced to own was a rightful 
 demand, have been and are unjustifiable. Measured by 
 the scale of loss and woe for which we shall thus be proved 
 culpable, our crime will be marked as of daring and awful 
 heinousness. 
 
 So far the conscience of the nation is not pricked by re- 
 proach or misgiving. Realizing more profoundly and in- 
 tensely, as, to our own amazement, we measure the course of 
 the war by years, what horrors of scourge and misery it 
 brings with it, the moment has not been known when the 
 nation's second judgment has doubted whether it were wise 
 or right to have entered upon it. 
 
 The whole issue at stake, as it showed its balanced alterna- 
 tive to us, when the match burned down to the powder, 
 has remained unchanged. It was then, and is now, the alter- 
 native of a wrecked and ruined nationality, embracing the 
 world's noblest experiment and hope, or of a country sad- 
 dened, lacerated, humiliated, but purified and re-instated in 
 its lofty distinction, by a struggle which develops and assures 
 its true life. The great Teacher spoke one of his truths of 
 largest compass and of most profound import in the words : 
 " No man can serve two masters." No man can divide the 
 allegiance of his heart. Nor can a nation do that. We have 
 
16 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 tried to do it ; and we failed. The snakes of discord were 
 hatched in the very cradle of the nation ; and they were not 
 strangled there. Whether the hitman or the reptile antago- 
 nist shall retain its life, is the issue which waits decision in 
 our civil war. 
 
 It is the greatest of wars, because for the greatest stake that 
 was ever at issue in war. It is, in its conduct on this nation's 
 part, the most humane war that was ever waged on the 
 earth, engaging in us the least of ferocity, of barbarity, of 
 reckless and fiendish cruelty, and the most relieved and chas- 
 tened by forbearing mercy and thoughtfulness as to every 
 needful measure of severity. Traitors and spies and de- 
 serters are leniently dealt with. The first and the most 
 unpitled victims of all other convulsions and wars, they are 
 all but tolerated, not to say, unmolested, among us. Editors 
 of newsjDapers, and public plotters and declaimers against 
 Government, are allowed a license of free speech and writing ; 
 the exceptions to which, in a very few and those not the 
 worst cases, are, by the same tolerance of utterance, repre- 
 sented as instances of the most tyrannical oppression. The 
 prisoners caught from the ranks of the nation's foe are housed 
 and fatted, not for the slaughter, but to offset, when the time 
 shall come to show them, the cadaverous victims from our 
 own households who have been rotting and starving in 
 Southern pest-houses. The angels of mercy, laden with alle- 
 viating and luxurious gifts gathered from all the household 
 cupboards of the land, attend, with equal zeal, upon the 
 sufferings of friend and foe. Our people have wrought and 
 adorned the largest and richest frame in which the picture of 
 the Good Samaritan has been or ever can be set. 
 
 Meanwhile, it is not in human nature to be satisfied under 
 such circumstances as are now before us and around us, with- 
 out asking questions, and shaping Avishes Into anticipations, 
 ■ about the future. What can we reasonably look for as the 
 solution, the method for disposing of the terrible conflict? 
 Our efforts and hopes, taken together, ought to fashion out 
 something like expectations. We read the edicts of the 
 military leaders, the editorial columns of the newspaper- 
 
k 
 
 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 17 
 
 writers, and the official documents of the political schemers 
 in the region of rebellioa. They are full of resolution, of 
 defiance, of boastful assurance, of sworn determination never 
 to yield the ground on which they have planted themselves. 
 Of course, these utterances will be in tone and purport such 
 as we find them to be. For from whom do they come ? 
 Many superficial or dismayed readers among us peruse these 
 utterances of the instigators and master-spirits of the Rebel- 
 lion ; and, hastily inferring that they speak the mind and will 
 of a whole people, sadly say, " These tokens do not intimate 
 any repentance, any sense of failure or discouragement, any 
 readiness for conciliation on the part of our foe." Such per- 
 sons have merely to put the simple question. From whom 
 come these sturdy and defiant boasts and pledges ? They can 
 all be traced, as can the first plottings and the dragooning 
 initiatives of the Rebellion, to a fellowship of men not exceed- 
 ing in number a single score. Of course, they must remain 
 committed to a cause, whose disaster is to them absolute 
 wreck of all earthly aims, with the blot of eternal infamy on 
 their names. So far as human retribution or vengeful pen- 
 alty awaits them, the councils and courts of the nation 
 will, in all probability, be spared its infliction. It will come 
 upon them, in all the severity of which they will be able to 
 bear it, from the dupes and victims of their own pitiless am- 
 bition and misleading falsehoods. There are those among us 
 who say they are waiting for the days of peace, to read what 
 they feel most interest in, — the internal secret history of the 
 war, in the councils and privacies of the rebels. There will, 
 indeed, be startling and confounding disclosures from those 
 sources. But beyond all the woes and tragedies which have 
 been opened to our knowledge as they transpired, will be 
 the harrowing revelations of private, household griefs, of 
 dark atrocities, of outrages and brutal inhumanities incident 
 to the iron-heeled despotism and barbarous passion by which 
 the plotters of the Rebellion have overaM^ed and tyrannized 
 over the people whose glorious heritage and birthright they 
 have sought to sacrifice. It requires no help from the imagi- 
 nation to draw the scenes of agony which have crushed the 
 
18 THE nation's ballot AND ITS DECISION. 
 
 -y 
 
 hearts, and overborne the patriotism, of hundreds of thousands 
 in Southern homes. 
 
 Therefore, the hope of Northern Christian patriots is, 
 that the war will find its end in the protest and rising of the 
 people in the region of the Rebellion against their own 
 leaders. To bring about that righteous result, is the sole 
 purpose of the discomfiture, the sufferings, and the defeat 
 which we expect our army and navy to inflict on the 
 organized forces of the Rebellion. We have assured the 
 Southern people that we are their true friends. They will 
 believe it when they have stricken their own real enemies. 
 That there is, in the heart of our Chief Magistrate, a purpose 
 of magnanimous dealing which he evidently finds it hard to 
 reserve in announcement till the fit moment for it has come, 
 but which will meet the demands of the opportune time, and 
 reconcile the strife, who of us doubts ? Shall we not all be 
 satisfied at least to have extended the time for the maturing 
 of th6 opportunity for such a peace ?