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LOYAL MEETING 
 
 OB' THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 TO 
 
 SUPPORT THE GOVERNMENT, 
 
 PROSECUTE THE WAR, 
 
 AND 
 
 MAINTAIN THE UNION, 
 
 HELD AT 
 
 THE COOPER INSTITUTE, 
 
 I'RIDAY JKVENINGK MARCH G, 1S63. 
 
 (Reported by A. F. WARBURTON, Stenographer, 117 Nassau St.] 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 
 GEORfJE V. NESBITT & CO., PKINTERS \VD STATIONERS, 
 CORNER OF PEARL wl> PIKE STREETS. 
 
 I860. 
 
81503 
 
 c g5 
 
Reported for the Daily Press. 
 
 THE CALL. 
 
 New- York, March 4, 1863. 
 
 A public meeting of loyal citizens, in favor of sustaining the 
 Government in its efforts to suppress the rebellion, will be held at 
 the Cooper Institute, on Friday, the 6th inst, at 8 o'clock P. M. 
 
 Every citizen who is loyal to the Union and the Constitution, 
 determined to preserve the integrity of the national laws and 
 national territory, and to maintain the honor of the national ilag, 
 is invited to be present. 
 
 General Winfield Scott, U. S. Army, gives his hearty support 
 to the objects of the meeting, and will preside if his health permits. 
 
 The following eminent speakers, among others, have been in- 
 vited to address the meeting : — 
 
 Hon. GEORGE BANCROFT, Hon. HENRY WINTER DAVIS, 
 
 Hon. JOSEPH HOLT, 
 Gen. BENJ. F. BUTLER, 
 Hon. JAMES T. BRADY, 
 Doctor R. D. HITCHCOCK, 
 Hon. CHARLES P. DALY, 
 
 Hon. JOHN VAN BUREN, 
 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD. Esq., 
 Hon. EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 
 Hon. HENRY J. RAYMOND, 
 CHARLES A. DANA, Esq. 
 
 COMMITTER ON INVITATIONS. 
 
 George Opdyke, F. S. Winston, 
 
 Jonathan Sturges, Wm. V. Brady, 
 
 Morris Ketch cm, E. E. Morgan, 
 
 Benjamin E, Winthrop, O. D. F. Grant, 
 
 Denning Duer, Ezra Nye. 
 
 By order of Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 EOBT. H. McCURDY, Chairman. 
 
In response to the preceding call, the largest and most enthusi- 
 astic war meeting ever held in this city, since the memorable open 
 air gathering at Union Square in 1861, took place at the Cooper 
 Institute on the evening -of March Gth. The meeting was called 
 for eight o'clock, but long before seven the large hall of the Insti- 
 tute was besieged on every side by citizens of every rank and 
 condition in life. To say that the building was crowded to reple- 
 tion is to convey a very inadequate idea of the countless numbers 
 that were packed within its walls. Such unity of feeling, and 
 warm, outspoken enthusiasm for the vigorous prosecution of the 
 war against the rebellion, have rarely been seen at any loyal and 
 patriotic gathering. The army of men which filled the surround- 
 ing squares attested the loyalty of the heart of the Union. 
 The expectation that Lieutenant-General Scott was to preside, 
 was an additional stimulus to the patriotic ardor of the meeting, 
 and every new accession of a distinguished citizen to the platform 
 drew forth loud applause. 
 
 The platform was patriotically decorated with the American 
 bunting, and the desk for the speakers was appropriately draped 
 with the same beautiful emblem. Perfect order and decorum was 
 kept, though impatience for the commencement of the evenings 
 work induced frequent calls for " Butler," " Brady," " Van Buren," 
 and other favorites of the people. 
 
 A i about fifteen minutes before eight, Gen. Prosper M. Wet- 
 more descried the venerable Gen. Swift in the audience, and 
 insisted on his getting upon the platform, when the audience 
 gave the old hero a rousing cheer, and Gen. Wetmore, ever ready 
 upon an emergency, taking the veteran by the arm, advanced to 
 the front of the platform and said : 
 
 " Fellow- Citizens, — You do well to cheer this veteran soldier, 
 and will again do so when I tell you that he is our friend Gen. 
 Swift, who fought for his country over fifty years ago, and who is 
 here to-night to testify by his presence his devotion to the dear old 
 flag, and his still fervent love for the honor of his country." 
 
 Three vociferous cheers followed this announcement, which 
 Gen. Swift acknowledged quietly, and took his seat near the desk. 
 
Gen. Wetmore said that there was another gallant soldier 
 present, whom he was greatly pleased to introduce to the meeting. 
 He alluded to Major-General Couch, commanding the Second 
 corps d'armee, now at Fredericksburg. 
 
 Gen. Couch, on coming forward, was received with a perfect 
 storm of enthusiasm. Men and women rose up and cheered 
 lustily for that gallant soldier. The General has' a very fine mili- 
 tary appearance ; his countenance is frank and open, and his fore- 
 head broad and prominent He was simply dressed in a fatigue 
 uniform, and bowed his thanks to the immense audience that so 
 warmly greeted him. 
 
 Gen. Wetmore said he had always been satisfied that New- 
 Y ork was true to the Union ; but he was now more than ever 
 rejoiced to see that there were so many loyal men whose hearts 
 were devoted to the preservation of the Union and the Constitution. 
 
 The next attraction for the audience was the introduction by 
 Gen. Wetmore of the young American drummer boy of Freder- 
 icksburg. The General said he had another soldier to present to 
 the audience. The army was not made up altogether of major- 
 generals and colonels. At the battle of Fredericksburg — that 
 glorious battle, though not a victory — one hundred brave men 
 volunteered to cross the river in the face of the enemy, and to 
 spike their guns. This boy — [cheers] — insisted on going with 
 them, but they said he was too small. Nevertheless, he hung on 
 by the stern of their boat, and went over in the water. [Applause, 
 and cries of " What is his name ?"] 
 
 Gen. Wetmore. — His name is Robert Henry Henderschot — 
 and he shot a rebel, too. He is a member of the Eighth Michigan 
 regiment. This drum was presented to him for gallant conduct, 
 and he will now give you a tune on it. [Loud and enthusiastic 
 applause.] 
 
 Young Henderschot, a ruddy and spirited boy of some six- 
 teen years, came to the front with his drum, blushing deeply as he 
 was repeatedly cheered. With singular facility he played several 
 military calls on his new and splendid drum, and retired amid 
 tremendous applause. 
 
6 
 
 A large number of copies of the speech of Senator Funk was 
 distributed to the crowd. 
 
 The invited guests were the following gentlemen : — 
 
 The President, 
 Secretary op State, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, 
 Secretary of War, 
 Secretary of the Navy, 
 Secretary of the Interior, 
 Postmaster-General, 
 
 A TTc >RXE Y-GENERAL, 
 
 Maj.-Gen. Wool, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. McClellan, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Cen. Fremont, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. Dix, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. McDowell, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. Burnside, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. B. F. Butler, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. Rosseau, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. Couch, U. S. A., 
 Maj.-Gen. Sigel, U. S. A., 
 Brig.-Gen. Harvey Brown, U. S. A., 
 Brig-Gen. J. G. Barnard, IT. S. A., 
 Brig.-Gen. Jas. S.Wadsworth, U. S. A, 
 Brig. Gen. Cochrane, U. S. A., 
 Brig.-Gen. Corcoran, U. S. A., 
 Brig -Gen. F. P. Blair, U. S. A , 
 Admiral Gregory, U. S. N., 
 Admiral Stringham, U. S. N., 
 Admiral Paulding, U. S. N., 
 Gov. Seymour, of New-York, 
 Gov. Andrew, of Mass., 
 Gov. Buckingham, of Ct., 
 Gov. Curtin, of Pa., 
 Gov. Sprague, of R. I., 
 
 Gov. Andrew Johnson, of Tenn., 
 Hon. Ira Harris, 
 Hon. Preston King, 
 Hon. E. D. Morgan, 
 Hon. Wm. Pitt Fessenden, of Me., 
 Hon. J. B. Henderson, of Mo., 
 Hon. D. K. Carter, of Ohio, 
 Hon. H. Winter Davis, of Md., 
 Hon. Joseph Holt, D. C, 
 Hon. James A. Wright, of Ind., 
 Hon. George Bancroft, 
 Hon. James T. Brady, 
 Francis Hall, 
 Hon. Henry J. Raymond, 
 William Cullen Bryant, Esq., 
 Hon. Chas. P. Daly, 
 Horace Greeley, Esq., 
 James Gordon Bennett, Esq., 
 Hon. John Van Buren, 
 R. D. Hitchcock, D. D., 
 , Gardiner Spring, D. D., 
 Wm. B. Maclay, Esq., 
 David Dudley Field, Esq., 
 Hon. Moses F. Odell, 
 Hon. James Wadsworth, 
 President and Members Board of 
 
 Aldermen, 
 President and Members Board of 
 
 Councilmen, 
 President and Members Board of 
 
 Supervisors. 
 
At eight o'clock precisely, Gen. Wetmore said : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, — It is mj^ privilege to call this meeting to order. 
 Gen. Scott will not be with you to-night. Yesterday morning, he 
 was well enough to enter into an engagement with me to call for him 
 this evening. I saw him again this morning, and he was still well 
 enough to justify confident hopes of his presence. At 1\ o'clock I 
 found him in bed, suffering from a severe attack of incipient pleurisy, 
 and his physician had peremptoril} r forbidden his going out of his 
 room. He desired me to express to this meeting his great regret 
 at the necessity for his absence, and his cordial assurance that he 
 is with you earnestly and heartily in your movement in favor of 
 the loyal cause. [Cheering.] No man could use stronger terms 
 than did that distinguished patriot, soldier and citizen, in the as- 
 surances he gave me of his desire to be here to-night. In his ab- 
 sence, it would be my duty to nominate as your presiding officer, His 
 Honor the Mayor. [Loud cheers.] Punctual, prompt, and atten- 
 tive as he always is, some great necessity must have detained him ; 
 and I am at this moment assured that so great is the crowd out- 
 side that it is impossible to penetrate it. In his absence, I now 
 present to you for your presiding officer, temporarily or perma- 
 nently, William Cullen Bryant." [Enthusiastic applause.] 
 
 > 
 
 Mr. Bryant said :■ — " Fellow-citizens, — I am called on very unex- 
 pectedly, absolutely unexpectedly, to preside over this meeting. 
 I rejoice to see so many of my fellow-citizens here present. It is 
 a proof that they are animated by a loyalty that is beyond all 
 danger from qualification, or dilution. Gentlemen, you will ex- 
 cuse me from addressing you at any length this evening, while 
 there are so many eloquent speakers ready to utter what I am 
 sure must be in all your hearts — sentiments of devoted fidelity 
 to the Union and the Constitution. [Cheers. J I will call upon the 
 Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, who will now address you." [Cheering.] 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. DR. HITCHCOCK. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of New- York,— Fellow-citizens of our once and our still 
 glorious Union, [applause,] I did not feel quite sure Unit 1 should be called upon 
 to say anything this evening. 1 did not at all expect to be called upon to stand 
 
8 
 
 first in your presence. Mr. President, if this is not an uprising of tbe people, I 
 have never seen an uprising of the people, and to my dying day I never expect 
 to see one, [applause ;] — an uprising, in my judgment, more grand, because 
 more solemn and more stern, immeasurably more stern and solemn, than that up- 
 rising of April, 1861. [Applause.] When rebel cannon first opened its roar on 
 Sumter, the people started to their feet in a frenzy of patriotic passion. That 
 earliest passion of the people was like heat lightning. [At this point Mayor 
 Opdyke appeared on the platform, and was greeted with applause.] That earliest 
 passion of the people, as I was saying, was heat lightning on the far horizon. 
 
 The present passion of the people, which has been fed by the thought and by 
 the sacrifices of months, is chain lightning overhead, and it will rive this rebellion 
 to its base. [Cheers.] What was then an instinct, that this Union must not 
 be dismembered, is now a conviction as deeply rooted in our hearts and as sacred 
 to us as our faith in God. [Applause and cheers.] We regard ourselves as but 
 fulfilling a divine decree. 
 
 The shape of the continent itself dictates but a single Government to dominate 
 throughout the continent, from the chain of lakes in the North to the Gulf of 
 Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama in the South. [Cheers.] From those lakes 
 northward, the continent slopes to the pole ; from those lakes southward, the 
 continent slopes to the Gulf of Mexico ; and although we propose no raid on 
 Mexico, we read the finger of destiny dictating the unity of the continent in its 
 government as in its geography. [Applause.] From those silvery lakes clear 
 down to the Isthmus, there can be but one government. Suppose we consent to 
 these craven counsels which are crying " peace " when the Lord hath said, 
 •' There shall be no peace to the wicked." [Applause.] Peace, with dismem- 
 berment, for its immediate price, will entail upon us eternal war and final chaos, 
 strew' ng the continent with the wreck of all that we have valued in our institu- 
 tions and our hopes. The continent has also been peopled by substantially one 
 race ; two thirds of the inhabitants of the present States of our Union are 
 Englishmen, in blood — one third peopling New England, and one third peopling 
 the Southern States — and these furnish the syntax of our history. The other 
 third, Irish, German and all the rest, under the providence of God, have been 
 gradually distilled into our blood, and this grand amalgam we hail as the new 
 American people of history — as the gift of God to this Continent. [Cheers.] 
 These elements are to be welded all together. 
 
 A Voice.— No, we are not Englishmen. 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock. — I heard some one crying out against the English. 
 
 A Voice. — An Irishman, sir. [Cheers and laughter.] 
 
 Dr. Hitchcock.— My friend, it was not from the loins ofthe English aristocracy 
 which has set its proud heel on your nation's neck that this continent has been 
 peopled, but by the middle — the sturdy middle class of England, whose hearts 
 beat true with ours to the music of the Union. | Applause.] There is auother 
 
9 
 
 England making itself heard in Exeter Hall, making itself felt even in the seat 
 and in the centre of power, and the future of England is in the stout hands and 
 in the sturdy loins of that middle class from whom we derive our descent. 
 [Cheers, and cries of " That's so."] We are one people ; we have taken largely 
 of Ireland, and we are thankful for the contribution. [Applause.] The greet 
 island will be represented by a silvery tongue which we shall be glad to heai. 
 [Applause, and cheers for Brady.] We are thankful, too, for the honest Teu- 
 tons who follow Sigel in his career. [Cheers.] These are all no more Eng- 
 lishmen, no more Irishmen, no more Germans, but they themselves bless GodthaV 
 they are Americans. [Cheers.] 
 
 We recogDize a great diversity of material interests, taking all the States of 
 the Uuion into the account. We find the Atlantic sea-board, by the decree of 
 Providence, dedicated to commerce and manufactures. We find the o T eat rich 
 Northwest dedicated to corn, which makes strong the heart of man. We find 
 the South dedicated to cotton, sugar and tobacco. These interests are diverse, 
 but in their diversity lies the hiding of a higher unity. These material interests 
 may all combine and co-work to accomplish unity in our political destiny. [Ap- 
 plause.] Why, then, this mad attempt to break this continent, by breaking the 
 back of the Alleghanies, which God has planted as the indication of His will and 
 purpose concerning us ? This chain of mountains has not been wheeled across 
 the continent from East to West, dedicating it to two governments, but up and 
 down the continent, North and South, laying open the continent to the bracing 
 winds of the Arctic and to the soft breezes of the tropics. These mountain ranges, 
 running north and south, have opened the continent to the majestic tread of a 
 single people. [Applause.] 
 
 Why, then, are we divided ? The heart of the controversy, when we reach it 
 is simply this : — A death-duel between Democracy, under whose banner the 
 continent was taken and occupied, and an aristocracy, which is a most grievous 
 anachronism, out of time in this nineteenth century ; out of place on this Demo- 
 cratic continent — [applause and cheers] — an aristocracy which intensely hates 
 every article in the Democratic creed ; an aristocracy which has spit and trampled 
 on the Democratic creed ; an aristocracy which, in the presence of its chief ex- 
 pounders, has declared a final war against Democratic ideas and Democratic 
 institutions. Of what this aristocratic sentiment has been born 1 need not tell 
 you. The Vice-President of the Southern bastard Confederacy — the great high- 
 priest and chief apostle of this Luciferian revolt — has said : — " The corner-stone of 
 our Confederacy is slavery." Slavery, as black as ebony, as black as night, as 
 black as hell. [Applause.] 
 
 The chief objection to the Administration, in its gallant attempt to throttle 
 and utterly put an end to this rebellion, is. that it has proclaimed liberty to tin- 
 captive. [Prolonged cheers.] I am afraid you are all abolitionists. [Repeated 
 cheering.] What ha.- the Government done in this matter? It has found this 
 2 
 
10 
 
 rampant rebellion rushing on the Capital, and striking at the heart of the nation, 
 mounted on black shoulders, and at last it has taken the resolution that this black 
 underpinning shall be knocked out, [applause.] and that the rebellion, on its 
 own honest or dishonest feet, as the case may be, shall meet us foot to foot, and 
 eye to eye, and breast to breast, and then it will be known whether twenty mil- 
 lions of Democratic Republicans, standing on this continent, consecrated to 
 Democratic Republicanism, shall be a match and an overmatch for eight millions 
 of rebels. [Applause.] The Administration has determined that this issue 
 shall be fairly tried. Military necessity, military wisdom, has dictated this 
 measure purely and sheerly ; and shall we not bless God for the opportunity 
 which he has given us to compass a magnificent achievement of holy justice in 
 the name and under the wavings of our starry flag? [Applause.] 
 
 We strike for our institutions, for the graves of our fathers, for the cradles of 
 our children, and we strike that grander blow for humanity, for man as man. 
 [Cheers.] And now, beneath the auspices of these new measures, the voice of 
 the nation, that war choked almost to silence, bowing to the dust, is pealing 
 across the ocean in clarion tones. The heart of the true England is responding 
 to us. Every true Frenchman, every true German, every true Christian man of 
 Europe is on our side. [Applause.] It seems paltry in us to have misgivings 
 in this eleventh hour. The rebellion is almost quelled. The last blow for our 
 institutions is almost struck, and shall we now be false to ourselves in this final 
 trial ? By the memory of our fathers, by our hopes for our children, by our faith 
 in God, the Father of all mankind, no, no, a thousand times NO. [Great ap" 
 plause.] 
 
 G^K Wetmore. — His Honor the Mayor having appeared, it is 
 now in order to move the adoption of a list of officers of this meet- 
 ing. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I will read the first 
 half dozen, and then I will ask the meeting, under your guidance, 
 to take the rest upon trust, for I can venture to give the assurance 
 that there is not the name of a man there who is not loyal to the 
 country. I respectfully nominate for 
 
 Vice-Presidents, 
 
 George Opdyke, Hamilton Fish, Wm. B. Astor, 
 
 John A. King, Pelatiah Perit, Luther Bradlsh, 
 
 George Bancroft, F. B. Cutting, Royal Phelps, 
 
 A. A. Low, James Lenox, Chas. H. Marshall, 
 
 Alex. T. Stewart, Jonathan Sturges, C. R. Robert, 
 
 W. F. Havemeyer, John A. Stevens, John D. Wolf, 
 
 Moses Taylor. E. Pierrepont, G. C. Verplanck, 
 
 Benj. L. Swan, Denning Duer, M.O.Roberts. 
 
11 
 
 B. R. Winthrop, 
 Wm. Whitlock, Jr., 
 
 MoRRIS K.ETCHUM, 
 
 Robert L. Stuart, 
 W. C. Wetmore, 
 Wm. M. Evarts, 
 James Bookman, 
 Samuel E. Low, 
 Isaac Bell, 
 Francis Lieber, 
 Ezra Nye, 
 George T. Elliott, 
 James (.4. Kino. 
 ( i GORGE GlUSWOLD, 
 
 Peter Cooper, 
 Charles Gould, 
 S. B. Chittenden, 
 O.J). P.Grant, 
 
 P. II. IllTTOX, 
 
 George T. Adee, 
 William Barton, 
 Bexj. W. Bonney, 
 H. W. T. Mali, 
 Shepard Gandy, 
 George S. Coe, 
 Daniel Drew, 
 Frederic Depeyster, 
 R. A. Witthaus. 
 Henry H. Elliott, 
 E. D. Stanton. 
 Charles Butler, 
 George F. Talman, 
 S. Kaupfman, 
 W. ML. A'ermilyea. 
 Joseph Hoxie, 
 Jas. W. Beekman, 
 Jas. B. Nicholson, 
 Benj. H. Field, 
 Pierre Humbert, 
 A. C. Kingsland, 
 George Denison, 
 Lewis B. Woodruff, 
 Hexry B. Stanton, 
 Charles B. Spicer, 
 Michael Ulshoeffer, 
 George H. Purser. 
 Towxsend Harris, 
 Joseph Lee, 
 Cornel. Vanherbilt, 
 Adam W. Spies, 
 P. S. Forbes, 
 S. S. Wyckoff, 
 Lloyd Aspinwall, 
 Waldo Hutchixs, 
 A. J. Bleecker, 
 Marshall Lefferts, 
 Johx E. Deyelix, 
 
 John J. Cisco, 
 ( '. EL Russell, 
 John C. Green, 
 Joseph Lawrence, 
 Samuel Sloan. 
 R. H. McCurdy, 
 F. S. Winston, 
 Nehemiah Knight, 
 R. D. Lathkop, 
 Wm. Curtis No yes, 
 W. W. De Forest, 
 Sam'l Wetmore, 
 R. L. Kennedy, 
 S. Cambreleno, 
 Simeon Draper, 
 E. E. Morgan, 
 William Orion, 
 Geo. F. Nesbitt, 
 E. Delafield Smith, 
 Joseph Ripley, 
 James B. Murray, 
 Hexry E. Dayies, 
 Joseph W. Alsop, 
 Wm. G. Gilman. 
 Robert Bayard, 
 John Jay White, 
 J [ugo Wesendonck, 
 Wm. T. Coleman, 
 Jeremiah Burns, 
 Wm. B. Maclay, 
 Math. T. Brennan, 
 Floyd Smith, 
 Nathaniel Hayden, 
 Samuel Blatciiford, 
 Rufus F. Andrews, 
 ("has. W. Sandford, 
 W. C. H. Waddell, 
 Ferd. Lawrence, 
 Abra. R. Van Nest, 
 George Irving, 
 James K. Pell, 
 John Ewen, 
 ( !oi RTLAND Palmer, 
 Edward P. Cowles, 
 A. M. White, 
 Erastus C Benedict, 
 Tiios. C. Smith. 
 Charles Yates, 
 Thos. C. Acton, 
 Samuel Beman, 
 Wilson G. Hunt, 
 Leonard W. Jerome, 
 John A. Lott, 
 John D. Townsend, 
 Hawley D. Clapp, 
 T. G. Churchill, 
 Wm. A. Darling, 
 
 Charles King, 
 J. J. Phelps, 
 Shepherd Knapp, 
 
 < rEO. S. ROBBINS, 
 
 Wm. V. Brady, 
 J. J. Astor, Jr., 
 Wm. G. Lambert, 
 Wm. E. Dodge, 
 Moses H. Grixxell, 
 Henry K. Bogert, 
 H. G. Stebbins, 
 James L. White, 
 Hiram Barney, 
 John Wadsworth, 
 An;. C. Richards, 
 Geo. Cabot Ward, 
 Orison Blunt, 
 And'w Carrigan, 
 Robert T. Haws, 
 James Bexkard, 
 Morris Franklix, 
 Sam'l T. Skidmore, 
 Abram Wakemax, 
 E. C. Cowdin, 
 Cyrus W. Field, 
 Edwin Hoyt, 
 Geo. W. Blunt, 
 D. Van Nostrand, 
 Setu B. Hunt. 
 Samuel B. Ruggles, 
 George T. Strong, 
 C. Astor Bristed, 
 George B. Butler, 
 Wm. F. Blodgett, 
 B. F. Manierre, 
 Frank E. Howe, 
 James R. Whiting, 
 George Bisbee, 
 Fred. A. Conklinq, 
 Elijah Fisher, 
 J won A. Westervelt, 
 John B. Borst, 
 Wm. Mitchell, 
 Murray Hoffman, 
 James F. Depeyster, 
 Abra. M. Cozzexs, 
 Wm. H. Aspixwai.l, 
 Johx McKessox, 
 Wm. H. Webb, 
 Henry A. Heiser, 
 Hexry 0. Rielly, 
 Harvey P. Peet, 
 John Slosson, 
 George Law, 
 Nathl. Jarvis, Jr., 
 H. A. Smythe, 
 Wm. B. Taylor, 
 
12 
 
 William H. Lee. 
 Horace B. (Jlaflin, 
 A. Yanderpool, 
 Charles Anthony, 
 Geo. H. Moore, 
 John Slade, 
 George P. Nelson, 
 Floyd Bailey, 
 L. Sherwood, 
 Sinclair Tousey, 
 John Chadwhk, 
 
 Philip Tillinghast, 
 J. R. Livingston, 
 Erastus Goodwin, 
 James Low, 
 H. Blake, 
 S. Hutchinson, 
 Wm. H. Fogg, 
 Wm. A. Bldd, 
 Jos. W. Patterson, 
 Alfred G. Benson, 
 Josiah S. Bennett, 
 
 James Kelly, 
 Wm. H. M ELLEN, 
 John H. Almy, 
 j. a. pullen, 
 Charles Roome, 
 W. Curtis Noyes, 
 Wm. W. Stone, 
 S. D. W. Bloodgood, 
 Luther B. Wyman, 
 C. E. Detmold, 
 Ben j. C. Thayer. 
 
 Wm. Allen Butler, 
 Ed. C. Bogert, 
 John Austen Stevens, Jr., 
 Wm. H. L. Barnes, 
 John H. Draper, 
 W. L. Ellsworth, 
 Ethan Allen, 
 Andrew Warner, 
 
 E. A. VVetmore, 
 
 F. G. Swan, 
 
 Secretaries, 
 
 Chas. E. Strong, 
 Spencer Kirby, 
 Theodore Tilton, 
 A. M. Palmer, 
 N. W. Burtis, 
 
 F. W. Ballard, 
 Wm. S. Opdyke, 
 John Ordronaux, 
 John Heckscher, 
 
 G. W, Nichols, 
 
 Edward King, 
 Charles H. Ludington, 
 R. A. McCurdy, 
 Wm. P. Lee, 
 Cephas Brainerd, 
 C S. Spencer, 
 Frank Moore, 
 W. 0. Bourne, 
 Geo. W. Benson, 
 R. J. Vanderburgh. 
 
 When the name of Mr. A. A. Low was announced, Gen. 
 Wetmore said : — " Let us give a fitting reception to the name of 
 the honored merchant who has done so much with his voice, his 
 pen and his purse, for the upholding of our Government, while the 
 flames of his burning property, (alluding to the loss of the Jacob 
 Bell,) were lighting the track of Eebel Pirates over the ocean." 
 Whereupon the audience gave three cheers, and Mr. Low 
 acknowledged the same, courteously bowing. 
 
 The gentlemen named were unanimously elected. 
 
 Mr. Bryant : — " Now, gentlemen, will you allow me to do what 
 was intended should be done in the outset, to resign the seat to 
 which I have been called, to the Mayor of this city, a gentleman 
 who brings to the work of presiding over you more than the 
 dignity of his office, who brings sterling worth, undoubted in- 
 tegrity and sound understanding, and who is worthy to preside 
 over a meeting of loyal citizens like this ? I ask, in answer to this, 
 only the enthusiastic acclamation which you are ready to give, 
 and if you will say 'Aye,' say it in thunder tones." 
 
La 
 
 A thundering Aye greeted the proposition, and amid loud ap- 
 plause, His Honor, Mayor OPDYKE, took the chair. 
 
 He said: — "I regret exceedingly that my slight delay should 
 have caused any interruption in the opening of this meet- 
 ing. I had understood that one of our most distinguished 
 citizens, whom we delight to honor, was to preside, and sup- 
 posed, of course, that I was not to be called upon to officiate. 
 And when I came to find another citizen, whom we equally delight 
 to honor, in the chair, I felt that the place was much better filled 
 than I could fill it. I owe you, however, this apology, and I think 
 it is a good one, for my non-appearance earlier : I left home early 
 enough to be here at eight o'clock, but at the entrance of the hall 
 I was met by a solid mass of patriotism which restrained my 
 movements. [Laughter and applause.] Gentlemen, I will not 
 detain you with any remarks. I cannot, however, resist the 
 temptation to say that the object of this meeting meets my most 
 hearty approval, and it rejoices my heart exceedingly to witness 
 the generous response with which it has been met. Without de- 
 taining you further, I have great pleasure in introducing you to 
 those sweet silver tones which represent the Emerald Isle. I have 
 the pleasure of introducing James T. Brady, Esq." [Cheers.] 
 
 SPEECH OF JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-citizens of New-York, — You have heard the 
 reference to silver tones, as if, indeed, a trumpet of the festival were to be heard 
 when I had the honor and pleasure of addressing you. During tbe last few minutes I 
 have had serious doubts where I was, in truth, born. [Laughter.] My earliest 
 recollection is, that I derived my nativity in the city of New- York, of which 
 your worthy Chairman is the Chief Executive officer ; but, with the accustomed 
 self-appreciation of the race from which I sprung, J think 1 may become the com- 
 petitor of Homer, and have the world divided in opinion as to where I was 
 born. [Laughter.] 
 
 A Voice. — Louder! We can't hear what you say, and we came here to hear 
 you. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. Brady. — Which to me is a great gratification ; for it is so long since I dis- 
 covered that anybody wanted to hear what I said on any subject, that my 
 vanity is gratified to the extreme. [Laughter.] I recognize in the voice that 
 first broke silence at this magnificent meeting, those rich tones which he who was 
 
14 
 
 to have presided here once declared gave pleasure to his heart, [applause,] and 
 it does not become me, as a descendant of the Green Isle, to admit that there is 
 anything less than music in anything that comes from that source. 
 
 I am a little disappointed, however, because I expected to have the pleasure 
 and instruction which every man, however great he may be in intellect, capacity, 
 or merit, will undoubtedly receive, if he be American born or American in heart, 
 in the privilege of looking upon a form that was to have been here to-night. 
 [Applause.] All of you remember that Washington Irving, in his beautiful 
 essay upon Strat ford-on- Avon, said it was something to have seen the dust of 
 Shakespeare. But it is more than that to find the genius of the American 
 people at this hour expressed in the two words that form the name of "VVinfield 
 Scott. [Applause.] He is absent from this procession to-night. I call it a 
 procession, although you sit here stationary, because it is a movement to a result 
 which no physical power can thwart. [Loud applause.] Cato's statue is indeed 
 absent, but Cato lives, thank God, and will live for years. I am also disappointed 
 in not hearing the clarion tones of that great son of Kentucky whose loyalty is 
 equal to his eloquence, and that is the highest compliment I can pay him — 
 Joseph Holt. [Loud applause.] And yet I should be gratified with this circum- 
 stance, because those who hear him, unless he has failed since I last enjoyed that 
 pleasure, wish for no other gratification, when he has spoken. But here I am, 
 with all these deficiencies charged upon myself — a mortal man of the 19th 
 century, with no greater hope than that I may be honored with the position 
 described by your President, [Mr. Bryant.] in that beautiful poem denominated 
 June, which gladdened the inmost recesses of my heart when I first began to 
 love poetry as the synonym of freedom and truth — 
 
 " Whose part in all the pomp that fills 
 The circuit of the Summer hills, 
 Is that his grave is green." 
 
 But I want it to be distinguished as the grave of one whose country was the 
 United States of America. [Loud cheers.] That is my country. I can admit of 
 no other. There is no name to be substituted for that. There is no flag except 
 ours that I can ever accept, [cheers,] no star to be taken out of it, [cheers,] no 
 stripe to be stolen from it, [cheers,] stars to be added to it without number, 
 [cheers,] stripes to be accumulated till the eye tires of looking at them ; so that, 
 with all the gallant history of its past, and glorious associations of its present, 
 however gloomy the prospect may appear to many, there shall be for us, now and 
 hereafter, one country, one constitution, one destiny. [Loud cheers.] 
 
 I was dining with a friend to-day, who read to me an extract from a news- 
 paper — The Express, [laughter, and expression of disfavor] — saying that this 
 was a meeting of Abolitionists, and that Brady would not be present. I am not 
 entirely certain that I am, for there is so much of individuality and spiritual 
 power and tendency to great results in this chamber, charged with patriotism, 
 that I am like nothing in this majestic presence. [Applause.] 
 
15 
 
 But, so far as I am capable of knowing myself, I am here — here with delight- 
 here with pride. [Applause.] Although from the first time that I ever made a 
 speech in public till now, most of you have been opposed to me, as I well under- 
 stand, in the political sentiments that have affected the general question which 
 has determined who should hold the highest offices in the republic, I thank 
 God that it has been permitted me to be present on an occasion when any one 
 human being would attach importance to my voice in saying that I stand up now, 
 as 1 always have done, for the preservation of the Union and the Constitution of 
 the country. [Loud cheers.] When I began life I heard, as I afterward heard, 
 a word called Yankee. It certainly does not apply to me. But the South has 
 applied that word to all of us at the North. Now I am free to say that I dis- 
 cover in the Yankee character some particular features that I no more admire 
 than I do some of the prominent traits in the inhabitants of the land from which 
 I sprang. But I nevertheless accept the name of Yankee as applied to me in 
 the spirit of our forefathers in the revolutionary period ; and if the South cau 
 find no more of disgrace to be attached to it than its undying struggle for the 
 preservation of this Government, whether slavery exists or falls, I thank God 
 for it. [Loud applause.] You will pardon me. my fellow-citizens, if I offend the 
 prejudices of some of you in speaking my mind. The first speech I ever made 
 for a presidential candidate was in behalf of a southern man. From that time to 
 this my sympathies have been strongly with that portion of the Union. But, 
 gentlemen, to make the matter terse and pointed, if I lived in a house with a 
 friend, and he announced to me some day that under no circumstances would he 
 associate with me any longer, I would propose to vindicate what is manly in my 
 nature by telling him that 1 would go somewhere else where I could find suitable 
 company. [Great merriment and applause.] As I came here to-night, and as I 
 passed through the streets to-day, I was beset by gentlemen for whom I have 
 the greatest respect, who wondered whether I would speak at a meeting where 
 gentlemen always opposed to us in politics would be present, and where perhaps 
 a spirit of freedom stronger than any that had entered into their natures might 
 be exhibited. [Applause.] 
 
 (Gentlemen, I differ with many of you in regard to the causes, the conduct, the 
 prosecution, and the probable results of the war in which we are engaged. But, 
 with the blessing of Heaven, whoever may applaud and whoever may censure. I 
 would be false to the Irish race, from which I spring, who find here a home and a 
 refuge from the persecution and oppression of that detested land to which the 
 first speaker too politely referred, [applause and a hiss.] if 1 did not use my last 
 breath, and employ the last quiver of my lips, in the utterance of a prayer to 
 Heaven against all assailants, internal and external, for the preservation of the 
 American Government. [Loud applause.] 
 
 When this war broke out. I knew that it was urged on by the South. I hoped 
 that it might terminate early ; I hoped that my Southern countrymen — for such 
 
16 
 
 they are — would develop among them some desire to remain with us. I detected 
 with regret that they had prepared means to make an assault upon a Union 
 that they ought to love. I maintained silence in regard to it. You will excuse 
 my egotism, but I now justify myself in my own presence. I found that they 
 proposed to take to themselves Fort Sumter, the forts at Key West and Pensa- 
 cola, Tortugas and Fortress Monroe. I thought it was quite essential to the 
 dignity and prosperity of the country that we should retain these fortresses. I 
 think so now. I did hope, however, that the Southern people would put their 
 feet upon the necks of their leaders, and insist upon the maintenance of the 
 Union. But they have informed us that they would consent to no such con- 
 dition. They have told us that if we gave them a blank paper and pencil to 
 write the terms of a new compact, they would not agree to it. Therefore it is a 
 war declared for all ultimate results that can come, and I spit upon the Northern 
 man who takes any position except for the maintenance of the Government- 
 [Here almost the entire audience rose to their feet, waved their hats, and cheered 
 vociferously for some moments.] I surrender here all opinions that may sway a 
 Presidential contest. I surrender all inquiry as to who shall be Governor of 
 any State. I give up all predilection as to who shall be Mayor of the city of 
 New-York — although I have no great objection to my friend, the President of 
 the meeting, for whom I did not vote. [Laughter] I stand here in the presence 
 of the assembled multitudes of the past. I feel glowing within me what may 
 have animated the heart of the Egyptian, when, chained to one of the great 
 stones that was to form part of the magnificent pyramid to illustrate the majestic 
 powers of the crumbling mortal who was to perish within them, he felt that the 
 time would come when there should be a government of freedom in the world. 
 I have within me the hope of the poor serf in Russia, the enthusiasm of the 
 young Hungarian, who, by the little flickering flame of freedom, even though it be 
 in a dungeon, finds himself stimulated with the hope that he may once see aland 
 beyond the deep, not revealed, perhaps, even to a Moses from Mount Pisgah, 
 where a free people have established a free government. And in the name of 
 Almighty God, I invoke such curses as He may permit, innocuous as mine may 
 be, to put an end to any man who would destroy a structure like that. [Loud 
 applause ] Are there such men ? There are. Let me allude to them in classes. 
 [A Voice — " Brooks."] 
 
 Hooks in the running brooks, sermons in stones, 
 And good in everything. [Laughter.] 
 
 T propose to indulge in no personalities ; they are not to my taste. I propose to 
 deal in general principles. 
 
 Now, if my Irish friend be anywhere within the sound of my voice, he knows 
 what is moving in this frame of mine, the son of an Irish father, who migrated 
 in hot haste, and was chased into the port of New- York, his highest ambition 
 being that his son might be born in America. [Great merriment.] 
 
17 
 
 Some of my fellow-citizens of New-York, and some of my friends with whom 
 I quite agree about the absence of any necessity to violate the Constitution in 
 the matter of arrests, or otherwise, undertake to talk to me about freedom of 
 speech being suppressed. I would like to know when the time was in the history 
 of this country, for the last twenty years, that I could have dared to say in the 
 city of Charleston what a Southerner could say with impunity in this town ? 
 [Loud applause.] My friends from Massachusetts must pardon me when I say 
 that for many years they have offended my Celtic prejudices by informing me 
 that we were all of the Anglo-Saxon race. I wish to be understood in regard to 
 that as the boys say about New- York, that " I don't see it," [laughter ;] for 
 certainly none of those from whom I sprung have any connection with that 
 particular department of human distribution. [Laughter.] A distinguished 
 representative of the Uuited States at the Court of St. James told them that 
 the people of this country felt more interest in the prosperity of London tban of 
 New-York. I will not mention the name — but I will say that he did not beloDg 
 to this State. What offends me most is the expression of those Englishmen on 
 our Territory who dare, in their customary aping of the language and deport- 
 ment of their superiors, to cavil about the arms and progress of the country in 
 which they find a place so far superior to any they could be permitted to enjoy 
 in their own land. [Applause.] They are invited to clubs by gentlemen, and 
 they lie about them in saying they throw dice for drink, where dice never were 
 known. They are spies, and pimps, and eavesdroppers who are admitted to 
 circles of private society, and go out and write letters saying there was one thing 
 wanting. And so there was — a sturdy servant to kick the inquisitive vagabond 
 into the street. [Laughter and applause.] They hang around the purlieus of 
 our towns and drink their ale — which they very seldom pay for themselves — and 
 then turn up their snub-noses and open their ugly mouths to abuse a country 
 in which they are entertained. [Applause.] We are a patient people, but I 
 hope to God that the last illustration of that kind imported to this country will 
 prove that the goods are not credited to this market, and we do not mean to 
 have Englishmen insult us under any circumstances whatever. [Applause.] 
 
 I will differ with the majority here, in reference to one thing. Great apprehen- 
 sions are entertained lest England should interfere. I have prayed to God, on 
 my bended knees, that she would. [Loud applause.] 
 
 Let her but exhibit one single manifestation in that direction, and there is not 
 a man of my race that would talk about the exemption of forty-five years of age. 
 [Great laughter.] He would hobble on his crutch, in the ardent expectation of 
 splitting the head of any one who undertook to interfere in a matter that be- 
 longs to ourselves. 
 
 Permit me, however, to do justice to those wise, excellent and patriotic gen- 
 tlemen of England who have been so just toward us, throughout this controversy. 
 1 would disgrace myself, and insult you. if I did not acknowledge here my 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 gratitude to those who, without fear or hope of reward, have stood by our cause. 
 I would do myself injustice if I did not admire the character of that great man, 
 John Bright, [loud applause,] whose last observation in regard to The London 
 Herald and Standard is, that he does not care much about their censure, for 
 neither of them, in the markets of England, could affect the price of a pinch of 
 snuff. [Laughter and applause.] The single reason, as you all know, why 
 France and England desire, if they dared, to interfere in this fight, is the ac- 
 knowledgment which they must make in the presence of the world, that they are 
 indebted to us for the means of employing and supporting their population. 
 [Applause.] One hundred thousand men in Lancashire maintained by public 
 charity when I last spoke to an audience assembled ! — One hundred thousand 
 men !— Which led me to make the proposition, to which 1 challenge any contra- 
 diction, that wild and fierce and blind as the rebels are, each division of this 
 Union, in its armed presentation, is greater than the power of England ! [Ap- 
 plause.] I was happy to discover that what fell from lips so obscure as mine, 
 provoked a whole editorial column from a Manchester paper. They said that no 
 American could have uttered a sentiment of that kind, and they recognized in the 
 name of " Brady " one of those Irish Anglo-Phobian Papists who have been 
 controlling the destinies of this country. [Laughter.] 1 think if that editor was 
 here he would hardly suppose that I had religion enough to control anybody ; or 
 if I had, that it would control such an assemblage as this. [Laughter.] 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, I am met everywhere, as you are, by the question, How 
 is this thing to end ? I am sorry to say that the satisfactory answer to that 
 question is interfered with by two classes of human beings. First, by the 
 women of this country. Bachelor as I am, no doubt this remark will subject 
 me to censure. But I say, if the women of the North had manifested that in- 
 terest which they should in the success of our cause — which the women of the 
 South have done in theirs — thousands more of men would have been stimulated 
 to take their position in the field. Then there is a class of my fellow-citizens who 
 sneer at the misfortunes of our army, and manifest, to their utter disgrace, some- 
 thing like pleasure at the prosperity of our foes. I can never find myself en 
 rapport, as the French say, with that class of people. [Cheers.] What is this 
 war about, ? It certainly has grown into a war ; it certainly is a war of the 
 North against the South. And when I talked with Southerners, as I did with 
 three in Philadelphia last Sunday, as ardent Secessionists and as bitter oppo- 
 nents as I can find anywhere — as bitter as those who cluster in presence of Jeffer- 
 son Davis himself — I said, " Gentlemen, you must admit that there is a moral 
 superiority in the people with whom I am associated, when you can talk to me 
 freely what I would not dare to say at the South, except at the peril of my exist- 
 ence." [Applause.] And I said to them what I say to you : How is this thing 
 to end ? I say, with your permission, gentlemen, to my friends of the Democratic 
 party, whom I cannot meet one by one on the street, and who perhaps would not 
 
19 
 
 value my opinion if I did — Sir, how do you propose to end it? The South say 
 to you, " You are all Yankees ; we propose no association with you, and will 
 consent to none." Have you ever seen a man with a white face upon him or a 
 black face upon him who would pursue for the sake of society the person who 
 spurneil him ? [Cheers.] You ask me how this is to end. With the feeble 
 powers that I have possessed since I arrived at man's estate, I have struggled for 
 that which I would contend for if the Constitution were restored or continued, 
 that is every right which the South can justly claim under that sacred instrument. 
 But they say, we will make no peace. They propose that there shall be two 
 governments on this soil — armed governments. Sir, I cannot consent to any 
 such condition. [" No ! "] Rome and Sparta, Carthage and Athens, were all 
 republics ; this was taught to you in your primer. Each of them was a military 
 power. I refer you to The Federalist and the articles of Alexander Hamilton in 
 regard to the possibility of maintaining separate organizations of government on 
 this continent. When you can answer them, let me see your treatise or hear 
 your discourse, and 1 will be submissive, as I hope I have always been, to the 
 voice of reason. But, Mr. Southerner, listen to me and the men who have stood 
 by the South, against the denunciations of presses — and, gentlemen, I see them 
 represented on this platform — listen to me who, with the feeble capacity that I 
 possess, have insisted always that you should have all the rights to which you 
 are entitled. You say no— Mr. Lincoln was elected President. But you went 
 into the canvass He was chosen President, and yet there was a majority in 
 both branches of Congress against him. I defy you to point out a single act of 
 the Government which should have provoked any hostility on your part. But as 
 long as there is breath in my body — if you make it a question between the South 
 and the North — I should think I was unworthy of the mother who bore me if I 
 did not go for any portion sustained by the. Constitution of the United States. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, I propose to answer that question to my 
 Southern friends : What will come of this war ? You say you will never consent 
 to be united with us. We say that we will never agree to the existence of two 
 military ( Jovernments arising out of the same people on the same territory. The 
 issue is distinct. [Cheers.] How is this to be resolved? 
 
 I will tell you, gentlemen, my opinion, and yet many here, in accordance with 
 that difference of opinion to which I have referred, will differ with me. I have 
 said, in the earlier part of my remarks, that there were some qualities of the New 
 England character which did not commend themselves to my special regard. At 
 the same time, you will permit me to say, that the most disinterested acts of 
 friendship which I have ever received have been from people opposed to me in 
 political sentiment. [Uproar near the door. " Go on !" " Go on !"] Oh, I 
 will go on. That is no more than one single raid of a small lot of rebels- 
 [Cheers and laughter.] My opinion is founded upon this. I remember on an 
 
20 
 
 occasion when we celebrated St. Patrick's Day — a circumstance to which I never 
 had any special objection — when we made punch for others and Judys of our- 
 selves, and still grew warm in the glow of social intercourse — Gen. Shields 
 [cheers] made this remark, that wherever the Yankee located a blacksmith-shop ; 
 a tavern, or a school-house, he never was known to recede from it. [Cheers.] 
 Can you remember any instance to the contrary? Why, half-way between Cairo 
 and Suez, on the Grand Desert, a Yankee opened a house to introduce the 
 travelers of that region to an institution called buckwheat-flour slapjacks, 
 [laughter,] and had them cooked to a nicety by a regular and monotonous tick 
 of a Yankee clock. [Laughter and cheers.] And if we ever come to the posi- 
 tion called the falling off place, we shall find a Yankee there, sitting on the brink, 
 with his legs hanging over, and looking off and sighing, not, like Alexander, lor 
 new worlds to conquer, but that this world is so small. [Applause and 
 laughter.] 
 
 Now I tell my Southern friends, from the place which I occupy, in regard to 
 their property and their institution which they call slavery — which, unlike many 
 in this assemblage, I would propose to retain to them under the Constitution of 
 the United States — that their only chance is to let the Constitution be their 
 guide, for if these Yankees once get down into that Southern territory, (who 
 have a theory about this war,) and put arms into the hands of the negroes, [loud 
 cheering,] and put up their long feet on the tables of the estates of which they 
 take possession, I don't want to be the lawyer employed in an action of eject- 
 ment. [Great laughter and applause.] 1 sincerely believe that unless the 
 gentlemen of the South will manifest some lingering remnant of attachment to 
 the Union, and agree that the Constitution of the United States shall preserve us 
 as one people in the territory that we occupy, the end of this war will be occupa- 
 tion : and Mr. Eli Thayer, whom I have never had the pleasure of seeing, in 
 advance of me has illustrated the fact, that whenever you show any place to the 
 Yankee to go tp, he goes there, and when he goes there he stays there, and when 
 they propose to remove him they find it exceedingly difficult. [Cheers.] You 
 will pardon me for relating an anecdote. A man in a hotel in Xew Orleans heard 
 his friend in the next room, who was subject to nightmare, making a fearful 
 noise. He went in and said, " Why, you are in a dreadful state !" " Why, I am 
 frightened," answered his friend ; " I have had a dreadful dream !" " Did you 
 dream of death ?" " Worse than that." " Did you dream of the devil V 
 " Worse than that." " Well, then, what did you dream of?" "I thought I was 
 back in the State of Maine?". [Great laughter.] That class of people can 
 never be defeated. I am sorry to say it, I am an unwilling witness, and I hope 
 my Teutonic friends, to whom the first speaker alluded, will excuse me when I 
 say that neither whisky punch nor lager beer will ever overcome those iconoclasts. 
 When civilization began in the East, it pursued its way over all the ruins of 
 empire. Before I saw the ruins of the Old World I thought I should shed a tear 
 
21 
 
 over them, but when I discovered that they were the great stepping-stones by 
 which humanity advances to the high position that it deserves to occupy, the 
 ruin became to me a pleasure. Here civilization has found its last resting-place. 
 There is no place to which to go back ; civilization knows no regurgitation, it has 
 no refluent wave. The people of the South in the single State of Virginia 
 would never employ the necessary physical power to redeem that exhausted soil. 
 Nobody will say, after my discourse closes, that I have been very eulogistic to the 
 Yankee ; but seriously, in the presence of my God, in the exercise of the best 
 capacities that I know now to employ, I say to my friends of the South, however 
 gallant and chivalric, and persevering may be their struggle in the field, all 
 history will be false, all analogies fallacious, every promise to the human race an 
 absurdity, if this people, who have conquered the barren East and conquered the 
 ocean, and are willing to encounter all circumstances of privation, shall not own 
 the whole of this continent before this country expires. [Loud and continued 
 applause.] 
 
 SPEECH OF DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, ESQ. 
 
 David Dudley Field was then introduced by the Mayor, amid 
 aj)plause. He said : — 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-citizens, — It was my expectation, as it was my wish, 
 that this meeting should be addressed chiefly by speakers whose political affinities 
 were with parties other than that which placed this administration in power ; and 
 such, I understand, Mr. Chairman, is the arrangement. It was thought best, 
 however, not to leave it wholly so, but that all parties should be represented in 
 the proceedings. There is a common ground on which we all can stand, 
 [cheers;] and that is a firm, unfaltering purpose, to put down this rebellion by 
 force of arms ; — [applause] — by force of arms, aud I will add, by force of arms 
 alone. [Cheers.] Other questions may be postponed and laid aside. Who 
 got us into this war, how we got into it, and who is responsible for it ; — these 
 are questions about which my friends who have spoken, and who are to speak, 
 and myself, may differ; but these are questions that we can settle hereafter. 
 Now we have something else to do. [Cheers.] Then, there are questions about 
 the manner in which this war has been heretofore conducted. They think that 
 it should have been conducted in one way, I in another, and you, perhaps, in 
 still another ; but that question can also be settled hereafter. 
 
 The past is past, irrevocably past. We will leave it now, and recur to it 
 hereafter. To-day we stand together, agreed upon this proposition, that there 
 is but one way to peace, and that way is through earnest, grim, victorious war. 
 
22 
 
 [Great applause.] Undoubtedly war is a great calamity. The destruction of 
 property, the waste of life, are both appalling ; but war is not the greatest of 
 calamities. Servitude is a greater calamity. [Cheers.] Dishonor is a greater. 
 [Cheers.] War is a necessity, an indispensable evil, in certain conditions of 
 society. But the peace men, as they call themselves, ask us : " Will you war 
 upon the homes of your Southern brethren ? . Will you carry carnage and 
 desolation among your countrymen ?" We are not warring to carry destruction 
 to them or to their homes. We are warring — let that be understood here and 
 everywhere, now and always — we are warring to execute the Federal laws and 
 to assert the supremacy of the Federal Constitution under all circumstances and 
 at all times, and we war only upon that which stands in the way. [Cheers.] 
 Take the case of Vicksburg, if you please. There are homes and markets 
 and pleasant places in that town ; and if it were still a peaceful town on 
 the banks of the Father of Rivers, what Northern man would have sought 
 to disturb it? But it is now frowning with fortresses and hoarse with 
 cannon, and the people of the North-West, your friends and mine, who have 
 bought and occupied that river, and consecrated it as a perpetual highway to the 
 sea, are not permitted to pass. The rebels have taken possession, and keep from 
 it the smallest boat belonging to us. Then I say, this great highway shall be 
 opened, and that river we will pass through to the sea, if we have to raze to the 
 ground every dwelling and every market in Vicksburg. This is our right and 
 our duty. [Applause.] 
 
 But they tell us : You cannot. There are 8,000,000, they tell you, in the 
 South, and you cannot conquer them. I answer, if there are 8,000,000, we are 
 23,000 000 ; and 23,000,000 are capable of subduing all the rebels, and will do 
 it. They will subdue them if they drive every rebel among the 8,000,000 into 
 the sea. [Cheers.] But the peace men tell us— No matter if you have the 
 physical strength, you have not the financial ability to carry on the war. To 
 that I answer that we have. We can carry it on not only longer than we have 
 carried it on, but twice as long, nay, ten times as long, if need be, and maintain 
 ourselves. [Cheers.] Why, fellow-citizens, consider our resources for a moment. 
 The other day, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue told me that the income 
 for the present year would be $225,000,000 ; and then he said to me, " Look 
 here. Suppose the war carried on for two years longer, at the same rate of expen- 
 diture, and what will be our debt ? Two thousand millions. What then ? With 
 the Union restored, at the same rate of taxation by which we now get $225,000,000 , 
 we would get $300,000,000, of which $120,000,000 will suffice for the interest on 
 the debt, and $100,000,000 for ordinary expenses, leaving $80,000,000 to pay 
 towards the debt, by which it will all be paid in less than twenty years." [Cheers.] 
 
 Fellow-citizens, the other day I was sitting in the Hall of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, looking up to the windowed ceiling, observing the escutcheons and 
 mottoes of the different States, and thinking under what different circumstances, 
 
23 
 
 and with what different views the founders of States had done their work. One 
 had an anchor and " Hope ; : ' another the plow and "Agriculture;" another a 
 Bhip, building, to signify commerce, and our own State, her proud motto "Excel- 
 sior," with the rising sun. There was one and only one appropriate to this time ; 
 it was the motto of the State of Massachusetts : Ense petit placidam sab hbertatc 
 quictem : with the sword she seeks under liberty peaceful rest. So are we seek- 
 ing rest — peace — -peaceful rest — for ourselves and our children, to the latest pos- 
 terity — not under the throne, not under the miter, not under any form of tyranny, 
 but under liberty, [cheers,] and we are seeking it, not by argument, for the day of 
 argument is gone, but by the sword. [Applause.] The whole question is now 
 to be resolved by the arbitrament of the sword ; it is by the sword alone in 
 Freedom's right hand that we can conquer a peace. [Loud and continued 
 cheering.] 
 
 Ex-Judge Bonney read the following resolutions, which were 
 received with very great applause, and adopted by acclamation : 
 
 Resolved, That it is the duty of every citizen to unite in all proper efforts to pre- 
 serve and perpetuate the Union in accordance with the Constitution. 
 
 Resolved, That the conduct of disaffected persons, claiming to be citizens of 
 the United States, yet zealous in their attempts to embarrass and impede the 
 action of the legally constituted authorities, and in the utterance of treasonable 
 sentiments, deserves, and should receive, the condemnation of every loyal citizen. 
 
 Resolved, That the loyal people of New-York hereby pledge iheir fortunes, 
 their influence and their honor to the support of the national authority in every 
 vigorous and determined effort by force of arms, on sea or land, to secure a com- 
 plete and final suppression of the causeless and atrocious insurrection which 
 now desolates our country. 
 
 Resolved, That the Army and Navy of the United States owe their undivided 
 allegiance to the Constitution they have sworn to support and defend, and that 
 no soldier or sailor can rightfully hesitate in his obedience to the commands of 
 superiors in rank whose authority is derived from the Government of the nation. 
 
 Resolved, That every citizen owes allegiance to the Government, and he who 
 denies its authority, or fails in his duty to uphold the honor of its Hag, is an 
 abettor of treason, and should suffer the penalty due to his crime. 
 
 Resolved, That this meeting, under solemn convictions of duty, and in a firm 
 reliance on the justice of that Providence which guides and guards governments 
 and peoples, does hereby resolve itself into a Loyal League of Union Citizens. 
 pledged to an unconditional support of the Government in all its constitutional 
 efforts to suppress the rebellion, and an uncompromising opposition to treason, in 
 whatever form it appears. 
 
 Resolved. That the Committee of this meeting be the Officers and Committee 
 of the Loyal Union League of the Citizens of New- York-, and that each person 
 present is a member of the League. 
 
24 
 SPEECH OF HON. JUDGE DALY. 
 
 Mayor Opdyke. — A little while ago you had the pleasure of 
 being addressed by an Irishman whom the Rebels have changed 
 into a Yankee ; you will now be addressed by an Irishman who 
 was born a Yankee — Judge Daly. [Cheering.] 
 
 Judge Daly said : — Listening, like yourselves, fellow-citizens, to the resolutions 
 that have just been read, I find they answer the question which I rose to ask : 
 What is the duty of Northern men, without distinction of party, in this crisis of 
 the country ? [Applause.] That is the absorbing question, not only with the 
 mass of upturned faces I see before me, but with that greater audience spread 
 over the laud, awaiting the issue of the contest now going on. 
 
 I propose in a very few words — for the hour is late, and it is my duty to be 
 brief — to address myself to tbat question, and to do it with all the sincerity which 
 grows out of my own deep convictions, and with a wide toleration for the 
 difference of opinion that may be entertained upon a question so momentous. 
 [Applause.] There are a number of men in the North at present, who talk of 
 peace, of an armistice, of concession, who hope for compromise, and who have 
 no hope of the war. If persons of that temper have made up their minds that the 
 war is hopeless, and that the separation of the States in revolt is inevitable, then 
 their conduct and declarations are consistent with their convictions ; but to the 
 men who advocate the adoption of such measures now as the only means for the 
 restoration of the Union, for the preservation of the land in the territorial unity 
 in which it was left to us by our fathers — I say to such men, that if they enter- 
 taiu the conviction that a resort to such measures now will restore the Union, I 
 have little faith in their foresight, or if they possess it, I do not believe in their 
 sincerity. [Cheers.] As long, in my judgment, as the States now in rebellion 
 think it possible to separate, they will think of nothing else. They will continue 
 to think it possible while they can keep an army in the field ; and as long as they 
 kuow or feel that they have any military strength, every suggestion tending toward 
 the re-establishment of the Union by a proffer of peace, of concession, or of an 
 armistice, unless some distinct proposal comes in the first instance from them, is 
 the wildest of northern delusions. Our course is a plain one, to break down their 
 military strength. This we can or we cannot do. If we cannot, then we must 
 submit to what is inevitable. If we can, and in my judgment we will, if not 
 interfered with by foreign nations, we shall have accomplished our task, for 
 matters afterward will adjust themselves more easily under our form of govern- 
 ment than under any other. 
 
 This struggle, fellow-citizens, is for the preservation of our institutions, for the 
 maintenance of republican government, and to all truly patriotic men that feature 
 gives to the contest its deep earnestness and intensity. We have but to take 
 
25 
 
 up the morning paper of to-day and read the difference of exchange and the 
 premium upon gold. What does that indicate? That unerring barometer 
 shows the judgment entertained in the moneyed circles of the world of the 
 possibility of preserving the American Republic. [Cheers.] And the doubt, 
 uncertainty, and hesitation, which the people who live in other lands entertaiu of 
 the possibility of our being able to do so. tends to lessen the value of the circu- 
 lating medium of the country, because accompanied by the conviction, that if 
 the Southern States separate, the Union is at an end ; that the Northern 
 States will separate also among themselves, acting upon the instinct of their indi- 
 vidual interest, and being restrained no longer by the tie of the Union. This, I 
 say, is the growing conviction abroad, and it is increased in magnitude by every 
 Northern voice of dissent. If we have any hope at all for the preservation of 
 this country, that hope lies in the continuous, the unabating, and the vigorous 
 prosecution of the war. [Loud cheers.] 
 
 I am not now giving voice to the excitement which a public speaker may be 
 supposed to feel in the presence of a large body of his fellow-citizens. I am giving 
 outward, distinct and direct utterance to the conviction that has been in my 
 mind since the war began, since the first shot was fired upon Sumter, since the 
 American flag was first insulted ; and everything in the course of events has 
 tended to convince me that there is no hope for the preservation of this nation, 
 except in the vigorous prosecution of this war. [Cheers.] We may differ as to 
 the means by which it may be most effectually prosecuted, and I, no doubt, differ 
 with a large number who are here. This is no place to discuss that difference, 
 and I do not intend to do so. I am here to speak for myself, and I speak for no 
 other man. I do not propose to imitate the egregious egotism of a gentleman, who 
 said publicly the other day that he spoke for one-fourth of the United States — 
 the whole people of the West — and that they were opposed to the prosecution 
 of the war. 
 
 There may be great evils in this war. War is always an evil. But allow me to 
 say that there have been greater evils afflicting a nation than civil war. Civil 
 war, while it destroys weak nations, strengthens strong ones. [Cheers] 
 The stalwart, permanent and vigorous English Constitution grew out of two 
 hundred years of civil war. Civil war has made France what it is. Civil war 
 has almost restored the past grandeur of Spain. If it has destroyed weak 
 republics like those of South America, it is because they come within the general 
 terms of the proposition I have stated. [Applause.] 
 
 The conviction on the mind of every discerning Northern man must be that 
 which has been expressed by one of the speakers, that the result of this war is 
 simply a question of time. We cannot now conjecture or fathom what will 
 be the duration of it; but, so far as one may speak of the future, advised by 
 the experience of the past, the result of it is certain, except in the event of 
 foreign intervention. How. let me ask, is foreign intervention to be prevented ? 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 There are many persons who apprehend the interference of the French 
 nation, and there are indications enough to satisfy us. that, did they deem it 
 possible or prudent to interfere, and open our blockade, that the Governments 
 of France and England would do so. Let me say to those who are not in favor of 
 the further prosecution of this war, and who talk of an armistice, that they can 
 give no greater encouragement to those who desire to interfere in our affairs, than 
 by proclaiming and advocating such measures. [Cheers.] The strongest bulwark 
 we can raise for the preservation of the nation is the union of the Northern people 
 in one sentiment — that, whatever may be their differences of opinion, growing out 
 of the past history of the country, or as to the mode in which the war has hitherto 
 been conducted, there is no difference as to the duty of prosecuting this war to its 
 ultimate result. [Loud applause.] 
 
 I have only one word more to say, because I am unwilling to trespass on the 
 patience of so large an audience — [cries of " Go on"] — and that is, that war is a 
 stern teacher. Individuals and nations learn from it what they would never learn 
 without it ; and we of the North and of the South — of this at present divided, 
 but hereafter, I hope, to be united and compact nationality — will learn a lesson 
 from it which we would not have learned otherwise. Mr. Brady has alluded to 
 Cato, in the course of his remarks. It brought to my mind the reply of Cato to 
 Caesar, as we find it in Sallust, describing the state of the Roman people, at the 
 time of the gigantic conspiracy of Cataline. Cato described the condition of 
 the Roman people — very much like the state we were in when this war 
 began. He said that they were a people so given to the acquisition of wealth, 
 as to be indifferent to everything else ; that virtue, integrity, and zeal in the 
 public service were followed by no reward ; that there was, in consequence, great 
 poverty in the State, and great wealth in the individual members composing it ; 
 that virtue, capacity or experience were not the qualities for which men were 
 elevated to important public trust, but that everything was open to political 
 ambition; and he added, that it was no wonder that Cataline — that ancient 
 secessionist, who undertook to do what the people of the Southern States are 
 now attempting — to overthrow the government of his fathers — had succeeded 
 so far, for, when the people thought of nothing but their individual interest, 
 when every one was struggling to get money, and indulging in the luxuries 
 incident to its possession, it was not surprising, when an attack was made upon 
 the State, that it should be found weak, and unable to defend itself. [Applause.] 
 We have all, in my judgment, learned this lesson from the war. Many, like myself, 
 have not been satisfied with a great deal that has been done by this Government, 
 and in the exercise of our individual judgment would have had it otherwise. 
 We have complained of the want of capacity and of the absence of the most ordi- 
 nary experience ; but if those whom we elect are not as capable as they ought to 
 be, whom have we to fix the blame upon ? We have to fix it upon a system of 
 political machinery, by which experience, capacity and virtue are regarded as 
 
27 
 
 nothing, in comparison to the qualities which will serve the ends of the political 
 organism. Everything is subordinate to the means which that machinery employs 
 to thrust into places of high public trust those of whom the least is known. 
 [Loud cheers.] We have something to learn from that ; and if we get out of 
 this war. delivered from this political Juggernaut which strangles individual 
 opinion — which crushes out all independence of thought and of action — which 
 gives no man the right to exercise individual views except as a part of this 
 machinery — if we do nothing more in the war than to overthrow this system, 
 we shall liberate ourselves from — what has become in its general operation — a 
 practical, and at the same time an irresponsible, despotism. [Cheers.] I speak 
 not especially of any political party, because, as you all know, it belongs to 
 the Republican and the Democratic party alike. [Applause.] 
 
 The question may be asked, why have I for a long time acted as a public man. 
 discharging a public trust, to which I have been indebted to the machinery of 
 party? I can answer by saying, that in the many years that I have held this 
 trust I was never in a public meeting, Democratic or Republican, or in one that 
 had anything of a political character. A friend behind me suggests that this is 
 not a political meeting. 1 did not mean to be understood in that sense ; for I have 
 had the honor of addressing my fellow-citizens at the grand Union Mass Meeting in 
 April. I meant a party meeting. I have abstained, because I did not think it 
 right for a Judge to mingle in the active organization of party politics. But if 
 I had been free to act then, it would have made no difference ; for so thoroughly 
 had both parties become organized by this system of machinery ; so completely 
 had it taken root, that a man enclosed in a pyramid might as well expect to be 
 heard, when he cried aloud, as for any public man in this country to raise his 
 voice in protest against a system common to both political parties, and which was 
 rapidly bringing the nation to destruction. This, if I understand it. is no party 
 meeting. It is a national one, called in view of the impending peril of the whole 
 country. Allow me to say, it would be far from me to intimate that there was 
 anything in the expressions which have fallen from the speakers, or in the 
 responses that have been made by those who listened to them, of a party char- 
 acter ; and I would to God, that in this contest there had been more examples 
 of such toleration, forbearance and love of unity. [Prolonged cheers.] 
 
 I can only, in conclusion, condense all I would say in a single historical allusion. 
 When Admiral Blake was fighting the battles of his country on the ocean, under 
 the government of a man whom he did not respect, he returned an answer to his 
 men which, in my judgment, ought to be the answer given by even- loyal Ameri- 
 can, with regard to his course in this contest : '• It is our duty," he said, " to stand 
 by the Government under which we live, and fight for its supremacy, mainten- 
 ance and preservation, no matter in whose hands, temporarily, the Government 
 may be."' [Enthusiastic cheers.] 
 
28 
 
 Loud calls were then made for " Van Buren," and upon being 
 introduced Hon. John Van Buren spoke as follows : — 
 
 SPEECH OF MR. YAN BUREN. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens,— I beg to return you my sincere thanks 
 for the kindness with which you have received me to-night. I received some 
 days since an invitation from several respectable gentlemen, with some of 
 whom I have been for some time acquainted, to attend this meeting to-night, 
 and to address those who should be here assembled. I was notified that Gene- 
 ral Winfield Scott would preside, and I regret to learn that the state of his 
 health, as was somewhat anticipated by the Committee who invited me— that 
 the state of his health has proved to be such that he has been unable to attend. 
 His place, however, is well supplied by the Mayor of your city, who is the pre- 
 siding officer on this occasion. [Applause.] I was also informed of the reso- 
 lutions that it was proposed to pass, and a copy of them was inclosed in the 
 invitation I received to address you. I was requested to look at these resolu- 
 tions, and unless I expressed some dissent, I was notified I would be considered 
 as assenting to them and to the use of my name. In looking over the resolutions 
 it seemed to me that, with some verbal and unimportant corrections, they are 
 perfectly proper to be adopted, and I so stated to the gentlemen who invited me. 
 I saw nothing in the resolutions, in the character of the gentlemen who invited 
 me to attend, in the character or public career of the presiding officer, that pre- 
 vented my cordial participation in the proceedings of the meeting, and I there- 
 fore unconditionally accepted. [Applause.] If there is anything, as has often 
 been suggested, beyond this as the object of this meeting, it is unknown to me ; 
 and I think it proper thus to state at the outset the extent to which I have been 
 connected with the originating of the meeting, and the extent of the responsi- 
 bility I propose to assume in coming here with you to-night. I came in while 
 Mr. Brady was speaking, and derived the greatest pleasure and satisfaction from 
 his remarks, and there was nothing in the remarks of the gentleman who followed 
 him that would cause me any uneasiness. I have, therefore, every reason to 
 believe that our proceedings here to-night thus far are acceptable, and I hope 
 they will be such as will promote the cause of the country which we all claim to 
 have at heart. Now you will allow me to state with a little particularity what 
 has been my position in reference to the questions that have been agitated 
 before the people during the last three or four months, and although I have an 
 alarming amount of papers here — [laughter] — what I have to say will consume 
 but a reasonable amount of your time. In the outset I desire to call your attention 
 to the position I assumed here on the 13th of October last, when we were about 
 to enter upon a political campaign such as the constitution and laws authorize 
 previous to the regular election in November of each year. Two candidates 
 
29 
 
 had been nominated for Governor. One was Mr. Wadsworth, and the other Mr. 
 Seymour. The friends of Mr. Seymour assembled here to ratify his nomination, 
 and to take such measures as they deemed expedient to promote his election. 
 I was invited to be present and address them. For three years previously I had 
 never anywhere addressed my fellow-citizens, as during a part of that time my 
 health was such as to preclude the possibility of my doing so. On that occasion 
 I took the liberty of stating what were the views that I entertained in reference to 
 the condition of the country. I said that in entering into this controversy there 
 were a great many who, I had no doubt, would agree with me in being governed 
 solely by one consideration in following out whatever could be done for a vigor- 
 ous prosecution of this war. As to the thing that should be done at this elec- 
 tion, if I believed — and I said so with entire truth aud sincerity — if I believed 
 that by voting for Wadsworth I should contribute to the success of our arms, 
 and bring about an honorable peace, I should vote for Mr. Wadsworth for 
 Governor without hesitation ; but it was because I did not so believe, because 
 I was entirely confident that such a course would not be advantageous to the 
 country, and would not bring about an honorable peace — which is the legiti- 
 mate object of war — that I should support Mr. Seymour. I also said on that 
 occasion, in speaking of the advantages of supporting Mr. Seymour, that ray 
 object was to sustain the President as far as justice will authorize, and sustain 
 him in every fair governmental measure that he may adopt for the purpose of 
 carrying on the war or to uphold the government. I said that it was our pur- 
 pose to stand by the Union and the constitution, and to stand by Mr. Lincoln 
 as far as he would let us, and to stand by McClellan whether he would let us or 
 not. [Mingled applause, hisses, and great confusion.] Now, in conclusion — 
 [renewed hisses and applause] — I am only repeating what I said to you on the 
 13th of October. [Cries of " Go on.'"] I said, " Protract this contest to the 
 next Presidential election, no matter what is the result, this country will be irre- 
 trievably swamped long before we reach the 4th of March, 1865. It must be 
 done sooner — the result must be achieved under Lincoln ; it must be achieved 
 by giving vigor to him in resisting what I am sure he feels disposed to resist — 
 the demands of the abolitionists. Stand by him. He is a cross of Kentucky 
 on Illinois, and cannot be an abolitionist. [Applause.] Let the great State 
 of New-York, on the 4th of November, (as I have every reason to hope the 
 States of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana will to-morrow,) show what her prin- 
 ciples are. And let you and I meet here, after the election, and unite in shout- 
 ing that New- York is redeemed." It will be observed that then I stated that 
 party organization had ceased to be of any practical importance ; that the sole 
 inquiry, in my judgment, was how should we best carry on the war — (A Voice, 
 " That's so"] — and that I would be governed entirely in that canvass by that 
 single consideration. [Applause.] What I then said I repeated in various por- 
 tions of the State after the 13th of October, and until the very day of the elec- 
 
. 30 
 
 tion. Governor Seymour was present on this stand at the time I spoke. He 
 was with me in Brooklyn, in Rochester and in Buffalo, and the single complaint 
 his friends made, as far as I understood, was that I fell far short in my support 
 of the war, of the vigorous and determined support that Mr. Seymour expressed 
 his resolution to give to it under all circumstances. [Applause.] The election 
 came and passed, and it is no part of our province or purpose to consider the 
 particular result, except to say that the people of the State of Is ew- York, after 
 a very active canvass, were about equally divided — for to speak of a majority of 
 a few thousand in a poll of six hundred and odd thousand is simply to say that 
 they were about equally divided. And the same was true of the States of Ohio, 
 Indiana and Pennsylvania ; the majority in these great Central States was 
 trifling, and to-day, to-night, while we are here, the people of these great central 
 and controlling portions of these United States may very properly be regarded 
 as about evenly divided between the two parties that were organized at the last 
 canvass, and future results will depend, in my humble judgment, a great deal 
 more upon the future conduct of individuals than upon anything that has tran- 
 spired in the past. [Applause.] Now we have passed through the election. 
 There is no election in this State till next Autumn. We are assembled on the 
 6th of March to determine, not what New Hampshire shall do, not what Con- 
 necticut shall do, but what the people of the city of New-York and of this 
 State shall do. And there being no election pending, I hold it to be entirely 
 preposterous to assume that people who differed during the last canvass in this 
 State, may not unite cordially in such measures as may be necessary to put 
 down a rebellion that has no shadow of justification. [Applause.] Under such 
 circumstances I have been called upon by a Committee of highly respectable 
 gentlemen to redeem the pledges made in the campaign, in the very place where 
 I no 1 " stand, and if I was in truth, as I then declared I was, in favor of a vigor- 
 ous prosecution of the war, and if I did truly believe that the interest of the 
 country far transcended in importance any political or party organization that 
 was in existence, now to come forward and say so in common with those who 
 belonged to a different political party. [Applause.] Such being the fact, I 
 have no hesitation in saying that I cordially agree to the resolutions that have 
 been adopted. [Applause.] I am for the vigorous prosecution of the war. 
 [Applause.] I am for the prosecution of the war until this rebellion is wholly 
 overthrown. [Applause.] I am for destroying the usurped government that 
 has been set up over the Southern States, and this thing that calls itself a Con- 
 federate Government, and until that is done, I hold that all propositions for 
 peace are entirely preposterous and absurd. [Applause.] Now being for the 
 war, I am necessarily with everybody that is for the war ; and being opposed to 
 peace, I am necessarily opposed to everybody that is for peace. [Applause.] 
 [A Voice. — " How about the wayward sisters ?" Great laughter.] 
 Mr. Van Buren. — Now, how did the war begin ? Without stopping to dis- 
 
31 
 
 cuss disputed propositions — that would be of no avail — there is no doubt that 
 there has been, for a great length of time, a large number of politicians in the 
 South who have been determined to extend Slavery to the free territory of the 
 United States. They endeavored to use the organization of the Democratic 
 party for that purpose, and, in 1848, they assumed such a position in regard to 
 it, as to force what I considered the regular Democracy of the State of New- 
 York out of the Democratic party. [Applause.] The elections of '48, and '52, 
 and' 56 came and passed. The election of 1800 was the next that transpired, and, 
 in the mean time, this disposition was manifested by various efforts to force 
 Slavery into Kansas, and other measures that it is not necessary now to discuss, 
 and to which I was always opposed. In 18G0, in the Democratic Convention, 
 they declared that the platform of the Convention should contain a recognition 
 of the legality of Slavery in ail the territories of the United States ; and they 
 declared, in addition, that Slavery should be protected by the General Govern- 
 ment in all the territories belonging to the Union. The Democracy of the North 
 refused to agree to that, and the Convention broke up. It reassembled at 
 Baltimore, and again broke up, and the election of 1860 came on, the Southern 
 men having a candidate of their own, and the Northern and Western Democracy 
 generally supporting Mr. Douglas, and a large number of gentlemen supporting 
 Mr. Lincoln, resulting in the election of Mr. Lincoln. [Applause.] In that con- 
 test I took no part. I voted, but I did nothing more. No man ever heard me, in 
 public or in private, express any opinion in regard to it. except when the elec- 
 tion came off, I deposited my vote in opposition to Mr. Lincoln. [Voices. — 
 '• Good.''] After that election, Congress assembled. Mr. Lincoln's message 
 declared in the fullest manner his unwillingness to interfere with Slavery in the 
 States. It recognized, to the fullest extent, the right of the different States to 
 have Slavery if they chose, and his entire indisposition to interfere with it. 
 Notwithstanding that, several States seceded from the Union, as they said. They 
 held a convention, and resolved themselves out. Their representatives aban- 
 doned their seats in Congress, although they had control of the Senate and 
 House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court of the United States. They 
 retired from the Congress of the United States. They went further and 
 set up a government of their own, or said they did. Now you all 
 remember the debates between Webster and Hayne upon the subject of the 
 right to secede from the Union. Mr. Webster told Mr. Hayne what has since 
 proven true — that that was mere rebellion, and when they put it in operation, 
 they would see that, in order to carry out what they assumed to be the right 
 of peaceful secession and nullification, they must use force, and be met by force, 
 and the law of the strongest must decide the controversy. [Applause.] This 
 occurred. They assumed to set up a government. They formed a Congress and 
 elected a President. But they were not content with this. They seized the 
 property of the United States — they seized its forts, its ships, its treasure. They 
 
32 
 
 fired upon the flag of the United States at Fort Sumter, and claimed the right 
 to exercise the power of a sovereign government. Now, you will bear in mind — 
 every fair-minded man in the United States will bear in mind — that up to this 
 moment not one hair of their heads had been injured. No right of any'Southern man 
 had been invaded. History will record that the world never witnessed a rebel- 
 lion against a governmental authority before, where the rebels could not lay 
 their finger upon a thing to show that either their property, their liberty, or their 
 rights had been, in the slightest particular, invaded. [Great applause.] This 
 being the fact, the city of New-York sent forth eighty thousand men to quell 
 this rebellion. Her capitalists advanced three hundred millions of dollars to put 
 down this rebellion. The State of New-York sent two hundred thousand men. 
 Now am I to argue, in view of these facts and the past history of this contest, 
 that the rebellion is atrociously unjust, and that the war in which we have 
 engaged with the South is rightfully prosecuted by us in vindication of the 
 Constitution and the Union. [Applause.] Now, what is the condition of this 
 contest ? They were not satisfied with what I have detailed, but they announced 
 they were going to establish a Republic, the corner-stone of which should be 
 Slavery, and they are now engaged in that task — in endeavoriug to establish a 
 Republic on this continent, in 1863, the corner-stone of which shall be Slavery. 
 Now, I went to Herkimer in 1847, to lay a corner-stone, but it was not this. 
 [Laughter.] It was as much unlike this as anything you can possibly imagine, 
 and it adds no additional attractions to the contest, as far as I am con- 
 cerned, that they should avow this object in prosecuting the war. It 
 is now a contest forced upon the non-slaveholding and loyal slaveholding States, 
 by those who are endeavoring to build up a Republic based on Slavery. To 
 prostrate a rebellion that has that object in view, I am willing to devote any means, 
 any time, any exertions within my power, during the rest of my life. [Applause, 
 and three cheers.] Now let us see whether there is anything worth considering 
 in what is suggested by those who dissent from us, and are unwilling to prose- 
 cute this war. The measures that have been recently adopted by Congress are 
 so lately adopted, that it becomes any man who is careful what he says, to be 
 guarded in speaking of them. The President issued two proclamations — both of 
 them, as I have frequently stated, I disapproved. He issued both before I spoke 
 on the 13th of October, and before Governor Seymour spoke. Neither of us 
 saw anything in them which prevented us from favoring a vigorous prosecution 
 of the war. If there was nothing then, it is certain that there is nothing now. 
 [Applause.] One of the bills which has excited the sensibility of several gentle- 
 men who have spoken in New Jersey, and at a certain hall in this city, [hisses,] 
 is a bill which gives extraordinary powers over the purse and the sword to the 
 President of the United States. Another is a bill which seeks to protect by 
 indemnity the President and those connected with him from claims for damages 
 for arrests they have made. They are opposed to another bill, as I understand. 
 
33 
 
 which has become the law, which authorizes the President, in his discretion, to 
 suspend the writ of habeas corpus. [Applause.] I will state now, as briefly as 
 I can, what are my views in regard to this. In the first place, as to the bill 
 which gives the President power over the sword and the purse, I agree that it 
 makes him almost a dictator. I agree that it is a very great stretch of power. 
 
 A Voice. — '• He ought to have it." 
 
 I agree that, unless there may be a necessity for it, it should not be done. 
 Everybody knows that in prosecuting a war under a republican government, 
 which consists of several States, the great apprehension is that there may not be 
 unity on the part of the States sufficient to impart energy to the national Exe- 
 cutive head. That was predicted as one of the grounds upon which our system 
 of government would fail. 1 call the attention of my democratic friends to this, 
 because there seems to be particular solicitude on this point now. [Laughter.] 
 The President was given the power of the purse and the sword in 1839, when 
 Great Britain had directed forcible possession to be taken of a portion of the 
 State of Maine, and Sir John Harvey had moved troops of Great Britain into 
 that territory to hold it. The Governor of the State of Maine met this action 
 by moving Maine troops on to the same territory. The President of the United 
 States called the attention of Congress to it, and left it to their wisdom to say 
 what ought to be done. Now I hold in my hand a copy of the bill that they 
 passed upon that occasion, in 1839. I will state to you the substance of the 
 various sections, without detaining you at this late hour by reading the bill. The 
 first section puts the whole naval and military force of the United States, and 
 the militia, at the disposal of the President. [Applause.] The second declares 
 that the militia, when called out, shall be compelled to serve six months. The 
 third gives the President power to call out fifty thousand volunteers. In those 
 days, when our army had never reached eight thousand men, it was a weighty 
 matter to call out fifty thousand men, and was regarded as an enormous autho- 
 rity. [Laughter.] The fourth section gives the President power to complete 
 and employ all the armed vessels of the United States — putting the whole army 
 and navy of the United States at his disposal. [Applause.] The fifth section 
 appropriates ten millions of dollars to carry into effect the provisions of this 
 act. In those days ten millions of dollars was a great deal of money. [Laugh- 
 ter.] The sixth section appropriates eighteen thousand dollars to send a special 
 minister to Great Britain. The seventh section authorizes him to expend a 
 million of dollars in finishing the fortifications upon our sea-board and arming' 
 them. The eighth section directs that the militia and volunteers, when culled out, 
 shall be portions of the Army of the United States. Now. how do von suppose 
 that bill passed? It put the whole purse and sword into the absolute power of 
 the President of the United States. Clay, Webster and Calhoun— men of 
 ability, though, perhaps, inferior to the Solons of our day. [laughter.] were niem- 
 
 ber> of the Senate. The bill passed the Senate, and these three statesmen 
 
 O 
 
34 
 
 although all violently opposed personally and politically to the then President 
 of the United States — voted for the bill, and it passed the Senate unanimously. 
 [Applause.] It passed the House of representatives, after a full discussion, by 
 a vote of 201 to 6, and the leader of that six was Henry A. Wise, [hisses,] the 
 bold brigadier who distinguished himself so greatly at Nag's Head, [laughter,] 
 while his brigade was fighting on Roanoke Island. [Applause.] Now let us 
 see whether the democracy of that day was alarmed at this union of the purse and 
 the sword, and, in the first place, let us see how the political opponents of the 
 administration treated it. Governor Seward was then Governor of the State of 
 New-York, having been elected in 1838, and a political opponent of the Presi- 
 dent. On the 7th of March he communicated this act to the Legislature, with a 
 most praiseworthy message, concluding thus : — " I respectfully call your atten- 
 tion to this subject, with the expectation that an expression on our part of con- 
 currence in the policy of the general government will contribute to avert the 
 calamities of war, and cause a speedy and honorable adjustment of the difficulties 
 between this country and Great Britain." Mr. Isaac L. Varian was then Chair- 
 man of the Democratic General Committee, and Mr. Elijah F. Purdy was one of 
 the Secretaries. They called a meeting of the democrats of this city, and over 
 that meeting Mr. Holmes presided, and for Vice-Presidents were men whose 
 names, when read to any democrat, will bring back associations of great interest, 
 and perhaps of some sadness, unless he supposes that the prominent democrats 
 in the city now are more respectable than those whose names I will read. The 
 Vice-Presidents were Henry Yates, Walter Bowue, Samuel Tappan, Myndert 
 Yan Schaick, Gideon Tucker, Abraham Yan Nest. Gilbert Coutant; and they 
 resolved, not that there was danger in the union of the purse and the sword — not 
 that it was a usurpation — but that it was a ;< prompt and patriotic measure" on 
 the ^art of the House of Representatives. [Loud cheers.] Let us see how it 
 was received by the electors.' It was on the 2d and 3d days of March, as I have 
 stated to you. The election in New Hampshire came on then, as it will now, 
 within a few days after the adjournment of Congress ; and New Hampshire 
 which had been somewhat equally divided, gave seven thousand majority for the 
 democratic ticket. I shall be pleased if my democratic friends find it gives as 
 large a majority now. [Cheers and laughter.] The city of New- York, by a 
 defection of the conservative portion of the democracy, had been thrown into the 
 hands of what was then called the Whigs. The city election almost immediately 
 followed, and the city was recovered. Isaac L. Yarian was elected Mayor by a 
 thousand majority, and twelve out of seventeen wards gave democratic majorities, 
 immediately after this extraordinary usurpation. General Scott, who was to have 
 presided here this evening, fortunately for the country, was then prominent in the 
 command of the armies of the United States. On the 7th of March he went to 
 Maine, and he remained there until about the 21st, when he concluded an arrange- 
 ment with Lieutenant-Governor Harvey, by which the British troops retired 
 
35 
 
 from their position in the State of Maine, the Maine troops also retired, and civil 
 officers were left in protection of the public property, and, by his wisdom and his 
 foresight, by the 2 tth of March lie was able to report to the government of the 
 United States that the whole difficulty had passed over. [Applause.] Congress 
 assembled in December, and the President of the United States made this com- 
 munication to them: — 
 
 " The extraordinary powers vested in me by an act of Congress for the defence 
 of the country in an emergency, considered so far probable as to require that the 
 Executive should possess ample means to meet it, have not been exerted. They 
 have therefore, been attended with no other result than to increase, by the con- 
 fidence thus reposed in me, my obligations to maintain, with religious exactness, 
 the cardinal principles that govern our intercourse with other nations. Happily, 
 in our pending questions with Great Britain, out of which this unusual grant of 
 authority arose, nothing has occurred to require its exertion; and as it is about 
 to return to the Legislature, I trust that no future necessity may call for its exer- 
 cise by them, or its delegation to another department of the government." 
 
 Not a dollar was expended, not a volunteer was called out, not a man from the 
 militia was brought into the field under this act ; and I would be glad to know 
 why it may not happen that this extraordinary demonstration on the part of the 
 Congress of the United States, of the power and resources of the loyal portion of 
 this Confederacy, may not again be followed by a similar auspicious result. 
 The merciful way to prosecute a war is to make an overwhelming demonstration 
 of strength, to satisfy those who are prepared to resist the rightful authority of 
 the Government, that resistance is useless, and that they must be crushed 
 [ Cheers.] Now, gentlemen, there is nothing, in my humble judgment, therefore, 
 in the law passed putting this enormous power in the possession of the President 
 of the United States to deter me from assisting in a vigorous prosecution of the 
 war. [Cheers.] I can very well understand how, if I sympathized with the re- 
 bellion — if I deemed that this war should fail — I could spend hours and columns 
 in picking flaws in this act. Bat if 1 believed that substantial justice required — 
 that the great ends of prosecuting the war demand that the whole power of the 
 Government shall be lodged by the Congress of the United States in the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, I will bow in silence to the act. whether I approve of 
 it or not. [Prolonged cheers.] If the President of the United States had 
 usurped these powers, there might be a degree of propriety in denouncing it; but 
 when the representatives of the people, legally elected, after due deliberation, 
 assume the responsibility of lodging these trusts in him, in my humble judg- 
 ment, and certainly in view of the precedent to which I have referred, no wise 
 man will ever complain of the act. [Applause] Now, in regard to the bill to 
 indemnify the President of the United States for any damages in consequence of 
 arrests that have been made, I have simply to say that if this act is constitu- 
 tional it will protect him; if it is not, it will not. The courts are open to those 
 complaining of arrests at any time, by prosecuting for damages they may 
 have received. Again, as to the authorizing the President to suspend the habeas 
 
36 
 
 corpus, all of you who have paid any attention to my remarks heretofore, know 
 my views in regard to the power of the President. I suppose he cannot suspend 
 the habeas corpus under the Constitution of the United States. Chief-Justice 
 Taney, in an opinion which I have never seen answered, has demonstrated it. and 
 a republican judge in Wisconsin, Chief-Justice Dixon, who is now a republican 
 candidate for re-election against the democratic candidate, has, in a recent deci- 
 sion, solemuly so adjudged, and, notwithstanding this, he is the republican candi- 
 date in Wisconsin for re-election. The Congress of the United States tacitly 
 admit this by assuming that they must authorize the President to suspend the 
 writ, and they have gone on to do so. I believe Congress is the party that should 
 suspend the writ; they so judge, and they have authorized the President to sus- 
 pend the writ, when he judged it wise and prudent to do so. I don't object to 
 that law. [Loud cheers.] What I have to say in regard to that is, that I do 
 not think it would be wise — I doubt very much whether the President and Con- 
 gress have power — to suspend the writ in the State of New-York, and think you 
 will see in a few moments, when I have very briefly stated my reasons for this 
 view, that there is no need of any suspension of the writ of liabeas corpus in this 
 State. 
 
 The writ of liabeas corpus is a writ by which a party imprisoned brings himself, 
 or is brought, before a judge, to inquire into the causes of his detention, and if 
 these causes are legal, if he is properly imprisoned, the judge remands him to 
 prison. This is a right to which the people of this country, and the people of 
 Great Britain, have always shown their devotion. It is unwise ever to unneces- 
 sarily suspeud it. It is well to lodge this power in the President, to be exercised 
 where hostilities are actually pending — to be exercised in parts in proximity to 
 those where hostilities exist ; but here, where our courts are open, where our 
 citizens are loyal, where it is entirely competent to bring up anybody who has 
 committed any crime, and put him in prison, and, when he sues out his writ, to 
 show that he ought to be detained, and then to remand him to prison, it would 
 be unwise, in my judgment, to run counter to the prejudices of our people as to 
 the Constitution, by suspending the writ. It has not been done yet. But those 
 who do so will find that they have excited what a distinguished general calls a 
 fire in the rear, which may be more troublesome than any fire they might have in 
 front. It is not necessary. I know the people of the State of New-York. I 
 know there is no occasion for any extraordinary remedies for enforcing the law. 
 They are a loyal people ; trust them, and, my word for it, the result will show it. 
 Now, gentlemen, this is all I have to say in regard to the measures of the last 
 Congress, except simply to state, that there is nothing in the acts of Congress 
 which calls upon me to hesitate for a single moment as to a vigorous prosecution 
 of the war. I intended, however, to call your attention to the fact that the writ 
 of habeas corpus was not suspended during the war of the Revolution, in the war 
 of 1812, or in the war with Mexico, although there were great differences of 
 
37 
 
 opinion, and very strong statements made in opposition to the carrying on of the 
 war. Yet the country prospered, and the war was successful. Now, then, 
 allow me to say one thing more, because our object in coming here to-night is to 
 consult freely, and that is the wisest way. And what I have to say is in refer- 
 ence to the proclamation of the President of the United States, declaring .-laves 
 free in certain parts of the Union. [Prolonged cheers.] I have taken occasion, 
 on several times, to state (and that was perfectly known when I was invited to 
 speak this evening) what my objections were to that proclamation. There are 
 no objections to its constitutionality. The President has a right to make any 
 proclamation he chooses, [applause,] and so have I, [Applause and laughter.] 
 The only question I make is as to the wisdom and legal effect of this proclama- 
 tion. Now. I say the proclamation does not set anybody free. If a man is free 
 by law, he is free with or without the proclamation. But I say that it excites 
 the Southern people to this view of the subject. [Hisses and applause mingled.] 
 They say, " You declare that if we come back and submit to the law and to 
 the Government, then our slaves are emancipated." That was not the President 's 
 intention. You may rely upon it. He did not emancipate the slaves in any 
 territory of the United States that is under the dominion of the United Stat* s. 
 They are not emancipated in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Tennessee, or in Mary- 
 land. [A Voice. — " They ought to be," followed by hisses, applause, and cries of 
 * Order."] And that was, in my humble judgment, no part of his purpose. In 
 my judgment, his sole object was to declare, as a general policy, that as our 
 armies advanced against the rebels, when the rebels were conquered, their slaves 
 should be legally free. There is no doubt about that, with or without the procla- 
 mation. Slavery exists by force, recognized by law ; slaves now are held in the 
 so-called Confederate States by virtue of the Confederate States Governments 
 and the Confederate United States authority. When our armies advance, and 
 those governments are overthrown, the slaveholders who refuse to recognize the 
 Constitution of the United States, lose their slaves by law beyond all perad ven- 
 ture. [Loud applause.] That being so. it is not wise, in my humble judgment, 
 to issue such a declaration ; but that, of course, is a matter for the President. I 
 say, as I have frequently said, that in my judgment, all the good that could have 
 been done by it has been done. Now, then, gentlemen, another consequence is, 
 that these Southern men ought to be led to see that their only hope for continu- 
 ing slavery is by being in the Union. [A Voice. — " God forbid," followed by 
 cheers and hisses.] That is their only protection, and it is for them to determine, 
 under the Constitution, whether they will continue to avail themselves of it. 
 Nor, gentlemen, if I were President, would I undertake to interfere with free 
 discussion in the United States. Now there is no doubt that what is and what 
 is not a fair limit for free discussion may be the subject of dispute. But the 
 Constitution in the first article of the Amendments, prohibits Congress from passing 
 any law to abridge freedom of speech. When a State Constitution authorizes an 
 
38 
 
 election, it authorizes discussion. I believe I have given the fullest evidence of 
 that by discussing all over the State of New- York the action of the President 
 and these different measures. Here, in the State of New-York, there is no 
 occasion for it. I would not undertake to interfere with free discussion at a time 
 when an election is pending. When there is no election pending, a different 
 rule may prevail. [A Voice.—" Would you send the World to the army ?"] 
 I would do just as the array chose in reference to that. If the army like the 
 World, I would let them take it ; if they want the Tribune, I would let them 
 take that. But let me tell you that it is entirely idle to undertake to fly in the 
 face of the prejudices of the people. You have your own prejudices. I have mine, 
 and others have theirs. No man can look over this State and the State of Ohio, 
 Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania, and not see that, from some cause or other, 
 there has been a great reaction in opposition to the policy of the war and the 
 support of the President. That is clear by the canvass. No man can listen to 
 the returns of the elections that come here every day from Troy, Utica, Rochester, 
 Lockport, Oswego, Ithaca and Auburn, without seeing that, from some cause or 
 other, the reaction that began last Fall has not ceased. Now, you who are 
 prudent and wise men — who are in a position to advise the President of the 
 United States, which lam not, and don't intend to be — [laughter] — must give 
 him your opinion as to what he had better do. I have given such suggestions as 
 I think will throw light upon the matter. Gentlemen, I believe that it is just as 
 much our duty to unite in a vigorous prosecution of the war under the President 
 of the United States as it was when the war was first declared, notwithstanding 
 anything that may have been done. Nor am I one of those who insist that he 
 should put a particular general in command of the army or any portion of it. I 
 never suggested that he should make a change in his Cabinet, that one member 
 should be put out and some other person take his place. That belongs to him, 
 and I am not disposed to interfere. It is for him to determine how his responsi- 
 bilities shall be discharged, and not me. But what I do say is, that he had 
 better trust the people. I am one of those who am not in the habit of speaking 
 of the people as something separate from myself. I very often meet men who tell 
 me that the people want this or that. Well, I say, I guess not. I am one of the 
 people, and I don't want it — and how do you get at the result ? The only way I 
 know of to determine what the people want, is to make up your mind what you 
 want yourself, and then infer, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that 
 other people want the same thing. [Prolonged laughter.] 
 
 Now, there is great anxiety felt as to the course of the democrats. Gentle- 
 men, a democrat is a peculiar institution. It does no good to drive the demo- 
 crats — to bully or to attempt to intimidate them. They will have their own way. 
 That was always their habit, as I have found. But I never shall be made to 
 believe that the men who stood by George Clinton, or their fathers before them 
 in the Revolution, who stood by Tompkins and Jackson in 1812, who stood by 
 
39 
 
 Polk and Marcy in the Mexican war, will be found wanting in this. It remains 
 to be seen whether they will or not. But my own course will be wholly unin- 
 flueuced by that of any one else. I have beeu cautioned by a great many people 
 about attending this meeting to-night. I was told that it was an insidious 
 attempt to disintegrate the democratic party, and a newspaper which joined us 
 last fall, [laughter.] and my representative in Congress, who never joined us at 
 all, have great fear that I will do something to disintegrate the democratic party. 
 Now, if the whole party should differ with those to whom I have adverted, we 
 should be no more disintegrated than we were before. My representative I have 
 a very high opinion of. He seems to be very willing to represent the whole of 
 our State and a very considerable part of New Jersey, [laughter :] and. looking 
 at his paper this evening, I perceive that he has taken charge of the governments 
 of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and several other States. It is not often that a man 
 is found, provided with such extensive plans of usefulness. I read a speech 
 that he made before the Democratic Union Association on the 3d of March, as 
 it was reported in the World on the 4th. Without undertaking to say what was 
 proper for him to say or for him to omit, I will say that 1 thank God that he was 
 not my representative until noon the next day. The democratic party, as you 
 all know, nine years out of ten controls the government of the country. It 
 requires, therefore, no great patriotism on their part to be attached to the gov- 
 ernment and the country. It is, in fact, an attachment to themselves. [Laugh- 
 ter.] As a general rule, they are wise, prudent and patriotic. Occasionally 
 blind guides or bad drivers take some sleepy passengers into bad roads and upset 
 them, as they did in 1848. [Laughter.] But then they wake up ; the passen. 
 gers get out ; [laughter ;] they inquire the right road ; they get a lantern, and 
 examine the condition of affairs, and eventually they come all right. [Laughter.] 
 I think they will do so now ; and yet it seemed to me, as a careful man, looking at 
 their course just at this moment, that it was prudent for me to get out and walk. 
 [Great laughter — " three cheers."] Whether 1 shall stop the coach to get in 
 again or not, or foot it through, depends upon circumstances. [Renewed laugh- 
 ter.] But, fellow-citizens, whatever else J may do, whatever anybody else does, 
 / shall sustain this war to the bitter end. [cheers.] and the city of New-York 
 will do it. After sending eighty thousand men and spending three hundred mil- 
 lions of dollars, they will not hesitate to go through; and the State, in my humble 
 judgment, will not hesitate to go through. Why, was there ever anything more 
 preposterous than the idea that when we are told by the Southern men that we 
 must recognize their independence before they will treat with us, that we shouid 
 be wasting time in undertaking to negotiate a peace? When the President of 
 the Confederate republic, as he claims to be, denounced the best men of the 
 North, and East, and West as pirates and hyenas, and, what he seems to sup- 
 pose as worse than all. as Yankees, [laughter,] is it possible to make terms with 
 him, or listen with composure to any arrangement for an accommodation? 
 
40 
 
 ["No."] Why, who are the men that have been sent from the State of New-York 
 who are thus denounced by this rebel chieftain ? I have differed from a great 
 many of them politically — I have differed from a great many of them personally ; 
 but when you find the Eearnys, the Yan Eensselaers, the Hamiltons, the 
 Schuylers, the Dixes, the Kerables, the Jays, the Heckschers, the Cuttings, 
 the Costers, the Cochrans, the Neills, the Emmets, the Cambrelings, the Duers, 
 the Pratts, the Lydigs, the Kings, the Wadsworths, the Howlands, the Ulshoeffers, 
 the Tompkins's and the Yosburghs, the best blood of the State of New- 
 York, who are thus denounced as pirates, why, I submit that it requires 
 more than ordinary composure to listen to it. Yankees! They are the 
 Knickerbackers of New- York ; they are the best men of the State of New- 
 York ; and when they peril their lives and shed their blood in defence of 
 the Constitution of the country and the Union of the States, he who denounces 
 them as pirates and hyenas is as forgetful of all the principles of truth 
 and honor that should govern the language of a gentleman, as he is traitor- 
 ous to the flag under which he accpiired political fame. [Loud applause.] 
 
 We have nothing to do but fight this matter through. We can have no 
 discretion in regard to it, and it behooves us to look around and see what 
 assistance we are to receive, or what interference we are to meet with. 
 Let me say one moment to you, that I am not one of those who unite in this 
 sentiment of anxiety about the course of Great Britain. I happen to have had 
 peculiar opportunities, which it is not necessary now to advert to, for knowing 
 the people of Great Britain for the last thirty years. They will be neutral, and, 
 in my humble judgment, that is all we have the right to expect. Nations are 
 like individuals. When two gentlemen resort to the arbitrament of arms, no 
 other person feels himself at liberty to interfere in the cpiarrel, and when two 
 nations, cultivated and civilized, or claiming to be such, resort to arms, all we 
 have a right to ask, in my humble judgment, of any third Power, is that they shall 
 not interfere, but shall stand neutral. Now, all the public acts of the Government 
 of Great Britain, all the declarations of her prominent men, all the correspon- 
 dence of her Minister, all the general sources of information, compel us to 
 believe that they mean to observe strict neutrality. Gentlemen tell me that 
 they allow vessels to be fitted out at their private ship-yards. Well, it is for us 
 to remember that we are to be at peace before long, and Europe is to be at war, 
 and whatever our ship-yards or the owners of them, and our merchants say, they 
 will allow the Government of the United States to forbid them from doing when 
 European nations are at war, exactly that we have a right to insist that the 
 British Government shall prohibit the ship-builders of Great Britain from doing. 
 No more and no less. We must live up to our own law. Now. it is nol a vio- 
 lation of any neutrality act, in my judgment, in subjects of Great Britain or 
 citizens here, to build a ship and sell it to a government that is at war with 
 them or us. It is seized as contraband, if you can get it — fair prize of war : 
 
41 
 
 but it is no violation of the neutrality of Great Britain, and no violation of our 
 neutrality. If our ship-owners and ship-builders desire such an amendment to 
 be made to the neutrality act of Great Britain, then it is a fair matter of discus- 
 sion whether it shall be done. But we cannot compel them to do any more than 
 we are willing to do ourselves. But the Government and people of Great Britain 
 have unquestionably a sympathy with the people of the Northern States in this 
 contest, and while they do not feel at liberty to interfere, and ought not to be 
 asked to interfere, in my humble judgment, we have their good wishes, and 
 never need apprehend any acts on their part of an unfriendly character. Russia, 
 beyond all doubt, is entirely friendly. The Emperor of the French will do 
 exactly as he thinks is entirely for his own interest. I am not one of those who 
 attach any importance to what he declares he will do, because his declarations 
 to the French people were never kept, and I have no idea that his declara- 
 tion to us will be observed unless it is for his benefit. He and his prominent 
 meu about him have nothing in their past lives to offer as hostages for their con- 
 duct. They live in the present. He holds his Government by force — whatever 
 is necessary to maintain himself, that is exactly what he will do. And, in my 
 judgment, when he sees that he must go on alone, that he will have no co-opera- 
 tion from other Powers, he will refuse to interfere in this quarrel, and will let us 
 alone. But, gentlemen, we must depend upon ourselves. If we can fight this 
 battle to victory, we shall be victorious — if we cannot, we shall be defeated. 
 But beyond all earthly considerations we must unite — that is our highest 
 obligation — and being united, I have no doubt about the result. I do not look 
 forward to a long war — a great many people do. Jt is not the habit of modern 
 times to have long wars. The great improvement in the engines of destruction 
 and in means of communication enables nations to bring wars rapidly to a close. 
 The Russian campaign was not long ; the Italian campaign was a short one, and 
 in my judgment this war will be a short one if we are united and put forward 
 the whole power of the loyal States of this Union. With our immense popula- 
 tion and resources we ought to end this war in ninety days. Start your troops 
 in New Orleans, at Yieksburg, at Charleston, and in Tennessee. Charge along 
 the whole line — advance with energy and will — and my word for it, in ninety 
 days everybody will wonder that this rebellion was ever regarded as formidable 
 in any portion of the United States. [Prolonged cheers.) 
 
 The speech of Mr. Van Bukex was received with marked 
 attention, and his felicitous points were responded to with vocif-' 
 erous applause. 
 
 The Mayor then called upon the Hon. Henry J. Raymond. 
 6 
 
42 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. RAYMOND. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens, — I should feel that it would bs a most unwarrantable 
 trespass upon your patriotic patience, already tried perhaps too long, were 1 to 
 detain you by any remarks of my own at this late hour of the evening. I have 
 come forward, at the request of gentlemen of the Committee, merely to read to 
 you a letter from a distinguished citizen and servant of the Republic, which I am 
 sure you will be glad to hear. 
 
 Mr. Raymond then read the following 
 
 Letter from Mr. Secretary Seward. 
 
 Department of State, ) 
 Washington, March 3, 18G3. \ 
 
 To the Hon. George Opdyke, and others, New-York: 
 
 Gentlemen : I thank you for your invitation to the meeting to be held on the 
 Cth inst., designed to resolve itself into a Loyal League of Union citizens, and I 
 deeply regret that public occupations here prevent my acceptance. 
 
 1 pray that my name may be enrolled in that League. I would prefer that 
 distinction to any honors that my fellow-citizens could bestow upon me. If the 
 country lives, as I trust it will, let me be remembered among those who labored 
 to save it. If Providence could disappoint the dearest hopes of mankind, let 
 not my name be found among those who proved unfaithful. 
 
 I subscribe to your proposed resolutions in their exact letter, and in their right 
 loyal and patriotic spirit. I would reserve nothing whatever from the sacrifice 
 which may be required by the country. He that preferreth himself, his fame or 
 his fortune, his friend, his father, his mother, his wife, his child, his party or 
 his sect, his state or his section, above his country, is not worthy to be a citizen of 
 the best and noblest country that God has ever suffered to come into existence. 
 
 No one of us ought to object when called upon to reaffirm his devotion to the 
 Union, however unconditionally. I would cheerfully renew the obligations of 
 fidelity to it every day and every hour, in every place, at home or abroad, as 
 often as any citizen should question my loyalty, or as often as the renewal of the 
 obligation on my part should seem likely to confirm and strengthen any other 
 citizen in his patriotic resolution. The reaffirmation is wholesome for ourselves, 
 even if it influence no one else. 
 
 I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 
 
 Mr. Raymond asked permission to say in regard to this letter that no better 
 response could be made to its sentiments than is afforded by the aspect and 
 enthusiasm of this majestic assemblage of the unconditional loyalists of the city 
 of New-York. It was a sight, he said, to gladden the eyes and rejoice the heart 
 of every patriot ; for it shows that, in spite of all divisions of sentiment on minor 
 points, in spite of all differences of political opinion and of partisan relations, 
 deep down in the American heart lives an abiding love for the nation that will 
 not let it perish, and that will resist to the death every attempt to accomplish its 
 destruction. [Loud applause, and cheers.] I have listened, said Mr. R., with a 
 degree of gratification which language cannot express, to the utterances and ex- 
 
43 
 
 bortations to loyalty and patriotism from gentlemen eminent in the councils of the 
 democratic party. They confirm me in the belief I have always cherished, that 
 when the final struggle came we should stand together to rescue the Union from 
 the perils that hang over it— to subdue the rebellion— to hold aloft now and 
 forever that glittering flag which is the ensign of our power and the emblem of 
 freedom throughout the world. [Cheers.] I see in the proceedings of this 
 meeting no symptom of discouragement — no signs of faltering in the great war 
 we are compelled to wage. The gentleman who preceded me, (Mr. Van Buren,) 
 said he did not anticipate a long war. However this may be, we are here to de- 
 clare that whether it be long or short, whether it last one year, or two years, or 
 three years — until courage and love of freedom die out of the American heart, 
 until we have ceased to respect the devotion of our fathers, and to love the flag 
 of our country — we shall not cease to prosecute this war against rebellion and 
 for the preservation of the Union, to a successful issue. [Loud and prolonged 
 applause.] For myself, I have had no misgivings as to the courage and purpose 
 of the American people. I care not what party may have the guidance of the 
 Government ; so far as the result is concerned I should have no fears of the 
 issue if the Democratic party were to come into power to-morrow in every State 
 and in the capital at Washington — the war could have but one result. It would 
 still be carried forward to a successful issue. [Applause.] I say this, first, 
 because I have the profoundest faith in the loyalty and fidelity of the American 
 people ; and secondly, because no other result is possible. We must conquer 
 the rebellion, or the rebellion must conquer us. [Applause.] No Democrat, no 
 Republican, no Abolitionist, no Secessionist, no foreign power on earth can 
 bring it to any other issue. [Loud applause.] And if any man believes that the 
 American people will consent to see this nation destroyed and reduced to the 
 condition of the republics of South America, so long as they have a dollar to 
 spend or a blow to strike in its defence, his heart must either be faint with fear 
 or tainted with disloyalty. [Applause.] It is not in the American heart to let 
 this nation die. All minor issues will take care of themselves. The great 
 question to be decided is not whether the writ of habeas corpus shall be 
 suspended, nor whether freedom of speech shall be preserved, nor whether 
 slavery shall be maintained or destroyed. The question is, Shall the nation 
 live? [Loud cheers.] Settle that, and you settle all the rest. Secure the 
 nation's life, and you secure the life of all those personal rights, those individual 
 liberties, and that great principle of universal freedom which find their sole 
 guarantee in the Constitution, and the only ability to maintain them in the flag 
 of the Union and the power of which it is the emblem. [Cheers.] Let the 
 nation live, and no power on earth can destroy the writ of habeas corpus, break 
 down freedom of speech, or perpetuate humau slavery on this continent. [Ap- 
 plause.] Let the nation die and no prophetic tongue can tell how soon the 
 triumphant power of slavery will destroy every vestige of civil freedom in every 
 part and on every foot of the continent. [Cheers.] 
 
u 
 
 One word on another point. Keference has been made to the possibilities of 
 foreign intervention. "Whether such intervention will take place or not, is at 
 present purely a matter of opinion. If it comes at all, I think it will come from 
 the Emperor of France ; and in that event I believe it will bring with it more 
 of advantage than of danger to the Union cause. I believe that its effect would 
 be, first, to unite as one man the whole loyal population of the Northern States ; 
 next, to alarm and arouse the great mass of the people of the South to the 
 danger to which the restless and unprincipled ambition of Napoleon would 
 expose them, and thus lead to the overthrow of the rebel Government ; and 
 finally, to bring England to the side of the Union in the contest that would en- 
 sue. [Cheers.] And now, without entering upon any consideration of this 
 important subject, believing that whatever we may think of it we shall all agree 
 in claiming full and complete immunity from foreign interference, I beg leave 
 to close my remarks by offering, as I do with the assent of the officers of the 
 meeting, for your acceptance, the following resolution : — ■ 
 
 Resolved, That we approve the action of the President and the Congress of 
 the United States in declining— as unfriendly in its tendencies and effects — all 
 intervention or mediation of foreign Powers, in any form or on any pretext, in 
 the contest which the nation is compelled to wage for the perpetuation of its 
 existence. 
 
 The resolution was unanimously adopted with loud applause. 
 
 Mr. Wetmore said : — I have now to submit to the meeting a 
 
 letter from one of our most influential and patriotic citizens, 
 
 Mr. A. T. Stewart, and, with the permission of the Chair, will 
 
 read it : — 
 
 MR. STEWART'S LETTER AND RESOLUTION. 
 
 Broadway, corner Chambers-street, ) 
 March 5, 1863. j 
 Messrs. Geo. Opdyke and others, Committee: 
 
 Gentlemen, — I gladly accept the honor of being an officer of the meeting to 
 be held at the Cooper Institute to-morrow evening, to sustain the Government 
 and the Union, and beg leave to suggest the following resolution, in addition 
 to those proposed by the Committee : — 
 
 Resolved, That, in the judgment of this meeting, the resort of the Government 
 to a currency of its own, for the purpose of meeting the extraordinary expenses 
 caused by the rebellion, and made available for the payment of debts, public and 
 private, was a necessity which could not have been avoided ; and that, as such 
 currency binds all the property, real and personal, owned within the limits of the 
 United States, it constitutes an obligation of unequalled authority and value, 
 the upholding of which, by its ready acceptance, by inspiring confidence in its 
 validity and safety, and by denouncing all efforts to discredit it, by whomsoever 
 made or for whatever purpose, are duties as imperative as any now appertain- 
 ing to an American citizen. 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 ALEXANDER T. STEWART. 
 
 The Chairman put the question on the resolution, and it was 
 
 unanimously adopted. 
 
45 
 
 The Hon. I). K. Carter, of Ohio, was then introduced. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. MR. CARTER. 
 
 The Hon. David K. Carter, of Ohio, was introduced, and said : — There is 
 an accumulation of reasons why I should not address you at any length. In the 
 first place, you have been patient listeners to long addresses from distinguished 
 gentlemen, who have interested you better than I am capable of doing; another 
 reason is, that the evening is exhausted ; and still a further reason is, that this 
 is not the hour for talking ; that hour has past, and the hour of action has come 
 and is departing. [Cheers.] Let me say a word in a direction that the speeches 
 you have listened to have not taken — a word of encouragement. Most of the 
 speeches made at this time are marked with a tone of despondency. There is 
 no occasion for it. I do not agree that this is to be a brief war, either. The 
 greal mistake in connection with it, from the time the rebellion was inaugurated 
 to this hour, is, that the people have been taught impatience in the contest. It 
 may be a long war ; and if it is to be fatal to the prosperity of the country, I 
 hope it will be longer than my life. [Cheers.] But what is there in mapping 
 out the progress made by our arms to-day that should lead us to despond? 
 The whole Mississippi Valley, with the exception of two points, is in our posses- 
 sion. Missouri is redeemed ; Kentucky is redeemed ; Maryland is redeemed ; 
 two-thirds of Tennessee is redeemed; Louisiana is ours; North Carolina is 
 ours ; two-thirds of Virginia is in possession of the Federal arms ; the rebellion 
 has been driven back into the heart of "intensified Niggerdom." [Cheers.] 
 Why, the death-rattle has been heard in the throat of this rebellion for the last 
 three months. They have stopped fighting this campaign beyond the lines, and 
 they are merely staggering under a defensive movement, with short food and 
 short clothing — and too much of that clothing sent from your city, smuggled 
 into their lines. They are now fighting their battles in the North, and through 
 two nations of Europe. [Applause.] 
 
 Now I wish to talk very considerately about England, very respect full v. I 
 have a sort of notion that some of my ancestors may have come from there. 
 [Laughter.] But my testimony to-night, and the testimony of history will lie, 
 when the events of this war are- recorded, that British men. and British money, 
 and British influence, have kept this rebellion alive. [Applause.] It is my solemn 
 conviction at this hour, that Britain has fought this Republic in the most effectual 
 way that her power permitted her to do. Hers are the privateers that prey upon 
 our commerce, hers the guns that mount them, hers the ammunition and hers the 
 tars that man them. Why, it ceases to be a secret ; they are openly dispatched 
 from the ports of Britain. It is done under the guise of neutrality, and why ? 
 Because an open war between Great Britain and the United States would let 
 loose the privateers of America upon their commerce. [Cheers.] She can fight 
 as in no other way. She made a show of it. She sent 40,000 men over here to 
 
46 
 
 Canada, to make the pretence of war, perfectly ridiculous, when contrasted with 
 the armies we are raising on this side of the Lake. [Applause.] 
 
 Why, this rebellion had not fairly burst out, it had not matured itself, it had 
 not become an overt act, before Britain interfered to recognize them as belliger- 
 ents of war. And why ? Because her aristocracy looks upon the destruction of 
 this Government as the saving condition of their hereditary institutions. [Cheers.J 
 
 The rebels are also fighting their battles in the North. They have their 
 agents and officers in your midst. [A Voice. — " Fernando Wood and Booby 
 Brooks!"] Ah! I wish you to speak of Brooks kindly. He was an old com- 
 panion of mine in Congress. But "Booby" Brooks — if that is his name, 
 [laughter,] he was called " James " when I knew him — is one of the rebels' 
 agents in this city. And how is it, New-Yorkers— let me put this plain ques- 
 tion to you in plain Western style — how is it that a sheet, teeming with treason 
 from Monday to Saturday, and from the first of January to the last of December, 
 is patronized in this heart of the Bepublic ? Now, Brooks must make money 
 out of it, some way or other ; for nobody ever suspected him of having any 
 principle, [cheers ;] he must make by the distribution of his filthy sheet ; and 
 that distribution depends upon your patronage. And how is it, if (as I have 
 always supposed, and as the gentlemen who preceded me have stated) you are 
 loyal here, that this torch-light of treason is suffered to burn every evening in 
 your city ? [Cheers.] Now, this is a part of Jeff. Davis's army. He is fighting 
 his battles more effectually by this means than by his poor devils of conscripts 
 who are traveling barefooted in rebeldom. He is engaging your attention by 
 side issues, in clamoring and fault-finding ; and that is a characteristic of all 
 fools, to be more ready to find fault than engage in the work in hand. [Cheers.] 
 Be united, and this rebellion will perish before a united North. [Applause.] 
 He if soon I do not know ; but God grant it may not be soon enough not to 
 make a perfect cure ! [Cheers.] Let us cut this ulcer from the root. 
 
 But I do not propose to make a speech. You have already listened long 
 enough. [Cries of " Go on!'] Another mode of fighting this rebellion in these 
 Free States, is to get up a clamorous contest about who shall be Justice of the 
 Peace in Utica. [Laughter.] An outsider would suppose from the great 
 hullabaloo made about the election in this State last fall, that the whole earth 
 revolved about the single issue, and that the judgment-day was just behind it. 
 [Cheers and laughter.] Now, do you not suppose that Jeff. Davis understands 
 this fiddling, while Borne is burning ? Does he not know perfectly well, while 
 you are busy about the important matter of who shall be your Mayor or your 
 Constable, that you are not reducing this rebellion and restoring the republic to 
 its integrity again ? 
 
 What would you think of a man who expected the Angel Gabriel to call for 
 him to-morrow, and who would sit down to figure up the democratic majority in 
 some township over a Constable's election ? [Laughter.] And yet this great 
 
47 
 
 State of New- York, and the great State of which I am proud to be a native 1 , 
 has been engaged in that sort of business ; and while we are thus engaged, Jeff. 
 Davis lias been laughing in his sleeve at cur stupidity. I tell you that one of 
 the happiest circumstances marking this contest and the desperation of Jeff. 
 Davis of his conspiracy for the destruction of this country is, that he has been 
 compelled to come down from his high estate, to treat us with indignity and 
 insult. For Jeff. Davis has wisdom enough to know that he cannot commence 
 making a bargain upon this subject without losing his army, that can never be 
 rallied. He understands that " like a wild man !" [Laughter.] He has got to 
 keep his forces up to the fighting line, under whip and spur. 
 
 My friend, Mr. Van Buren, has alluded to his calling us " hyenas." I wish to 
 God it was true ! [Cheers.] We have prosecuted this war more like sheep 
 than hyenas. [Applause.] 
 
 I am thankful for the attention you have given me. I wished to declare my 
 devotion to this cause. I went to South America, two years ago, the father of 
 two grown-up sons. One lies in a soldier's grave ; the other is liable to lie there 
 to-morrow ; and I would far sooner lie there myself than see this republic break 
 up. [Applause.] 
 
 Three cheers were here given for Mr. Carter. 
 
 General Wetmoke. — Allow me to call your attention to the 
 fact that you have formed yourselves into a society to-night. Do 
 not forget it. You will shortly be called together again, and let 
 every man come. We will have something to interest you every 
 time you come. [Cheers.] And now I have a motion to make: — 
 That every gentleman who has spoken here to-night be elected by 
 your voices an honorary member of the Loyal League of New- 
 York. 
 
 The motion was carried by acclamation, and the meeting ad- 
 journed, giving three cheers for the Union, the Constitution, and 
 the success of the war. 
 
48 
 
 The following letters were read, being bat exponents of a large 
 number received by the Committee : — 
 
 LETTER FROM HON. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, POSTMASTER- 
 GENERAL. 
 
 Washington, 5th March, 1863. 
 Messrs. Opdyke, and others: 
 
 Gentlemen, — I regret that I cannot be with the loyal men of New-York to- 
 morrow. I heartily approve the movement and the resolutions to be submitted 
 at the meeting. 
 
 The lovers of the government should be thoroughly roused to a sense of the 
 necessity of constant, united and vigorous efforts to preserve for mankind the 
 happy progress of our Great Republic, which, in less than a century, has erected 
 in the ^Sew World a nation blessed with a prosperity hitherto unknown. This 
 prosperous power is the creation of popular government on a vast scale, and the 
 struggle in which we are now involved a resistance to a most formidable conspi- 
 racy of oligarchs at home and abroad to destroy it. 
 
 It is not permanently to dismember its territory that this great government is 
 now assailed. Its vital principle — popular sovereignty — is struck at. The phy- 
 sical conformation of our country defies all attempts to dissever the Union. Its 
 lakes and Gulf — north and south — its rivers traversing east and west, from 
 ranges of mountains, terminating in immense bays of the Atlantic and Pacific, 
 and vast navigable streams in the central valleys, which are channels of com- 
 merce, bringing the seas to the homes of all the cultivators of the continent, ren- 
 ders the dissolution of the Union which grows out of the necessities of commerce 
 as impossible as the destruction of the system provided by nature for that inter- 
 course. England and Scotland are not more marked as the home of one people 
 and one government than our country. Perpetual, unmitigated hostility was the 
 fate of the English and Scotch people until they became one under the same 
 government, and so it would be of us. 
 
 But whilst the conspiracy against the government cannot permanently dis- 
 member a Union born of natural causes and bounded by natural limits, it may, 
 and will, if successful, change the character of that government by blotting out 
 the 'Vee principles inscribed in our- Magna Charta at its birth, and adopting the 
 counter-declaration of the rebellion, which makes Slavery the foundation of the 
 new institution to give law to the continent. The prophetic heart of the Presi- 
 dent long ago foretold the issue which the Southern agitators were forcing on the 
 country, when he said, in one of his early contests for freedom, " I see that the 
 United States must all be Free or all Slave," and this is the issue of the hour — 
 not of debate, but of arms. We must conquer, or the irresistible power of the 
 Union itself will subject us to the oligarchs. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 [Signed,] M. BLAIR. 
 
 LETTER FROM MAJOR-GENERAL BURNSIDE. 
 
 Washington, Friday, March Gth, 1863. 
 
 7b George Opdyke, Jonathan Sturges, and others, Committee : 
 
 Gentlemen, — I regret that my public duties will prevent my acceptance of 
 your kind invitation to be present at a meeting of loyal citizens of New-York, at 
 the Cooper Institute, this evening. The resolutions which it is proposed to 
 
19 
 
 introduce art- in exact accordance with my sentiments. It is clearly the duty of 
 every " citizen, sailor and soldier " to give to the government his unconditional 
 and most effective support. A conditional support is full of discord, danger and 
 disaster, and. at a time like the present, amounts to disloyalty. In view of all 
 the resources with which God has blessed us, it would be ignominious to believe 
 that we have not the physical ability to maintain the government, when we re- 
 member that we are lighting to sustain a government that originated in truth, 
 justice, honor and patriotism, against a rebellion that originated in deceit, fraud, 
 ambition and ignorance. It would be distrusting God's justice to believe that 
 final success will not attend our efforts. 
 
 If we see evils before as, let us do all in our power to correct them in a tem- 
 perate way. Our legislators should be made to feel that they misrepresent us 
 when they attempt to clog the wheels of government, or indulge in party legisla- 
 tion. 
 
 Politics and party lines should be ignored for the present. Fraudulent con- 
 tractors and dishonest disbursing officers should be punished. Officers and 
 soldiers should be subordinate, patriotic, energetic and free from all personal 
 ambition. The law of Congress making every man a soldier who is capable of 
 bearing arms should lie enforced and submitted to. The old regiments should 
 be kept full, ami promotions made from soldiers and officers in the field, for 
 merit. 
 
 The President and Governors should be always surrounded by honest, loyal 
 and patriotic men. capable of giving advice in their several departments. The 
 Press should be temperate and independent; and. finally, our whole people — 
 men, women and children — should be loyal, patriotic and honest, trusting in the 
 righteousness of our cause, and cheerfully submitting to all the privations which 
 the Providence of God may visit upon us. Who will believe that this rebellion 
 could last another year if we were all resolved to fulfill these conditions? 
 
 Thanking you, gentlemen, for the high honor done me by this kind invitation, 
 I remain, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. E. BURNSIDE, Major-General. 
 
 REPLY FRO M BRIG .-GENERAL BARN ARD. 
 
 Washington, March 11, 1863. 
 
 Messrs. George Opdyke, Jonathan Sturges, and others: 
 
 Gentlemen, — I regret that my official avocations -prevented my accepting 
 your invitation to attend the " meeting of loyal citizens." 
 
 No one has felt more keenly the division of sentiment amongst ourselves, 
 which has vented itself in mutual recriminations, and which, at one time, seemed 
 to me to bid fair to paralyze the arm of our own national strength, at a moment 
 when all that strength was most necessary. 
 
 Tins is no place to introduce topics of political controversy, but when "loyal 
 citizens " appeal to their fellow-citizens to unite in sustaining a righteous war. 
 all must be conscious that there is but one Constitutional rallying point. 
 
 All patriotic men should be able to say with Governor Todd. - 1 support Mr. 
 Lincoln, not because he is a Republican, not because he is a. tariff man or an 
 antislavery man, but because he is President of the United States, and, by 
 virtue of his office, entitled to the support of all loyal men." 
 
 When it is the admitted duty of patriotic men thus to feel and thus to act, it 
 would be sad. indeed, if the Administration represented by Mr. Lincoln, around 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 which our duty makes us rally, should be, as some would make us believe, un- 
 worthy of the confidence we must repose in it — incompetent to the performance 
 of its high duties, and, through that incompetence, the author of the disasters 
 of the past year, which have been so discouraging to our cause. 
 
 Almost equally sad is it if. while such charges are utterly groundless, they, 
 through the want of correct information and through misrepresentation, obtain 
 a credence extensive enough to divide the people and weaken the support due to the 
 Administration, and necessary to a successful prosecution of the war. No more 
 damaging charge has been brought against the Administration, than that its 
 mismanagement of the war brought upon us the military disasters of the past 
 year. On this point I have had some means of judging, and the opinion formed 
 eight months ago, and strengthened by every day's development since, is, that 
 the Administration has been the victim,/ not the responsible agent, of military 
 mismanagement. 
 
 I will venture a word or two as to what appear to me to be the conditions of 
 the war. 
 
 When we are told by those high in authority that "there are now no causes 
 of discord that have not always existed, and which were not felt by our fathers 
 in forming the Union ;" that " slavery has been the subject, not the cause, of the 
 war"- — it behooves loyal citizens to consider this question well, and to ask whether 
 there is not a " deeper deej) " in this matter than " local prejudices, which have 
 grown up in two portions of the Atlantic States, the extremes of our country, 
 kc, &c." It behooves loyal citizens no longer to ignore vital questions and 
 moral questions, and dismiss them with the ready-at-hand expressions of " abo- 
 litionism," " fanaticism,'' &c. In short, it behooves loyal citizens to inquire, and 
 to recognize that something depends on the result of this inquiry : " Is Slavery 
 in fact a good, or is it an evil?" 
 
 If a good, then, indeed, we are all wrong ; there are no causes of discord other 
 than our fathers knew, and this war has grown out of " local prejudices." 
 
 If the answer is that it is an evil, (as admitted even by the Southern statesmen 
 of the day of our fathers, to be, " socially, politically and morally,") even 
 though qualified as a " necessary " one, then it must be admitted that it is not a 
 quiescent and stationary evil, but aii aggressive and self-disseminating one : an 
 evil which, since the days of our fathers, has spread over the land with frightful 
 rapidity, until, at this day, four millions of slaves stand in the place of the few 
 hundred thousand they had to deal with, and who they hoped would, " in the 
 order of Providence, be evanescent and pass away ;" that the very condition of 
 that " security," which is so haughtily demanded as its constitutional right, was 
 the right of indefinite expansion, drawing with it, as a sequence, the reopening 
 of the African slave-trade. The right, denied by " our fathers" (who prohibited 
 slavery in the Northwestern territory,) of extending slavery into all the territo- 
 ries, of having State for State in the Union, Senator for Senator in the United 
 States Senate, was the condition without which this innocent evil would not be 
 " protected." In other words, the " security " it claims demands that this nation 
 and this continent be converted into one vast slave empire, and the " institution " 
 which the growing sense to human rights of modern civilization has condemned 
 and abolished in every European dependency, except those of Spain, sets up anew 
 its throne here, in the vaunted land of '•liberty," and proclaims the "corner- 
 stone" of that liberty to be "Slavery." 
 
 Such are the issues ,- it is not a, contest of which the results are to be merely 
 whether there shall be a little more slavery or a little less ; it is not a contest to 
 decide whether " free and slave States can exist together in the Union ;" it is a 
 contest which a a evil "principle inevitably wages against all that restrains it, just so 
 soon as it feels itself strong enough, to array itself in open hostility — a contest be- 
 tween the principle of slavery and the principle of free labor. 
 
 " Such," says Mr. Spratt, one of the accepted exponents of the Confederate 
 cause, " are the two forms of society which had come to contest within the struc- 
 
51 
 
 ture of the recent Union. And the contest for existence was Inevitable. 
 Neither could concur in the requisitions of the other : neither could expand 
 within the forms of a single government without encroachment on the other. 
 ***** The slave-trade suppressed, democratic society has triumphed " 
 
 The Hon. Henry May, a gentleman who may lie accepted as the exponent of 
 deliberate Southern views, rather than as a " leader of the insurrection," whose 
 violence misrepresents the truth, says: — 
 
 " The people of the South believe, and I believe, that there is au established, 
 a fixed and unalterable antagonism between the sections where slavery is and is 
 not allowed, and that no future political union, as long as slavery exists, can ever 
 be maintained between them on any basis whatever." 
 
 Such, I repeat, are the issues. Let those who yet believe in a " Union as it 
 was," with fresh guarantees for slavery, and who tear, lest in doing some harm 
 to the institution, we bar the door to this reunion with slavery " as it was," for- 
 get the duties they owe to their country and mankind in this most delusive of 
 hopes. For myself, I will but repeat what I have said elsewhere : — 
 
 " There con be no reunion with slavery -as it was ;' even though its extinction 
 be not a sine qua non, it must be fettered and bound, and, as apolitical power, 
 forever annihilated. When this is felt to be. as it is, the condition of honorable 
 national existence — of any peace which shall lie a peace, indeed, and not anarchy 
 and chronic war— then we mayexped thai union of all parties and that earnest- 
 ness for the cause of truth and humanity, which, through God's blessing, shall 
 enable us to trample under foot the real enemy to our peace. Then the procla- 
 mation, instead of being denounced as converting the war into one of abolition, 
 will be recognized to be what it is— a just and proper military measure, and the 
 one tlung winch is alone calculated to avert the hostility of Europe, and to enchain 
 to our cause, perforce of public opinion, the influence of its governments." 
 I am, gentlemen, with great respect, 
 
 Your most obedient servant. 
 
 • I. G. BARNARD, Brigadier-General, 
 And late Chief Engineer of the Army of the Potomac 
 
 LETTER FROM ADMIRAL PAULDING. 
 
 • Navy- Yard, March 5th, 1863. 
 
 My Dear Sru : 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge an invitation to lie present at a meeting 
 of loyal citizens at Cooper institute, in New-York, on the evening of the 6th 
 inst., for the purpose of reaffirming a determination to sustain the government in 
 its rightful efforts to quell rebellion, and at all hazard- of life and property to 
 maintain and perpetuate the Constitution and the Union. 
 
 I regret extremely that the condition of my health will not permit me to be presenl 
 on an occasion that so vitally concerns me ami every other man that loves his 
 country and would leave to his children the inheritance of a free government, as 
 it descended to us from our sires. 
 
 All my sympathies are with the objects of the meeting, and to which I pledge 
 myself in every sentiment that the resolutions convey. I shall lie at all times 
 ready, not only to perform my duties as an officer and a good citizen, in the sup- 
 port of the government for the suppression of the rebellion, but it will afford me 
 especial satisfaction to unite with all loyal men in society to bring to punishment, 
 in any manner that may be rendered necessary, the infamous scoundrels that 
 would embarrass the government. They enjoy its protection and forbearance, 
 doubtless, in the presumption that they may escape the penalty due to their crimes. 
 1 am, sir. very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 IT. PAULDING, Commandant. 
 Hon. Georoe Oi'dyke, Mayor of the City of New-York. 
 
52 
 
 LETTER FROM DR. FRANCIS LIEBER. 
 
 New-York, Thursday, March 5, 1863. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Most heartily and fervently do I approve of the resolutions sent me, and feel 
 honored that I am to serve as an officer of the meeting. 
 But Cooper Institute is too small — at least I hope so. 
 
 Vorv truly, yours, 
 
 " FRANCIS LIEBER. 
 Hon. George Opovke, &c, New-York. 
 
 LETTER FROM W. IT. WEBB. 
 
 New- York, March 4, 1863. 
 Hon. George Opdyke, and others : 
 
 Gentlemen, — I most heartily approve of the proposal to convene a public 
 meeting of loyal citizens, and also of the resolutions to be submitted to the meet- 
 ing, and am ready to co-operate in any effort to this end. 
 
 Yours, respectfully, 
 
 W. H. WEBB. 
 
 LETTER FROM JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, JR. 
 
 ( 'iiamrer of Commerce of the State of New-York, ) 
 New-York, March. 5th, 1863. J 
 Sir: 
 
 I will cheerfully act as one of the officers of the meeting called for to-morrow 
 evening at the Cooper Institute. 
 
 I think it quite time that our noble city repudiated all sympathy with treason, 
 and placed her mark on the copperhead. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr. 
 
 To the Manager. P. 0. Box 610. 
 
 LETTER FROM LEONARD W. JEROME. 
 
 March 5, 1863. 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 I accept with pleasure your polite invitation, and beg you to designate me for 
 any office of the meeting you please, from a Vice-President to a lamplighter. 
 I shall be there and serve. 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 LEONARD W. JEROME 
 
 Messrs. Opdyke and others. 
 
OUTSIDE MEETINGS. 
 
 Owing to the immense mass of citizens who assembled at the 
 place of meeting, thousands who were unable to obtain standing 
 room in the great Hall, had to remain outside, crowding the large 
 balconies, front and fear, surrounding the entire building, and fill- 
 ing tin' adjacent, squares. 
 
 Several open-air meetings were improvised, and stirring speeches 
 were made by Hon. James Wadsworth, Colonel James Fairman, 
 J. C. Anderson, and a number of other gentlemen. 
 
 The whole surrounding space was brilliantly illuminated by 
 calcium lights, which added greatly to the effect of the interesting 
 occasion. 
 
 A band of music had been provided for the emergency, and 
 spirit-stirring, patriotic strains enlivened the scene and kept the 
 vast concourse in rapt enjoyment until midnight. 
 
 It will be long before this noble ovation to loyal principles and 
 loyal duty will be forgotten by the Union-loving people of New- 
 York. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 ppl papc «! mnitm ®itwM, 
 
 ACADEMY OF IIUETTSIC, 
 
 SAT1RDAV, 14lh MARCH, 1863. 
 
 REPORTED ISY 
 
 A. F. WARBURTON, STENOGRAPHER, 
 
 1 1 7 Nassau Street. 
 
Reported, for the Daily Press. 
 
 INAUGURATION. 
 
 In compliance with the call issued by the Committee of the Loyal 
 League of Union Citizens, for the purpose of adopting a Constitution 
 and inaugurating a system of management, an immense audience assem- 
 bled at the Academy of Music Saturday evening, March 14, 18G3. 
 Tickets of admission, with Union badges, had been furnished to every 
 loyal man or woman who desired them, and the demand was such 
 that twenty buildings like the Academy would not have sufficed to ac- 
 commodate them. Thousands of people had gathered about the doors 
 of the Academy long before they were opened, and at the appoint- 
 ed hour the crowd rushed in, filling the halls and every seat in the various 
 circles in less time than they were ever filled before. 
 
 The scene presented from the platform was magnificent. The boxes 
 were occupied I i y ladies, as was a great part of the parquet, but the 
 circles exhibited dense masses of men— interested, cheering and enthusi- 
 astic men. Oil the platform were a great number of prominent citizens, 
 among whom were : 
 
 MAYOR OPDYKE, 
 JAMES T. BRADY, 
 JUDGE BONNET. 
 LEONARD W. JEROME, 
 PETER COOPER, 
 BENRY K. BOGERT, 
 CYRUS W. FIELD, 
 It. 1L McCURDY, 
 DR. LIBBER, 
 GEN. COCHRANE, 
 JAMES BENKARD, 
 REV. DR. TYNG, 
 NEHEMTAH KNIGHT, 
 
 8 
 
 M.W. GEN. WOOL, U. S. A., 
 
 AND STAFF, 
 COL. ORAM. I. S. A., 
 MAJ. CHRISTERNSEN, [J.S.V 
 GEORGE W. BLUNT, 
 REV. DR. HITCHCOCK1, 
 DR. NILES, 
 HENRY M. TABER, 
 D. D. FIELD, 
 JONATHAN SPURGES. 
 B. II. BUTTON, 
 GEN. POTTER, 
 L\ F. MUDGE1T, &c, &c. 
 
58 
 
 In one of the side boxes were noticed Secretary Chase and Secretary 
 Welles, both of whom appeared greatly to enjoy the scene. 
 
 The house having become absolutely filled at 7 o'clock, an informal 
 meeting was organized by Mr. Wetmore, who said : — 
 
 GEN. WETMORE'S SPEECH. 
 
 It is not time to commence the regular exercises of the meeting, but there is 
 always a little previous business to be attended to. In the first place, I want to 
 try the gauge of the house to ascertain how a very inferior voice sounds under so 
 spacious a dome ; and then I want to get a fair look at a good loyal audience like 
 this. [Applause.] I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is a rare sight, and a no- 
 ble sight, to see so many loyal men and women under the roof of one building. 
 I do not believe, that there is a soul in this building that does not belong to 
 a loyal body. [Applause.] All of you have your hearts fixed upon the 
 successful progress of this war. You know how many noble regiments 
 New-York has sent to the field— nearly 200,000 men. There is on the 
 platform, behind me. an officer who led from this State, eighteen months 
 ago. the noble regiment called the First Chasseurs. He left here a Colonel, but 
 has won his star as a Brigadier by his own conduct on the field — Gen. Cochrane. 
 [Applause.] Don't he look as if he was all right ? [" Yes."] 
 
 Gen. Cochrane was received with hearty applause, after which he 
 spoke as follows : — 
 
 GEN. COCHRANE'S SPEECH.. 
 
 I did not suppose, fellow-citizens, whether a look at me is satisfactory, but I 
 am sure that a look at you is satisfactory to me. [Applause.] When I left the 
 army at the front, I did not expect to witness and greet such a fire in the rear. 
 [Applause.] Peace has its armies, as war has its armies ; but the magnetic 
 relation existing between the army of citizens and the army of soldiers in this 
 war. is an influence which will carry this country forward to its victories and its 
 success. [Applause.] I am introduced, I presume, fellow-citizens, merely as a 
 premonitory symptom, this evening. [Laughter.] I wish that I could give you 
 some earnest of that whch is in store for you— of a diction that will thrill your 
 blood, of a prescience that will elevate your hearts, of a prescience imported 
 from fields of battle, where desolation has reared its horrid crest to display to you 
 here the image of war ; show to von the prospects of our approaching triumph, 
 and teach to you that, in the distance, whether immediate or far-removed, victory 
 and triumph, and success, are to crown our efforts. [Cheers.] It is for the great 
 city of New York to pronounce its judgment upon the state of the country, and 
 when that city speaks, its echoes reverberate through the whole land, and they find 
 a home in the very core of the heart of yonder army, now awaiting the signal for ad- 
 vance. [Applause.] I am not to make a speech to you ; I have been where 
 action was paramount. Let action prevail here, following immediately upon the 
 language which is to be uttered this evening, and there can be no question what 
 the result shall be. I thank you for the attention you have shown to me. 1 
 greet you well for the common cause in which we are all engaged, and respect- 
 fully and courteously make my bow. [Cheers.] 
 
 Mr. Charles Gould. — Ladies and gentlemen, you have just greeted 
 one of the generals of the present war. I will now present to you the 
 
59 
 
 senior Major-General of the United States Army, one whose name is 
 coincident with its history and its triumphs, who was in the war of 1812, 
 and who bas since been engaged in various conflicts, always with honor 
 to himself', and with honor to our country. I introduce to you, Major- 
 General John E. Wool. [Loud cheers.] 
 
 GEN. WOOL'S SPEECH. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — I appreciate this reception, not on my own account, 
 but, I believe, it is more for my country at the present time than for myself. It 
 is very cheering to see so many patriotic faces here, and more especially the 
 patriotic faces of the ladies [Applause.] 1 am sure we are all right when they 
 
 are. and present with us. I rely as much on their patriotism as I do upon that 
 of the gentlemen, and perhaps a. little more — [laughter and applause] — for I have 
 known some traitors among the gentlemen of the North ; but I have not found 
 any amongthe ladies. Their efforts have been felt and expert* need throughout the 
 army, most effectually, and my only surprise is that, after all their efforts, there 
 are so many deserters from the army. However, I hope to have better times. I 
 look for union : without it there can be no help for us. Our country is in a 
 perilous condition, and it requires the efforts of all the patriotism we have in the 
 North. East and West, to restore us to what we once were — a prosperous coun- 
 try, with an empire extending from the frozen regions of the North to the burn- 
 ing sands of the South, with a population of more than thirty-one millions, en- 
 joying a prosperity unparalleled in the history of nations, every town and city 
 and hamlet growing rich, as if by magic, and none so prosperous as that part of 
 the country which is now in a state of rebellion. How is it now ? A deadly 
 contest e\ist<. and without cause or justification. The South had no cause what- 
 ever — none. They commenced at a moment when we were more prosperous 
 than at any other time, and when the Government was in their own hands except 
 the President: — the Senate the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, 
 were in their hands. 1 am not prepared to make you a speech at the present 
 time. I did not anticipate that I was to be called upon, for 1 knew you would 
 have a number of very eloquent gentlemen, who will be able to discuss the state 
 of the country much better than I can. I will simply say — which is. I suppose, 
 all you want to know— that I am opposed to the separation of the country. [Ap- 
 plause.] J am opposed to all compromises. [Great cheering.] I am opposed 
 to all hues of demarkation — [applause] — and I will never lie satisfied, so far as 1 
 am concerned, until we shall have " the country, the whole country, and nothing 
 but the country "—[cheers]— and no man land I am sure none of the ladies will 
 say otherwise i who goes for less can be a friend to his country ; if there is one, 
 the sooner he goes South the better. ["Good." applause.] 1 thank you for the 
 honor you have conferred upon me. [Great applause ] 
 
 Gen. Wetmore. — Now, ladies and gentlemen, we Avill have a loyal glee 
 to a tune which you will easily recognize, and which will stir the heart 
 of every loyal man and woman that hears it. 
 
 The Union Glee Club then sung with fine effect, two stanzas of the 
 "Star Spangled Banner," which was loudly cheered and encored. 
 
 Thereupon followed three cheers for the " Stars and Stripes." [Re- 
 sponded to heartily.] 
 
GO 
 
 Mr. W'etmore then remarked : Now 1 think we are in good condition 
 to begin business, and I will present to you, bis lienor, Mayor Opdyke. 
 
 Mayor Opdyke said. — I have been selected to call you to order and to 
 
 annoui the firs! order of business this evening. You will remember 
 
 that thai great meeting held at Cooper Institute last week resolved itself 
 into a Loyal League, and appointed a Committee, under whose auspices 
 that meeting was called, to effect an organization and to suggest the names 
 of officers for that organization. In conformity with that order, your 
 Committee are prepared to submit the By-Laws and names of officers. 
 
 Judu-e Im.nxky, from the Executive Committee, then submitted, and 
 read, a Constitution and list of officers for the League, which was adopted 
 unanimously by the meeting, as follows : 
 
 LOYAL LEAGUE OF UNION CITIZEN-. 
 
 At a meeting of loyal Union citizens, held at the Cooper Institute in 
 the city of New-York, on the 6th day of March, 18G3, the following 
 resolutions were unanimously adopted : 
 
 1. Resolved, That it is the duty of every citizen to unite in all proper efforts to 
 preserve and perpetuate the Union in accordance with the ('(institution. 
 
 *2. Resolved, That the conduct of disaffected persons, claiming to be citizens of 
 the United States, yet zealous in their attempts to embarrass and impede the 
 action of the legally constituted authorities, and in the utterance of treasona- 
 ble sentiments, deserves and should receive, the condemnation of every loyal 
 citizen. 
 
 .'!. Resolved, That the loyal people of New-York hereby pledge their fortunes, 
 their influence and their honor, to the support of the national authority in every 
 vigorous and determined effort, by force of arms, on sea or land, to secure a com- 
 plete and final suppression of the causeless and atrocious insurrection which now 
 desolates our country. 
 
 •1. Resolved, That the army and navy of the United States owe their undivided 
 allegiance to the Constitution they have sworn to support and defend, and that 
 no soldier or sailor can rightfully hesitate in his obedience to the commands of 
 superiors in rank whose authority is derived from the Government of the nation. 
 
 5. Resolved, That every citizen owes allegiance to the Government, and he who 
 denies its authority, or fails in Ins duty to uphold the honor of its flag, is an 
 abettor of treason, and should suffer the penalty due to his crime. 
 
 6. R* solved, That this meeting, under solemn conviction of duty, and in a firm 
 reliance on the justice of that Providence which guides and guards governments 
 and peoples, does hereby resolve itself into a Loyal League of Dnion Citizens, 
 pledged to an unconditional support of the Government in all its constitutional 
 efforts to suppress the rebellion, and an uncompromising opposition to treason in 
 whatever form it appears. 
 
61 
 
 Now we, loyal Union citizens of the United States of America, so as- 
 sociated and again assembled, do reaffirm the said resolutions as consti- 
 tuting OUr PLATFORM AND DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES, to which W6 
 
 pledge unwavering fidelity : 
 
 And we adopt the following Plan of Organization. 
 
 First. — Our name shall be " The Loyal League of Union Citizens." 
 
 Second. — The Officers of the League shall be : 
 
 A President, 
 
 Twelve Vice-Presidents, 
 
 A Treasurer, 
 
 A Secretary, 
 
 And an Executive Committee of Fifteen Members, with power to fill 
 vacancies, and of which Committee the Officers of the League shall also 
 be ex officio members. 
 
 Third. — The duties of the President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer and 
 Secretary, shall be those usually discharged by such officers. 
 
 Fourth. — It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to call meet- 
 ings of the League, to correspond with other loyal associations, to fill 
 vacancies in the Board of Officers, and to devise, adopt, recommend and 
 carry into effect such measures as shall be calculated to sustain the prin- 
 ciples, promote the objects, and effect the purposes of the League, de- 
 clared in the foregoing resolutions. 
 
 Fifth,. — No debt shall be contracted in the name or on the credit of 
 this Leasrue. 
 
62 
 
 OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE 
 
 OF TUE 
 
 :lo"z-^:l. league of xj2stioi>t ciTizEHsrs. 
 
 Prcsitlent. 
 
 Lieutenant-General WINFIELD SCOTT, U. S. A. 
 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 GEORGR OPDYKE, 
 JONATHAN STURGES, 
 DENNING DUER, 
 BENJ. W. BONNET, 
 
 . I AMES T. BRADY, 
 MORRIS KETCHUM, 
 
 A.LEX. T. STEWART, 
 R. H. M< CURDY, 
 (HAS. II MARSHALL, 
 JOHN VAN BUREN, 
 FRANCIS LIE BEE, 
 JAMES WADSWORTH. 
 
 Treasurer. 
 
 NEHEMIAH KNIGHT, Nos. 56 and 58 Park Place. 
 
 Executive Committee. 
 
 Charles Gould, E. E. Morgan, 
 
 George B. Butler, William Orton, 
 
 Edwards Pierrefont, John Wadsworth, 
 
 Wm. G. Lambert, Richard D. Lathrop, 
 
 Seth B. Hunt, Ezra Nye, 
 
 Marshall O. Roberts, Leonard W. Jerome, 
 
 George Cabot Ward, James W. Beekmax. 
 
 Waldo Hctchins, The Officers ex officio. 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Prosper M. Wetmore. 
 
63 
 
 After the adoption of the Report of Judge Bonnet, Mayor Ohdyke 
 introduced Mr. Brady as the Chairman of the meeting, and on taking 
 the chair, Mr. Brady spoke as follows : 
 
 SPEECH OF J AS. T. BRADY. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — It is hardly necessary for me to say how much 
 pride I feel in being permitted to occupy the position to which I have been 
 assigned to night. If J had any vanity to gratify, the cup of its enjoyment would 
 be full to overflowing, for 1 feel while I stand in your presence what each of you 
 ought to feel — that we grow a part of history in the events of to-night. [Applause.] 
 It is my simple duty on this occasion, as the presiding officer, to occupy that 
 position which the gray dawn occupies in the coining of the great orb of day — 
 I am but the feeble glimmering and forerunner of the eloquence by which you are 
 to be gratified to-night. [Applause.] But with the privilege that belongs to a 
 presiding officer, 1 will, for a very few minutes, indulge in some expression of the 
 sentiment which pervades this assembly, for it is not the man who speaks that is 
 the orator at a time like this — it is the feeling of inspiration that he catches from 
 those whom lie addresses. [Applause.] On the banks of Southern rivers, at this 
 moment when I address you, our fellow-countrymen — our fellow-townsmen — the 
 beloved of the hearts of women who are here — lie down to-night in the thick 
 mud lor the poor repose that the soldier of his country may enjoy. We, in our 
 comfortable homes, are horrified by hearing from the lips of men who profess to 
 lie American citizens, but who don't deserve the name — [great applause, and 
 cries of" < rood, good"] — we are horrified to hear now discouragement which should 
 be confined to the gin-shops, extended to the saloons and parlors of our Metropolis. 
 I, for one. and you, for many, feel that we ought to encourage the poor soldiers 
 that are placed in peril of their lives in this great struggle. J cannot look, except 
 with contempt and hate, and I desire no association, political or personal, witli 
 the man who does not aid — [great applause, and a voice. " Put that down, 
 Bennett,"] — I say 1 desire no association, political or personal, with any men 
 at the North who, at this momentous period of our history, are not in favor of 
 the suppression of this rebellion by all the power of the people. I had the honor 
 a few evenings since to address my fellow-citizens at Cooper Institute. Of course 
 I knew that the position that I took would be subject to repeated comment, and 
 if there be any young man within the reach of my voice's sound who is looking 
 forward to the time when, trembling, he may make his debut before a popular 
 assembly to .-peak on public subjects, I want to .-ay to him that there is but one 
 rule for any man who dares to address his fellow-beings to adopt, and that is, to 
 despise all censure when he feels that he is right. [Applause.] 1 have read — 
 for 1 delight to read -such observations about my course as are disparaging. It 
 is nothing to listen to the praise of friends. It is the echo of the love a man 
 hears in his infancy from the darling lips of his mother. [Applause.] It is 
 nothing to listen to praise, but it is wise to attend to criticism. If 1 know myself, 
 the most important duty I perform tor my own character is to see where an 
 honest man finds fault with my course. But 1 must say. and I am a little afraid 
 to say it, that my gallantry has been assailed in reference to my last speech. 
 [Laughter ami applause.] I did say. and 1 say it again, that though I had the 
 honor to address the loyal ladies of New-York in that assemblage, that I have 
 heard in the privacy of social intercourse, sentiments expressed by Northern 
 women, which my gallantry as a man would not permit me to censure, but, unbe- 
 coming that sex from which men derive their greatest encouragement in the hour 
 of peril, whether it belongs to the battle-field or the bedside. [Applause.] 
 One pious editor thought it was too gallant, and another editor, not so pious, but 
 who understands me much better, thought that I was a little too much gallant. 
 
64 
 
 All I liavo to say to both of them is, that my country is in peril. When the 
 Spartan mother. giving a shield to her son, 3aid, " Return with it or on it." there 
 was a lesson of history only equaled and sustained by thai other Spartan mother, 
 who. when her son told her thai bis Sword was too .-hoit. said : " Advance but 
 one step toward the enemy, and it will lie long enough for your purpose." 
 [Applause.] 1 know thai loyal women of the North agree to the sentiments 
 which 1 have thus feebly expressed, and I know that all the men in this assembly 
 —and would to God thai all the men in my country would — agree to thai motto 
 promulgated in the device upon (lie escutcheon of an old English aristocrat, who 
 honored and loved the land of his birth: " For the king often, for the country 
 always." 1 am told in whispers throughout the streets, in the reports which 
 good-natured friends always bring to you when they think you are assailed: I 
 have been told that it is .-aid thai I. who never li lqnged to any party — but the 
 Democratic -party — that I have deserted my party, i shall not take occasion 
 now to answer that, but there will a time come, and shortly, in this town, 
 when I shall do it. [Applause.] But, I have this to say, that if adherence to 
 the I >< mocratic party is to be purchased by turning my back upon the land of mv 
 birth and upon the hopes of thai land in the day of h r darkness and peril 1 
 despise it. [Thunders of applause, and three cheers for Brady.] 'I hey tell me 
 that some gentlemen in New-York are objecting to the prosecution of this war 
 because the administration is corrupt. I would like to amuse you if 1 had time 
 [cries ot '" Go on "] by telling you who are the people from whom this objection 
 comes, [applause,] the pure-minded disinterested patriots who think that A.brah m 
 Lincoln is dishonest. [Voices — "Fernando Wood." and great laughter and 
 applause.] I hear some names mentioned in this assembly which are highly 
 suggestive to my mind. [Renewed laughter and applause.] It is perfectly 
 exhilarating to a man who knows how the ridiculous and the serious always 
 associate themselves together in the great affairs of life — 1 say it is perfectly 
 exhilarating to me to find him who belongs to a crew that, in the language of 
 Shakspeare, are the reek of the rotten fens, coming out of the slough of debase- 
 ment with an odor of offence in his nostrils and complaining that there is no fresh 
 air in that neighborhood. [Great laughter.] To all those gentlemen, whether 
 they have occupied the position of Mayor or of Aldermen, [laughter and cries of 
 " Wood,"] I would say, in the language of that same great dramatist, " an ounce 
 of civet good apothecary." 1 remember that the city of Cologne, which produces 
 the perfume that no doubt has given fragrance to the handkerchief of many a 
 lady present, is remarkable in no degree for the sweet odors thai attach to it. 
 | Applause.] But I will not detain you a moment longer. It is my privilege and 
 my pleasure, and I have the honor to introduce to you as the next speaker on 
 this occasion. Ex-Senator Wright of Indiana. [Applause.] 
 
 SPEECH OF GOVERNOR WRIGHT. 
 
 Ex-Governor Weight on presenting himself was loudly cheered. He 
 
 said : 
 
 lie had two or three principles which he intended to put forth, and which he 
 would take for his government in 'his hour of his country's trial.-. And as the 
 President of the meeting had introduced the word Democracy, he would say that 
 true Democracy, while there was a traitor in the land, was war Democracy. 
 [Applause.] He went for no other type of Democracy. Tins war was now in 
 progress, and it was the du'y of loyal men to sustain the Government in this 
 hour of its crisis 
 
65 
 
 This was his first principle His second was, that no act of a temporary ruler 
 in this Administration could hazard the Government. This Government must 
 stand, and that man was not loyal to his country who would hazard his country 
 on account of any dislike to a temporary ruler. The ruler would? soon pass away, 
 but the Government would stand. His third proposition was, that if there was 
 any institution or organization in the way of this Government, that institution 
 had to fall. [Great cheering.] In other words, all institutions in this country 
 
 must give way to the Govern nt. And he began to doubt any man's loyalty 
 
 at a time like this, when he came up to him and talked about any institution what- 
 ever, for if anything was in the way of the Government — in the way of the 
 supremacy of the laws ami the maintenance of the Government — he said to him, 
 whether it be banks, railroads or slavery, they all must be put out of the way to 
 uphold the Government. The principle involved in this controversy might be 
 summed up in a few words, by an analogy between the Government and the 
 family. The man who commenced life must set up for himself; he must cast off 
 from those around him, and demonstrate his individuality. Then if he had 
 neighbors around him who were jealous of him, and threw difficulties in the way, 
 he must be able to maintain his individuality against all that surround him. And 
 the third great event in his life was. that when he became surrounded with a 
 family, if his son failed to follow the laws and instruction given to him by his 
 father, lie must maintain order, he must have peace within his walls; and there 
 was no hope for him as the head of the family unless he did this. We had 
 passed through two of these stasres. In the war of the great Revolution we 
 showed our own power and our ability to maintain our individuality as a nation. 
 We showed we could break off from the Mother country, and set up a govern- 
 ment in this New World. Then came the second great crisis, when we had to 
 show the nations of the earth that we had power to maintain our nationality 
 against not only Great Britain, but all other nations, in our own way. Now we 
 had reached the third epoch — the greatest event in the life of the nation. He 
 had been met in the courts of Europe, everywhere, by doubts as to the power of 
 a Republican Governmenl to maintain itself against internal rebellion. We must 
 show them now our ability to maintain our nationality. The principle of seces- 
 sion undermines the whole structure of our Government. It' Mr. Davis had based 
 his revolt on the proposition that he had been deprived of any of his rights, he 
 might have received some degree of favor: but when it was based upon the right 
 of secession, and that our fathers made a mere Confederacy, to be broken up at 
 pleasure, what was left ? It was a marriage contract, for the Constitution ex- 
 pressly said : — " We, the people of the United States, for the purpose of forming 
 a more perfect union, make a perpetual marriage :" and whom God hath joined 
 together let no man separate. [Loud applause.] If the principle upon which 
 the rebellion was founded were recognized, where were stocks and contracts? 
 Was there anything left for churches and school-houses? There was nothing 
 left but anarchy, despotism and ruin. [" That's so."] Cue of the most prolific 
 sources of opposition to the Government had been on account of the arrests that 
 had been made. In the Constitution we found the power to suspend the writ of 
 habeas corpusm time of rebellion and insurrection, when the public safety required 
 it. But it was said that tins power could only be given by Congress. He was 
 a Jackson Democrat. His first vote was given for Jackson. He believed that 
 tin' 1 "resident of the United States, on taking his oath to support the Constitution, 
 could determine for himself what, his power was. If he assumed power to which 
 he had no right, he could lie impeached. During a great portion of the year 
 Congress was in session, and it was claimed that when an enemy was committing 
 depredations, and the necessity was imminent, the President must wait three 
 months for Congress to give him authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. 
 That power was placed in the Constitution for this simple reason, that it was to 
 be exercised before the crime is perfect. But it was asked, hundreds of times, 
 why these men were not tried. There were thousands of reasons why they should 
 not be tried. Investigation of the case of nine of these prisoners out of ten might 
 
 9 
 
OG 
 
 show correspondence with other men in other countries or in this, which it is im- 
 portant that the Government should be acquainted with. There was not one of 
 these men who complained about not being tried who could not have been re- 
 leased on taking the oath of allegiance to the Government. [Cheers.] Was it 
 not remarkable that in this war not one man had been arrested during the 
 twenty-two months that it hud continued that could not have been released .-imply 
 by showing his loyalty in this manner ? II' there was any fault, it was that there 
 had not been enough ofthese arrests. [" That's so.'*] f Applause.] If he were 
 asked, when peace would come, lie would say that it would come the very hour 
 when traitors were punished and treason made odious. He feared it would never 
 come until that was done. He had no hope tor the country until the Government 
 would take hold of every disloyal man in the country, North and South, 
 and punish him. [Applause.] The subject in this country on which politicians 
 had made the most of capital was slavery. They said this war was carried on 
 with a view to interfere with the institution of slavery The only principle on 
 which our rulers could lie guided was. that all institutions in this country that 
 stand in the way of the Government must lie pot, out of the way. There was no 
 institution that was paramount to the Government. They said thai then 
 would monopolize the labor of the country. What was meant when it was said 
 that the policy of this Government was to make the black man our equal ? was 
 there any magic word by which he could perform anymore labor free than slave? 
 The policy of the Government was to carry out the Confiscation Act in its letter 
 and spirit ; and as the army went South, to confiscate the property of 
 rebel, the proceeds to be taken to colonize the black men when they are free. 
 [Great applause.] A great deal was said about the Proclamation, lie regarded 
 that simply as an experiment. There was never any great fact demonstrated 
 that it wa3 not first necessary to make an experiment, lie regarded thi 
 clamation as not coming from Abraham Lincoln as President, but as Commander- 
 in-( 'hief of the Army and Navy. lie had but exercised the same power that was 
 exercised by all parties engaged in war. In this he had only followed the ex- 
 ample of Napoleon, who said, " Strike wherever you can weaken your enemy.'' 
 [Loud cheers.] AYhere men go into war they must lie governed by the rules of 
 war. If a man commit treason, he must abide by the incidents of the crime of 
 treason. It was a singular thine' if. in carrying on this war. we found something 
 belonging to the enemy which we could not touch. [Applause.] If a man were 
 loyal, there was nothing he would not be willing to use to save his country. He 
 wouid use all the means and implements that God had given us. lie was willing 
 to put steel toe3 on mules; he would call into use the fangs of the rattlesnake, 
 and send them forth to strike wherever a rebel could be found. [Applause.] 
 The man who loved his party better than he loved his country was no patriot. 
 [Great applause.] The country could not be saved by a party; it was to be saved 
 by bullets, bayonets, and the whole North united. There was no hope for it in any 
 other way. [Applause.] When people talked about the Democratic party saving the 
 country, he would ask what branch of that party they might belong to ? Jefferson 
 had a Vice-President by the name of Purr. Jackson had a Vice-President by the 
 name of Calhoun, and they were all in the Democratic party. .Mr. Douglas was 
 a good Democrat, and so was Mr. Breckinridge; and perhaps tin.' most beautiful 
 scene in Mr. Douglas' life was when he went to Chicago to the wigwam where 
 his competitor was nominated, and as a private citizen, after being defeat .1 for 
 the Presidency, said to the people there assembled: "Stand by your country; 
 it is a question of Disunion or of Union, of 1 or of love to your country." 
 
 [Applause.] lie wanted to ask whether those who believed that Democracy 
 would save the country belonged to the party of Purr, and Calhoun, and Breck- 
 inridge, or of Jefferson, -Jackson and Douglas. [Laughter.] Had the 
 heard any of the men who were talking about President Lincoln's violations of 
 the Constitution say anything about Jeff. Davis' attempt, to overthrow the Con- 
 stitution? ["Never."] If Davis were there to answer, and if he would answer 
 honestly, he would say. when asked where he got his large armies, and in what 
 
67 
 
 Way lie had been able to effect such a union in the South of all classes upon one 
 object, that it was because he did not suffer any man in the South to be a candi- 
 date against him. Did any one ever hear of a man in the South being a candidate 
 for Congress against .Jeff. Davis' government. Jeff. Davis was supreme die 
 tator, and the North had to choose between that kind of government and the 
 kind of government of our lathers, because the South would either subdue the 
 North, or the North would subdue her. The war would end when three millions 
 of poor white men in the South understood this controversy; and they were 
 learning every day. Some said that the only way to keep the North and South 
 together was to preser\ e slavery. If there were any who believed that, he would 
 recommend them to go into the Union army at once, for if this war went on 
 much longer there would only be a few stumps of negroes left in the country. 
 [Laughter and applause.] He had no idea that any foreign nation would inter- 
 fere while large armies were organized: but, in his opinion, when the war ^ re- 
 solved itself into a guerrilla war, that moment there would be foreign intervention. 
 France and England would compel the guerrillas to stop. Mr. Douglas had said 
 that the rebellion was concocted in Buchanan's Administration. He thought so, 
 too, when lie remembered seeing so many of our ships in the Mediterranean, 
 instead of being at home. We should not be despondent, for we had now a per- 
 fect blockade, and more than one half of the territory claimed by the rebels was 
 under the stars and stripes to-night. [Great applause.] Be wanted to see the 
 Mississippi opened, and he believed il would be in sixty days, and the moment 
 that that was accomplished the great grass growing region of the South would 
 be shut off from the cotton States — we should have seized upon the heart of 
 rebeldom. He would not object to see one hundred thousand slaveholders sent 
 one way, and a million of negroes the other, if only the country could be saved. 
 The tide was setting fast in favor of negro troops. He believed there was not a 
 politician in New-York who, in twelve months, would not swear that he was 
 always in favor v\' putting a gun in the hands of the negro. [Laughter and ap- 
 plause.] There was not a body of Democrats in the North that dare lay down 
 any principle for this war. 
 
 Governor Weight read an extract from a letter written by the Consul-Genera] 
 at Frankfort-on-the-Main, wherein it was stated that large quantities of lint for 
 our wounded soldiers, and socks knit by women in various parts of Germany, were 
 collected there, and that in thirty days 25.000 men could be sent to join the 
 Union army — men who had served in the Italian and Crimean wars. [Loud cheers.] 
 
 We had to bring back the manhood of the nation and the patriotism of our 
 fathers. We had had too much prosperity, and we had not yet done our whole 
 duty as loyal men. He pointed to the benevolent institutions of the North as 
 one of the great sources of its strength. 
 
 In conclusion, lie alluded to a visit to a room in the Vatican of Rome, upon 
 the ceiling of which the flags of all nations were to lie seen. He looked them 
 over from the oldest to the youngest. "When he saw the Stars and Stripes, he 
 asked himself the question, why it was that our fathers were the first to put .-tars 
 in their Hag? The only answer that could be given was, that our fathers looked 
 up to God for help ; that they saw the stars and planted them in our banner. 
 [Loud and long-continued applause] 
 
 The Chairman, in a few eloquent remarks, then introduced Governor 
 
 Johnson, of Tennessee, who was received with loud and long continued 
 
 cheering', 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. ANDREW JOHNSON, OF TENNESSEE. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — You perceive without my announcing the fact, that I 
 am in no condition to address au audience like this on the present occasion, for 
 my voice and my health are alike unlit, from exposure to continued speaking, 
 
68 
 
 and the irregularities of the weather. But I think that I would perform the 
 better part by proposing that the meeting conclude at just this point. For, as- 
 suming that I was in a condition to speak, to address you on this important oc- 
 casion, I know that nothing I could say would add anything of interest to what 
 has been already said, both by the President of the meeting in his eloquent open- 
 ing remarks, and by the distinguished gentleman from Indiana, who has just 
 taken his seat. Really, I am serious when I say I think the meeting ought to 
 close right here, for it seems to me that this great audience has arrived at a 
 proper conclusion in reference to the rebellion that is now upon the country. 
 Not only my health and condition of my voice embarrass me on the present oc- 
 casion, but to be ushered before such a vast assembly as this, is well calculated 
 to embarrass the most experienced speaker. It is true that in coming to the 
 city of New-York, by invitation, for the purpose of making a speech, I expected 
 to see a large assemblage, such a one as New-York can furnish at any time, but 
 in presenting myself on this occasion I did not, I am frank to say, expect to meet 
 all creation assembled here to-night. [Laughter.] I laid no such hope, for I 
 knew if they all appeared it would be impossible for me to address them in a 
 voice sufficiently sonorous to be heard. I might add that my embarrassment is 
 increased on account of having to follow two such gentlemen. You have been 
 entertained and interested. I have been interested and instructed with what I 
 have heard here to-night. I feel confident that I cannot add anything to it, and 
 that the meeting should stop right at this time. [Voicks.— '' No." " No." 
 "We came to hear you." "Goon."] Ladies and Gentlemen, in presenting 
 myself, it seems to be the desire that I should proceed. I must premise, in the 
 first place, that if there are any, so far as Iain concerned, who have come here to 
 be entertained or highly edified by what is sometimes termed eloquence — one of 
 those sounding, rounding, bounding kind of speeches with rhetorical flourishes 
 and all that — I will notify them in the beginning that if they have come with that 
 expectation they will be disappointed. Let me say to this vast, intelligent as- 
 semblage, before I proceed, that if you have come with any such expectation as 
 that, you had better let yourselves down in the beginning, or you will be 
 disappointed in the end. [Mr. Wet.more.— " We want to hear a voice from 
 Tennessee." Applause ] In appearing before you to-night, I might ask the 
 question, In what condition is the country, and what has involved it in this 
 civil war, as it is sometimes termed ? I am not in the habit of calling this a 
 civil war. I am in the habit of calling it a rebellion. It was anticipated, and it 
 was provided for in the Constitution of the United States. It is a rebellion in 
 the proper constitutional sense, and it naturally comes up, Why is this rebellion ? 
 What has caused it ? Has any portion of our fellow-citizens, either in their State 
 capacity, or any less capacity, been deprived of their rights and privileges under 
 the Constitution of the United States, such as would justify them in rebelling 
 against the Government ? Let me make the inquiry hereto-night, and I am sure 
 that in the midst of this vast assembly there is some one that would be intelli- 
 gent enough to tell me if the fact exists — let me ask what State is it, or what 
 community is it, under the Constitution of the United States, that has been de- 
 prived of their rights and privileges? [Voices. — " None."] Can any one tell 
 what portion of our countrymen have been deprived of their legal or constitu- 
 tional rights. Who can tell ? Who can point it out ? Can they put their fin- 
 gers upon it ? Can they direct the attention of the country to it, so that we can 
 all see how those rights have been violated, and what remedy can be furnished ? 
 No one, I apprehend, will venture to point them out. Then, if no one has been 
 deprived of any rights, why this rebellion ? What reason was there, growing out 
 of the deprivation of the rights of any portion of the community? None. Yet 
 we have a rebellion. A rebellion is upon the country, and we are called upon, 
 in the words of the Constitution, to suppress it ; and the query comes up, Are 
 we going to divide the North and South, so as to deprive the Government of the 
 power of suppressing the rebellion, which was anticipated and provided for by 
 the Constitution of the United States ? It is a rebellion, as was correctly re- 
 
69 
 
 marked, the other night, and has already been thrown out here in substance, 
 and is hardly necessary for me to repeat it, but in the line of what I 
 shall say I shall refer to it. We have a rebellion now which involves this 
 Government in its greatest struggle. This Government, like all other govern- 
 ments, has three prime ordeals through which it must pass. First, it must 
 struggle into existence — it lias been formed. Your Government was estab- 
 lished before the Constitution ; it had a position among the nations of the 
 earth as a nation ; it succeeded in passing through the first ordeal. It 
 reached its nationality. Then, the next ordeal through which it was com- 
 pelled to pass was to maintain its nationality among the other nations of 
 the earth. We had the war of 1812 ; we had the war with Mexico ; we have 
 a contest with traitors to the country at this time; and when 1 see sitting 
 around me distinguished men who have been engaged in some of these ordeals 
 for the preservation of the Government, it inspires me with hope and confidence 
 that we shah pass through the third. | Applause.] We find that in the war of 
 1812 we succeeded, and in the war with Mexico we confirmed the opinion 
 throughout the civilized world that we are capable of maintaining our nationality 
 against the nations of the earth. Then, coming up to the present time, we come 
 to the third ordeal, and that is the one through which we are now passing. This 
 ordeal through which we are now passing is, contending with intestine foes, with 
 internal weakness, with treason and traitors at home. Then the question arises : 
 Will we in this third ordeal, to which all nations musl he subjected, show our- 
 selves worthy of our ancestors, who have brought the nation safely through the 
 two that are passed ? Will we now begin to falter? Will we now yield in this 
 third struggle 1 Have we become destitute of that manhood that was handed 
 down to us by our fathers, and which we should now show that we possess ? 
 Has our blood grown thin, has it become pale, and have we become so degener- 
 ate that a Government, the best that the world ever saw, handed down to us by 
 our fathers — that we are now prepared to surrender it ? If we are. we are not 
 worthy descendants of those who have gone before, and the time has come when 
 we should acknowledge that we are not capable of self-government, and that we 
 are iit and ready to receive the yoke of the tyrant. I feel confident in my own 
 heart that the time has not arrived, but that, in passing through this ordeal, we 
 will show to the world, as we have assured them, that our manhood is left, and 
 that our nationality will be preserved, and that, after we shall have passed through 
 this ordeal, there will be a great deal of Governmenl left, and that it will be 
 fixed upon a firmer and more enduring base than that upon which it has hereto- 
 fore rested. [Applause.] 
 
 But, the query comes up to some, how are we to get through this third ordeal ? 
 How can this question be settled? Ton know that in the beginning of this 
 thing the siren song that was sung was, " N"o coercion, no enforcement of the 
 law: each of the States must be left to act for itself." That was the song that 
 was sung then. Now that the rebellion is upon us — without going into detail, 
 war is upon us, blood has been shed, lives have been sacrificed and our treasury 
 has been expended — now what do we hear? They have got by '■enforcement of 
 the law " and " coercion of a .State," and. after the rebellion has been waged and 
 the war carried on, now we have a set of croakers or sympathizers with treason 
 among us, who say the true way to pass the Government through this third 
 ordeal is - Compromise ! Armistice!" Compromise! Armistice! Are we pre- 
 pared for this? The very instant you talk about compromise, you repudiate the 
 idea of preserving the existence of the Government. The very moment you 
 compromise with traitors in arms, you acknowledge and indorse the rebellion. 
 [Applause.] The very moment you propose an armistice or make one, the 
 moment you talk of concession and settling the question by compromise or by 
 proposing armisl ice, you but acknowledgi ■ the rel >ellion. Such a precedent offered , 
 any portion of the country being permitted to judge of and adjudicate upon its 
 own wrongs, I admit and acknowledge that the Government is overthrown and 
 that rebellion is triumphant in the land. Yes, compromise! compromise! I 
 
70 
 
 repeat this term many times when I am talking upon this subject — compromise! 
 Who are we called upon to compromise with ? There stands the traitor, the 
 rebel, upon the violated Constitution, with "compromise" in his hands, the 
 bayonet a1 your bosom, the sword al your throat, and he talks about compromise ! 
 I repeal again, ha- all your manhood departed ?— has your blood grown thin and 
 pale, that you cower and shrink before traitors and before this rebellion that is 
 upon the land ? [f you are prepared to do it. you are not worthy of the name of 
 freemen. Bui "compromise!" and they say -those who use this term — thai we 
 can propose a compromise and settle this question. I should like to see these 
 compromisers come and -it a1 this table and put upon paper the terms and con- 
 ditions upon which this question can be settled. [Applause.] Itis very easy 
 to talk : it is very easy to find fault ; \itv easy to urge objections : but now let 
 us reduce it to a practical operation, and put your theory down upon pa] 
 let a- see if ihey will accept them. You assume the compromising position, and 
 while you are talking about, compromising, they are putting you at defiance, 
 sneering at and feeling contempt for every proposition you talk about making. 
 All this thing about compromising is a mere pretexl ; a i many 
 
 other things have been. In the beginning, when the intention was to breakup 
 the Government, a plausible excuse was needed, and all this aboul compromise 
 now is a pretext. Compromise! Compromise with traitors ! Let me ask you, 
 when you talk aboul compromise, are you going to the Southern States, which 
 are now under the control of traitors ? Would you compromise with them, and 
 take their necks out of the halter, and reinstate them ? What do you do with 
 the down-trodden Union men who are struggling ' itutional liberty? 
 
 [Applause.] Yes, these men that are here in your midst talking about com- 
 promise — you hear them talking aboul oppressions; and Union men who are 
 trembling beneath the iron heel of power— do you hear them talk about their con- 
 dition, of having any sympathy with them. Are the Union ffi ve the 
 halter put about their necks, when you compromise with Jell*. Davis and his 
 
 band of ( spirators and traitors? Compromise with the South ! We havenot 
 
 come here merely to appeal to your sympathy, but we came here to demand our 
 constitutional rights. We appear before you hereto-night insisting upon the high 
 behests which they make. [Applause.] We find, without going into detail, for 
 I do not mean to consume much of your time after what has been said, when we 
 contemplate the terms of the ( institution — that great chart of human freedom — 
 what de we find ? Thai the United States shall, not may, guarantee to every 
 State in the Union, a Republican form of Government. [Applause.] We come 
 with the Constitution; we insist upon the enforcemi nt ol its guarantees, and we 
 demand of the United States, in the name of the Constitution, a Republican 
 form of Governmenl ; and, in doing that, we demand that the rebellion .-hall be 
 put down. [Applause.] We find that rebellions were anticipated when this 
 provision was put into the Constitution to guarantee to each and every Si 
 this Union a Republican form of Government. We find that the Constitution 
 say.-, that the piivilege of the wril of h beas corpus was only to be suspended in 
 times of rebellion or invasion. We see there that rebellion was anticipated, at 
 the same time carrying along with it the idea that each State in this Confederacy 
 must be secured in a Republican form of government. Tl y, what the 
 
 Constitution provide.-, that the writ may be suspended in time of rebellion, and 
 that the United State- is bound to guarantee to each State in this Union, a Re- 
 publican form of Government. Thai i- what we ask. And, in the name of a 
 bleeding country and a violated Constitution, we stand before you to-nighl plead- 
 ing for a Republican form of Government. [Applause.] 
 
 But after the rebellion has been commenced, the Constitution violated, then 
 the cry is '• compromise," " compromise." A great complaint, as my distin- 
 guished friend has told you, has been made about th ■ suspension of the writ of 
 •■. Still, there is one thing clear, that somebody has the right orthe 
 power to suspend it. It can be done in time of rebellion. There is another 
 thingthat is admitted by all, that there are ,, greal m my in the land who ought 
 
71 
 
 to be arrested, and we believe the writ, in this case, ought to be suspended 
 [Applause.] When there is a large number of persons in the land trying to 
 divide and break up the Government, ought they not to be arrested ? and must 
 not somebody exercise that power ? All admit that it ought to be exercised ; 
 yet the query comes up : Who shall exercise it? But who is it that complains 
 of the exercise of this power ? Is there any man throughout this vast assembly that 
 hasn't any treason lurking in his bosom, who fears being arrested ? Is there one? [A 
 Voice. — " No."] Why, then, complain ? Who isittbat complains ? [A Voice. — 
 "Jeff. Davis."] It is those who are apprehensive, because treason is lingering 
 in their bosoms. 1 am not in the habit of telling anecdotes. If I were, I would 
 tell one that used to be told of Lorenzo Dow. [" Go on. let's have it."] He was 
 going to preach a sermon on the Sabbath, ami, as he went along a man stopped 
 him by <he way-side and told him that some one had stolen his axe. Well, Dow 
 looked at him. " Well," said he. " I am going to preach a sermon up here, and I 
 will settle all this." In going along to the meeting-house he found a round stone 
 weighing about a pound and a halt, picked it up, carried it to the meeting-house 
 with him. and laid it down on the pulpit ; this, of course, attracted much attention. 
 Alter he had preached the sermon, he picked up the stone, looked at it and 
 turned it over and over, and said: •' 1 have been informed by my neighbor," 
 calling him by name. " that he had his axe stolen last- night: this stone weighs a 
 pound and a half, and 1 intend to knock down the man that stole that axe.'' And 
 throwing himself forward, there was one fellow dodged down behind the seat. 
 [ Laughter.] Said he : " That is the man that stole the axe ;" and if you want 
 to find out traitors just look round, and shake a writ pus, [laughter 
 
 and applause,] and you will see them dodge, and shrink, and complain every- 
 where, or wherever they are. And the only objection 1 have to President Lin- 
 coln and his Cabinet officials upon this subject is, that they have not arrested 
 nough. [Applause.] And so far as complaint goes in reference to Presi- 
 dent Lincolnand his Cabinet in the pr if this war, those complaints have 
 no weight with me whatever, and 1 repeat again, the only fault ] have to find with 
 them is. that ih y have not done more to put down this rebellion. [Applause.] 
 But in the many objections urged againsl the Administration by those who are 
 trying to destroy tin' Government — with all their complaints of a violated Con- 
 stitution, the law set aside, the public being plundered by coalitions of every de- 
 scription — do you hear these State croakers ami sympathizers make the inquiry 
 whether Jeff. Davis and his traitors have violated the Constitution? [-'No."] 
 Do you hear them talk about the South trying to form foreign alliances ? Why, 
 the Constitution, in language, not to be misunderstood, has expressed that no 
 State shall enter into any other treaty with any State, or form alliances with 
 a foreign power. Vet by the Confederacy alliances have been attempted to be 
 formed with foreign Powers. Do you hear any complaint from these gentlemen ? 
 Now to sum it all up — not to go into detail, for the sake of the argument, sup- 
 pose it were trim that President Lincoln and his Cabinet officers had violated 
 the Constitution of the L T nited States, if they could prove a violation of the 
 Constitution at all, it would be a violation of it tor the preservation of it, and to 
 rescue it from those who would destroy it. [Applause,] But those banded 
 traitors that stand with impious bands upon the archives of the State, to pull 
 that great instrument, that great chart of freedom, from its abiding place, tear it 
 in pieces, trample it under foot, there is no complaint of their violations, but the 
 cry still is for compromise, compromise ! Do yon know what was Gen. Jack- 
 son's position upon this subject in 1832 ? And you know most of us Tennessee 
 people think that when we die we will go to Gen. Jackson. [Laughter.] I 
 would to God that the old man were among us now. |-' Good," and applause.] 1 
 wish he were her'-, with the long list of patriots that [ could enumerate. [Ap- 
 plause.] If he had been here at the commencement of this rebellion, he would 
 have crushed it. as he did that in L832 — as easy as he would tread the spark out 
 upon the mountain, or turn the rill aside. It seems to me, were it possible for 
 intelligence to be communicated to the dead, and that old man could be made 
 
72 
 
 aware of what is now transpiring — if he could see treason stalking abroad, and 
 hear a repetition of the nefarious and diabolical doctrines that he crashed out in 
 L832 it seems to me that the old man would turn in his coffin. .An incident. 
 was related to me by William Donelson- not Andrew J. — who lives near the 
 Hermitage, thai after visiting his tomb, to plant at its head the Stars and 
 Stripes, the old man reverently, and with tears in his eyes, said thai when he saw 
 them plant the flag, he expected to see the entombed jump out of his coffin. 
 ( Applause.] 
 Hence, were il possible for intelligence to be communicated to the dead, it 
 
 seems to me that the old man would arise from the tomb and repeat his emphatic 
 
 sentiment :" The Federal Union — it musl be preserved." When my Govern- 
 ment is imperiled I care not who strikes the blow, my arm is raised against him, 
 and I would Bay, in this connection, whether he is Whig or Democrat, Republi- 
 can or American. 1 would not let him ruthlessly stain the altar of my country. 
 ••The Compromise." " And if you had given us Mr. Crittenden's Compromise, 
 all this trouble would have been avoided." Thai seems to be a staple opinion of 
 many. Lei as examine it for a short time, and see how it would have resulted. 
 If you will give me your attention, 1 will pin this statement of croakers and 
 compromisers as spurious coin. Who defeated the Crittenden Compromise? 
 When the main issue came up, Mr. Clark, of New I [ampshire, offered an amend- 
 menl to the Compromise ; the ayes and nays were called ; J was there and took 
 a pari in this thing. 1 say it simply to .-how that I am familiar with the transac- 
 tion — then it was before the Senate, the amendment, was offered and the last 
 vote was to be had — the ayes and nays were called — there was the South, there 
 was the North, there was' the Compromise, and there was the issue, and the 
 struggle was, Shall the Compromise be passed? Mr. Clark's amendment was 
 pending, the ayes and nays were called, the result announced, and the vote was 
 •Jf> for the amendment and 23 against it. Your attention — let us gel the facts 
 right -the amendment was adopted defeating Mr. Crittenden's Compromise by 
 two votes. Now why was it defeated? As soon as it was defeated Senators 
 went from their places to the telegraphic lines, and upon the wings of the 
 lightning i1 was sent over the South that there was no hope — that the Com- 
 promise was lost. Yes, it fell upon the nation as the sound of lire bells falls 
 upon the city at night. The compromise was lost, all was gone, and the South 
 had no protection whatever. How does the fact stand ? Let us see that, and 
 then we will see into this pretext. Who was there? You say if you could have 
 got Crittenden's compromise you could have settled this question. Four atten- 
 tion, and 1 will nail you to the counter. I will put the nail in, and before I am 
 done I will clinch it on the other side, if you hear me. [Applause.] There it 
 was, the existence of the nation suspended and trembling in the balance as it 
 wire, and who was there and refused to accept the compromise ? 0. it was these 
 monstrous Black Republicans — it was somebody else -Abolitionists — but how 
 does the fact stand? Who was there who refused this Compromise? There 
 stood one Judah Benjamin, who was well prepared to be a traitor from his early 
 history and profession. He was in the Senate of the United States, under the 
 obligations of the rules of the House and the Constitution, to discharge his duty 
 as a Senator to the country. Watching the ayes and noes as they were called, 
 to see what, the result would be. and to communicate it to the South, he, with 
 John Slidell, Roberl W. Johnson and three others, there they stood, seeing that 
 those votes being withheld would adopt Mr. Clark's amendment, and defeat the 
 Crittenden proposition — six Southern Senators in their places when the vote 
 stood 23 to 25, stood there and refused to vote, violating the Constitution and 
 rules of the Senate, and permitted Mr. Clark's amendment to be adopted, and 
 then telegraphed it to the whole country that all hope was gone — that the Com- 
 promise was lost. Mr. Benjamin stood before me when he refused to vote, and 1 
 saw his game, and I said to him, '• Mr. Benjamin, whydon't you vote?" And he 
 replied rather abruptly, thai he should not consult me or any other Senator as 
 to how or win n he should vote. Said [," Vote, and comply with the Constitution 
 
73 
 
 and rales of the Senate, and show that you are an honest man, and don't practice 
 this deception on the country." [Applause.] Then we see— and the facts are 
 so, and I defy refutation— that the South itself rejected the Crittenden Com- 
 promise, and would not have it. To be serious upon this subject, as I try to be 
 upon all subjects of importance, they did not want any compromise —a com- 
 promise was the last thing that they desired — their object was to reject it, 
 thereby keeping up the pretext that Southern rights were violated, and that 
 they had some just cause for going into this rebellion, and dividing the Govern- 
 ment. Now, what becomes of thai class of our croakers aboui the Crittenden 
 Compromise? They had it in their power to take it, and if they would not 
 receive il then. I should like to know what assurance you have that they will 
 receive it now. [Applause.] 1 should like to know what medium you com- 
 municate with the Southern Confederacy through? Who is it that carries 
 intelligence there, and brings it back'.' [Cries of "Brooks, Brooks," and 
 " Wood."] Who are these thai are in such confidence with the Southern Con- 
 federacy, that they know what theywill accept? [A Voice. — " Fernando Wood."] 
 Whether it is done by underground railroad, or upon some unknown telegraphic 
 wire, I cannot tell : but there is one thing — it begins to indicate who is pretty 
 closely connected with this conspiracy and rebellion, [applause,] and just in 
 proportion as you can trace them up, ami begin to see their connection with the 
 language of my friend, don't you see it is pretty near time for the Govern- 
 ment to begin to make some arrests. [Applause.] And I can tell you, my 
 countrymen, that arrests are not the only thing that ought to be made 
 in this struggle of the nation's life. [Greal applause, and cries of "Good, 
 good."] The time has come, not for stopping this thine- by mere arrests, but the 
 time has come when some healthy hanging should be done. [Great applause. 
 and cries of "Good, good."] Then, we see upon the Crittenden Compromise 
 where they stand ; we see their hypocrisy in this thine'. Now let us follow this 
 thing along a little further. I think we have got the nail in there — what next ? 
 Are they still for a compromise ? Will you permit me to call your attention to 
 what was done by the same Congress? I have it here ; Mr. Thomas Corwin, 
 from a Free State, a member of the House of Representatives, offered an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, proposing to make it the 13th Article. You know 
 when you turn to the Constitution of the United States, that there are some parts 
 of it that are unamendable — notwithstanding it provides for its own amendment 
 and perpetuity, there are some provisions in the Constitution that are unamend- 
 able : for instance, after going on and stating what three-fourths of the States, or 
 two-thirds of both Houses of Congress can do. there is a proviso made that no 
 State shall ever be deprived of its Senators in Congress — that is a part of the 
 Constitution that is unamendable. Mr. Corwin proposed to make another amend- 
 ment to the Constitution that was unamendable. Your attention. What was 
 that ? He proposed to make the 13th Article of the Constitution, that in all 
 future time the Constitution could not be amended in reference to the subject of 
 Slavery, or persons held to service in tin' several States. Xow, so far as Slavery 
 is concerned, can you have a better, a si ranger or a more secure guarantee than a 
 provision of the Constitution, saying that in all future time the Constitution 
 shall not be so amended as to enable Congress to legislate upon the subject at 
 all. Come up here to the table, write down your proposition— can you make 
 one more secure than making it constitutional and making it irrevocable through 
 all time to come — can you do it ? That was introduced into Congress ; and what 
 became of it? It passed by a two-third vote; of the Senate and House of Rep- 
 resentatives, submitting it to the States for their ratification. You compromisers, 
 why don't you take it ? There it is— it is now proposed to all the States of this 
 Union. Why don't you take it and adopt it ? You say you want to go down 
 South to carry your compromise ; there is one, now submit it to the States. 
 Please tell me what State or where these compromisers have come forward and 
 proposed to amend the Constitution and secure the rights of the South upon the 
 subject of Slavery ? Why don't you take it. and these Legislatures that are 
 
 10 
 
7^ 
 
 getting up their resolutions, why don't they take that amendment and adopt it. 
 and make it part of the Constitution of the country ? No, you want to complain - 
 find fault with what you conceive to be the blunders and mishaps of the Admin- 
 istration — and appeal to party bias, and organize a party for the sake of setting 
 power and place, at the expense and sacrifice of your < lovernment. [Applause. | 
 And let me say in this connection in going along, to you that want to organize 
 a party upon the ruins of your country and the blunders and mishaps of the 
 Administration as you conceive them to be ; let me tell you that when your 
 organization is made, its foundation is .-and, and when the winds come and tins 
 storms descend, it will be swepl away. [Applause.] Well, we see, then, that 
 there is a compromise ; can anybody make a better one '. Now let me follow this 
 thing a step farther, and what else do we find? A great deal was said about 
 the Territories, and our rights in the Territories ; there has been a great deal of 
 play upon this thing, and the public mind has been bamboozled and deceived 
 in reference to it. What was done in reference to it in this very same Congi 
 
 There were three bills introduced, establishing three territorial governments — 
 Colorado. Kacotah and Nevada — embracing every square inch of territory owned 
 by tin' United States, and I beg your attention here : and the Gth Section of 
 each bill, after conferring the power of legislation upon the legislature, then en- 
 ters into the negative, and what does it say? It says that the territorial legisla- 
 ture have no power to legislate so as to impair the right to private property, or 
 to tax one description of property higher than another of equal value. Now, 
 what does that do? That covers all the Territory. It is an amendment of the 
 Constitution. What is private property? What have the Courts decided it to 
 be? Why, if a man had gone into the Territories with his negroes, they cannot 
 legislate so as to impair his right to his private property. These three bills were 
 passed. They were made the law of the land. They are now the law of the 
 land. Why don't you come forward and take them ? Do you want any better 
 compromise ? Why don't you take the amendment to the ( 'onstitution ? Why 
 did not you adopt the Crittenden compromise? And in following this along, 
 does not the mind reach the conclusion irresistibly, that it has all been a pretext 
 and nothing more ? [Applause.] Now upon the question of Southern rights, 
 where is the cause, and the excuse, and the justification of this nefarious rebel- 
 lion that this country is now involved in ? < iompromise ! < lompromise ! Don't 
 we see what they mean by compromise ? it is the half-way house to the traitor's 
 habitation. [Applause.] It is the incipient steps of treason, (applause.) and if 
 indulged and countenanced, these men will end in the traitor's camp — that is 
 where they will go. [Applause.] Yes. compromise! No, I say. never — I 
 thank you for the word— compromise with traitors. No, never! [Applause!] 
 Will you have right compromise with wrong ? [A A r oicE. — " Never."] Will you 
 have truth compromise with falsehood ? will you have virtue compromise with 
 vice ? Would you have Deity — would you have had Him who rules heaven and 
 all that is celestial, when his Satanic Majesty, the Prince of Darkness, rebelled 
 in heaven and the war was waged there, would you have had the Deity stop and 
 compromise with the Devil ? [Applause. | Would you have had Him act as he 
 did, and eject him from heaven, and hurl him to the nether regions, where he re- 
 sides? [Applause.] Compromise! When you have made a compromise, you 
 have compromised the life of the Government away ; you have acknowledged the 
 rebellion and the overthrow and weakness of your Government. But the ques- 
 tion is asked me frequently, arc you not for a settlement of this question? Yes, 
 I am. Are you not for tying up these bleeeding arteries ? Yes, 1 am. Are you 
 not for stopping these battles when freedom itself seems to be staggering through 
 blood and carnage? Are you not for stopping all this? Yes, I am. Is there 
 no way by which you will settle it ? Yes, there is ? And how is that ? Why 
 it can be settled in eight and forty hours — life can be saved, blood can be stopped, 
 the expenditure of t he national resources cease — and how ? Just by simply com- 
 plying with the laws and Constitution of the United States. [ Applause.] 
 
 This is my compromise. It is the Constitution of the United States, framed 
 
by the patriots of the Revolution, with Washington at their head. [Applause.] 
 The Constitution sealed with your fathers' blood, and sustained with their treas- 
 ure and their lives, is the compromise that I offer to them. [Applause.] They 
 tried it from its adoption down to the day of the rebellion, and found it a good 
 compromise, and under it they were protected in all their rights to property, life 
 and liberty. None of them were violated, but they enjoyed all until we had 
 reached that point — a prosperity that had not a parallel in the civilized world. 
 But this thing was determined on, and J could introduce authority after authority 
 that show that it was in contemplation forty years, and the main object was to 
 avail themselves of Mr. Lincoln's coming into power as a favorable opportunity 
 to do what they had long contemplated. Must we break up the Government in 
 every Presidential contest, because one or the other of the parties must be defeat- 
 ed ? Are we to become like Mexico ? But when we come to look at this thing, 
 the true issue and the great struggle going on in this Government, is for a free 
 government or a monarchy with aristocracy — that is the struggle; and I could 
 call your attention to a paragraph in the President's Message, which is as true as 
 holy writ — it is the struggle office Government. And all these other things I have 
 alluded to are merely pretences. And now let me say that some people do not 
 appreciate that I am in the habit of referring to facts which I think are worthy 
 of reference. Shortly after Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presidency — and permit 
 me to say that I did all I could against his election — spoke against him, voted 
 against him, opposed his coining into power : but when he was elected according 
 to the forms of the Constitution, I said let Mr. Lincoln have a fair trial. [Ap- 
 plause.] If he did well, let the nation indorse and approve : if his administra- 
 tion was wanting and inefficient, let the nation turn him out, and put somebody 
 else in, according to the forms of the law and the Constitution. [Applause.] 
 But what I was going to relate is, that the issue is, as the President himself 
 makes it — a struggle for a free Government. J came on to Washington shortly 
 after the election in November. I was there about the first of December, and 
 had a conversation with Mr. Philip Clayton, of Georgia, who was an associate of 
 Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Cobb, you know, was Secretary of the Treasury, [laughter,] 
 and a beautiful set they were, [laughter,] and we got to arguing this question, 
 about the change of Administration and the coming into power of Mr. Lincoln, 
 and I thought, as most of us do, that 1 had driven him to the wall, for I had 
 pressed him so hard. At last he exclaimed, " To be serious about this thing, 
 Mr. Johnson, a large proportion of the people of Georgia are not prepared to 
 submit to the Administration of any man coming up from the ranks of the 
 people as Abraham Lincoln has." 
 
 1 thought I saw through the whole thing then ; I thought J understood them, 
 that they had become tired of free Government and had become fearful of trust- 
 ing the institutions of this Government, to the great mass of the people, and that 
 the time had come at which they would change it. Well, I am free to say this, 
 that 1 am opposed to an aristocracy. I am for this Government as it is, and if 
 it requires alteration let if be amended according to the Constitution of the 
 United States. [Applause.] 1 am opposed to an aristocracy of money, of 
 banks, of railroads, or monopolies of any kind. I am opposed to a sort of brain- 
 less aristocracy resting upon decayed family reputation. While I say this, though 
 it may seem somewhat paradoxical, I am in favor of an aristocracy,— yes, I am 
 in favor of an aristocracy of virtue, of talent, of intelligence, of merit, of worth. 
 [Applause.] I am in favor of an aristocracy of labor. [Applause.] That 
 which elevates the great mass of mankind i3 the aristocracy 1 am in favor of. 
 [Applause.] Let each and every man. without regard to antecedents, rise and 
 stand upon his own intrinsic worth and merit, [applause,] and whether Mr. Lin- 
 coln came from the cabin or castle it mattered not with me, the question was 
 whether he came according to the form of law? [Applause.] And to show 
 still further this pretext, don't we know and don't we see from the South having 
 it in its power to adopt all these propositions, that it was a mere pretext, and 
 that they wanted to avail themselves of a favorable occasion ? What was it that 
 
76 
 
 Lincoln could do after be came in that would be injurious to the South? Had 
 not we a majority of six in the Senate? What could Mr. Lincoln have done? 
 and did I not tell gentlemen so upon tin; floor — " Stay, and if you think you have 
 wrongs — if the South have been trampled upon- stay and let us fight this battle 
 inside of the Constitution, and not in violation of it. [Applause.] And if any 
 attempts are made or measures adopted inimical to tin: South, we have the power 
 in our hands." What was it that .Mr. Lincoln could have done that we could 
 not have arrested he came into power with his hands crossed; he could not. 
 make his Cabinet unless we wanted it. We could have rejected every nomina- 
 tion he sent in there. Why did not we stay there and do it, if there was any wrong? 
 Why did we go out, and try to break up the Government? It shows that we 
 wanted to break up the; Government. 1 say " we ;" J don't belong to that party 
 — [laughter] — but, the South ; he could not seud a Minister abroad, unless it 
 was confirmed by our consent. Where, then, was the danger? And if he 
 sent one abroad, and he made a treaty that was inimical and unfriendly to our 
 institution-, it could not become n treaty of the land unless adopted by 
 two thirds of the Senate. Where, then, was the danger? He could not 
 even send a Consul, he could not draw his $25,000 to furnish his house, and buy 
 his meat and bread, unless we appropriated it. Where was the great danger, 
 then, of Lincoln's coming into power? But it showed that we were acting the 
 hypocrite, and that we were playing false to the country and violating the Con- 
 stitution we had been sworn to support. [Applause.] But they became satisfied 
 that even if Mr. Lincoln was turned out in four years, tin' prospects of .left'. 
 Davis and Bob Toombs and Jack Slidell for greatness in tins country, were 
 dwindling and diminishing in the distance, [applause ;] that there were others 
 coming up who were making their way into the hearts and affections of the great 
 mass of the people, and that after Mr. Lincoln went out they were to be excluded 
 — hence we were trying to destroy the Government and to set up a Southern 
 aristocracy. Now, in connection with what has been said on this subject of 
 negroes, I am a Southern man. I have owned slaves, and when this infernal, this 
 nefarious, this diabolical, this hell-born and hell-bound rebellion broke out, 
 [applause,] I owned ten negroes that would sell for as much money as 
 any other ten that will be found within the limit of that State, but, by 
 way of securing to me my peculiar Southern rights, they took them and 
 appropriated them to their own use, [laughter,] and my 'wife and children 
 were turned into the street, and the house and lot and other property, 
 the result of the industry of my own hands, were converted into barracks 
 and hospitals for butternuts. This is the way they give rights, and I don't think 
 they ought to have much right to complain. But in connection with what has 
 been said, let me say to you that my Democracy was learned in the school of 
 Jefferson and Jackson. Thomas Jefferson believed that traitors ought to be 
 hung, and tried to hang Aaron Burr. Jackson believed the same thing, and if 
 it had not been for the kindly interposition of friends — and it was said by some 
 it was Mr. Clay — he would have hanged John C. Calhoun as high as Hainan. 
 I am for punishing traitors — men who are enemies to their Government — and 
 while 1 say that I am a Jackson and Jeffersonian democrat, 1 say along in that 
 line, that no Government can, and, especially a free Government, tolerate 
 institutions that are paramount and stand above the Government itself. [Cheers.] 
 I care not, as has been repeated here to-night, whether it rises in the shape of 
 banks, or tariffs, or monopolies of this, or the other kind, or whether it comes in 
 the shape of the institution of slavery - 1 say, if they come in the way of the 
 threat car of state — this free Government, in moving the car of state along— 
 banks, tariffs, monopolies, stock-jobbers, and slavery, and negro owners, musl gel 
 out of the way. [Loud cheers.] Hence, I am for the supremacy of the Con- 
 stitution. [Cheers.] 1 am for the enforcement, of the laws, and, if in resisting 
 the Constitution, and in enforcing the laws, slavery, like any other institution, gets 
 in the way, it must get out of the way for the existence of the Government. 
 [Loud applause.] J mean to say this : 1 am for the Government as organized 
 
and established by the Constitution. [Tremendous applause.] I am for it as it 
 was handed down to us by our forefathers. [Cheers. J I am for it with slavery. 
 I am for it without slavery. [Loud applause.] That is to say: I am for the 
 Government. If anything else is to be sacrificed, if property is to he lost, if 
 blood aud lives are to be sacrificed, 1 say let it be done, but preserve this 
 Government. What is all this worth without Government ? What is your 
 property worth without Government? Have you any stability or security 
 without Government? Better obliterate everything we have than to give up 
 Government. Let us hold on to what we have. Because we can begin the race 
 anew with these great principles, which I believe are indestructible, emanating 
 from God himself, and taking the form of organic law — I believe under their 
 divine influence that, in a short time, we will again build ourselves up, and com- 
 mence to inarch again among the nations of the earth. [Cheers.] Hence, I am 
 for Government with or without slavery. [Applause.] I do not make use of 
 the expression in an unkind sense ; but rather than see this Government destroyed, 
 I would send every descendant of the African, bond and free, back to his own 
 native land. Yes, and, if necessary, rather than see this great experiment of 
 free Government fail, I would see Africa itself separated from the other quarters 
 of the globe, and, if there were no danger of disturbing its balance, float off into 
 space, constituting a sphere or a body separate and distinct to it, and, if that 
 would not do, I would see it pass to that point at which gravitation shifts itself, 
 rather than the destruction of this Government. [Loud cheers.] Let us 
 stand by the Government — the Government of our fathers! [Cheers.] It is 
 very easy for us to find fault with' those who are in authority, and, as I have said, 
 to get up opposition and to organize a party. But it seems to me to be our first 
 duty to save the country, and then to talk about party. [Cheers.] Aud let me 
 ask compromisers a question : Suppose, for instance, that the rebellion succeeds ? 
 You have sympathized with them ; you are committed to them. And suppose 
 they succeed, let me ask you, what use they have for you? Will you go there, 
 or stay there ? They have no home for you, and will only treat you with contempt. 
 Suppose our own Government, and this is but a supposition, succeeds in putting 
 down this rebellion, as it will do, where will you go then ? I reckon there will 
 be some secession done here then. But 1 will detain you but a few minutes 
 longer. Now, I will ask in good faith, if you settle this question by compromise, 
 what can you do with the Union men of the South ? If these traitors are restored 
 to power, half of the Union men having manifested their devotion to the Flag of 
 their Government, whatis to become of them ? I come back to the Constitution 
 and demand the republican form of government for them ; but, if you restore 
 traitors, you consign every oue of these men to the most degrading punishment 
 that can be inflicted upon them. If Southern men have sacrificed their property, 
 have been murdered, who are now scattered in the mountains fleeing from their 
 tyranny, are you going to compromise these Union men, and hand them over to 
 traitors. 1 suppose the humble individual who addresses you will be the first 
 man suspended with a piece of hemp. And what for? What are they to be 
 hanged for? What are they to be abandoned by their government for ? Because 
 they have manifested a devotion to the Stars and Stripes which have guided 
 your brave men and gallant officers through all their perils. [Cheers.] Is this 
 the reward that they are to receive at the hands of their Government? If it is, 
 it seems to me to be a poor reward for loyalty. Carry to that people protection. 
 Again unfurl your Stars and Stripes, and they will show you their allegiance to 
 their government in acts and deeds th.it are unmistakable. [Cheers.] Go there 
 now, and see what is their condition, claiming protection under the Government. 
 Females are insulted, their children have been murdered, their sons and husbands 
 chased into the mountains, hunted and pursued like beasts of the forest, and are 
 this day being hunted and pursued by the red men of the forest, who cut off their 
 ears to show them as trophies. Is this the treatment they are to receive for their 
 devotion? Others are now lying in dungeons, filthy and loathsome, and what 
 response is there to their groans, and appeals for protection? None, but the 
 
80 
 
 After a pleasant passage of arms, between Mr. Brady and Mr. Wet- 
 vnore un the subject of poetry, in connection with, loyalty, the latter 
 gentleman read portions of the following poem, written for the occasion 
 by Mis. Beach, which were received with much applause. 
 
 TO THE LOYAL LEAGUE. 
 
 Men, who love Columbia's land ! 
 Men, who would for Freedom stand ! 
 League ye now in holy band 
 
 For your God ! and Right ! 
 
 1 !y our country's sacred name ! 
 I iy her well-earned mighty fame ! 
 League ye all, to save from shame 
 Home ! and Altars bright ! 
 
 Bright our heritage to save ! 
 Blood-bought land, our Fathers gave ! 
 Bright the trophies of our Brave ! 
 Bright — -their laureled grave ! 
 
 For our Country's honor bright, 
 Boldly stand or bravely fight ! 
 Stars and Stripes in brilliant light ! 
 Banner, broad on Glory's height .' 
 Glorious, in resplendent might ! 
 
 League ye thus — a loyal band ? 
 League ye thus, to save your land ? 
 Spurn the traitor ! smite the foe 
 That would aim one dastard blow 
 'Gainst our Country's honor fair ! 
 Word, or pen, or act, in share ! 
 Cast the wily serpent forth 
 From the loyal of the North ! 
 
 League, ye faithful, thus "to do " — 
 
 " ('(institution " — Union's crew ? 
 
 As a band of brothers true, ' 
 
 One great cause alone in view ? 
 
 League ye thus, your land to save ? 
 
 I .oval League ? League of the brave ? 
 
 Loyal Women, join in prayer — 
 Pure, in holy-league take share ! 
 Ai)gel voices, raise on High 
 " Union! Country!" watchword-cry! 
 
 E. T. P. B. 
 
 A spirited patriotic song was then sung by the Union Glee Club, at 
 the close of which the great meeting adjourned, with six rousing cheers 
 for the Union. 
 
 > f 60 
 

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