" TA -. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 F AOIiI 
 
 n 
 
 JULY 4th, 1867. 
 
 WEST CHESTKK. 
 N. T. Smith, Book and Job P' 
 
 1^7, 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 P A O Ifl I 
 
 1^4$$mu ^f^iitl 
 
 JULY 4th, 1867. 
 
 WEST CHESTEK.. 
 
 N. T, Smith, Book and Job Printer, 
 1867. 
 

CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 West Chester, July 8th, 18G7. 
 James J. Creigh, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 In common with many 
 
 others, who listened to your appropriate and patriotic Address at 
 Paoli, on the 4th inst., we would ask the favor of a copy for pub- 
 lication. In these latter days, when from a doubtful patriotism 
 so many ''uncertain sounds" reach the public ear, " the ring of 
 the true metal" will ever meet a cordial welcome, and a grateful 
 response from a loyal people. 
 Truly yours, &c. 
 
 J. LACEY DAELINGTON, 
 For Cmnmittee of Arrangements, 
 
 West Chester, Pa., July 16th, 1867. 
 Dear Sir : — 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of 
 
 your complimentary letter, requesting a copy of my Address at 
 Paoli, on the 4th inst., for publication. 
 
 In complying with your request, allow me to express the hope, 
 that notwithstanding its many imperfections, the general views 
 embraced in it will receive, as you so kindly intimate, the ap- 
 proval of loyal and patriotic people. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. J. CKEIGH. 
 
 To J. Lacey Darlington, Esq., for Committee. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 The American family, happily saved from dis- 
 memberment, again come together, as of old, to this 
 pleasant feast of their thanksgiving. As parents 
 and children, as friends and neighbors, and country- 
 men, as brothers and sisters in the covenants of the 
 Union and the Constitution, with no war cloud 
 darkening our heavens, and the thunder of our 
 glorious artillery of victory having, as by miracle, 
 changed into the sweeter notes of peace on earth 
 and good will to men, we have come, loyally and 
 and patriotically I trust, hither to this holy tomb, to 
 give thanks to God and honor to the fathers. 
 
 I salute you with congratulations. I congratulate 
 you upon having such a day as the Fourth of July. 
 Others have freely given life, liberty, fortune, home, 
 everything dear on earth, for a day of national inde- 
 pendence. But their sacrifices were in vain. Their 
 heroism and martyrdom did not, like ours, bud and 
 bloom at last into ^' bright consummate flowers of 
 liberty." The American people alone enjoy in 
 fullest sense, the supreme felicity of a day of inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 It is a great day, for great things have been done 
 on this day. JSTot a king crowned, but a king re 
 
nounced ; not an empire set np to crush men down' 
 but a republic to make them free. It is a day of 
 independence — independence not only of thirteen 
 colonies, but independence of man. 
 
 It was not merely a day of utterance. It was a 
 prophetical, a typical period of history. All the 
 anniversaries that have succeeded it are but as por- 
 tions of that- one day, unfolding the promise of its 
 morning. Our fathers stood in the early dawn and 
 saw only the sunrise. Their children, after many 
 hours of foreboding darkness, are now beholding 
 something of the full orbed day. The Fourth of 
 July of the present ought to be as precious to our 
 hearts as the Fourth of July of the past. For 
 while on the one was declared the independence of 
 our fathers, on the other was witnessed great victo- 
 ries for that free government which they had 
 founded. The Fourth of July, 1776, and the Fourth 
 of July, 1863, are twin days in our history, w^orthy 
 of an equal commemoration ; and no celebration of 
 the former Vv^ill be complete without a celebration 
 of the latter. The day of '76 grows young again 
 in the day of '63. Independence Hall and the fields 
 of Yicksburg and Gettysburg claim from the loyal 
 American a joint pilgrimage to their holy shrines. 
 The man whose heart did not beat responsive to the 
 victorious cheers at Yicksburg and Gettysburg, has 
 no business here to-day. For it was the same old 
 cause of the revolution that the soldiers under Grant 
 and Meade there rallied 'round to save — free govern- 
 ment and the rights of man. The martyrs of the 
 
Kound Top and the Mississippi, and the martyrs of 
 Paoli, fought for the same hanner, died in the same 
 faith, and Avere received np into the same immortal 
 apotheosis. 
 
 If I may congratulate yon upon having such a day 
 as the Fourth of July to celebrate — a day set apart for 
 the observance of national memories and national 
 principles — let me also congratulate you upon hav- 
 ing a government — a free government in which the 
 people are the rulers. It is a great thing to have. 
 
 The happiness of a people is in the freedom of 
 their government. A government ought to be the 
 representative of every man in her borders — a dem- 
 ocratic republic. Then the citizen feels, knows 
 with a strong assurance, that she is his own govern- 
 ment. Every thread in her banner has been woven 
 there by his own hand. Every law in her statute 
 book has been recorded there for his sake. Ev-ery 
 acre of her territory is a part of his fatherland. 
 Her glory is his glory. Her sorrow is his sorroAV. 
 Living or dying he is his countr^^'s and she is his. 
 Only make the people freemen — citizens. Only 
 give to them equal rights and privileges, a common 
 interest, a just representation, a controlling voice in 
 the government, and your country will be strong, 
 invincible, unconquerable, rich in material prosper- 
 ity, swift in moral and intellectual progress, abound- 
 ing in patriotism. 
 
 Popular liberty, guarded by liberal laws, makes 
 a government strong and a people loyal. 
 
8 
 
 **' The object of government," says an eminent 
 tliinker, '^ is not the preservation of particular insti- 
 tutions, nor the propagation of particular tenets, but 
 the happiness of the people at large." I repeat, 
 make the people freemen and citizens, and then 
 your country will be safe as against all enemies at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 Friends and fellow-citizens — we need to take this 
 truth home to ourselves in these extraordinary 
 times. If we have any hopes, if we have any fears 
 of the republic, the former will be realized and the 
 latter augmented, just in proportion as we apply — as 
 we misapply this great principle of republican gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 What aroused the loyal people of the Union in 
 the recent war ? What set their souls on fire when 
 the flag went down from Sumpter? What sent new 
 blood, as it were, thrilling through the veins of their 
 old men, and what caused even their women and 
 children to become enthuiasts in the cause of patri- 
 otism ? 
 
 What hurried their young men away from the 
 peaceful pursuits of city, and town, and village and 
 farm, and in the twinkling of an eye, quick as the 
 tlash of cannon, converted them into iron men — 
 soldiers — whom the most warlike of the ancients 
 would have been proud to have enlisted under their 
 eagles ? 
 
 What inspired the people so long given up to 
 Ibusiness and wealth, and pleasure, and almost to 
 ignoble effeminacy, to come forward and willingly — 
 
9 
 
 yes, joyfully — offer the treasures of their hearts upon 
 the altar of their country, and count all sacrifices as 
 nothing if only their country might be saved ? 
 
 Accustomed to peace, they suddenly found them- 
 selves equal to war — unexpected war. With a 
 plundered treasury — without an army or a navy suf- 
 ficient for the emergency — with traitors everywhere 
 at home, and rival enemies in almost every foreign 
 government, and a defiant foe thundering at the gates 
 of the capitol — nevertheless, they grandly resolved to 
 conquer or to die — and with unsurpassed martial 
 ardor took up their long perilous line of march, set 
 their faces like flint to the danger before them, wel- 
 comed the shout of battle — never wearied, nor 
 halted, nor turned back from the duty that led them 
 forward! Davs leno'thened into weeks, and weeks 
 into months, and months into years, over which 
 brooded the shadov/s of death, but they marched 
 onward and upward, and still onward and upward, 
 'till they had scaled the toppling crags of duty, and 
 planted the waving banner of the stars upon the 
 shining table-lands of Victory! 
 
 And now what caused this great uprising of the 
 American people ? "Whence came the heroic inspi- 
 ration of that struggle ? It arose from the exact 
 harmony between the government and the people. 
 
 The people's government was in peril, and the 
 people sprung forward to save their government. 
 
 Although the love of the Union had long slept a 
 sleep like death in the hearts of her children, the 
 first cannon-boom of dano-erous treason awoke it 
 
10 
 
 into o'lorious resuiTeetioii. It was verily the ascen- 
 sion time of our national patriotism. 
 
 The stability and prosperity of the government 
 was felt to he the stability and prosperity of the 
 people. The citizen had an interest in his govern- 
 ment and was attached to its institutions. He was 
 patriotic. Nothing is more lovely, more beautiful, 
 than true, genuine patriotism, permeated through 
 and through with love of liberty and hatred of 
 tyranny. Love of the country for her own great 
 sake — because she is our country — because she was 
 the country of our fathers — because all our advan- 
 tages and privileges are, in some way, interwoven 
 with her history and sheltered in the folds of her 
 flag — because she is to us " as mother and sister, 
 and brother" — because she is the child of Liberty 
 and rejoices to obey her parent's voice, and follow 
 her hand whithersoever it beckons — because she is 
 worth living for and worth dying for — this, this is 
 the true passionate patriotism, the love of country', 
 that culminates in a magnilicent national life, that 
 makes patriots and statesmen, poets and orators, 
 heroes and martyrs, that will save a country and 
 bless a world. 
 
 The Romans called it public virtue. Our America 
 is worthy of this exalted patriotism. ISTo crown 
 upon her brow unless it be the crown of her people's 
 love ; no sceptre in her hand unless it be the royal 
 sceptre of her people's will; no " imperial purple" 
 on her limbs unless it be the regal colors of her 
 people's chosen insignia. 
 
11 
 
 Her birth was lesritimate. She is the most lesriti- 
 mate government in providential history. True, 
 she was cradled in a revolution and baptised in 
 blood ; but it was a revolution of divine right, — if 
 resistance to tyrants is obedience to God — and her 
 crimson consecration was the very benediction of 
 righteous martyrdom. True, she has committed 
 errors. Her constitution and legislatuii^ have not 
 always accorded with the conduct ot a republic loyal 
 to herself, but her Declaration has never been re- 
 canted, and now in the maturity of her varied ex- 
 perience it is solemnly assumed as the rule of her 
 life forever in the future. 
 
 That which her sponsors promised for her before 
 the tribunal of history, almost a century ago, she is 
 to-day in the act of fulfilling throughout the land. 
 
 I would say of the Declaration of Independence, 
 that it is to be regarded first as a declaration that 
 the colonies were '' free and independent States ;" 
 in the second place, as a promulgation of the rights 
 of human nature. 
 
 You all know with what prudence and modera- 
 tion, and even reluctance, our fathers separated from 
 Great Britain, They were not rebels and conspira- 
 tors, intent only on destruction. They started with 
 the one object of preserving their rights as English 
 colonies. It was only when moderate means failed, 
 after respectful petition and remonstrance had been 
 rudely thrus^^'aside, that they took up arms. It 
 was on]}' when it was too plain to be misunderstood, 
 that colonial connection with the mother country 
 
12 
 
 meant vassalage and serfdom to the crown, that 
 they enrolled themselves under the banner of inde- 
 pendence and marched forward to found a new gov- 
 ernment of their own. 
 
 Thus wrote Jefferson, in 1775 : "There is not in 
 the British empire a man who more cordially loves 
 a union with Great Britain than I do, hut by the 
 God that made me, I will cease to exist before I 
 yield to a connection on such terms as the British 
 Parliament propose ; and in this I speak the senti- 
 ment of America." 
 
 That their oppression was intolerable is not only 
 the record they have handed down to us, but the 
 testimony of some of the most prominent English 
 statesmen of that day. George III was a king who 
 delighted in the exercise of arbitrary power. He 
 had no sympathy with his people, either at home or 
 in the colonies. It had been proposed to the pre- 
 ceding sovereign, George II, to increase the revenue 
 by taxing the unrepresented colonies of America, 
 but he instantly rejected it " as a dangerous stretch 
 of arbitrary power." 
 
 It was but five years after George III came to the 
 throne, that a bill for the taxation of America was 
 introduced into Parliament, and received not only 
 his cordial support, but it was believed that he had 
 suggested it. It was supported by the clergy, and 
 the aristocracy, who hoped to have their land taxes 
 and contributions to the treasury reduced by the 
 taxation of the colonies. But Burke, and Fox, and 
 Chatham and the liberal statesmen of that day, de- 
 
13 
 
 iiounced the whole scheme. Like their noble suc- 
 cessors, Bright and Cobden, Hughes and Mill, they 
 were the friends and advocates of popular lil)erty. 
 
 They declared that the cause of the American 
 people was the cause of the English peoi^le. For, 
 "in their opinion, if the despotic jwinciplc adopted by 
 the throne for the government of America was suc- 
 cessful, it might be applied to the home govern- 
 ment." 
 
 It is an interesting fact, that George III, in his 
 preparation for war upon the colonies, applied by 
 by an autograph letter, to the Empress of Eussia for 
 twenty thousand troops, and was refused. He then 
 asked for fifteen thousand, and was again refused. 
 He then asked for ten thousand, and was again re- 
 fused. 
 
 Catharine of Russia declined to trafiic in the blood 
 of her subjects, and advised the King that there 
 were other means of succeeding than by force of 
 arms. 
 
 Fellow-citizens — in a little while our flag will float 
 over a portion of tlie ancient, powerful, and to us 
 ever generous empire of Eussia. 
 
 As the new star of Alaski is added to the constel- 
 lation of the republic, it will recall the time when 
 Eussia refused to aid in the oppression of our 
 fathers ; the time when she stretched forth her 
 hand and set all within her borders free, thus teach- 
 ing even the Eepublic a lesson ; and the more re- 
 cent time, never to be forgotten by the generations 
 of America, when she alone, among the great pow- 
 
14 
 
 ers of Europe, ^vas the decided friend of our gov- 
 ernment in the war of the rebellion, and did not 
 hesitate to give us the moral weight of her prayers 
 for our deliverance from the perils of treason. 
 
 The "Kings war" (for it was so called by its oppo- 
 nents in England) upon the colonies, was conducted 
 in a manner worthy of its arbitrary origin. Their 
 seas were plundered, their coasts ravaged, their 
 towns burned, foreign mercenaries transported to 
 fight against them, those of their countrymen cap- 
 tured on the high seas were forced to take up arms 
 against them, or put themselves to death to escape 
 that ignominy — even the merciless savage were em->„^(^ 
 ployed to do the work of death upon the frontiers. 
 
 Among the expenses of the war which George III 
 laid before Parliament, one of the items was "for 
 five gross of scalping knives." 
 
 But cruelty and perfidy and massacre — the disci- 
 plined British, the unsparing Indian, the hired Hes- 
 sian, the traitor Arnold availed not against the just 
 cause. God was in the history of that great epoch, 
 and His almighty arm encircled the cause of inde- 
 pendence. He gave our fathers great men to be 
 their leaders. Adams and Jefterson, Franklin, Han- 
 cock, Henry, and their colleagues to be their orators, 
 their writers and their statesmen. Greene, Schuyler, 
 Hamilton, Wayne, La Fayette, Morgan and many 
 others of the field and line to be their patriot chiefs. 
 
 And among them all, there, through the whole of 
 that seven years of revolution, stood the central 
 figure, the providential man, George Washington, 
 
15 
 
 who, with ''sublmie self-repression," calmly directed 
 the cloud of battle. Whether it rested upon a field 
 won or a field lost, a retreat or a pursuit, a Winter 
 encampment or a Summer campaign — whether it 
 shone with victory or frowned with disaster, his 
 hand was upon it steadily parting it asunder, until at 
 last the glorious sun of Liberty broke through and 
 revealed the heavens and the earth of new America. 
 
 I have said that the declaration of independence 
 was also a promulgation of the rights of human 
 nature. We have formed but a faint conception of 
 its real origin, character, purpose and historical re- 
 lations, if, at any time we have regarded it as 
 nothing more than a passionate revolutionary man- 
 ifesto, a mass of glittering generalities, a tract for 
 the times, a kind of red republican address, or at 
 most, a summing up of colonial grievances, by which 
 the revolution was justified, but which became a 
 thing of the past when it was crowned with success. 
 
 It meant far more than all this to the general 
 mind of our fathers. It means far more to us than 
 an eloquent memorial only of the struggle for inde- 
 pendence. It established certain great principles in 
 our national life. It is to America as the Apostles' 
 creed is to the church, her confession of faith, the 
 norm of her life, the fountain of her laws and the 
 breath of her being. It is worthy of the lofty 
 eulogium of Buckle, that "in 1776, the Americans 
 laid before Europe that noble Declaration which 
 ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, 
 and blazoned on the porch of every loyal palace." 
 
 '^'?2S*' 
 
16 
 
 A declaration of the causes which impelled the 
 colonies to the separation was its practical and im- 
 mediate object, but the rights o fman were the great 
 doctrines and principles promulgated by our fathers 
 in the declaration of independence. Equality and 
 liberty was written upon the corner-stone of the new^ 
 edifice they were building. 
 
 And it is a significant fact, that in all their revised 
 State constitutions, except that of South Carolina, 
 there was an acknowledgment of the rights of man, 
 and that the people is the source of power. '' At 
 the bar of humanity and the bar of the people, South 
 Carolina alone remained silent." — Bancroft. 
 
 Fellow-citizens — our true national life lies in the 
 practical cultivation in all the spheres of American 
 development of the spirit, the principles, the ideas 
 of the declaration. The Constitution must be 
 obeyed, but the spirit of liberty, which is enthroned 
 in the declaration, must breathe life into the consti- 
 tution, or it will be false to the original purpose and 
 radical idea of the nation. First, the declaration — 
 then, the constitution. The former relates to the 
 subjective, and the latter to the objective life of the 
 iN'ation. One is the soul, the other the body. One 
 must be reproduced in the other. 
 
 I beg you not to misunderstand me. I lead you to 
 no crusade upon the constitution. God forbid that 
 I should touch with profane hands the solemn league 
 and covenant of the American family ! The friends 
 of liberty are the friends of order. As all true pro- 
 gress must be orderly progress, it was necessary for 
 
17 
 
 the joung republic to acquire a constitutional life, 
 and, therefore, certain great interests had, unfor- 
 tunately, to be postponed or compromised for a 
 season, to the end that her untried political system 
 might become thoroughly fixed in the grooves of 
 constitutional order and authority, so that in the 
 appropriate periods of her historical development, 
 all the great interests of human freedom might be 
 safely organized and protected under the majesty of 
 the law. 
 
 But if we must not under-estimate, neither must 
 we over-estimate the constitution. It is not infal- 
 lible. It is not something stationary. It moves 
 with the nation. It is the servant of the nation. 
 It is always to be adapted to the wants of the na- 
 tion. The constitution is now ^Dassing through its 
 ordeal. We believe that it will come out triumph- 
 ant. We believe that before a great while it will be 
 better adapted to the wants of a free government 
 than it was u]3on the day of its adoption. The free- 
 dom of all the people ; the citizenship of all the 
 people ; the equality of citizens and the equality of 
 States — these are to be the grand principles of the 
 constitution of the re-constructed Union. W 
 
 that happy day dawns upon us, we shall hear more 
 about the blessings of Liberty and the advantages 
 of the Union than we have ever heard before. The 
 State first — the Union second — the Union under the 
 Constitution will be regarded as the dead language of 
 the past — the false teaching of discomfited treason. 
 Such phrases will find no place in the new language 
 
18 
 
 of tlie Nation — but we sliall hear everywhere, leap- 
 ing joyfully from the lips of the whole people, that 
 loyal and scornful reply of Henry Clay to Jeiferson 
 Davis, in 1850, " I owe a paramount allegiance to 
 my whole country — I owe a subordinate fidelity to 
 my own State." 
 
 I have spoken to you of the oppression of our 
 fathers as the cause of the revolution, but there was 
 something greater than that which brought it about, 
 and controlled its mighty impulses. Even if Mr. 
 Burke's proposition '' to admit the Americans to an 
 ecpial interest in the British constitution, and place 
 them at once on the footing of other Englishmen," 
 had been adopted, a separation between the colonies 
 and England would have taken place at no very 
 distant day. There was a historical necessity for such 
 a government as the government of the United 
 States. The human race was about to move forward 
 in its progressive march, and a different sphere of 
 action was needed — a free land which had been 
 kept clean from the permanent impressions of any 
 of the old forms of government. And, therefore, 
 here in new America, where there were no olden 
 dynasties, no long lines of royalty and aristocracy, 
 no established system of politics, and very little, if 
 any, of the belief in the ^' divine right of kings;" 
 here, among a people who seemed to have more of 
 the spirit of liberty in their hearts than any other 
 people on the face of the earth, whose life was full 
 of great ideas struggling for deliverance, whose 
 colonial education had made them a braA^e, hardy, 
 
practical, self-reliant people; whose geographical 
 position was eminently adapted to develop their 
 energies, moral and intellectual — in tliis land and 
 among these people was, in the order of providen- 
 tial history, to be founded a government suited to 
 the wants of progressive humanity, representative 
 in its nature and in its administration ; not only rep- 
 resenting its own citizens, hut representing the 
 world. The real meaning — the philosophical mean- 
 ing — of our national motto, ^'one from many," is 
 not merely one State from many States, hut one na- 
 ture from many natures, one people from many 
 people, one great nation from all the nations of the 
 earth. • 
 
 '' Through the ages one increasing purpose runs." 
 History is the revelation of that purpose. That 
 which is now is the product of that which was. The 
 great eras of the past were the nurseries of the eras 
 of the present. The civilization of the past culmi- 
 nates in the civilization of the present. The hero- 
 ism of other days renews its glory in the heroism of 
 to-day. The church of this century wears upon her 
 head the crown her blessed martyrs died for long 
 years ago. This age was foreshadowed in every 
 former struggle for civil and religious freedom. 
 America is the result of previous history — the child 
 of the asces. You cannot crush her. She is in the 
 line of progress. You cannot chain the wheels of 
 her chariot. She is one of the great figures that 
 mark the historical development of the race. In 
 one sense, she is the last in its line of march. 
 
20 
 
 History rising in the East marches to Greece and 
 Rome ; inaugurates the great reformation in Ger- 
 many and England, and then sows the seed of chris- 
 tian civilization in North America, from which, in 
 the fulness of time, will spring up "that tree of life 
 which will extend its roots through all oceans and 
 spread its hranches over the universe." 
 
 America was designed hy history to be the home 
 of the people — their own peculiar country — and all 
 mankind are findifig places in our national life. There 
 is here what there is nowhere else — a " chaos of 
 nations." The elements of our future strength and 
 greatness are to he found in this vast congregation 
 of peoples. From their interifiarriage will, one day, 
 he born the noblest nationality the world has ever 
 seen. 
 
 You all remember that exquisite story of a Gre- 
 cian artist, who was employed to make an elegant 
 statue. He sent for all the beautiful women of his 
 country, and taking the most perfect feature of grace 
 and beauty from each, blended all into a glorious 
 statue of a Greek woman, so that when it was com- 
 pleted, every beautiful lady of that classic land saw 
 in the marvellous work of the artist, the likeness of 
 her own beautiful face. 
 
 Even so is the invisible hand of history blending 
 together this chaos of nations, bringing out of it 
 order and beauty — producing, gradually, that colos- 
 sal figure of America, in whose stately proportions 
 will be recognized types and features of all the 
 great fatherlands of the world. 
 
21 
 
 The rebellion endeavored to destroy this colossal 
 figure of history. It endeavored to dismember the 
 wonderful union of the United States. It endeav- 
 ored to divide a great government into petty sov- 
 ereignties, forgetting that in this age the world is to 
 be governed by great powers. It defied the spirit 
 of liberty, and attempted to perpetuate barbarism 
 in the new world. It set its face backwards, against 
 the well defined progress of history. In a word, it 
 was unhistorical, and, therefore, failed — went down 
 into a dishonored grave, never to rise again. It 
 was a sinful rebellion against lawful authority, that 
 had always been exercised with clemency and jus- 
 tice, and it was not a revolution against intolerable 
 despotism. It is only against such oppression that the 
 riffht of revolution can be invoked. But in no in_ 
 stance did the South suffer oppression. It had been 
 for many years the virtual ruler of the government, 
 and the ISTorth had only been its too willing servant. 
 The act of the South, therefore, in rebelling, was 
 without shadow of defence, excuse or apology. It 
 was a crime against the majesty of the law. It was 
 treason — aggravated treason — to a republic ; and in 
 the persons of its official representatives, should 
 have sufi"ered the condemnation of the law. Treason, 
 in the person of the chief traitor of all, should at 
 least have been degraded by the law. As for the 
 masses of the South, we should remember that, in- 
 structed by bad leaders, they have always had a 
 false conception of republican government. We 
 doubt whether there has ever been a moment in 
 
22 
 
 their past history when they would willingly have 
 given up the names, forms and habiliments of a con- 
 stitutional and representative system. But they 
 were never educated in the original principles of 
 republicanism — never rooted and grounded in the 
 government as democrats from love of democracy. 
 If they had a place for the constitution, they had no 
 place for the declaration of independence. They 
 fell into the fatal mistake of regarding the Union 
 as something dependent, entirely, upon a constitu- 
 tion susceptible of various interpretations, vrhereas, 
 the real national life of the Union sprung from the 
 bosom of the great truths of the declaration. 
 
 They are now called upon to learn a new political 
 philosophy from new teachers. The South is now 
 an open door to the advocates of liberty. The 
 southern people have never, until recently, been 
 allowed an opportunity to hear the champions of the 
 cause of human rights. Much of their opposition 
 to free institutions, and much of the sin of their re- 
 bellion, should be attributed to their ignorance. 
 But we must not, from mistaken charity, abate one 
 jot or tittle of our radical determination, to make 
 universal acquiescence in the republican issues, set- 
 tled by the war, the condition of southern restora- 
 tion. Do not let us be afraid of offending the 
 South — of keeping alive the animosities of the 
 war. That is the syren cry which has so often 
 deceived us. There is no truth — no philosophy in 
 it. The passions which the war evoked may not 
 die out for awhile. But the day will come to us, as 
 
23 
 
 it has to other nations, when the memory of our 
 civil war will live only in name. England has long 
 been united England, in spite of her War of the 
 Roses, which lasted thirty years; in spite of her 
 great Rebellion, which lasted twenty years — both of 
 which exceeded ours in cruelty, bitterness and pas- 
 sion. A people constantly on the march of pro- 
 gress will forget the internecine conflicts of the past, 
 and discord will give way to harmonj^, enmity to 
 fellowship, in the mutual triumphs of the future. 
 
 Fellow-citizens — a word more and I have done. 
 We are now lavins: foundations ; let us lav them 
 strong. We must reconstruct the Union upon the 
 principles of pure and comprehensive republicanism; 
 secure the government by ample guarantees against 
 rebellion in the future; make treason dishonorable 
 and unprofitable ; and stand by those who are fear- 
 lessly endeavoring to place the Southern States in 
 the hands of thoroughly loyal men. This is the 
 great duty of the times, incumbent alike upon Presi- 
 dent and Congress and people. Let no man, as he 
 values his responsibility to God and his country, 
 evade it. But let us all devote ourselves to that 
 chief duty with courageous obedience, and a golden 
 age of prosperity will shine upon the republic. 
 
 For nations, as for individuals, there is always but 
 one right path to follow. For rulers and statesmen, 
 as for people, there is but one way to honor. For 
 us all, the path of duty is the way to happiness and 
 glory. 
 
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