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 LOYAL PUBLBCATION SOCIETY, 
 
 863 BROADWAY. 
 
 No. 16. 
 
 READ AT THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE LOYAL NATIONAL 
 • LEAGUE, BY THE REQUEST OF THE LEAGUE, IN UNION 
 SQUARE, NEW YORK, ON THE 11th OF APRIL, 18C3. 
 
 It is just and wise that men engaged in a great and arduous cause 
 aliould profess anew, from time to time, their faith, and pledge themselves 
 to one another, to stand by their cause to the last extremity, even at the 
 sacrifice of all they have and all that God has given them — their wealth, 
 their blood, and their children's blood. We solemnly pledge all this to 
 our cause, for it is the cause of our Country and her noble history, of 
 freedom, and justice, and truth — it is the cause of all we hold dearest on 
 this earth : we profess and pledge this — plainly, broadly, openly in the 
 cheering time of success, and most fervently in the day of trial and 
 reverses. 
 
 We recollect how, two years ago, when reckless arrogance attacked 
 Fort Sumter, the response to that boom of treasonable cannon was read, 
 in our city, in the flag of our country — waving from every stee[)le and 
 school-house, from City Hall and Court House, from every shop whidow 
 and market stall, and fluttering in the hand of every child, and on the 
 head-gear of every horse in tlie busy street. Two years have passed ; 
 uncounted sacrifices have been made — sacrifices of wealth, of blood, and 
 limb, and life — of friendship and bx'otherhood, of endeared and hallowed 
 pursuits and sacred ties — and still the civil war is raging in bitterness and 
 heart-burning — still we make the same profession, and still we pledge 
 ourselves firmly to hold on to our cause, and persevere in the struggle into 
 which unrighteous men, bewildered by pride, and stimulated by bitter 
 hatrexi, have plunged us. 
 
 We profess ourselves to be loyal citizens of these United States ; and by 
 loyalty we mean a candid and loving devotion to the object to which a loyal 
 man — a loyal husband, a loyal friend, a loyal citizen — devotes himself. We 
 eschew the attenuated arguments derived by trifling scholars from meagre 
 etymology. We take the core and substajice of this weighty word, and 
 pledge ourselves that we will loyally — not merely outwardly and formally, 
 according to the letter, but frankly, fervently and according to the spirit — 
 adhere to our countiy, to her institutions, t© ifreedom, and her power, and 
 to that great institution called the government of our country, founded by 
 our fathers, and loved by their sons, and by all right-minded men who have 
 become citizens of this land by choice and not by birth — who have 
 wedded this country in the maturity of their age as verily tlieir own. We 
 pledge ourselves as National men devoted to the Nationality of this great 
 people. No government can wholly dispense with loyalty, except the 
 
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 ^ercest despotism ruling by naked intimidation ; but a republic stands in 
 greater need of it than any other government, and most of all a republic 
 be-=et by open rebellion and insidious treason. Loyalty is pre-eminently a 
 civic virtue in a free countjy. It is patriotism cast in the graceful mould 
 of candid devotion to the harmless government of an unshackled nation. 
 
 In pledging ourselves thus, we know of no party. Parties are unavoida- 
 ble in free countries, and may be useful if they acknowledge the country 
 far above themselves, and remain within the sanctity of the fundamental 
 law which protects the enjoyment of libei-ty prepared for all within its 
 sacred duinain. But Party has no meaning in far the greater number of 
 the highest and the common relations of human life. When we are ailing, 
 we do not take medicine by party prescription. We do not build ships by 
 party measurement ; we do not pray for our daily bread by party dis- 
 tinctions ; we do not take our chosen ones to our bosoms by party demar- 
 cations, nor do we eat or drink, sleep or wake, as partisans. We do not 
 enjo}' the Howers of spring, nor do we harvest the grain, by party lines. 
 We do not incur punishments for infractions of the commandments 
 according to party creeds. We do no pursue truth, or cultivate science, 
 by party dogmas ; and we do not, we must not, love and defend our 
 country and our liberty, dear to us as part and portion of our very selves, 
 according to party rules. Woe to him who does. When a house is on 
 fire, and a mother with her child cries for help at the window above, shall 
 the firemen at the engine be allowed to trifle away the precious time in 
 party bickerings, or is then the only word — *' Water! pump away ; up with 
 the ladder !" 
 
 Let us not be like the Byzantines, those wretches who quarrelled about 
 contemptible party refinements, theological though they were, while the 
 truculent Mussulman was steadily drawing nearer — nay, some of whom 
 would even go to the lord of the crescent, and with a craven heart would 
 beg for a pittance of the spoil, so that they would be spared, and could 
 vent their party spleen against their kin in blood, and fellows in religion. 
 We know of no party in our present troubles ; the word is here an 
 empty word. The only line which divides the people of the North, runs 
 between the mass of loyal men who stand by thL-ir country, no matter to 
 what place of political meeting they were used to resort, or with what 
 accent they utter the language of the land, or what religion they profess, or 
 what sentiments they may have uttered in the excitement of former dis- 
 cussions, on the one hand, and those on the other hand, Mho keep outside 
 of that line — traitors to their country in the hour of need — or those avIio 
 allow themselves to be misled by shallow names, and by reminiscences 
 which cling around those names from by-gone days, finding no application 
 in a time which asks for things more sterling than names, theories, or 
 platforms. 
 
 If an alien enemy were to land his hosts on your shores, would you fly 
 to your arms and ring the tocsin because your country is in danger, or 
 would you meditatively look at your sword and gun, and spend your time 
 in pondering whether the administration in power, which must and cui 
 alone direct the defence of your hearths, has a right to be styled by this or 
 that party name, or whether it came into power with your assistance, and 
 will appoint some of your party to posts of honor or comfortable emolu- 
 
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 . mcnts ? And will any one now lose his time and fair name as an honest 
 ^ and brave citizen, when no foreigner, indeed, threatens your country, at 
 C;least nut directly, but far more, when a reckle.-s host of law defying men, 
 ^^^''hcaping upon yon the vilest vituperation that men who do not leave bc- 
 ' hind them the ingenuity of civilization when they relapse into barbarism, 
 can invent — when this host threatens to sunder your country and cleave 
 your very history in twain, to depinve you of your rivers which God has 
 given you, to extinguish your nationality, to break down your liberty and 
 to make that land, which the Distributor of our sphere's geography has 
 placed between the old and older world as the greatest link of that civilization 
 whicliis destined to encircle the globe — to make that land the hot-bed of an- 
 gry petty powers, sinking deeper and deeper as they quarrel and fight, and 
 quarrelling and fighting more angrily as they sink deeper ? It is the very 
 thing 3'our foreign enemies desire, and have long de>ired. When nulUfica- 
 tion threatened to bring about secession — and the term secession was used 
 at that early period — foreign journals stated in distinct words that Eng- 
 land was deeply interested in the contest ; for nullification might bring on 
 recession, and secession would cause a general disruption — an occurrence 
 which would redound to the ess?ntial benefit of Great Britain. 
 
 But the traitors of the North, who have been so aptly called adders or 
 copperheads — striking, as these reptiles do, more secretly and deadly even 
 than the rattlesnake, which has some chivalry, at least in its tail — believe, 
 or pretend to believe, that no fragmentary disruption would follow a divis- 
 ion of our country into North and South, and advocate a compi-omise, by 
 which they affect to believe that the two portions may possibly be 
 reunited after a provisional division, as our pedlers putty a broken china 
 cup. 
 
 As to the first, that we might pleasantly divide into two comfortable 
 portions, we prefer being guided by the experience of all history, to follow- 
 ing the traitors in their teachings. We will not hear of it. We live in 
 an age when the word is Nationalization, not De-nationalization ; wdien 
 fair Italy has risen, like a new-born goddess, out of the foaming waves of 
 the Mediterranean. All destruction is quick and easy ; all growth and 
 formation is slow and toilsome. Nations break up, like splendid mirrors 
 dashed to the ground. They do not break into a number of well-shaped, 
 neatly framed little looking-glasses. But a far more solemn truth even 
 than this comes here into play. It is Avith nations as with families and 
 with individuals. Those destined by nature to live in the bonds of friend- 
 ship and mutual kindliness, become the bitterest and most irreconcilable 
 enemies, when once feirly separated ia angry enmity ; in precisely the 
 same degree in which affection and good-will were intended to sub:^ist be- 
 tween them. We must have back the South, or else those wdio will not 
 reunite with us must leave the country; we must have the country at any 
 price. If, however, a plain division between the North and the South 
 could take place, who will deny that those very traitors would instantly 
 begin to mancEuvre for a gradual annexation of the North to the South ? 
 It is known to be so. Some of them, void of all shame, have avowed it. 
 They are ready to petition on their knees for annexation to the South, and 
 to let the condescending grantor, '-holding the while his nose," introduce 
 slavery, that blessed " corner-stone of" the newest " civilization," into the 
 
North, which has been happily purged from this evil. Let us put the heel 
 oil this adder, and bruise all treason out of its head. 
 
 As to the compromise which they propose, we know of no compromise 
 with crime that is not criminal itself, and senseless in addition to its being 
 wicked. New guarantees, indeed, may be asked for at the proper time, 
 but it is now our turn to ask for them. They will be guarantees of 
 peace, of the undisturbed integrity of our country, of law, and liberty, and 
 .security, asked for and insisted upon by the Union men, avIio now pledge 
 themselves not to listen to the words, compromise, new guarantees for the 
 South, armistice, or convention of delegates from the South and North — 
 as long as this war shall last, until tlie North is victorious, and shall have 
 estabhshed again the national autliorlty over the length and breadth of the 
 country as it was, over the United States dominion as it was before the 
 breaking out of the crime, which is now ruining our fair land — ruining it 
 in point of wealtii, but, with God's help, elevating it in character, strength, 
 and dignity. 
 
 We believe that the question of the issue, which must attend the present 
 contest, according to the character it has now acquirel, is reduced to these 
 simple words — Either the North conquers the Soutli, or the South con- 
 quers the Nortli. Make up your minds for tliis alternative. Eitiier the 
 North conquers the South and re-establishes law, freedom, and the integ- 
 rity of our country, or the South conquers the North by arms, or by 
 treason at home, and covers our portion of the country with disgrace and 
 slavery. 
 
 Let us not shrink from facts or mince the truth, but rather plainly pre- 
 sent to our minds the essential character of the struggle in which hun- 
 dreds of thousands, that ought to be brothers, are now engaged. What 
 has brought us to these grave straits ? 
 
 Are we two different races, as the new ctlmologists of the South, with 
 profound knowledge of history and of their own skins, names, and language, 
 proclaim ? Have they produced the names which Europe mentions when 
 American literature is spoken of ? Have they produced our Crawfords? 
 Have they advanced science ? Have they the great schools of the age ? 
 Do they speak the choice idiom of the cultivated man ? Have the think- 
 ers and Inventors of the age their homes in that region ? Is their standard 
 of comfort exalted above that of ours ? AVluit has this Avondrous race 
 produced ? what new idea has it added to the great stock of civilization ? 
 It has produced cotton, and added the idea that slavery is divine. Does 
 this establish a superior race ? 
 
 The French, ourselves, the English, the Germans, the Italians, none of 
 wliom are destitute of national self-gratulatlon, have ever made a prepos- 
 terous claim of constituting a different race. Even the new idea of a 
 liatin l\ace — a Bonaparte anachronism — is founded upon an error less re- 
 volting to common sense and common knowledge. 
 
 There is no fact or movement of greater significance in all history of 
 the human race, than the settlement of tliis great continent by European 
 people at a period when, in their portion of the globe, great nations had 
 been formed, and the national polity had finally become the normal type 
 of government ; and it is a fact equally pregnant with momentous results, 
 that the northern portion of this hemisphere came to be colonized chiefly 
 
by men wlio brought along with them the seeds of self-government, and a 
 living common law, instinct with the principles of manly self-dependence 
 and civil freedom. 
 
 The cliarters under Avhich they settled, and which divided the American 
 territory iuto colonies, were of little more importance than the vessels 
 and their names in which the settlers crossed the Atlantic ; nor had the 
 origin of these charters a deep meaning, nor wa3 their source alw;n s 
 pure. The people in this country always felt themselves to be one people, 
 and unitedly they proclaimed and achieved their independence. The 
 country as a whole was called by Washington and his compeers America, 
 for want of a more individual name. Still, tliere was no outward and Icjjal 
 bond between the colonies, except the crown of England ; and when cur 
 people abjured their allegiance to th.it crown, each colony stood formally 
 for itself. The Articles of Confederation were adopted, by which our fore- 
 fathers attempted to establi^^h a confederacy, uniting all that felt them- 
 selves to be of one nation, but were not one by outward legal form. It 
 was the best united government our forefathers could think ot, or of which, 
 perhaps, the combination of circumstances admitted. Each colony came 
 gradually to be called a State, and called itself sovereign, although none of 
 them had ever exercised any of the highest attributes of sovereignty ; nor 
 did ever after the States do so. 
 
 Wherever political societies are leagued together, be it by the frail bonds 
 of a pure confederacy, or by the consciousness of the people that they are 
 intrinsically one people, and form one nation, without, however, a posi- 
 tive National Government, then the most powerful of these ill-united por- 
 tions needs must rule and, as always more than one portion wishes to 
 be the leader, intestine struggles ensue in all such incoherent governments. 
 It has been so in antiquity ; it has been so in the middle ages ; it has been 
 so, and is so in modern times. Athens and Sparta, Castile and Aragon, 
 Austria and Prussia, are always jealous companions, readily turned into 
 bitter enemies. Those of our forefathers Avho later became the framers 
 of our Constitution, saw this approaching evil, and they observed many 
 other ills which had already overtaken the confederacy. Even Wasliing- 
 ington, the strong and tenacious patriot, nearly desponded. It Avas a 
 dark period in our history ; and it was then that our fathers most boldly, 
 yet most considerately, performed the greatest act that our annals record 
 — they engrafted a national, complete and representative government on 
 our insufficient confederacy ; a government with an exclusively National 
 executive, in which the Senate, though still representing the States as 
 States, became Nationalized in a great measure, and in which the House 
 of Representatives became purely National like the Executive. Virginia, 
 which, under the Articles of Confederation, was approaching the leader- 
 ship over all (in the actual assumption of which she would ha\e been 
 resisied by other rapidly growing states, which would inevitably have led 
 to her Peloponnesian wai') — Virginia was now represented according to 
 her population, like every other portion of the country; not as a unit, 
 but by a number of representatives who were bound to vote individually, 
 according to their consciences, as National men. The danger of in- 
 ternal struggle and provincial bitterness had passed, and our country now 
 fairly entered as an equal among the leading nations in the course, where 
 
nations, like Olymjiic chariot-horses, draw abreast the car of civiliza- 
 tion. We advanced rapidly ; the task assigned to us by Providence was 
 performed with a rapidity which had not been known before; for we had 
 a National Government commensurate to our land and, it seemed, ade- 
 qunte to onr destiny. 
 
 But while thus united and freed from provincial retardation and entan- 
 glements, a now portent appi-ari'd. 
 
 Slavery, which had beon planted here in the colonial time-!, and which 
 had b -en increased in this country, by the parent government. :)gainst the 
 urgent protestations of the colonists, and especially of tlie Virginit-ns, ex- 
 isted in all the colonies at the time when they declared themselves inde- 
 pendent. It was felt by all to be an evil which must be djalt with as 
 host it might be, and the gradu d extinction of which mnst be wisely yet 
 surely provided for. Even Mr. Calhoun, in his earlier days, called slavery 
 a scaffolding erected to rear the mansion of civilization, Avhich must be 
 taken down when the fabric is finished. 
 
 This institution gave way gradually as civilization advanced. It has 
 done 60 in all periods of historyj and especially of Christian histor3^ 
 Slavery melts away like snow before the rajs of rising civilization. The 
 South envied the Nortii for getting rid of slavery so easily, and often ex- 
 pressed her envy. But a combination of untoward circumstances led the 
 Soutli to change h'T mind. P'irst, it Avas maintained that if slavery is an 
 evil, it was their affair and no one else had a right to discuss it or to interfere 
 with it ; then it came to be maintained that it was no evil ; then slavery 
 came to be declared an important national element, which required its own 
 distinct representation and especial protection ; then it was said — we feel 
 ashamed to mention it — that slavery is a divine institution. To use the 
 words of the great South-Carolinian, whose death we deeply mourn — of 
 James Louis Fetigru — they placed, like the templars, Christ and Ba- 
 phoinet on the same altar, worshipping God and Satan simultaneously. 
 But though slavery were divine, they choked the wells of common knowl- 
 edge with sand and stones, and enacted perpetual ignorance for the slave. 
 Then the renewal of that traffic, the records of which fills far the darkest 
 pages of European history, and which the most strenuous and protracted 
 ctlbrts of civilized nations have not yet wholly succeeded in abolishing, 
 was loudly called for; and our national laws, making that unhallowed 
 trade piracy, were declared unconstitutional. Yet still another step was 
 to be taken. It was proclaimed that slavery is a necessaiy element of a 
 new and glorious civilization ; and those who call themselves conservatives 
 plunged recklessly into a new-fangled theory of politics and civilization. 
 
 Some thirty years ago we first heard of Southern Rights. Some twenty 
 years since we were first made familiar with the expression, Southern 
 Principles. Within the present lustre. Southern Civilization has been 
 proclaimed What else remained but to invent Southern Mathematics 
 and to decree a Southern God ? And what does Southern mean in this 
 connection? Sou'h is a word which indicates relative position in 
 geography Yet, in these combinations, it refers neither to geography, 
 nor to climate, nor to product, but singly and exclusively to Slavery. 
 Southern Rights, Southern Principles. Southern Civilization, and South- 
 ern Honor or " Chivalry," are novel phrases, to express the new idea of 
 
principles and civilization cliaracterizel and tested bj tlie dependence of 
 one class of people as chuttelupon another. A more appalling confusion, 
 of ideas is not recorded in the history of any tribe or nation that has 
 made any use of the terms— Eights, Principles, or Civilization. 
 
 Thus slavery came to group the ditFurent portions of our country ; out-, 
 side of, and indeed in hostility to, the National Government and Nationa;! . 
 Constitution. The struggle for the leadership was upon us. The South 
 declared openly that it must rule ; we, in the meantime, declaring that the ; 
 Nation must rule, and if an is^sue is forced upon us, bctv\e3n the South and 
 the North, then, indeeil, the North must rule and shall rule. This is the 
 war in which we are now engaged — in which, at the moment this is Tead 
 to you, the precious blood of your sons, and brothers, and fathers, is flow- 
 ing. 
 
 Whenever men are led, in the downward course of error and passion, 
 ultimately to declare themselves, with immoral courage, in favor of a thing 
 or principle which for centuries and thousands of years their own race 
 has declared, by a united voice, an evil or a crime, the mischief does not 
 stop with this single declaration. It naturally, and by a well-established 
 law, unhinges the whole morality of man ; it warps his intellect, and in- 
 flames his soul, with bewildering passions, .with detiance to the simplest 
 truth and plainest fact, and with vindictive hatred toward those who 
 cannot agree with him. It is a fearful thing to become the defiant idolater 
 of wrong. Slavery, and the consequent separation from the rest of men, 
 begot pride in the leading men of the South — absurdly even pretending 
 to be of a dirierent and better race. Pride begot bitter and venomous 
 hatred, and this bitter hatred, coupled with the love of owning men as 
 things, begot at last a hatred of that which distinguishes the whole race to 
 which we belong, more than aught else — the striving for and love of lib- 
 erty. , ^ 
 
 There is no room, then, for pacifying arguments with such men in arms 
 against us, against their duty, their country, their civilization. Ail that 
 remains for the present is the question. Who shall be the victor ? 
 
 It is for all these reasons which have been stated, that we pledge our- 
 selves anew, in unwavering loyalty, to stand by and support the Govern- 
 ment in all its efforts to suppress the rebellion, and to spare no endeavor 
 to maintain, unimpaired, the national unity, both in principle and terri- 
 torial boundary. 
 
 AVe will support the Government, and call on it with fi united voice to 
 use greater and greater energ}^, as the contest may seem to draw to a 
 close ; so that whatever advantages we may gain, we may pursue them 
 with incretising efficiency, and bring every one in the military or civil 
 service, thai may be slow in the performance of his duty, to a quick and 
 efficient account. 
 
 We approve of the Conscription Act, and will give our loyal aid in 
 its beino- carried out, whenever the Government shall consider the increase 
 of our army necessary ; and we believe that the energy of the Govern- 
 ment should be plainly shown by retaliatory measures, in checking the 
 savao-e brutalities committed by the enemy against our men in amis, or 
 acraiust unarmed citizens, when they fall into their hands. 
 
 We declare that slavery, the poisonous root of^this war, ought to l^e 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 027 589 6 
 
 compressed within its narrowest feasible limits, with a view to its speedy 
 extinction. 
 
 We declare thut this is no question of politics, but one of patri- 
 otism ; and we hold every one to be a traitor to his country, that works 
 or speaks in favor of our criminal enemies, directly or indirectly, whether 
 his olfence bo such that the law can overtake him or not. 
 
 Wq declare our inmost abhorrence of the secret societies which exist 
 among us in favor of the rebellious enemy, and that we will denounce 
 every participator in these nefarious conventicles, whenever known to us. 
 We believe publicity the very basis of liberty. 
 
 We pledge our fullest support of the government in every measure 
 which it shall deem lit to adopt against xmrriendly and mischievous neu- 
 trality •, and we call upon it, as citizens that have the right and duty to 
 call for protection on their own government, to adopt the speediest possi- 
 ble measures to that important end. 
 
 We loyally support our government in its declarations and measures 
 against all and every attempt of mediation, or armed or unarmed inter- 
 ference in our civil war. 
 
 Wc solemnly declare that we will resist every partition of any portion 
 of our country to the last extremity, whether this partition should be 
 brought about by rebellious or treasonable citizens of our own, or by 
 foreign powers, in the way that Poland was torn to pieces. 
 
 We pronounce every foreign minister accredited to our government, 
 who tampers with our enemies, and holds covert intercourse with disloyal 
 men among us, as fading in his duty toward us and toward his own people, 
 and we await with attention the action of our government regarding the 
 recent and surprising breach of this duty. 
 
 And we call xipon every American, be he such by birth or choice, to 
 join the loyal movement of these National Leagues, which is naught else 
 than to joiu and follow our beckoning flag, and to adopt for his device — 
 
 OUli COUNTKY! 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 012 027 589 6 
 
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 YSanrts^ iC^m.