X^^A^Lt^ Glass. Book THE GKEAT ISSllE? fV^ AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNION CAMPAIGN CLUB, EAST BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, ON TUESDAY EVENING, OCT. 25, 1864. John Jay, Eso. NEAV YORK: BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPPOSITE CITT HALL. 1864. ■ A .343 Mr. Jay's Address. Before the Union Campaign Club of East Brooklyn, New York, Tuesday Evening, Oct. 25, 1864. Mr. PREsrDENT, Ladies and Gentlemen : In thanking your Club, as I beg leave to do most cordially, for the honour you have done me in asking me to follow the speakers whose eloquence has already consecrated your campaign quarters to those principles of Nationality and Freedom upon which our Fathers of the Revolution laid the basis of our Republic, I cannot forget the interesting historic associations that cluster around the site you have so happily selected. Close to this spot, eighty years ago, stood Fort Putnam, after- wards called Fort Greene, constituting an important point in the line of intrenchments which, extending on tlie one side to the Navy Yard, and on the other to Freek's Mill Pond, had been thrown up to protect our slender army from the British forces of Lord Percy and Lord Cornwallis, aided by the Hessians under General Ileiser. From this line on tlie 29th August, 177G, after the gallant but disastrous engagements in which our forces had failed to maintain their ground, though led by Generals Sterling, Sullivan and Grant, Washington resolved to withdraw the army across the river ; and he accomplished that famous retreat under cover of the protecting fog which concealed his movements from the British, the sound of whose spades and pickaxes was distinctly heard by our retiring soldiers. Again Americans assemble on the site of Fort Greene to defend the same sacred cause of their country, and to emulate the patriotism and lieroism which marked these lines in the last century. Engaged now in a contest 9f yet greater magnitude, we meet at a time when our prospect of success is brighter far than it was then, for our recent news, whether from Atlanta or the Shenandoah, Alatoona or Cedar Creek, whether from Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana, whether from our soldiers aim- inU.NIOX. EvL'ry new victory is a new contradiction of the theory em- bodied in the Chicago plattbrm, that the war is a failure, and - every mail from the South brings us fresh proofs that the military J despotism that rules at Richmond is losing the confidence of the Southern people, and even of their army itself. Gen. Grant tells us that the Rebels are losing, by desertion, about a regiment a day, and this statement which seemed almost incredible, is con- firmed by Jeft'. Davis' confession, that two-thirds of his army are '• al.sent witiiout leave," while the Richmond papers explain the defeat of Early, when Sheridan sent him " whirling through Win- chester," by declaring that the Valley was running with apple brandy, and that officers and men were drunk together : and both 14 Kiclimond and Georgia papers frankly acknowledge that their people fear their own lawless, disorganized and thieving armies far more than they do the well-ordered and disciplined armies of the United States. Such is onr position at this moment. Our armies have been largely reinforced with most excellent material, and the rebel army is being depleted. In view of the difficulty they find in coping with our armies in fair fight on the battle- field, or even when intrenched in fortifications like those of Yicks- burg and Atlanta, they are resorting to cowardly raids upon the unarmed citizens of our northern border, and the only victory they have gained of late was that won by the thieving gang from Canada, who, with a gallantry worthy of Semraes, succeeded in robbing the startled villagers of St. Albans. The Richmond Examiner^ of October 17, hardly a week ago^ disclosed a significant fact, illustrating the feelings of the southern soldiers, when it said, "There is but one single disagreeable feature in the situation of the armies near Richmond. The j)ickets are not fifty yards apart, and they are continually talking ;" and the editor insists that it must be stopped as the only way of stopping 'desertion. All these facts go to shew tliat the people of the South, and even their soldiers, are beginning to understand the whole matter ; that they are learning to regret the mad step of secession into which they were precipitated by a few ambitious party leaders, representing a faction of their oligarchy of 350,000 slaveholders \ that they have become disgusted with the non-fulfillment of the bright promises then made to them, and are fretting against the stern military despotism which lias swept their homes with a re- morseless conscription, and exposed the wives and widows left behind to the merciless exactions of the rebel army. They have learned from such admirable documents as the letters of Sherman that what we " want, and will have, is a just obedience to the laws of the United States," and it is no wonder that their pickets fraternize with ours, and that the country people actually fear less the approach of the once-hated Yankees than that of their own boasted " cliivalry." Sherman's tone to the Mayor of Atlanta was clear. He spoke the sentiment of the country when he said, " I want peace, and believe it can only be 15 reached through Union and war, and I will ever conduct war purely with a view to early and perfect success. But, my dear sir, when that peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your liomes and families against danger fi'om every quarter," In this situation of affairs, the advice of Generals Grant and Meade, and Sherman and Dix, and Hancock and Sheri 'an. Sickles and Meaglier, and I believe of every other general in the field or out of the field, unless it be General McClellan or Gen- eral Buell, is to push tiie war sharply, crush the military power of Davis, and release from his control the southern people and the southern States upon which lie has placed his heel ; for as we have seen in his tone to their Governors he has no more regard for the State sovereignty of Is"orth Carolina and Georgia than he has for the negroes whom he orders to the trenches. In the recent significant letter of Mr. Boyce, of South Carolina, to Mr. Jeffer- son Davis, the fact is frankly admitted that not simply- the abso- lute sovereignty which the seceded States claim to have, but the constitutional dignity and State rights which they possessed in the Union are absolutely trampled out. " Is not our federal gov- ernment," says Mr. Boyce, " in the exercise of every possible power of a National centralized despotism ? Suppose there were no States, only provinces, and unlimited power was conferred upon you and Congress, what greater power would you exercise than you can now? - * It is plain that our government exer- cises the power of a central desj)otisni ?" The moment the central Richmond despotism is broken the work of restoration will have begun, and the peoj^lc, enabled to control their own State action, will return, and this is the sinijde military problem of which we await the solution by General Grant. " It cannot be denied," is the language of the Richmond Whig, (September 12th, 1864,) "that if they (the United States) can bring together a force large enough to overwhelm Lee's army wherever the theatre of battle maybe, they do imperil Richmond, and with it the Confederate cause itself." Then the southern people, freed from the controul of the treacherous conspirators who have deceived and misled them, will be able to think and 16 act for themselves. And the facts to which I have alluded, show- ing a return of better feeling toward our soldiers individually and our army in a body, are of jirofound interest and importance, as indicating the easy settlement of our National difficulties when once the question of military power is determined in our favour. And now it is constitutionally submitted to the American people to declare the policy which shall controul 'the ]S"ational Government during the next four years. There would have been other grave questions to be considered had this election chanced to occur soon after the rebellion commenced, when our army and our navy were to be created, a depleted treasury filled, our ruined credit restored; but all these we now have. Our army of vete- rans, whose battle-thinned ranks are again full, led by generals whose names will stand by those of Cesar, Wellington, and Napo- leon ; a navy, which, with all that has been said in disparagement of Mr. Secretary Welles, has no compeer in Europe, whose naval fight at New Orleans, and again at Mobile, with Farragut lashed in the mast-head, will be coupled in history with that of Nelson ; a treasury replenished at will from the exhaustless coffers of the American people, and a credit already appreciated on German Bourse, and entitled to a confidence greater than belongs to the PUDIATION. As regards our national resources, the suggestion of Governor Seymour, of the possible disgrace of national repudiation, echoed and repeated with characteristic arrogance by the London Times^ has led to a more familiar acquaintance with the statistics of our census, and, without washing to detain you long upon this point, you will perhaps allow me to remind you of the leading facts of our condition as compared with the nations of the world. They not only illustrate a chief reason of the foreign jealousy that has been of late exhibited towards our Republic, but they throw a flood of light upon the great question of our pi-esent policy in the treatment of this rebellion. Our territory, which embraced at the peace of 1783, 800,000 17 square miles, was enlarged by the purchase of Louisiana, the ac- quisition of Florida, the annexation of Texas, and the Oregon treaty, and the treaty with Mexico, to 2,900,000 square miles, almost four times its original area, nearly double the area of all Europe, excluding Russia, and more than twenty times as large as Great Britain. Our population has increased from about four millions in 1790 to thirty millions in 1860, the annual increase having been four times that of Russia, six times that of England, nine times that of Austria, and ten times that of France, and ac- cording to the ratio of increase, which has been singularly uniform, our population in 1890 would be about one hundred and seven millions. If this seems fanciful and exaggerated, remember that a resort to statistics is the only safe mode of obtaining a correct idea of the present and future of our country, and, as Lord Stanley — who, by the way, appreciates aright the American question — has well remarked, " When in discussing the social question we apply the statistical test, we are really doing no more than appealing from imagination to facts, from an imperfect to a perfect system of observation." During the last decade, then, from 1850 to 1860, while the population of Great Britain increased less than one per cent., that of the United States increased thirty-five per cent. During the same ten years, .while the estimated increase of national wealth in Great Britain was 33 per cent., the increase of our national wealth was 126 per cent., rising from seven thousand millions (7,135,780,000) in 1850, to sixteen thousand millions (16,159,616,- 000) in 1860, at tlie rate of nvn-o tlian nine hundred millions a year. Ex pede Jlcrculem ! From this little item of the census you can judge of the stature of your countiy. A volume of statis- tics could hardly show more clearly the length and breadth and heiglit of the gigantic nationality, which this rebellion, instigated by the ambition of a handful of slaveholders, is attempting to destroy. A territory twenty times as large as Great-Britain, a popula- tion increasing at the rate of 35 per cent, to her 1 per cent., and a national wealth increasing four times as rapidly, despite her mon- 2 18 ster capital accumulated through centuries, and her earlj su- periority in agriculture, commerce, arts and manufactures ! I drop the topic of comparison, which I have introduced, — not to encourage in this trial hour a spirit of boastfulness, for which it will be time enough when we have put our armour off, but simply to enable us the more readily to appreciate our actual position now. Although still in our earliest youth, we are exhibiting a vigour without precedent in the history of nations whose annals com- menced a thousand years ago ; and it is worthy of careful note that, while the increase of our numbers has been steady at about 34 per cent, for each decade, the ratio of increase of our national wealth has been always in excess of the increase of population, and of late unexampled in its advancement. From 1830 to 1840, our wealth increased 12 per cent.; from 1810 to 1850, 61 per cent., and from 1850 to 1860, as I have said, 136 per cent. At the same rate, in 1870 it would be 250 per cent.; and, as Mr. Walker has shown, in the year 1890 — twenty- six years from to-day — our national wealth would be nearly four times that of Great-Britain, a fact that should tend to relieve the anxiety of our English friends in regard to our ability to pay a debt hardly half as large as their own. Our national wealth in 1860, if we look simply to the States in our possession, was estimated at nearly 12,000 millions, about four times that of the Rebels ; and, at the annual rate of increase of twelve and a half per cent., it has increased in the four years since 1860 some 6,000 millions. The loyal States, despite the boasts of Davis and his cabinet, that they would water their horses in the Hudson, occupy the palaces of New York, and plant their confederate counterfeit of our flag over Faneuil Hall, have escaped the desolation and de- struction of war, thanks to the brave army of the Potomac, under McClellan at Antietam, and under Meade at Gettysburg. The national payments are chiefly to our own people. Emigration, that inexhaustible source of wealth and power, has increased, is increasing, and will continue to increase, despite all the efforts of Mayor Gunther to prevent it. The new States and Territories are rapidly filling up. Our resources are being marvelously de- 19 veloped ; and the American who, in the face of these facts, ven- tures to suggest the danger of repudiation, even though the sug- gestion be simplv for party purposes, shows that his discretion, his intelligence and his honesty are all upon a par. Even in England, where, perhaps, the wish was ofttimes father to the thought, and the monstrous inventions of rebel agents have been accepted as scriptural truth, the London Economist and Saturday Review have recently enlightened their bewildered readers, and shown them that the wealth of America is distributed among an immense number of persons of small income ; and the Economist^ estimating the wage-income of the United States as equal to the property-income of Great Britain, demonstrated our capacity to bear easily 600 millions dollars annual taxation. EFFECT OF THE CUICxVGO PLATFORM OX THE RIGHTS OF NEUTRALS. Tliis digression from the' question of the Presidential election is not altogether a digression, for our present foreign relations ren- der it doubly imperative that the domestic policy we now adopt shall be such as will warn them against the slightest infringement upon our interests or our honour. And in two points especially the declarations of the Chicago platform have a bearing upon the po- sition towards us of foreign nations that has scarcely attracted the degree of attention to which it is entitled. The resolutions declare (and you know with Avhat anxious deliberations those re- solutions must have been prepared, and with what unanimity and enthusiasm they were adopted aS' expressing the decided ])olicy of the party) : " That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war * * * *, justice, humanity and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities." Here is a solemn pledge on the part of the American people, if they adopt it by electing the candidate selected to execute this policy : Firsts that the war for the Union was an experiment and a failure. 20 Second, that it was unjust, and that justice demands its dis- continuance. Third, that hostilities on our part shall immediately cease. And to these things asserted in the Resolutions is to be added the all-significant fact, that a pledge for the maintenance of the National unity, proposed to be inserted in the draft of the Resolu- tions, was rejected. Add to these another fact, that the " leading Democrats " who waited on Lord Lyons intimated that British intervention would be accepted by the Democratic party when they should come into power, and that they were preparing to acquiesce in Se- cession, and it is not difficult to understand why the Southern Rebels and their foreign friends are the warm advocates of Mc Clellan. It is a little curious that we have to go to Parliamentary Blue-books and the correspondence of a British Minister, to learn the real policy and intention of the great American Democratic party ; and the fact involuntarily suggests a doubt whether it is, in truth, either American or Democratic ; but it is not, perhaps, very much more strange than it is to see a foreign millionaire, the agent of the Rothschilds, and lately a representative of "the most despotic family in Europe," the Austrian Hapsburgs, presid- ing over its National Committee. Besides the information furnished us by Lord Lyons, we have more from Mr. W. S. Lindsay, of the House of .Commons, who, very recently, delivered an address to his constituents, in which, after quoting a resolution passed by Rebel sympathizers in Ohio, he said — " A member of the Federal Congress writes to me that meetings are being held through the West and adjoining States for securing peace and separation, and he asks me to make known these meetings in this country, and he adds : ' There must be a Western as well as a Southern Confederacy, for the party who advocates this course grows stronger and stronger every day.' I am glad to see that feeling arising in the Southern States, and the feeling is increasuig in the West. A very distinguished statesman, a member of the Senate, writing to a friend of mine — a statesman who occupies a very high position in Europe, and was a Minister of the United States Cabinet — writes: 'We are tumbling to pieces fast, and \mless Europe steps in and saves what is left, we shall go headlong to destruction.' " Pleasant language this for " a very distinguished statesman, a member of the Senate," to address to a member of the British Parliament ; and it would be worth our while to ask how it is 21 that men born and bred in America, and honoured and trusted by their fellow-citizens, could have sunk so very low, had we not learned that there is no depth of infamy to which the Northern advocate of Slavery and Rebellion will not descend. But looking simply at the platform, and witliout these outside guides to its meaning, I think it clear — 1st. That its adoption invites and ensures foreign intervention in our domestic afi'airs. 2d. That it renders prol)able instant recognition of the South- ern Confederacy. And 3d. That it will operate to raise the blockade, and opens in stanter the Southern ports. Upon this last point it will be remem- bered, that M'hatever agreement may be made between two bellig- erents agreeing upon an armistice, or cessation of hostilities, as to tlie utatu quo, that agreement can not be made to bind neutrals. " The duties imposed upon them," says Hauteville, " by the state of war depend essentially upon its continuance. The mo- ment it ceases, from whatever cause, even temjwrarily^ peace is completely restored, as regards them, during the cessation of hostilities. They resume, then, all the rights which had been modified by the war, and can exercise them in their full extent during the whole time fixed for tlie duration of the truce, if this time has been limited by the agreement, and until the resumption of hostilities has been officially announced to them if it has not been limited.'' We need not stop to picture the activity with which French and English iron-clads, war steamers, gunboats, guns, ammuni- tion, and all the muniments of war Avould be rushed across the At- lantic to the Southern ports, opened to neutrals by a cessation of hostilities ; or to recognize the absurdity of supposing, if any body could be so absurd, that Mr. Davis, when thus materially strengthened, and, perhaps officially recognized by the Great Powers of Europe, would bend, in all humility, before the Flag of the Republic, or unite in a convention to amend the Constitu- tion by the popular majority, which he has repudiated, instead of defiantly demanding Southern independence, and looking forward to the day when lie might safely execute his olden resolution, to plant his flag in Washington and Boston. Does anybody suppose that onr European foes would not jump at such a chance as a cessation of hostilities would aiford, to give to our Kepublic the gouj> de grace ; or that Lord Clanricarde and his friends would not invoke heaven and earth to put a stop to what England, so innocent of blood, calls, with horror, " this dreadful carnage ? " Would not the election of McClellan, under these circum- stances be, as General Wool has bluntly declared, the surrender of the United States to Jeff. Davis and his government ? Is it possible to imagine a more glaring case of J^ational suicide than would be the cessation of hostilities on our part towards this Ke- bellion, at the very moment when our grasp is tightening upon its throat ? On what reasonable or even plausible plea can this policy be defended ? For an answer to this question I have occasionally looked at The World and the News, both advocating McClellan's election, and, so far as I can understand, for precisely opposite reasons ;, The World on the ground that he is in favor of war, and the News because he is solemnly pledged to peace. Not having con- sulted The World to learn how to cast my own vote, I was not disturbed by the antagonistic arguments, but it is easy to imagine the incertitude and perplexity with which some Democrats must rise from the perusal of these daily sheets, morning after morn- ing, resolved to hold to the uttermost the Democratic faith, as taught by the Democratic organs, and yet embarrassed and con- fused beyond expression by the irreconcilable articles presented for their acceptance. On one point these differing sheets are unanimously agreed, and this is their entire readiness to secure and divide the spoils of the National Government, and provided they attain that desired end, they are not disposed to be unreasonably scrupulous as to the po- litical principles on which its attainment shall be effected. Mr. Amos Kendall is said to have remarked to an anxious inquirer about the party policy : " Let us elect McClellan, and we will settle all that afterwards." However convenient and admirable for their purposes may be this willingness to become all things to all men, it is at least natural that the American people, in view of 23 tlie sacrifices they have made, and of the issue which is at stake, should demand something more explicit in regard to the policy that is to govern the country for its preservation or its destruction, than the presentation of a disunion platform and a Union letter, with the request, " deposit your ballot and take your choice !" The truth, I believe, is that the J^^ew York managers of the party — Messrs. Belmont, Richmond and their friends — went to Chicago expecting to controul the Convention, and found to their disgust that they were in the hands of Western peace delegates, and of an outside mob headed by rebel sympathizers, members of secret societies who assumed the controul of the body and dictated the "surrender" resolution ; and that their last hope of saving the party from utter defeat and eternal infamy was, if possible, to divert attention from the peace platform by reiterating the cry of Union in tlie letter of acceptance. MK. WINTUROP's ARGUilENT IGNORING THE PLATFORM. On Tliursday last I found in the World an elaborate and in- genious speed 1 by an accomplished statesman of Massachusetts, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, and it contains much with w^hich all loyal men will agree ; but Mr. Winthrop conveniently sliirks entirely, the great issue of peace or war presented in the Chicago and Baltimore platforms, tlie issue upon which the Pre- sidential contest is to be and ought to be decided. Indeed, in his previous effort at New York, wliere he was associated, I think, for the first time with Mr. Isaiah Rynders and tlie "friends" of Gov. Seymour, ^Mr. Winthrop treated Gen. McClellan as if he had been an independent candidate, at liberty to make his own plat- form, and choose in all things his own policy : instead of being one of two candidates designated together to execute a certain line of pol- icy, most deliberately marked out and unanimously adopted by the great representative Convention by whom they were nominated. Mr. Winthrop referred to the Convention and the Platform in a tone of sarcasm which was doul)tless perfectly sincere, declaring that he did not liold McClellan " responsible for any equivocal or unequivocal words of Chicago Conventions whicli malicious i)ar- tizans may attempt to assert to his injury," and that his support- 24 ers for the Presidency are " not to be scared from their position by any paper pellets of the brain, wise or otherwise, which ever came from the midnight sessions of a resolution committee in the hurly burly of a political convention." It is perhaps natural that Mr. Winthroji, with his social and political associations as a New England Whig, should regard w4th the deep contempt he so unmistakably expresses the Democratic body that met at Chicago, and the platform that they so carefully constructed ; but as a somewhat recent member of the party his interpretations are pexhaps hardly entitled to the same weight as those, for instance, of his elder brother in the Democratic faith, the Hon. Fernando AVood, and that gentleman gives us plainly to un- derstand that, whatever may be Gen. McClellan's private views, Mr. Geo. B. MeClellan, the nominee for the Presidency, acknowl- edges himself the creature of the Chicago Convention, and will ^faithfully execute the policy he w^as chosen to fulfill. That is the understanding of Gov. Seymour, who said, at Milwaukee, " I think our candidate an able man, but no matter, for we fight this this battle on the general issue ;" and Gen. MeClellan in his letter recognizes the fact that he cannot accept the nomination without distinctly accepting the platform ; for, after expressing his views, he says, " Believing that the views I have expressed are the views of the Convention, I accept the nomination." A moment's reflection may satisfy Mr. AVinthrop that the bare insinuation that Mr. MeClellan, if elected, is capable of repudiat- ing the peace policy on the strength of which he had received the votes of the Peace Democrats who nominated him at Chicago, is more injurious to his reputation and more insulting to his honour, both as a soldier and a gentleman, than any charge that has yet been preferred by the most bitter of his opponents. The rule on this point with the Democratic party is absolutely imperative. Mr. Buchanan, after his nomination on the Cincin- nati platform said : " I Tnust square my conduct to that jplatfortn^ and insert no new jplank^ nor take one from itJ^ Thus, whatever Mr. McClellan's private views, he is as much bound to carry out the policy of the platform as Mr. Pendleton would be, who has said : " If you find conciliation impossible, if your differences are so 25 great that you cannot or will not settle them, then, gentlemen, let the seceding States depart in peace, let them establish their gov- ernment and empire, and work out their destiny according to the wisdom which God has given them." Kow, as Mr. Winthrop, if he votes for General McClcllan must vote also for Mr. Pendleton, — for they are inseparable on the elec- toral ticket: I do not quite see the consistency between the senti- ments he expresses in favour^ of another draft, if a draft be neces- sary, and of paying taxes and raising loans to maintain the supremacy of the Government, and the vote he proposes to give for a President and Yice President pledged to an immediate ces- sation of hostilities. Indeed, the policy of the Democratic party has not been strikingly consistent. For two years their persistent demand was for a more vigourous prosecution of the war ; and now that they liave got it, they demand that it shall not be prosecuted at all. Mr. Winthrop, discarding the platform, and treating this grand issue very much as if it were a question of personal preference, charges Mr. Lincoln and his friends first with virtually causing the war, and next with being incompetent to conclude it. He declares " if the in-coming President and his friends in Congress had given countenance and encouragement to the move- ment of the Peace Convention, and to tlie measures it proposed, tlie secession would have ended M-ith South Carolina and the Gulf States, and we should have had Union and peace before six months had expired. Tlie rebellion would liave been nipped in the bud ; it would have been crushed in the {:i:g, &c." AVhile this may be the oi)inion of Mr. Winthrop and his friends, it is expressly contradicted by the testimony of Mr. Everett, and by the deliberate convictions of the late Senator Douglas, who, while he had certainly no ])articular affection for Mr. Lincoln, nor any devotion to Rei)ublican principles, declared emphatically that if the rebels had been allowed to write their own terms on a sheet of blank paper they would not have ac- cepted it, and Douglas called on all Democrats to sustain the country and the Lincoln Administration in preference to party. The fact is, and it is a fact not now to Ijc forgotten or ignored, that such was the anxiety of the North at that time to settle this 26 thing bj eorajpromise, and to avoid war with its horrors, by every concession that could honourably be made, that the effort was prosecuted to such an extent, and continued under such indigni- ties, that the olive branch we extended so perseveringly was re- garded by the rebels as a sign of cowardice, and they hissed their contempt at us in the very Senate Chamber. "Mr. President," said Senator Wigfall of Texas, "Mr. Presi- dent, we have insulted your flag, we fired on tlie ' Queen of the West,' and you did not resent it." And so it would be now, were the American people to endorse the Chicago platform, which McClellan and Pendleton were nom- inated to execute. Were Grant to lower his colours to Lee, and tell him that tlie United States had concluded that the war was a failure and must be stopped ; were Slierman to request Hood to stay his flight and return to Atlanta, which was awaiting his ac- ceptance ; were Sheridan to dispatch his swiftest courier after Longstreet, to overtake his fleeing and scattered columns, and tender him a flag of truce and an ofl'er of armistice; — from every part of tlie Confederacy would come a cry of scornful triumph that would disturb the slumbers of our dead heroes who have died for their country ; for it would declare that they had died in vain ! On the testimony of a refugee from Atlanta, Mr. Winthrop tells us that " If Mr. Lincoln is elected, the people of the South will fight for thirty years." This comes, of course, from " a per- fectly reliable gentlemaTi," but does it look like fighting thirty years, when two-thirds of the army have deserted, and the Southern people j)refer our troops to their own ? The testimony of an unnamed refugee can hardly be expected to outweigh the assurances of Grant, the admissions of Davis, and th'C reiterated statements of the Richmond press. THE DEATH OF SLAVERY THE ACT OF THE REBELS. Slavery is dying, and will die by the laws of war, and the mad act of the slaveholders ; and its death will be an untold blessing, not only to the slaves, but to the Inmdreds and thous- ands of non-slaveholding whites, whom the base aristocracy of 27 slavery groimd to the very dust. Its death may well be mourned by the aristocratic Southern clique that would make their own power perpetual, for they know that with the extinction of slavery, schools and churches, manufactories and all the institutions of freedom and sources of prosperity will appear among them, and endow the labouring class with prosperity and independence. Mr. Everett has well expressed tlie opinion which will probably receive judicial sanction that " by the simple act of levying war against the United States the relation of slavery was terminated certainly so far as concerns the duty of the United States to recog- nize it or to refrain from interfering with it." If this be so, then the Proclamation of Emancipation may liave been unnecessary. But there are few national rights more clearly settled than the right of a nation at war — and the Supreme Court has decided that we are at war, and that the people within tlie limits of the rebel- lion are public enemies — to emancipate slaves as a military ne- cessity for the ])ro?ecution of the war, or as a guarantee of peace. There is one other view of the subject. It is clear that as subjects of the United States the Government was entitled to their allegiance, through tlie masters to whom they were held to service, and that when tliosc masters became armed traitors, the right of the Government to the allegiance of tlie slaves remained unimpaired ; tliat it had a perfect right in the exercise of its sovereignty to direct the slaves to render their allegiance directly to the Government, and in doing so to pledge protection to their wives and children. It may be that the slaves might with justice have answered the national Government, you have given us no protection, and we, therefore, owe you no allegiance, but as they cheerfully responded to the call, no stranger, and least of all, no rebel master, can raise such an objection. Tlieir heroism, again and again, has saved the honour of our Hag, and the lives of our friends and kinsmen, and if, as we thankfully and confidently believe, the day is near when their long servitude is to be ended, the American people will not soon forget the loyal aid they lent us, and the blood they so freely spilt, when their revilers were betraying the cause of tlie Republic, by giving aid and comfort to its foes. 28 But although it mav favour the purpose of those who sympa- thize with the Eebellion, and of the Democrats who are hungry for office, to represent the Eepublicans as the authors of the im- pending emancipation, the credit actually belongs to Mr. Davis and his confederates in the South, and their abettors in the Fre© States. Mr. Boyce told the South Carolinians in 1850 : "If se- cession should take place, of which I have no idea, for I cannot believe in such stupendous madness, I shall consider the institu- tion of slavery as doomed, and that the great God, in our blind- ness, has made us the instrument of its destruction." They knew well the stake for wdiicli they were playing, and that if they failed, slavery was doomed. Mr. Herschel V. Johnston says, in a recent letter : " The President of the Confederate States never uttered anything more true than when he said to the unofficial messenger of President Lincoln, that we are not fighting for slavery, but for the right of self-government." It seems proba- ble, from late accounts, that Mr. Davis is himself about to arm all the able-bodied negroes in the Confederacy, giving them their freedom ; and the ISTorthern gentlemen, who are so unhappy at the work of emancipation, originally inaugurated by secession, and presently to receive its completing touch from the hand of the arch-leader of the Rebellion, may more properly address their complaints to Richmond than to AVashington, and remember that if at any time the war has threatened to be a failure, it was when Mr. Lincoln, lending an ear to the insidious counsels from border States, and rebel sympathizers, permitted a thought for the interests of slavery to interfere with the preservation of the Union. "Whatever of delay — whatever of difficulty or danger, of waste of treasure or of life, resulting from the prolongation of this war, is connected with the slavery question — lies at the door of those who insisted on the National Army becoming slave catch- ers and guardians for the Southern rebels. MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY HALL S SPEECH, AND THE TREATMENT OF UNION PRISONERS. Having referred at some length to Mr. Winthrop's effort, which is characterized by the Wo7'ld as " the most brilliant and 29 effective speech of the campaign," let me refer simply to the title of another speech which I find in the World of Friday, and which, judging from its headings, I presume was, perhaps, intended to influence a class of Democrats a shade lower than Mr. Win- throp's hearers. Here is the title : A. LIXCOLN AERAIGNED. Speech of Hon. A. Oakey Hall at New Haven, Ct., Last Evening. Counts in the Presentment. High Political Crimes and Low Partisan 'Misdemeanors the Sum Total. List of the Charges Peeferekd. Treason, Homicide, Arson, Kidnapping, Robbery, Perjury, Blasphemy, Profanity, Obscenity, Bribery, Embezzlement, Forgery, Mayhem and Thimble Rigging. The People to Decide the Case Nov. 8. etc., If Mr. District Attorney Oakey Hall will glance at a report just published, of the Committee appointed by the Sanitary Com- mission to inquire into the treatment of our prisoners by the rebels — a committee consisting of Dr. Mott, Dr. Delafield, Mr. Martin Wilkins, and other gentlemen of the sameliigh character — lie will find a record of crimes committed by the rebel rulers of the South against our gallant soldiers, whom the fortunes of war have placed in their power, with which he can harrow the feel- ings of any audience he may address without taxing his fertile imagination. He can frame an indictment for the systematic robbery, insult, starvation and murder to which they are exposed in every rebel prison of the South, where strong men are reduced, day by day, to the condition of skeletons — ragged, filthy, hide- ously diseased, devoured by vermin, frostbitten, and almost naked. Their scanty bread contained whole grains of corn, frao-- ments of cob, and pieces of husk; the meat tainted, the beans rotten, the soup briny with worms floating at the top, the total ration insufiicient to support life ; and the food sent to these pris- oners by their friends in the North stolen from its rightful owners 30 when they were both freezing and starving ! " The cold froze them," says the report, " because they were hungry, and the hunger con- sumed them because they were cold." Their keepers deliberately inflicted upon them the gnawing pains of hunger, and many are thus reduced by cruelty and starvation to all the stages of idiocy and imbecility. The conclusion sadly reached by the Committee, after the most careful deliberation, is that it was " all a determined plan, originating somewhere in the rebel councils, for outraging and disabling the soldiers of the enemy who had honourably surren- dered in the field." CONCLUSION. Is it with this rebel government, guilty of such crimes, where the prolonged agony is more dreadful than the brutal massacre of Fort Pillow, that the American people should consent to an armistice or commence a negotiation ? Is it to a party that proposes such an armistice and negotia- tion that the American people should surrender this government, especially when they remember that it is the same party that was in power when this rebellion first raised its head in the coun- cil of Buchanan, and used the power itself of the Executive to cripple, divide and betray the nation ? From that wretched depth of almost helpless humiliation we have risen, under the presidency of Mr. Lincoln, with the help of God and our own right arm, to the point of dignity and strength where we now stand. Whether we shall maintain our position and crush this rebel despotism, and emancipate the citi- zens and States of the South from its relentless grasp, and become once more an united people, to whose shores the oppressed of all nations shall come, and to whose bright example the oppressed nationalities of the world shall look, or whether, on the contrary, we shall surrender our birthright, surrender our national suprem- acy, our national integrity, and, more than all, our national honour, — this is tlie grand issue which, in the exercise of your sov- ereignty as Americans citizens, you are now called upon to decide. // f 31 " Since the days of ancient Rome," as the London Times re- marks, " no question so important has been submitted to popular decision." To you is committed by God, in this election, not simply the destinies of this Republic, but in large measure the future of christandom. The friends of civil freedom in other lands appeal to us on their own behalf as well as on our own. " The future of the American continent," wrote Prof. Gold- win Smith,- " hangs on the issue of this Avar, and as victory may incline to loyalty or rebellion, it will have the heritage of free- dom and of social justice, or of a tyranny darker and fouler than the darkest and foulest tyrannies of the old world. This contest touches the dearest interests and move the inmost hearts of men not on your continent alone. Everywhere it is felt to be, as in truth it is, a contest between the great parties that divide mankind — the party of justice and of the future, and the party of privilege and of the past. You have friends of the rebel slave-owners among you in the jS'orth, and so have we; and the same are the enemies not only of the American Republic, but of tlie hopes of man." And now I will close my too long address with a passage from one of John Bright's magnificent speeches, for it seems a fitting response both to the charge from Chicago that the war is a fail- ure, and to Mr. Hall's assault upon Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Bright, I may remark, is the champion and representative of the forty- nine-iiftieths of the working classes of Great Britain, who are absolutely disfranchised by her present laws, and who anxiously await your verdict in the election, whether the American Re- public shall stand in its glory or ignominiously fall. " Look," said Mr. Bright, " at the power which the L^nited States have developed ! They have brought more men into the field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources than any nation in Europe at this moment is ca])able of. * * Look at their industry. Notwithstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures, and com- merce, proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a l*rcsident, chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal 32 / or noble blood, but from the people, and the one whose truthful- ness and spotless honour have claimed him universal praise ; and now the country that has been vilified through half the organs of the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your states- men, that country, now in mortal strife, aifords a haven and a home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old governments of Europe, and, when this mortal strife is over, when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the Union is cemented afresh, for I would say, in the language of one of our own poets, addressing his country : — ' The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, ' In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away,' then Euroi3e and England may learn that an instructed democra- cy is the surest foundation of Government, and that education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true hap- piness among any people."