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 DELIVERED BEFORE THE MILlTARy Ail f ITIZEM! S 
 
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ADDRESS 
 
 WM. LEIGH, ESQR., 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE MILITARY AND CITIZEM 
 
 OF 3SJ:-A.Il,TI3SrSBTJI^Gf-, V-A.., 
 
 FEB. 22d., I860. 
 
 Since the death of Washington, it has become a very 
 general custom to set apart his birth day as a national 
 festival, to be devoted, in part at least, to the study of his 
 life and actions and the principles which guided and gov- 
 erned them. 
 
 Such, Fellow Citizens, is the purpose for which we are 
 DOW assembled. It is a beautiful and touching custom, 
 the most striking form in which the gratitude of a Nation 
 can clothe itself — acknowledging the conviction, that we 
 shall arise from the contemplation of his virtues, as from 
 a river of living waters, with patriotism, and all high and 
 honorable motives of public and private action, refreshed 
 and reinvigorated — founded also, let me hope, in a feeling 
 of thankfulness to God, that he should liave raised up 
 among our fathers so good, and wise, and great a man, 
 to guide them through the trials and perils which beset the 
 infancy of this nation. 
 
 George Washington is in many respects — in most per- 
 haps — the most wonderful man in history. Porn in a part 
 of the colony of Virginia remote from Capital, with no ad^ 
 vantages of early education, but such as are to be found in 
 the common country schools, at the age when other youths 
 are finishing their studies in a college, he is employed as 
 a land surveyor, in a district (this country which vre now 
 live in) subject to Indian incursion. In this situation his 
 pre-eminent tterit seems almost immediately to have been 
 recognized. At the age of nineteen he is appointed Ad- 
 
jutant (jeneral of the Colony — the year following to the 
 command of the troops, which the colony was raising for 
 the defence of the frontier — a year or two later we find a 
 British General then preparing to march against Fort Du- 
 quesne, negotiating to secure the services of the young 
 Colonel; and Gren'l. Braddock's high appreciation of his 
 merit, is fully justified by the distinguished services which 
 he afterwards renders, on that disastrous expedition. This 
 at the age of twenty^three. If it be alleged that the parti- 
 ality of his friends was premature, in placing him at the 
 head of the military men that the Colonies had yet pro- 
 duced, before that expedition — there can be no doubt 
 that after that expedition, he was, and was justly entitled 
 to be, so considered throughout America. Here we have 
 the brilliant commencement of a career that was indeed to 
 be glorious. Yet now that we can take in all the events 
 of his life at a glance, we recognize that his qualities were 
 rather solid and useful, than showy or biilliant. His 
 greatness does not rtst on military ^5kill. nor on the sagacity 
 which enabled him to step full fledged into the field of 
 diplomacy, but on a combination of qualities that have 
 rarely, if ever been united in one man. In him the intui- 
 tive insight into men and things, which marks a genius of 
 the highest order, is so tempered by reason, judgment and 
 high moral sense, that we scarcely recognize it as that 
 erratic gift. He presents the noblest example in History, 
 of ambition subjected to wisdom and moderation, of 
 power subordinated to duty, of patriotism unsullied by 
 selfish or grovelling weakness. His noble and majestic 
 character, displays few of those meteoric splendors which 
 dazzle a generation, but is rather to be likened to a rugged 
 mountain peak, towering far above the clouds, whose mas- 
 sive and solitary grandeur, shall endure to the end of time. 
 In tracing back the course of history it is readily per- 
 ceived, that its current has received its direction mainly 
 from a few great minds. It is thus apparently that 
 Providence shapes the afi'airs of men. A man fitted and 
 endowed for the task assigned him appears, and does the 
 work. In the earlier periods these men are geneially — 
 as Moses, Confucius, Zoroastrc — founders of religious, 
 iocial or political systems — later — as Alexander, Ghengis, 
 Napoleon — they are destroyers. That Washington was one 
 
of tliese Providential men there cannot be a doubt, and 
 the farther the generations of men recede from him in 
 time, the nearer he will approximate to those grand indis- 
 tinct figures^ which loom in the traditionary periods as 
 heroes, sages, and demi-gods. He had learned the art of 
 war under no great chieftan — no wilej politican had 
 initiated him into the secrets of state-craft — the learning 
 of the schools was not his— whence then the mighty powers 
 which he brought to the aid of his country ? they were froni 
 On High ! and who can doubt that he was endowed with 
 them for a special purpose. If we would rightly under- 
 stand what that purpose was, we must go back to the last 
 of those great quarrels^ which have rent the Westero 
 Church. 
 
 The era of the lieformation is the grandest and most 
 imposing in modern history. An age of external war and 
 internal strife, when every motive that could intensify the 
 passions of men, was present in excess, when every obliga'» 
 tion of pliglited faith and moral rectitude, was ruthlessly 
 violated in the name of religion — a period of murderous 
 battles and disastrous seiges. of plots and intrigues, poison- 
 ing, assassination, massacre. Earnest men in those days, 
 animated by a faith as pure, a zeal as fiery as ever courted 
 or defied martyrdom, struggled in the opposing ranks — 
 Luther and Calvin, Loyola and Philip II, and Gustavus 
 Adolphus. It was not until the fell spirit aroused in 
 this religious controversy was sated with carnage, that 
 Europe emerged divided as at present into Catholic and 
 Protestant States. Society panting and exhausted, at 
 length found leasure to review the crimes committed in the 
 name of Religion, and it relapsed into the frivolous skep- 
 ticism, and infidel philosophy of the XVIII century. It 
 became fashionable to doubt and to disbelieve, to dismiss 
 the gravest questions with a witticism or an epigram, to 
 sneer at religion and morality as shams. The licencious- 
 ness of this, exceeded the military licence and ferocity of 
 the former period. Men sated with vice, cooled their 
 parched and fevered imaginations, in fanciful visions of 
 the unsophisticated purity and simplicity of nature. A 
 mawkish sentimentalism bacame the cheap substitute for 
 yirtue. 
 
 The class of nobles was originally a national rnilUi^. 
 
The lan^s privileges aud immunities with which it wa^ 
 endowed, was in compensation of services rendered or due 
 to the State. In the wars whichfollowed the Reforioation, 
 this Feudal militia was disp'aced by the substitution of 
 standing armies. The Feudal System thus received it^ 
 death blow, but the nobles remained, their privileges intact, 
 without any of the correllative obligations on which they 
 had cgiually depended. Let me add, that starting from 
 the same period the human mind had taken a mighty inw 
 pulse; Commerce had spread her golden wings; and Sci- 
 ence already soared into those realms of unimaginable 
 space, whenge she has brought us so many of the secrets 
 of the Universe. 
 
 Thus towards the close of the XVIIT century, an 
 infidel philosophy pervades th« upper strata of society, with 
 corruption of manners — the middle classes are panting to 
 embark in that career of material prosperity which looms 
 in the future — the great masses are crushed and ground 
 down by intolerable burdens and exactions, which no 
 longer have the slightest pretext in reason, or in justice. 
 The world is ripe for change. 
 
 It is now that the hand of Providence becomes unrais'* 
 takably visible. No trumpet sounds in the Heavens, foK 
 lowed by earthquakes, and thunderings, and lightnings, 
 ^rith a wail of mortal agony, fitful in the shriek of the 
 huricane, and the roar of waters — but the meek calm 
 yoice of a few feeble colonists, utters a protest ag^'inst 
 the prevailing corruption — announces the true soiree of 
 human authority — defines the true relation of rulers to the 
 governed. The great underlying principles of the Refor^' 
 mation are transforred from the domain of Religion, to 
 the institution of Political Government. Such was the 
 American Revolution ! — child of a mother clothed in the 
 Sun, with the Moon under her feet, and a glory of Stars 
 around her head — to rescue that child from the great red 
 Dragon, and to lay it at the foot of the Throne of Grod — 
 such was the task of Washington ! 
 
 It was a beacon of hope to the millions of oppressed — 
 the lamp of political regeneration lighted up in the wil- 
 derness — to feed its feeblo flame, to shelter it from the rude 
 blasts with which the powers of evil were to assail it— such 
 was the task of Washington ! 
 
At the breaking out of tli6 American Revolutioo, 
 England flushed with recent triumph over fjes and 
 rivals in every quarter of the globe, was by far the most 
 powerful nation of the earth. Her monarch was honest 
 and upright, lut narrow-minded and big«ted. It may be 
 permitted us to doubt, whether he fully comprehended the 
 full import of those measures, which precipitated a contest 
 of principle. Those principles had taken deep root rmong 
 his immediate subjects at home, and ever served to stay 
 his arm in the fratricidal struggb that ensued. That gal- 
 lant people also of Western Europe, that challenges equally 
 ouj gra^titude and our admiration, was brooding the mortifi'» 
 cation of tempcrary discomfiture, and biding an opportunity 
 to retrieve its faded prestige. The British Monarch havs 
 ing brought on the lievolution by a too obstinate adhers 
 ence to an ill judged policy, found it necessary to put forth 
 the vast military power of his Empire, to preserve the 
 integrity of his dominions. By wisdom in conneil, by 
 conduct in the field, to guide that Revolution to its trium- 
 phant issue — was the task of Washington. His corns 
 manding figure stands out from the Revolution — alone amid 
 the gloom — radiant with a never dying glory. Surely God 
 has never entrusted so beneficent a task to mere man, since 
 the days when Moses led his chosen people out of Egypt. 
 
 How nobly his work was done — with what consummate 
 sagacity, he utilized the sympathies of mankind, and the 
 feeble resources of the infant nation — how he guided it 
 through the perilous days of the Revolution, the dreary 
 period of the confederation, and led the tottering giant 
 through the first eight years of the operation of this gov- 
 ernment, is too well known, that I need to dwell upon 
 them before an audier:ce of his countrymen. I am chiefly 
 solicitous to avoid porrpous insipidities, and hackneyed 
 commonplace. But shall I be deemed to infringe this 
 rule if I remind you, that the Nation with whose feeble 
 infancy his name is forever identified, now stalks the path 
 to Empire with a boldness of stride that bewilders the 
 world — that the feeble flame which he fed and sheltered 
 with parental solicitude, now flares with intolerable blaze 
 on oppression and injustice wherever they exist — that Ty* 
 rants pale, and thrones and institutions crumble into dust, 
 in the fierce intensity of its light. 
 
It once happened to me, to travel in iv land which is 
 traversed by some of the Western ranges of the Andes. 
 A timely start had brought our party in the early dawn 
 to the summit of a mountain pass. Beyond and below us 
 stretched a vast lake of pure white vapour, enclosed as it 
 were within a chain of mountain peaks, towering and 
 sharply defined in the keen morning air, like the sides of 
 a huge caldron. Whether it was a cloud that lay below 
 us I know not ; but while we yet gazed, the first rays of the 
 rising sua fell upon it, an(t all was instantly violent commo- 
 tion. The whole mass seemed in a s^ate of ebullition, it 
 raged, and heaved, and surged from side to side, huge vols 
 umes rushed impetuously to and fro, conveyins: the idea, 
 that had the mighty powers evolved been exerted through a 
 more substantial medium, they would have suflBced to overs 
 turn the solid mountains from their bases. Slowly it rose — 
 it poured over the lower gorges and disappeared, revealing^ 
 to us beneath, a lovely valley, dotted with fiocks , and 
 herds, and. patches of cultivation, a village in the distance, 
 and a silver stream meandering through ihe middle. — 
 Such is the figure by which I shall hope to impress you, 
 with the mighty effects of that protest which issued from 
 the wilds of America — of that pale gleam, which from 
 athwart the Atlantic, fell on the abuses and corruptions of 
 Europe. The French Revolution, the wars of Napoleon, 
 the deposition of monarchs, the crumbling of monarchies, 
 the rise and fall of States, the remodeling of laws and 
 institutions, succeed each other like the fancies of a dis*» 
 tempered imagination, or the phantasmagoria of a fever- 
 ish dream. Those effects still continue. Europe is alter- 
 nately in the throes of convulsion, or the fires smoulder 
 sullenly beneath the surface. Let us trust, that all that is 
 just, and wise, and conservative in her institutions, will be 
 purified and refined, and that she will re-appear like 
 the peaceful valley of the Andes, renovated and disea? 
 thralled. 
 
 But Fellow Citizens, we assemble to meditate at the 
 tomb of Washington under peculiar and startling circums 
 stances. If a momentary enthusiasm kindles in the mems 
 cry of his virtues, it is checked by the recollection, that 
 this monument of his patriotism, this Government under 
 which we have enjoyed such marvellous prosperity, this 
 
asylum for the oppressed, and beacon to re-anhuate with 
 hope the down-trodden millions, is hasf-ening to dissolution. 
 The flame which he nurtured so tenderly and which now 
 beams with so bright an effulgence, may soon— too soon — 
 be quenched foiever. 
 
 1 know that a patriotic movement is on foot for the con- 
 servation of the Union, but that movement I firmly be- 
 lieve, can at the best, only interpose a short delay to a 
 catastrophy woeful as it is inevitcible. They cannot do 
 more than revive it to a few years of gainful and languid 
 existence. Suspicion and distrust, have already replaced 
 the religious and social ties which were its strongest bonds, 
 and the two great parties now stand face to face, the one 
 haughty, presumptuous, and aggressive, the other stern, 
 resolute, and uuyielaing. I know that this is not the first 
 strain to which the Union of these States has been ex^ 
 posed, and hitherto it has emerged brighter and stronger 
 for the trial, — can it thus escape this present strain ! 
 
 Henry Clay the great pacificator on foimer occasions was 
 a Southern man — herein was his misfortune. The method 
 of his mediation ensured its success, for it was founded 
 on the christian principle of giving more than he took — 
 heaping measure filled to the brim, and flowing over. 
 Now the South startl-ed by threats of subjugation, aroused 
 by armed aggression, her soil red with the blood of citizens 
 shed in its defence, sternly refuses to yield anything fa^^ 
 ther to the spirit of compromise. The North confident in 
 her strength, insolent with repeated triumphs, and urged 
 on by fanatics and demagogues, is equally obstinate. — 
 Gentlemen if Mr. Crittenden or any other man, fancies 
 that the mantle has fallen on his shoulders, he is mistaken. 
 That garment was wrapped around the mortal remains of 
 Henry Clay, and buried in his grave. God hath transferred 
 him to a better sphere whence with Webster and with 
 Washington, he gazes sorrowfully on the ruin he could 
 not avert. 
 
 To those who regard the Harper's Ferry outrage as the 
 act merely of John Brown and Gerrit Smith, I shall des- 
 pair of making mypelf intelligible. The more that matter 
 is looked into the graver it will appear. There is a sig- 
 nificance that hangs around it, far deeper than such men as 
 John Brown and Gerrit Smith could lend it. Remember 
 
8 
 
 how the first mtelligence was received lit the North- 
 unmistakable sympathy with the marauders, rather than 
 their victims. Remember after the conviction, the power- 
 ful ors^anization for a rescue— only frustrated by the timely 
 precautions of this State. Remember after the execution, 
 that minute gucs are fired from the State Arsenal at 
 Albany, by permission of the Governor of the powerful 
 State of New York — that the proposition to adjourn over 
 in the Massachusetts Senate is defeated by only three 
 ^Qtes— that the press ami pulpit of the North, very gene- 
 rally, concur in prockiming him a martyr. Marytr 1 one oaa 
 only become a martyr in a cau^e that is just and holy I 
 and this man had aimed to subvert the common government 
 — to inaugurate a war of races in a portion of the com- 
 mon country, and in that war to side with the alien race, 
 against those of his own race and color ! ! 
 
 When the South in amazement demands to know if theti 
 she has no friends at the North, theanswer is— *'yes, but 
 they are too busy just now to attend to your case. Wait 
 until certain elections are over, and you shall hear from 
 us/' Well our Northern friends have spoken out— hears 
 tily and fearlessly,— they leave us no room to doubt their 
 fiincerity. Their sympathy is not alone a oonsolation — 
 but the South with a just pride, an honest exultation, 
 recognises anions her Northern friends, names which the 
 whole Nation has learned to love and to venerate. Yet about 
 these meetings to express sympathy for the South, there 
 are two things to be regretted — one that the sympathy of 
 our friends should appear (only in appearance I hope) 
 less active than the hatred of our enemies, another that 
 our friends should so generally have coupled their assur- 
 ances of sympathy, with assurances of protection, thereby 
 giving countenance to the error which has been so indus- 
 triously propagated, that the South needs protection — is 
 unable to protect herself. This was a fatal mistake. 
 
 The Government under which we live, is no longer the 
 Oovernment framed by our fathers. That had conserva- 
 tive features, which have been eliminated from this. It is 
 now the generally received doctrine that, the majority to 
 which they remitted the supreme control, was a majority 
 of mCTe numbers in which interests have no distinct repre- 
 sentation. Our government has relapsed into a pure and 
 
9 
 
 simple democracy. Power has at length gravitated to the 
 great substratum of society, where existence is a life-long 
 struggle with want, which has neither leasure, opportunity, 
 nor abilities to master groat questions of state — which is 
 peculiarly exposed to the arts arid appliances of unprinci- 
 pled men. The change has been quite as radical at the 
 South, as at the North, but here the resulting inconvenis 
 ence has in comparison been so trifling, that we cannot 
 comprehend, we cannot conceive, the mighty import of the 
 change there. Every four yeirs the splendid p^rize of the 
 Presidency is to be competed for, and this change enables 
 unscrupulous demagogues to banish, in ever iucreasing 
 measure, hones^.y, virtue, and patriotism from the field of 
 competition. ^ 
 
 Listen to the pale faced miscreant, Who now fills a seat 
 on the floor of the United States Senate, and disgraces the 
 State which sent him, and the Nation which tolerates his 
 presence there, — listen to his bid for the Presidency. He 
 points the shivering multitude, shivering in the cold 
 Northern blast, to ever blooming plains that yield for an^ 
 nual export, more than two hundred millions of surplus 
 — That charming clime, that perennial verdure, is reserved 
 for African slaves, to your exclusion ; they toil for a 
 handful of nabobs and aristocrats — break the bonds of 
 those slaves, and that land is yours. He points them to' 
 the census tables in proof that they have, or soon will have, 
 the power to do so. And he broaches his theories of a 
 higher law, and an irrepressible conflict, as flimsy screens 
 for the shrinking conscience, while they bridge over the 
 repugnance of human nature, to such atrocious wickedness. 
 
 The bid was truly as glittering as the prize. At the 
 word of the tempter a great Northern Sectional party leaps 
 into life, based upon principles unfriendly to Southern in- 
 stitutions — these infamous theories esablasoned on its 
 banners — and Wm. H. Seward its acknowledged head, 
 leader, and exponent. The act of John Brown is a strict 
 logical sequence to the teachings and doctrines of this 
 party. 
 
 There is yet another element of mischief. In the North 
 Eastern corner of our territory dwells a peculiar people. A 
 glance at their history will aid us in this investigation. 
 Gentlemen permit me to say that I have a way of my 
 
10 
 
 own of reading history — bear with me then while X glance 
 at their history as I have read it, or rather perhaps, while I 
 comment upon their history after my own fashion. 
 
 Early in the reign of James, I a band of religious en- 
 thusiasts fled from England, to avoid the opperation of the 
 Act to secure conformity in religious worship, and sought 
 an asylum in Holland. Thence they dispatched emissa- 
 ries, to examine the creeds and forms of every Protestant 
 country of Europe, and having by this means satisfied 
 themselves, that they could neither commune nor live in 
 peace with any other people of Europe, (or indeed on 
 God's earth) they resolved to found a state of their own on 
 the new continent, whose institutions should conform to 
 their own peculiar model of excellence. That model seems 
 to have been the Jewish Theocracy under the Judges. 
 The first obstacles which nature and the natives opposed 
 to their settlement being overcome, it was found that as 
 they could not harmonize with any other people, so neither 
 could they live in peace with each other. The reason is 
 obvious. Under their system, each congregation forms 
 an independent church in itself, entitled to hold all and 
 every opinion, on all and every subject. Now the Pilgrims 
 (to borrow a phrase of their own) had not yet attained to 
 that state of blissful indifi'erence, which in these more 
 hopeful times, permits the lambs and the wolves to feed in 
 the same pastures, and herd in the same folds — the fanatic 
 Cheever, the demagogue Beecher, the infidel Parker, and 
 modified Arians, ard rigid Calvinists, to worship in adjoin- 
 ing edifices, and to unite in such good works as the petition 
 of the three thousand under Mr. Pierces administration 
 or the pious collections taken up in their churches, to pur- 
 chase the Sharp's Rifles used in Kansas, and ab Harper's 
 Ferry. So, dissensions breaking out, the Pilgrims, as was 
 natural, beguiled the tedium of a wilderness life by, whip- 
 ping, persecuting, and banishing each other. These, and 
 similar diversions led to the formation of other settlements, 
 offshoots, or colonies as it were, of the parent state. They 
 all languished and would perhaps have been abandoned, 
 if this stiff backed people could have lived with any other 
 people, and excepting that the commotions of the mother 
 country Drought them timely resinforcements. The tivil 
 war in Eugland recruited these colonies with a few zealots 
 
11 
 
 like themselves doubtless, but also in very large proportion 
 with men of a wholly different stamp. Advocates cf the 
 gjreat principles of civil liberty — firm, wise, consistent — 
 they were the very reverse of the narrow-minded bigots 
 among whom their lot was hereafter to be cast. Motives 
 of personal interest, combined with religious and political 
 considerations; from time to time gave further accessions 
 to their numbers — but in general the bigots and zealots 
 retained control, until an event, which in its results drove 
 them from power, gave to these colonies a now aspect 
 social and political, and changed the whole current of their 
 history. 
 
 That the peculiar tendancy to religious phrensy, or the 
 vein of insanity, which marked the crack-brained founders 
 of these colonies was transmitted to their posterity, is pro- 
 ven by the event to which I must now allude. In a time 
 of profound tranquility a groundless and unaccountable 
 alarm seized on the public mind. An oppressive presen- 
 timent of impending evil, vague, shape-less, and inevitas 
 ble, chilled the blood of this strange people-- demoniac rage 
 supervened, and curdled into deeds of blood. The hair 
 bristling with supernatural horror, the eye gkaming with 
 a wild, fierce, malignant light, they sought out as victims 
 for slaughter, those members of the community who of all 
 others, have the strongest claim upon the gratitude, and 
 protection of a right-minded people. For strange as it 
 may seem — far transcending t^e limits of human credu- 
 lity were not the facts avouched beyond the possibility 
 of cavil — more extravagantly, grotesquely, fantastically 
 absurd, than the antics of any ring-tailed ape of the Trop- 
 ical forest — the exciting cause of the paroxysm was a dread 
 of elderly females ! ! they had taken up the notion that 
 they were possessed with devils— that they were wtiches. 
 It ended as suddenly as it began. Dismayed at the 
 pitiless massacre, remorse, reflection, reaction, ensued — the 
 zealots lost theii influence and the men of sense came into 
 power. Under their auspices New England starts on a 
 new and glorious career — it is now that her name becomes 
 associated, for once and forever, with the e;reat cause of 
 civil liberty, the struggle for human rights ^that she 
 endows her country with those warriors and sages who 
 figure so woithily by the side of Washington. 
 
12 
 
 But right-minded men have never been entirely secure 
 in power in New England — the madmen, it is true, had 
 been shut up in the churches^ but this did not prevent 
 them from howling their imprecations from the pulpit, and 
 casting their fire brands from the doors and windows. In- 
 deed there is less reason to wonder atiheir present activity 
 in mischief, than for thankfulness that the confiagration 
 has been so long delayed. At length, unhappily for them- 
 selves and the nation, a quarrel arose about the policy of 
 fostering domestic manafactures. It was founded on 
 divergent interests, and became chronic. Excitement grew 
 apace, and the fanatical element again obtained the ascen- 
 dancy. Xhey came forth from their long confinement rag- 
 ing demoniacs — they abjured the religion of love, which 
 some among them asserted to have outlived the objects of 
 its iustitution, and in its place jthey set up the religion of 
 hate. Mormonism appears, in which their original appre- 
 ciation of the Jewish Theocracy is revived, but in the 
 interval it has gained a step in advance, in the negation 
 of Christ, and the restoration of the relations of the sexes 
 to Jfche footing in which- they stood under the older dispen- 
 sation. Co-eval with Mormonism, was the birth of Abo- 
 lition, which denounces the written compact of ihe Union, 
 as a league with death, and a covenant with hell — which 
 rejects the Bible as a proslavery Bible, and God as a pro- 
 slavery God. One curious phenomenon which they present 
 must not pass unnoticed, though its elucidation I will 
 leave to others. They have reversed the signification of 
 some of the commonest words and phrases of the lan- 
 guage. Thus ^'love'' means -^hate,'' "duty" "theft," 
 "martyr" "traitor" or "murderer,"by "religious obliga- 
 tion" or "duty to God," they mean "disregard of a solemn 
 oath of allegiance," and philanthropy" is the term by 
 which they express the insane and diabolical hatred which 
 iliey cherish, for that timid and inoffensive race which 
 God has placed under our guardianship. Their energy is 
 frightful. An army of teachers, preachers, lecturers and 
 emissaries of every hue and sex incessantly perambulates 
 the country — but their chief assaults are on the schools and 
 educational establishments ; for it is there that youth first 
 learns to know and be proud of the greatness of his coun^ 
 try, and there only the feeling can be effectually extirpa- 
 
IS 
 
 ted. The characteristic of this species of mania is the 
 extraordinary keenness of its scent for slaughter. Hiss 
 tory proves it capable of following this scent, with un- 
 wearied perseverance, throug hmany successive generations 
 — such is its nature. 
 
 See this army in battle array, with heresy and blasphemy 
 written on its banners, a motley crew, more grotesque than 
 the throng of Faquirs which rushed on the seried ranks 
 of Aurungzebe. See the warlike chieftain on the left — 
 him of the haughty crest — that is Free Love, with emo- 
 tional sympathy, and passional attraction jargon. See that 
 stately warrior on the right, whose nodding plumes 
 appear to shake the solid earth — that is Spiritualism ! 
 mouthing an nnintelligible gibberish about spirits, and 
 mediums, and white and blue rays — which is become pos- 
 sible, because the pillory, which was a practical institution 
 in the days of Lord Mansfield, has fallen into desuetude. 
 See the raging virago of the centre and the van — her eyes 
 gleaming with the lurid fires of insanity, her visage dis- 
 torted by the paroxysms of impotent hate — her hair streams 
 in the gale, her polished cuirass, and burnished buckler 
 flash back the sun in defiance — that is the peculiar 
 institution of New England — a strong minded woman. 
 Elsewhere there are learned scientific and literary ladies — 
 occasionally a blue stocking — the beldams of the Parisian 
 mob of the first Kevolution are undoubtedly congeners — 
 but your strong minded woman of the Bloomer type, of the 
 Abby Kelly, Lucretia Mott, or Susan Anthony species, 
 has not been d'scovercd, that I am aware of, without the 
 pale of New England society. These are the Sun, and 
 Moon, and Planets of the galaxy — but behind them in the 
 ranks, stars of the first magnitude are shining, which but 
 that their inefi'ectual fires pale in the light of larger lumina- 
 ries, would in themselves suffice to light a world with scorn 
 and derision — co^ercive temperance men, antimasons, mil- 
 lenarians, trancendentalists. 
 
 The ostensible ptetext of the present outbreak is (were 
 that possible) as absurd as the former. They have taken 
 up the notion, that the South, which is the minority, 
 designs to force on the North, which is the majority, her 
 system of African slavery — hence, to arrest so dire a ca- 
 lamity, theft, murder, arson, civil and servile war, are not 
 
14 
 
 alone justifiable, but ia the highest degree commendable 
 in the sight of God. Or to give them the benefit of i\Jr. 
 Seward's exposition — if free labor does not crush out slave 
 labor, slave labor will crush out free labor, and the efi'ort 
 to surmount this profound proposition has crazed their 
 feeble brains. 
 
 When the traveler Gulliver was carried before the King 
 of the Brobdinags, he relates, that the etiquette of the 
 court was for a moment broken up. His majesty, his 
 daughter, and their attendants, crowded around him in 
 mute wonder at this diminutive specimen of their race. 
 While they were yet lost in profound astonishment, a 
 female monkey, mistaking him doubtless for a juvenile 
 sample of her own kind, glided unnoticed among them, 
 snatched up the little man, and fled with him to the roof 
 of the Palace. There, while the king, the princess, her 
 ladies, and the courtiers, dare not interfere lest she should 
 let him fall, the monkey crams his mouth with the con- 
 tents of the pouch under her cheek. Gulliver confesses 
 that under the circumstances he was obliged to submit, 
 but the next time she tried it, he drew his sword and stood 
 on his defence. Will the South be less valiant than was 
 Gulliver the traveler, when it is sought to defile her with 
 the impure and filthy ribaldry, and blasphemous dogmas 
 of these madmen ! 
 
 The political power of this nation is now vested in the 
 great masses of the North. These masses already imi)ued 
 with opinions unfriendly or hostile to the institutions of 
 the South, are assailed at once by an army of demagogues 
 and an army of fanatics — with lying misrepresentations 
 of the condition and treatment of our slaves-— perverted 
 scraps of Holy Writ — flimsey theories of religion and mo- 
 rality — nsidious appeals to the passions, interests, fears 
 or wants. Already they are arrayed into that sectional 
 party I have described, which claims to be, and which 
 may be, a numerical majority of the nation. See the 
 mighty host, whose line of battle stretches over more 
 than a thousand miles ; listen to the wail of Southern men 
 robbed, and ruthlessly murdered on the plains of Kansas ; 
 whence this odor of blood that reeks in the atmosphere of 
 Virginia ! What is the interpretation that will inevitably 
 be given, to propositions of compromise coming from the 
 
15 
 
 weaker party, against whom this foraiidable array is dis 
 rected ? What are the chances that our Northern friends 
 will be able to stay, and turn back this headlong torrent ? 
 Estimate if you can the influence which such men as Eve- 
 rett and Gushing, are likely to have in a State, which 
 denies a nich in the Halls of its State House to the statue 
 of Daniel Webster ! ! But the heart of the great North 
 once beat true to the Constittion and the Union ! how long 
 will it be safe to trust, that that feeling can withstand the 
 attacks systematically made upon it? Have we not too 
 much reason to deem that feeling enfeebled, if not wholly 
 reversed? There is a terrible significance about this 
 John Brown affair! 
 
 The position of the South is defensive, not aggressive. 
 She does not desire, she may be driven to disunion. Her 
 love for this fairest fabric of Government yet reared by 
 human hands, can only be extinguished by perverting it 
 into an instrument of oppression. How long can that love 
 be expected to withstand the assaults of these madmen ? 
 There is a fatal significance about this John Brown affair ! 
 
 But the fate of this'Union does not rest with the South 
 — it rests with the great Northern masses. I should 
 have no distrust of the American people if this question 
 could be fairly brought before them, but that by the means 
 at present proposed, is simply impossible. Is it then wise 
 — is it consistent with the great principle of self-preserva- 
 tion, to ignore the portents of the storm — to permit our- 
 selves to be lulled into false security by another patched 
 up compromise ? No, Fellow Citizens believe mc ! the 
 part ot true wisdom is to look this danger full in the face 
 — to bring this matter to an issue, and to obtain satis-^ 
 factory security for our equality and our rights under this 
 Government or — perish the Union ! 
 
 If we would gather a lesson from the example of Wash- 
 ington, let us remember that he regarded the unjust policy 
 of the parent State, as an attempt to subjugate his country 
 under the forms of law, and resisted. To permit this Gos 
 vernment to be controled by the great Northern Sectional 
 Party, and administered in accordance with its principles 
 - -what would that be but subjugation under legal forms ? 
 
 But Fellow Citizens ! if heavy gloom — mournful and 
 impenetrable— bangs over the future of our National Govs 
 
16 
 
 eminent, there is yet a spot to which the heart of the patriot 
 may turn for consolation, — there is yet a Shrine at which 
 his love-offerings may be laid. Come with me to the banks 
 of that noblest of our rivers, that veins and fertilizes the 
 centre of the State. Not on the borders of the Haven 
 at its mouth, where the navies of th3 world might ride in 
 security ; nor in that grand Ampetheatre among the 
 mountains, where the springs, and rivolets, and torrents 
 in conclave, decree its birth — but come with me to where 
 its sparkling waters are hastening over a rocky bed, to their 
 marriage with the tide— where the rugged hills have as- 
 sumed their softest outlines, and crowned with groves, 
 and gay with flowers and verdure, approsch in slopes of a 
 placid beauty, a tranquil grace, which only the hand of 
 Omnipotence can bestow ! 
 
 But we must turn from all this loveliness to gaze on 
 yonder fane. There dwells the Nationality of Virginia. 
 It is Virginia herself, enthroned, majestic— yet lovely in 
 the last rays of the sunset. Adorned with stately columns, 
 robed in snowy drapery, whose whiteness is the purity, the 
 heroism, the devotion, of her sons,and of her daughters ! 
 Great Shade ! Mother of Washington ! at thy beck war- 
 riors, and statesmen shall start from thy soil, and genius to 
 herald thy renown ! ! And the hum of multitudes arises 
 from the city of jasper, and of gold, that clings to her feet, 
 and the waters flowing, flowing, flowing, leaping, laugh- 
 ing, flashing, foaming in rocky channels, or murmuring 
 among the willow-fringed Islands — ever murmur that new 
 song which none but the elect can learn. And now 
 
 The night leaws gently from 
 The slowly fading West, 
 
 Wearing a single silver star 
 Upon her shadowy breast — 
 
 and the vision lades from view. It fades from the sight, 
 Fellow Citizens, but not let me trust from the heart. In 
 the innermost recesses — in the profoundest depths of the 
 heart that image let me trust is indellibly stamped 
 There in its centre * ^ * * * * 
 Burns the slo^' flame eternal but unseen 
 which in the hour of trial, shall nerve her children to do 
 and to dare, all that the interest, the honor, the glory of 
 that good Mother, may demand of thenKU f9 g » 
 

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