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 ^AL ORISIS-PEAOEPUL SEPARATION OR CIVIL WAR. 
 AX 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 DKI-iyKUED IX 
 
 jNd: XJ S I C H ^ L L, 
 
 ox 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 
 
 BKFOIiK THE 
 
 <^i 
 
 OF NEW HAVEN, 
 BY THOMAS YEATMAN, ESQ. 
 
 Pviblisliecl Ijy Reciuest. 
 
 » ii » »-»" 
 
 Our oounti'y'8 wflfnre is our first concern, 
 
 And wlio ]ii-oniotcs tliat Ix'st, best proves liis duty." 
 
 NFAV HAVEN: 
 
 PRINTED EY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 
 
 18G1. 
 
THE NATIONAL OEISIS-PEAOEFUL SEPARATION OR CIVIL WAR. 
 
 AN" 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 ON" 
 
 ST. PATRICK'S DAY, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 fil^tto^M«w S' 
 
 or NEW HAVEN, 
 
 BY THOMAS YEATMAN, ESQ. 
 
 !Pu.blish.eci by Request. 
 
 Our country's welfare is our first concern, 
 
 And who promotes that best, best proves his duty." 
 
 NEW HAVEN: 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 
 
 1861. 
 
 COf^ 
 
 h 
 
•e^^ 
 
 7 
 
 
 X, 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 I ACCEPT, with grateful pleasure, Mr. President and Ladies 
 and Gentlemen, the invitation to address you upon this 
 occasion ; and in perfect loyalty to my faitli as a Protestant, 
 I can most cordially unite with you, gentlemen of the Hi- 
 bernian Society, and with you, my Irish and Catholic friends 
 and fellow citizens, in the services of this day, commemorative 
 of your Patron Saint, Saint Patrick. Caniapnized by your 
 Church as one of its most honored Apostles, the Patron Saint 
 of a nation which he redeemed from spiritual darkness ; re- 
 vered as a Holy Father by every son and daughter of Ireland, 
 there is yet that in his life and labors which lifts him above 
 the age in which he lived, the race which he served, or the 
 Church whose spirit and mission he so nobly illustrated. For 
 his memory belongs to a Universal Humanity. As well might 
 Athens attempt to appropriate the teachings of Socrates ; or, 
 England the heroic patriotism of Hampden ; or, the banks of 
 the" Potomac, a Washington, as for any race, or faith, or 
 nation, to localize, or sectarize the benedictions of such a life. 
 The grandeur of an austere virtue ; the stern simplicity of a 
 primitive faith and life in a corrupt age ; the beauty of piety ; 
 heroic deeds for heroic principles ; the zeal of the missionary- 
 ready in defense of his faith to wear the flame-shroud of the 
 martyr ; — all who can value and vindicate these, may turn to 
 St. Patrick, the Apostle of the Catholic, and the Patron Saint 
 
of Ireland, and claim a part, and a full part, in the glorious 
 heritage. And we, of whatever race, or faith, familiar with 
 the simple record of his life, his services, his trials, his perse- 
 cutions, and his ultimate triumph, can yield him the tribute 
 of our love and reverence as freely and as fully as if we had 
 knelt at his feet and received the benediction and the blessing 
 from his lips. Crowned as a Christian Missionary, bearing to 
 man the divine message of pardon and redemption; crowned 
 as a Christian Emancipator, raising a nation from the super- 
 stition of idolatry, and the barbarism of slavery; crowned as 
 a Christian Educator, introducing letters amid the deep night 
 of barbaric ignorance, — his name is embalmed in the im- 
 mortality of services which can be measured only by the 
 interests of eternity. Appropriately, then, may the hand of 
 a Protestant gather up the fragrant memories of a life de- 
 voted to life's noblest and highest aims, which raised a nation 
 
 " From nature up to nature's God." 
 
 Appropriately, then, may the lips of a Protestant speak the 
 praises of this Missionary, Emancipator and Hero, whose pure 
 and holy life has borne his name across the valley of tlie ages, 
 and after the lapse of fourteen centuries, on the shores of 
 this new world, has brought us together this day, lovingly 
 and reverently to honor his memory. 
 
 Under other circumstances it would be a grateful privilege 
 on this day, consecrated to the sons and daughters of Ireland 
 by loving memories, to speak to you of your native land, 
 amid whose hills and valleys rest, like the sweet dews of 
 morning, the gentle memories of your early days. Strange 
 and wonderful history ! A fair and beautiful land, given up 
 for eighteen centuries to the war of factions, to the play of 
 demoniac passions, to cruel oppressions, to barbarous codes 
 enslaving the mind and soul of the nation, to the relentless 
 hate of bigoted intolerance — scarcely a year through the cycle 
 of these centuries, of peace, of prosperity, of happiness — the 
 nation's harp forever hung upon the willows, and the daughters of 
 Ireland wailing in sorrow and desolation. At last the clouds 
 begin to break away, and the Providences of God rest gently 
 
and lovingly npon your native land. " The days of her 
 mourning are past. Violence shall no more be heard in thy 
 land, wasting nor desolation within thy borders, for the Lord 
 has given unto thy people beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for 
 mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
 ness." The war of factions has ceased ; laws disgraceful and 
 inhuman in their bigoted intolerance have been repealed; 
 equality of riglits and privileges recognized and protected ; 
 material prosperity stimulated and advanced. The once deso- 
 late fields now teem with fatness, the orchard smiles on the 
 hillside, the harvest waves in the valley, and the song of the 
 reaper is heard in the silence of the wilderness. Peace 
 stretches her white wings over the nation, and for the first 
 time in the history of Ireland, content and plenty, prosperity 
 and happiness, thanksgiving and praise, lie down as blessed 
 angels at every door. 
 
 " Thus Erin, dear Erin, thy winter is past, 
 And the hope that lived through it lias blossomed at last." 
 
 Lovingly and tenderly could I linger upon the story ; but 
 Mie momentous interests of the present hour weigh upon my 
 heart, and press upon my lips for utterance. I desire to 
 speak to you to-day, of Ouk Country, its perils, its dangers, 
 its hopes and fears, the sources of its weakness and strength. 
 I desire to consider the National Crisis, the question of the 
 hour — peaceful separation, or civil war. Li the discussion of 
 this mighty theme I would imitate the example of the great 
 Athenian who never addressed an assembly of his countrymen 
 without first appealing to the gods that he might utter no 
 words which should bring discredit upon the cause of truth 
 and justice, or injury to the best interests of his country. 
 
 ''When the mariner has been tossed for many days in 
 thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails 
 himself of the first pause in the storm, the first glimpse of 
 the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the ele- 
 ments have driven him from his true course." Memorable 
 words, first spoken in the great debate when the theory of 
 nullification and secession was first advanced. I repeat 
 
these words to-daj, when secession, from a bold, yet barren 
 theory, has sprung into a practical fact — bearing division and 
 revolution as its results. Let us imitate the prudent mariner, 
 and take our reckoning, and find how far, as a nation, we 
 have drifted from our old moorings. What is the condition 
 of our country ? The plural unit destroyed, the bands which 
 have bound these confederated States under a Federal head, 
 broken. Seven States — two of the old thirteen — have with- 
 drawn from the Federal government. A Provisional govern- 
 ment established, with all the machinery of Constitution, 
 Officers, and Laws. The national property has been seized. 
 Our forts and arsenals captured and held by soldiers of se- 
 ceding States. The stars ajid the stripes lowered — the Pelican 
 and Palmetto — emblems of revolution — wave in their place. 
 The Federal laws have been repealed or defied. States pre- 
 sent the appearance of military camps preparing to resist, by 
 arms, the enforcement of Federal authority. Trade, ever 
 sensitive to revolution, has been paralyzed ; millions upon 
 millions sunk in the general panic. The border States lay 
 down conditions for their continued fidelity, and in them 
 there exists a feeling of alienation, distrust, and prejudice, 
 which may lead them, at the shadow of provocation, to unite 
 with the Southern Confederacy. Revenue laws have been 
 passed discriminating against the commerce and the industry 
 of the United States. Thus far the architects of ruin, of 
 wickedness and folly, have had their way. " Our national 
 flag, that spread as the wing of a mighty empire over the 
 land and sea, has fallen as a blighted constellation from the 
 sky. The North American Republic, with all its glorious 
 memories and hopes, has disappeared, in its unity, from 
 history." 
 
 How rapidly have these " dire calamities " been precipi- 
 tated upon us ! The labors of centuries of preparation swept 
 away in tlie circle of a few months. Like the changes of a 
 day in spring, when we see the morning mist rise in wavy 
 gold to greet the ascending sun, but gather around his setting 
 in grim and angry thunder cloud. 
 
 What causes have produced these results ? The proprieties 
 
of this occasion limit and restrict me, and admonish me that 
 I must touch lightly, generally, and necessarily superficially, 
 upon the causes which have produced the National Crisis, for 
 fear that I might offend by reflecting upon the influences, 
 policies and interests of political parties. I will briefly con- 
 sider these causes under tw^o heads : 
 
 1st. The Moral, or Irrepressible. 
 
 2d. The Political, or Artificial. 
 
 In the magnificent portico of St. Peter's, at Rome, there 
 is a statue of a female radiant with celestial beauty and 
 strength ; clad in impenetrable armor, she treads beneath her 
 feet the bodies of tyrants and oppressors whom she has slain ; 
 she wields in her upraised arm a flaming sword, the scabbard 
 thrown away ; her step is ever advancing, and her eyes fixed 
 upward on the heavens. It is the statue of Truth beautifully 
 symbolizing her eternal warfare with falsehood, oppression, 
 and wrong. It typifies the moral element in national and 
 individual life. It is a visible embodiment of the great truth 
 that all questions, moral in their nature, can be settled only 
 upon the foundations of truth and justice — that all questions 
 dealing with human rights and duties, until recognized and 
 accepted, must, from tlie very law of their being, wage an 
 irrepressible conflict in society and government. But this 
 irrepressible conflict need not necessarily find its only de- 
 velopment in revolution and destruction. It may master the 
 mind and conscience as gently yet as resistlessly as the 
 light breaks into the darkness of night — at first the faint 
 day-beam streaking the eastern horizon, and then hour by 
 hour deepening into the golden splendors of mid-day. It may 
 come in the terrific sweep of the French Revolution, over- 
 throwing thrones, religions, and social order, or, it may come 
 in the passage of a beneficent law, as in the edict of the 
 Russian emperor, peacefully raising tw^enty millions of human 
 beings from the degradation of serfdom into all tlie dignities 
 and rights of freemen. The normal development of this moral 
 principle is peaceful. It is only when precipitated, resisted, 
 perverted, or corrupted, that it wins its triumph amid con- 
 vulsion and desolation. The questions which have and still 
 
agitate our nation, are essentially moral questions, embracing 
 all of human rights and duties. They have within them the 
 irrepressible vitality of a moral life. " The fundamental 
 cause, because the moral cause, of our present agitation and 
 insecurity, is the anomalous existence in a republican and 
 democratic government, based on respect for human rights, 
 2)olitical equality, imiversal representation, free speech, public 
 discussion, general enlightenment, and progressive reform, of 
 an institution, exactly contradicting every principle and senti- 
 ment in our Declaration of Independence, and reversing in 
 its spirit, operation, and tendencies, the theory, objects, and 
 workings of our Constitution, and the inspiration of our 
 national life." And yet I claim that there is no providential 
 necessity that the solution of this moral conflict should be in 
 the tragedy of national dissolution. The nation has been 
 brought to its present position only in part through the action 
 of moral causes. Political or artificial influences now precipita- 
 ting, now resisting, now perverting, now corrupting this benefi- 
 cent principle of action, until it has opened beneath our feet the 
 dark gulf of disunion from whence " demoniac forms emerge from 
 the seething deeps, that shall wander forth to mock and mad- 
 den through a funereal century." I attribute the present con- 
 dition of our country chiefly to causes political or artificial, 
 which wisdom, prudence, virtue, and self-sacrificing patriotism, 
 could have averted. Let us briefly consider them. 
 
 Most potent among the many causes, political or artiflcial, 
 have been the ignorance, misunderstanding, perversion, and 
 misrepresentation of the sentiments of the respective sections. 
 The masses have been controlled in their political sentiments and 
 action by misapprehension, by artful perversion, by systematic 
 and persistent agitation of sensitive and irritating questions, 
 and by unscrupulous misrepresentation of the principles of their 
 opponents, " The South, through the systematic perversions 
 of its political leaders, have been taught to believe that the 
 controlling party of the North had for its single mission the 
 subversion of its acknowledged constitutional rights ; that the 
 accession to power of a Northern President would be signal- 
 ized by attempts to liberate slaves by the direct intervention 
 
of the general government, or to stimulate in their midst the 
 appalling terrors of servile insurrection." John Brown, the 
 rebel chief of Ossawattomie and the fanatic of Harper's 
 Ferry, was received as the t}ye of Northern sentiment. 
 " Extracts from the Northern press, and quotations from 
 Northern speeches, violently torn from their context, rep- 
 resenting the meaning of their authors about as truly as 
 a thread of canvas raveled from a picture presents the con- 
 ception of the painter, were scattered broadcast throughout 
 the South." The hearts of our Southern brothers have been 
 estranged from us by the wicked perversions and misrepre- 
 sentations of those to whom they have looked up to for guid- 
 ance and direction." For thirty years the seed has been 
 ripening for this bitter harvest. For thirty years these infa- 
 mous appeals to popular prejudice and sectional hatred have 
 been with devilish and malignant cunning whispered into the 
 Southern ear. As the arch fiend in the " Paradise Lost " of 
 
 Milton, 
 
 " Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
 Assaying by his develish art to reach 
 The organs of her fancy," 
 
 so have these ambitious and unscrupulous leaders approached 
 our Southern brothers, " inspiring venom " and raising 
 
 — " distempered, discontented thoughts, 
 Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires ;" — 
 
 believing they have been betrayed — thrown into the delirium 
 of fever, when the mind loses its true balance, and all is dis- 
 tempered. 
 
 The North, more intelligent, with greater facilities for accu- 
 rate information, with interests infinitely less sensitive and dan- 
 gerous, and therefore with less excuse for passionate and preju- 
 diced excitement, have too often pictured the South as a re- 
 gion groaning in slavery ; ruled by merciless masters, sunk in 
 sensual indulgence and heartless indiiference, in the midst of 
 cruel wrongs and inhumanities. In the fair tapestry of free- 
 dom, spread out before us, there has too often been an ugly re- 
 verse to the web, that is, hatred to the slaveholder. Ten 
 thousand springs of falsehood and perversion have filled the 
 
10 
 
 very atmosphere with noxious vapors, and turned persistently, 
 for years, by politicians, into one and the same channel, have 
 at length swollen into a current so mighty, as to bear away 
 whole communities into utter disbelief in the patriotism^ honor, 
 and justice of any portion of the South. 
 
 Yes, ignorance and misapprehension of each others' pur- 
 poses and policy, misrepresentation of each others' characters 
 and sentiments, the systematic agitation of a peculiarly sensi- 
 tive institution, have plotted the ruin of our country. "Such 
 are the causes, political and artificial, why this glorious vision 
 of constitutional liberty, which has filled Christendom with 
 light and hope, has begun to shrivel like a parched scroll. 
 Such the apology for attempting to bury free institutions in 
 the waves of revolution, and leave the annals of self-govern- 
 ment, like a bloody-buoy on the sea of time, warning the na- 
 tions of the earth to keep aloof from the mighty ruin." There 
 has not been an hour through the long years of agitation, in- 
 stigated by selfish and ambitious leaders, that, if we could 
 have swept from the earth these fiendish prompters of mis- 
 chief, and laid our hands, liorth and South, upon each others' 
 hearts, that we would not have found them beating with a 
 mutual love, strong, generous, sacrificing, embracing the 
 whole continent in the arms of a patriotism as broad as 
 the clasp of the two oceans which wash its opposite shores. 
 God help the Republic, when its golden memories, its 
 glorious aspirations, and its teeming future, are in the 
 keeping of the knaves and demagogues of politics. Tliat 
 low, mercenary, Machiavelian herd, that gather in the 
 dens of darkness and sin, of intrigue and caucus, to project 
 the programme, and distribute the parts of that great play, 
 whose sublime issues are the glories of our country, and the 
 welfare of the world. God help the Republic, when the dis- 
 ciples of Asmodeus and Mephistophiles — the one the father 
 of letters, the other the father of lies — are too often seated upon 
 editorial tripods, reveling in the licentiousness, miscalled, the 
 liberty of the press, and filling the land with the insidious poi- 
 son of sectional passion, sectional prejudice, sectional false- 
 hood, and sectional hatred. Ignorance, misunderstanding, and 
 
11 
 
 misrepresentation of each other's sentiments, stimulated by 
 the selfish schemes and interests of party, and wielded by am- 
 bitious and unscrupulous leaders, are the chief causes, politi- 
 cal or artificial, which have reduced our beloved country from 
 the glory and the praise, to the pity and reproach of Christen- 
 dom. 
 
 And, now, what of the future ? Let us attempt to cast its 
 horoscope, and learn whether these chills, these shadows, these 
 mists along the mountains, these faintly showing stars, are the 
 hopeful twilight of morning, brightening into dawn, — or a 
 mournful vesper-light, deepening into niglit ? Let us attempt 
 to catch, here and there, amid the gloom, the gleam of friend- 
 ly stars, to guide us through the heavy darkness of the present 
 night. What of faith, what of hope, is left to us ? I answer, 
 much of both, but conditional. The future, under the Provi- 
 dences of God, depend upon ourselves, — upon the policy which 
 we may adopt, to meet and overcome the vexed problem of 
 the present. Our action is confined within the narrow limits 
 of two policies, — the one of peace, the other of war, — the one 
 of coercion, the other of magnanimous Christian submission to 
 the stern exigencies of the crisis. Seven States have with- 
 drawn, and established an independent government. I shall 
 not stop to inquire if this was an act of treason, rebellion, and 
 revolution, or the legitimate exercise of a constitutional right. 
 I accept the fact, that these States have declared that they will 
 no longer submit to Federal authority, or recognize the bind- 
 ing obligations of the Constitution. They have broken the 
 bands which made us one nation. They have done it with a 
 " unanimity of sentiment, with a coincidence of opinion among 
 their people, which is without a parallel in the history of rev- 
 olutions, and the simple question presented to us to-day, is this, 
 whether, throughout the limits of those States, which thus for- 
 mally, thus orderly, thus by enactments of representative 
 bodies, of highest capacity known to the civilized nations,— 
 conventions duly authorized and properly elected to consider 
 this very question, — have declared themselves independent of 
 us, we are prepared, by force of arms, or by means equivalent, 
 to maintain our supremacy, and enforce our laws." 
 
12 
 
 The argument of coercion, by "svliicli I mean the exercise of 
 the necessary authority to enforce obedience to law, represents 
 a widely various policy, as to the means to be employed. One 
 class would employ an indirect coercion, by blockading the 
 ports, and collecting the revenue, by sending a ileet to the 
 mouth of every harbor, and not allow a vessel to enter, with- 
 out enforcing the revenue laws of the government. Another 
 class propose to re-take the forts and public property, and to 
 hold them, at every hazard. Another class propose to enforce 
 all the laws, and to exercise every power inherent in govern- 
 ment, to carry out this purpose. And still another class, and 
 the most numerous, are for testing the strength of our institu- 
 tions, and to prove that we have a government of sufficient 
 force to preserve its own integrity. Let us separately examine 
 these various plans. It is claimed, that to blockade the ports, 
 would destroy the industry, and paralyze trade, and, by the 
 stern necessity of self-preservation, compel rebellious States to 
 return to their allegiance. That it would desolate a State, not 
 by the sword, but by a process similar to placing animal life 
 within an exhausted receiver, cutting off the very sources and 
 springs of life. That it could be done, without the necessity 
 of taking a human life, or shedding a drop of blood. It is a 
 plausible, but fallacious claim. To blockade the ports and har- 
 bors of the seceding States, would involve us in inextricable 
 embarrassments. Judged l)y the rules and principles of inter- 
 national law, a blockade is a declaration of war, — a direct act 
 of war, and can only be maintained by one nation at war with 
 another. It would lead to perpetual collisions with foreign 
 powers, claiming the rights of neutrals. It would require the 
 navy of the United States to be quadrupled, to enforce it. 
 The Southern coast would have to be girdled with guns, ready 
 to be used at every attempt to evade it. It would be resisted 
 by force, where force could be employed, — continual conflicts 
 would occur ; acts of retaliation would be instigated ; States 
 would be invaded ; privateers would sweep the seas, desolating 
 Northern commerce; armies would be collected, and in less 
 than six months, civil war would sweep, with all its desolations, 
 througli the Republic. Practically it would fail. Not only 
 
13 
 
 would harbors have to be blockaded, but the interior border 
 line would have to be guarded by a line of posts, to maintain 
 which an inmiense force of armed men would be necessary. 
 The frontiers must permanently bristle with forts and bayo- 
 nets. And how long before war would flash along such fron- 
 tiers? A spark w^ould ignite it. Again, this line of posts 
 would have to be formed in the border slave States, still true 
 to the Union, but who would never allow force to be employ- 
 ed against their seceding brethren, from whom they may dffer 
 upon the doctrine of secession, but for whom they feel all the 
 love that can spring from a common birth, a common interest, 
 and an indissoluble destiny, in domestic institutions. To 
 blockade the j)orts, if not a declaration of war, would inevita- 
 bly result in war. In spirit, it is coercion, — the employment 
 of force, to compel obedience. It is captivating to the public 
 mind, from the apparent gentleness of the means employed, to 
 secure a great result. But it is war, and only differs from the 
 bold declaration of war, as the stealthy approach of the sapper 
 and miner differs from the impetuous charge of the rude Cos- 
 sack. I oppose this policy, because it is impracticable, and 
 would defeat the very end designed. I oppose this policy, be- 
 cause it would inevitably plunge us into all the horrors of civil 
 war. 
 
 The next plan proposed by the advocates of coercion, is the 
 re-capture of the forts, and the re-possession of the public 
 property, seized by the rebels. I sympathize intensely with 
 this sentiment. When I heard that our forts had been cap- 
 tured, our flag lowered and dishonored, our property seized and 
 confiscated, our just and gentle authority spurned and defied, 
 there was in my heart a mingled feeling of resentment, prompt- 
 ing immediate redress and punishment, and of humiliation 
 and sorrow, which made me place my hand upon my mouth, 
 and my face in the dust ; and when I heard that Major An- 
 derson stood behind the battlements of Fort Sumpter ; that 
 over its frowning bastions he had unfurled the stars and stripes 
 of his country's flag, and that it would wave in triumph, as 
 long as there was a heart to bleed or die in its defense, tliere 
 was a feeling of renewed manhood within me, which caused 
 
14 
 
 my heart to beat with exultant pride, and my lips to thank 
 and praise God, that patriots were yet left to ns, to defend the 
 honor, majesty and dignity of the Kepublic. When I heard, 
 but a few weeks since, that a veteran soldier, who had been 
 crowned with the gratitude of the nation, for his distinguish- 
 ed services in two wars, who had been raised from the ranks to 
 the command of a Major General, had broken his faith, and 
 turned over his department to a revohitionary State, I felt it 
 to be the duty of the Government, at every sacrifice, to follow 
 the traitor, if necessary, into the very halls of the Southern 
 confederacy, to seize him, immortal through his infamy, and 
 consign him to the merited punishment of the scaifold. These 
 feelings were the promptings of a generous and honest indig- 
 nation. But calmer reflections convinced me that the conse- 
 quences of such a course would but confound the innocent 
 with the guilty, and, in its results, prove disastrous to liberty 
 itself. Consider for a moment, the results of such a policy. 
 These forts will not be surrendered. They are considered as 
 necessary to the security of the seceding States, to be held at 
 every sacrifice. Let me illustrate by the forts in Charleston 
 harbor. They not only command the commerce of the State, 
 but if their guns were turned upon Charleston, it could be level- 
 ed to the ground in twenty-four hours. As South Carolina has 
 seceded, justly or unjustly is not now the question, self-pres- 
 ervation demands that the forts should be held, at every sacri- 
 fice. You send an army and navy to re-take these forts. 
 They will be met by an opposing army, harassed and resisted 
 at every step ; battles will be fought, and a civil war inaugura- 
 ted, which no true man can contemplate without a thrill of 
 horror. This policy is impracticable, unless we are willing to 
 accept it with all its consequences. 
 
 Another class of the advocates of coercion, animated by a 
 patriotism which I profoundly respect, insist that coercion is 
 necessary to maintain the authority of government — that we 
 must prove to the world that we have a government of suffi- 
 cient strength to enforce its laws and preserve its own integ- 
 rity. The arguments by which tliis policy is advocated are 
 difficult to answer. They appeal to our loyalty, to our nation- 
 
15 
 
 al pride, to our national security. The sublime definition of 
 the French philosopher, that " Government is justice armed 
 with power," expresses a general conviction that it will not 
 suffice for a constitution to be perfect in wisdom and justice, 
 but that it must also be armed with power to enforce its 
 authority. A government without the power to enforce its 
 authority, or exercises authority hy permission^ is contempti- 
 ble. A government that permits its authority to be defied is 
 in danger of dissolution. A Kepublic without the inherent 
 strength to vindicate its integrity, is in peril of subversion by 
 anarchy or despotism. I recognise these truths and accept 
 them. Yet there are times when national dignity, national 
 integrity and national honor, can best be maintained by appar- 
 ently yielding to the storm and accepting the exigencies of the 
 crisis. History is full of illustrations, how an unyielding 
 adherence to the enforcement of law, to testing the strength of 
 government upon an unwilling people, has been visited by the 
 most significant retributions. Maintain the prerogatives of 
 the crown — yield nothing to rebels — the ship money and 
 poundage must be collected, said Charles the First, in his un- 
 yielding pride, and his head fell by the ax on Tower Hill, and 
 the drama of the Protectorate illustrated the triumph and genius 
 of Cromwell. No compromise with traitors — enforce the laws, 
 said James the Second ; its retribution was an ignominious 
 flight, a retreat to St. Germains, and William, of the Nether- 
 lands, ascended the British throne. Enforce the laws — test 
 the strength of government — retake the property seized at Con- 
 cord and CharVestown — blockade the ports — collect the reve- 
 nues — enforce taxation without representation. Let Wash- 
 ington, Jeflferson, Sherman and Adams, meet the penalties of 
 treason, said George the Third. The attempt was made, and 
 from the fields of the revolution was achieved our national 
 independence. Enforce the laws — maintain the government — 
 no yielding to constitutional provisions and securities — down 
 with the traitors, said Lewis the Sixteenth, and the head of 
 King and Queen, and Prince and Noble, fell beneath the 
 flashing blade of the guillotine. Maintain the government — 
 enforce the laws — no liberty of conscience for the Catholic— 
 
16 
 
 hunt the priest from hovel to hovel — punish him with stripes 
 and the stocks if he dares to administer the sacred rites of his 
 faith — offer premiums to apostasy — set brother against brother, 
 said Protestant England, through her laws against Catholic 
 Ireland, and Ireland sank, and writhed, and wailed beneath 
 the spiritual bondage ; but the cry of repeal, repeal, ran from 
 hill and valley, from mountain and j^lain — the British throne 
 was shaken, and the great O'Connell lived to see the divine 
 principle of toleration crowned in all the majesty and pro- 
 tection of law. I do not assume that there is a strict analogy 
 in principle between the position of seceding States and the 
 historical illustrations I have cited. But the moral is com- 
 plete — let nations beware how they attempt by force to test 
 their strength and enforce their laws and constitutions upon an 
 unwilling people. As the highest statesmanship consists not 
 in always carrying good principles to their inexorable logical 
 results, but in keeping the end ever in view and in doing the 
 best which circumstances will permit ; so may the truest and 
 highest policy of the nation be found, not in arbitrarily exer- 
 cising its power to enforce obedience, but in accepting the 
 exigencies of the crisis and adopting the best course which the 
 general interests — moral and material — will permit. And if 
 history is Philosophy teaching by example, may we not profit 
 by her warning voice speaking from the ruins of dismembered 
 empires, that the spirit which leads nations at all times and 
 under all circumstances to enforce its authority and compel 
 allegiance to its government by military power, may defeat the 
 very object it designed, and may feel the recoil in terrific and 
 disastrous eclipse. But let us examine this policy more in its 
 details. These States have withdrawn — established an inde- 
 pendent government — repealed the Federal laws, and organ- 
 ized an eflicient army to maintain and vindicate their inde- 
 pendence. They have elected a President who unites to the 
 experience of a statesman, the tried valor of the soldier, who 
 has won the highest honor on the field of battle ; — a calm, 
 resolute, determined man. He asks for peace, but has pledged 
 liimself, and in this pledge he will be sustained by his people, 
 to maintain, if forced to do so by war, the independence of the 
 
17 
 
 Soutliern Confederacy. How, then, do you propose to enforce 
 the Federal laws and to maintain and test the strength of 
 government ? You answer, by superior force ! Dealing with 
 revolutionists, force is the only power by which you can hope 
 to test the strength of the government, to maintain its laws 
 and enforce its authority. You must rely upon the strong arm 
 of military power. Collect your armies, march them into the 
 seceding States, what then ? They will be met by an opposing 
 army fighting on their own soil, animated by a fierce and 
 determined hostility, in defense of their own peculiar institu- 
 tions, in support of their OM'n government and in the main- 
 tenance of the inalienable right of revolution secured to them 
 by the Declaration of Independence. Can you subjugate the 
 South by force ? I acknowledge the overwhelming superiority 
 of the North in population, in physical and material power. 
 I look forward with a feeling almost of terror for the South, 
 when in lier madness she accepts or throws down the gage of 
 battle. 
 
 •God help her if the tempest swings 
 The pine against the pahn. 
 
 But the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
 strong. " Surround the South with a girdle of fire, block up 
 her ports, desolate her fields, defeat her armies in every engage- 
 ment, and she would still be unconquered, because invincible 
 in her determination never to yield obedience to a government 
 which she may wickedly and madly, but which she still abhors 
 and defies. The Federal Government may conquer the sece- 
 ding States, may subdue them, may obliterate them ; but no 
 po\^^r less than Omnipotence can compel them to do that 
 which is indispensable to the preservation of the Union — that 
 is, to revolve within the sphere appointed for them by the 
 Constitution." But grant for the argument that you could 
 subdue them, grant that you could by force compel their obe- 
 dience to Federal authority. Would our government, as its 
 spirit and inspiration demands, be any longer a government 
 of liberty, regulated by law resting upon the love and the 
 consent of the people ? "Would it not rather be a government 
 commanding the allegiance of eight millions of its subjects by 
 
18 
 
 the power of the bayonet ? Would this be obedience to the 
 spirit and letter of the Constitution ? What is it that endears 
 the Constitution to us ? Its dead, cold words ? The parch- 
 ment it is engrossed upon ? No ! it is the spirit which it 
 creates and upholds. It is the life-blood of a generous, national 
 sentiment, which, flowing from it, beats at the extremities as 
 soundly as at the heart — which permeates and vitalizes all that 
 vast network of interest spread over the land, which in variety, 
 complication and extent, finds no parallel but in that beautiful 
 and wonderful system of ducts and channels tlirough which 
 the warm currents of the human frame are propelled and circu- 
 lated. The spirit of the Constitution is the assent of loving 
 and loyal hearts who, recognizing its benedictions, would 
 defend it with their lives — but the hour when its letter has to 
 be enforced by armies and navies of Federal power, is the 
 hour when the "Muse of History may lay her hand on the 
 heart of the Bepublic, that has once beat so proud and strong 
 with glorious memories and hopes, and find its convulsive 
 throb stilled and pronounce it 'dead;' and wretched ages 
 beyond, like those that waited on dead empires past, shall enter 
 to bury her." 
 
 If either of these plans of coercion should be adopted, if I 
 am correct in my argument, that war would inevitably follow, 
 it must not for an instant be supposed that the seceding States 
 would stand alone. Force would arouse sympathy. There is 
 a principle in the human bosom that repels force with force. 
 This feeling is electric in the South. An appeal to arms — the 
 planting of the first battery on Southern soil — the first drum- 
 beat of a Federal army would unite her citizens as one man. 
 
 " The ties of blood are strong, 
 Stronger than oaths, and mightier than the law." 
 
 And the contest would not be twenty-six States against seven, 
 but eighteen against fifteen. The mouth of every conserva- 
 tive Union man would be closed forever, and counsels of 
 peace would be drowned in the voice of our brother's blood 
 crying to us from the ground. The most conservative of the 
 border slave States have given expression by legislative 
 
19 
 
 resolves to tliis universal sentiment of tlieir citizens. Wlien 
 the Governor of New York insolently transmitted to the 
 Legislature of Kentucky the tender made to the President of 
 the State Militia to aid in Federal coercion, Kentucky, a Sta,te 
 which in her noble devotion to the Union did not even sully 
 her honor by considering the question of secession, hurled 
 back in unanimous and defiant resolve the message, that when- 
 ever such aid was accepted for such a purpose, she would gird 
 up her lions, take down her shield and resist it to tlie last 
 extremity. Tennessee, by an overwhelming majority, declared 
 her devoted allegiance to the Union, refusing to call a Conven- 
 tion even to consider the question of secession ; yet, by legisla- 
 tive action, resolved that federal coercion must and will unite 
 the South as one man in opposition to a policy so " cruel, inhu- 
 man, and unjust." Missouri, in whose bosom the beneficent seed 
 of emancipation is working slowly, but ineradicably for her 
 deliverance, with unparalleled unanimity expresses her devotion 
 to the Union, her abhorrence of secession, but her inexorable 
 determination if coercion is attempted to give all that she has 
 of wealth, of strength, of life, and blood, in defense of her 
 Southern brethren. Let no advocate of coercive measures 
 delude himself with the belief that if his policy is adopted 
 secession will be confined within its present limits, or that the 
 border slave States will retain their connection with the 
 Federal government. Coercion will unite the South and sepa- 
 rate them from the North by a gulf of fire. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to view the policy of coercion in all 
 its bearings, in all its lights and shadows. But the oracle has 
 given out no uncertain response. Its only answer is — coercion 
 is war. And what is war ? I can present no more graphic 
 picture of war, than by repeating the old German fable, which 
 tells us that a yoimg and gentle angel besought a venerable 
 patriarch among the bright ranks of the blessed, to show him 
 the green and beautiful earth which God had made so good and 
 of which he had heard so much. They came down hand in hand 
 and hung over a scene of enchanting natural beauty. But the 
 French and English fleets were engaged there, and tlirough the 
 sulphureous canopy that hung over them like a pall, fierce 
 
20 
 
 flashes of fire darted, and thunder pealed, and the groans of 
 the dying — the pitiful plea for quarter — the exultant shout of 
 the victor, mingled as they fell on the ear. Oh, said the 
 young angel to his venerable companion, you have deceived 
 me ; I asked you to show me the earth, and you have brought 
 me to hell. No, no, was the reply, these are brothers of earth 
 who are contending — brothers in blood — brothers in Christian 
 faith and hope. Such is war. It maketh the gentle angel to 
 veil his face in pity ; it changeth into a breathing hell this 
 earth intended by its beauty and benedictions to show forth 
 the praises of God. But there is another war of which this 
 conceit of the German poet is but a feeble type — whose picture 
 is traced in deeper, darker, and more lurid colorings — it is 
 civil war — the war of brothers. I shall not even attempt to 
 picture the wickedness and woe of such a strife. In such a 
 contest it would be difficult to imagine which were the greater 
 sorrow — victory or defeat. And well might the victors and 
 the vanquished sit down together on the battle-field and weep 
 over the result. "When the little tribe of Benjamin had greatly 
 sinned and had been well nigh exterminated by the combined 
 force of Israel, there was no exultation but lamentation, deep 
 and agonizing. "And the people came to the house of God 
 and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices 
 and wept sore ; and said, O Jehovah, God of Israel ; why is 
 this come to pass in Israel that there should be to-day one 
 tribe lacking in Israel ?" And the children of Israel repented 
 them for Benjamin their brother, and said "there is one tribe 
 cut oif from Israel this day." It was in the very hour of 
 triumph that the victors remembered Moses and the Red Sea — 
 the wilderness, and the manna, and the rock that followed 
 them — the cloud by day and the pillai- of fire by night, which 
 seen from ever}^ tent door, was tlie banner of God extending 
 its protection to Benjamin as well as to' Judah. Would that 
 Benjamin had not sinned. "Would that we had treated 
 sinning Benjamin with the wisdom of gentleness and meek- 
 ness. "And the children of Israel again repented them for 
 Benjamin their brother." And when the descendants of 
 Washington and Adams, of Jefierson and Hancock, of Pinck- 
 
21 
 
 ney and Sherman, of the fathers who fought at Bunker Hill 
 and Saratoga and Yorktown, at Lnndy's Lane and New 
 Orleans, shall engage in deadly strife, will not the hour of 
 triumph be the hour of lamentation and mourning? "Will not 
 the victoi-s veil their faces and be ready to exclaim with the- 
 Psalmist king over the body of his erring, rebellious, but still 
 beloved son, " Oh, Absolam, Absolam, would that I had died 
 for thee?" Think of a contest hi which victory is well nigb 
 the heaviest of curses? But if these States are to be separated 
 by the sword, civil war will evoke a power to mingle in the 
 strife, the bare contemplation of which fills the mind with 
 horror. I saw this power represented in the sketch of an 
 Artist of genius. He drew a picture representing the citizens 
 of the South as fishermen, standing npon the sea-shore and 
 casting their nets into the waters of the gulf; drawing up a 
 massive vessel labeled secession, bearing npon its lid the 
 warning, "open, at your peril, for I contain the instrument of 
 your destruction ;" with cunning and busy skill they open the 
 lid when there leaps forth a gigantic monster, black as night ; 
 striking the chains fi-om his limbs, he soars- over the land, 
 scattering balls of living fire and broods of venomous ser- 
 pents, whose every sting is death. Tlie Southern fishermen 
 sink to the earth in agony and despair, and the background of 
 the picture is lighted up with the lurid colorings of a general 
 conflagration. It is the Genh of Servile Insukeection-. 
 The sketch of the Artist in conception, a Prophecy. For this 
 hideous power yet controlled, but ever restless, requires only 
 the surges of civil strife to have breathed into it a life — brief it 
 may be, yet terrific in its consequences — its pathway marked 
 by brutal lust, sensual passions, and indiscriminate slaughter. 
 The blood of a Southron flows in my veins — ^the South is the 
 land of my birth — the home of my kindred, and amid its 
 flowers sleep the graves of my children. I love that land, I 
 know it well, and I know that if the Korth and South meet in 
 the clash of arms, the slave will rise in his madness — and at 
 every fireside, and around every hearthstone, over the old man 
 and the young maiden, the loving mother and the tender child 
 at her breast will be unbared to strilce to the heart the arm of 
 
22 
 
 savage vengeance. God of infinite mercy, I pray thee in the 
 agony of the thought to save this nation from the desolation of 
 such a curse. Yet such, in my judgment, must be the inevi- 
 table consequences resulting in civil war, if any of the various 
 plans of coercion should be adopted by the Federal govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I present to you a wiser and juster policy — 
 a policy gentle in its spirit, loving in its nature, resistless in 
 its influence, divine in its benedictions — the policy of peace. 
 If determined upon it let the seceding States depart in peace ; 
 let them establish their own government and empire, and 
 work out their destiny according to the wisdom which God has 
 given them. Let me present the argument. It is the policy 
 of wisdom"; the best to secure the end designed — the union of 
 these States. " If armies could preserve this Union, half a 
 million of armed men would spring up in a night. If money 
 could preserve it, our teeming soil would leap with joy to yield 
 a golden harvest. If blood could maintain it, our young men 
 and maidens, our old men and children, would, with a crimson 
 flood, from their very hearts, swell every stream that waters 
 our plains." But money, armies, blood, will not maintain the 
 Union — it is broken. But justice, reason and peace, when the 
 delirium of passion has spent its force, may reunite us, puri- 
 fied by the fire through which we have passed. Force might 
 preserve the empty form, but the immortal spirit of Liberty 
 and Union, which is love, sympathy, sacrifice, would be dead 
 forever. Its life is peace — its grave, civil war. 
 
 " Gentle as angels' ministry, 
 The guiding hand of power should be. 
 Which seeks again those cords to bind. 
 Which human madness hath rent apart ; 
 The hand which tunes to harmony, 
 The cunning harp whose strings are riven, 
 Must move as light and quietly 
 As the meek breath of summer heaven, 
 Which woke of old its melody." 
 
 Again, the policy of peace is the policy of justice to those 
 true, loyal, and devoted Southern hearts, who have never failed 
 in their fealty to the Union, and who, amid the present folly, 
 
23 
 
 wickedness and madness of secession, wait, and watch, and 
 pray, in sublime faith, for the hour of redemption. 
 
 What sympathy shall we extend to these noble men, who 
 stand serene, amid the storm, unshaken in their fidelity, and 
 waiting only the hour to come when they may strike, through 
 emancipation, for truth, justice, liberty, and union ! Shall it 
 be force ? God forbid ! There is a beautiful custom prevail- 
 ing on the shores of the Adriatic. There the wives and 
 daughters of the fishermen come down to the sea-shore, about 
 sunset, and sing their national songs. After singing the first 
 stanzas, they listen awhile for an answering melody from off 
 the water, and continue to sing and listen till the well known 
 voice comes, borne on the water, telling that the loved one is 
 almost home. How sweet to the weary fisherman, as the 
 shadows gather around him, must be the songs of the loved 
 ones at home, that sing to cheer him, and how they must 
 strengthen and tighten the links that bind together these hum- 
 ble dwellers by the sea ! Let us, in this hour of our national 
 trial, imitate this touching and beautiful example. As the 
 shadows deej)en, let us cheer the hearts of these noble 
 brothers, by the assurance that we wait for their return 
 with patience, sjmipatliy, love, and peace, and soon an an- 
 swering voice, amid the blind fury of the storm, will fall upon 
 our ear, in encouragement and hope. Be patient yet a little 
 while, my brother, — the storm rageth, but its fury will soon be 
 spent, and then the morning breaketh, of an unending day of 
 affection, liberty, and union. It will be so. As a Southern 
 man, I pledge you my faith that the seed of resurrection are 
 now sown and germinating in the bosom of the South. It 
 lives in the heroic hearts who labor on in faith and hope, for 
 a true liberty. The South possesses every element neces- 
 sary for its own regeneration. Do not, then, I pray you, fear 
 to trust them. " The spirit of the elder and better time has 
 not forsaken them. They still stand beside the graves of their 
 fathers, and keep the vigils which their eyes keep no more." 
 The gloomiest hours of darkness have not extinguished the 
 serene and steady stars in this firmament. I have a calm and 
 holy faith in the coming of that Providence to the South, 
 
24 
 
 which shall rescue it from danger, and satisfy our yearning 
 souls. Its chosen instruments are now at work. The week 
 day does not deny its smile, nor the Sabbath its divine bene- 
 dictions. I see these harbingers of a more illustrious era. I 
 hear their mild but persuasive voice. I feel the soft pressure 
 of their breath, and the tokens dropped from their annointed 
 hands, fall upon our mysterious pathway." The elect sister- 
 hood of Emancipation, Republicanism, and Christianity, will 
 open our future, and if allowed, through peace, to work out its 
 development, we will soon, from the South, catch the first 
 tones of that exultant cry, " The morning cometh." 
 
 Again, the policy of peace is full of the precious promises of 
 hope, which, like the ancient cestus of beauty, is radiant with 
 transforming power. 
 
 What can we not endure, 
 
 When pains are lessened by the hopes of cure ? 
 
 The end we seek is the perpetual union of these States. 
 The emplojrment of coercive measures, inevitably evoking the 
 slumbering energies of war, in turn to deepen into civil strife, 
 will not secure it. Disunion would be inevitable, irretrieva- 
 ble, and perpetual. "War might rage within om* borders for 
 ten long years, — thousands by thousands might die by the 
 sword, and yet the end for which all this power had been em- 
 ployed, would not be gained, — the final result would be, that, 
 wearied and sickened with the strife, we would enter into a 
 treaty of peace, consenting to separation, and acknowledging 
 the independence of the Southern confederacy. But peace, 
 with a diviner wisdom, accepts the end from the beginning, — 
 leaps over the intervening agony of civil war, and seeks, by 
 gentleness, patience, forbearance, and a holy faith, which look- 
 eth with hope, unto the end, — to dispel prejudice, — to mollify 
 hatred, — to disarm injustice, — to touch and penetrate the heart, 
 through confidence and love. Peace may veil her face, in view 
 of the perils, dangers, humiliation, and disgrace of the present, 
 but hope lighteth her heart with the promise of better days to 
 come. Oh, my Countrymen, let us accept this policy. " For 
 peace can alone preserve liberty — peace can alone re-construqt 
 
25 
 
 this Union — peace can alone retain friendship — peace can alone 
 save the South from utter and hopeless ruin. If our South- 
 ern sisters will go — if they demand, as the prodigal, their por- 
 tion — if they will leave the family mansion, let us signalize 
 their departure by tokens of love — let us bid them farewell, so 
 tenderly that they will be forever touched by the recollection 
 of it ; and if, in the vicissitudes of their separate existence, 
 they should desire to return, there would be no pride to be hu- 
 miliated, no wounds inflicted by our liands, to be healed, — no 
 brother's blood crying to us from the ground," "We can afford 
 to be forbearing and magnanimous, conscious of our own in- 
 tegrity, — firm as the everlasting hills, in the purity of our in- 
 tentions, in the justice of our cause, — secure in overwhelming 
 numbers, we can calmly wait upon the steppings of Provi- 
 dence, in this crisis. If our Southern brothers have, in their 
 mad folly, accepted as their mission the protection, extension, 
 and perpetuity of slaver}-, remember they but throw them- 
 selves against the eternal counsels of God, and tliat the grasp 
 of an infinite justice is upon them. If they are sowing to the 
 wind, they must reap the whirlwind. We can afford to wait. 
 The hour has come when we may vindicate our title to be 
 called a Christian nation, by accepting the principles of divine 
 law, as the principles of our 'national life. To feel that the 
 discretion of a nation deferreth its anger, and it is its glory to 
 pass over a transgression." That we are not to be " overcome 
 of evil, but to overcome evil wuth good." " To love our breth- 
 ren, wdio seek to do us evil, — to be pitiful and courteous, — not 
 rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but, contrariwise, 
 blessing." "We are to rise to the heighth of a true Christian 
 magnanimity — menaced, defied, imperiled, we are to say, " Let 
 there be no strife between us, for we are brethren. The land 
 is broad enough for us both. Let us part in peace, — let us 
 divide our common inheritance, adjust our common obliga- 
 tions, and preserving as a sacred treasure, our common princi- 
 ples, let each set up for himself, and let the Lord bless us both. 
 A course like this, heroic, sublime, glorious, Christian, would 
 be something altogether unexampled in the history of the 
 world. It w-ould be the wonder and astonishment of nations. 
 
26 
 
 It would do more to command for American institutions the 
 homage and respect of mankind, than all the armies and fleets 
 of the Republic. It would be a victory more august and impo- 
 sing than any which can be achieved by the thunder of can- 
 non, and the shock of battle." A victory in direct recogni- 
 tion of the divine law, given to nations as well as to individuals, 
 to retm'n blessings for curses, love for enmity, kindness for in- 
 juries. 
 
 Let us adopt this policy of peaceful separation, — let us ac- 
 cept these principles of patience, forbearance, gentleness, se- 
 renity amid provocations and injuries, confiding in the influ- 
 ence of time, to bring light out of darkness, reason out of mad- 
 ness, and though the present may be surrounded with trials 
 and dangers, there is a silver lining to the angry cloud, the as- 
 surance of a bright and peaceful future. For through them 
 may we realize, in the beautiful inaugural language of our 
 President, that, " though passion may have strained, it has not 
 broken the bonds of our affection. The mystic cords of mem- 
 ory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot's grave, to 
 every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, 
 will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, 
 as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 
 God bless the President, for his noble faith ! God grant that 
 his administration may be guided by its spirit ! 
 
 Adopt this policy, — accept these principles, and insti- 
 tutions, anomalous and inconsistent with the inspiration of our 
 national life, will be swept away, and then, disenthralled, pu- 
 rified, emancipated ; with liberty, not for a race or class, but for 
 humanity, — slavery consigned to the Gehenna of a universal ex- 
 ecration ; every element of discord and division banished, this 
 mighty brotherhood of States will roll on in glorious un- 
 ion, "bearing each other's burdens, sharing each other's re- 
 verses, sympathizing in each other's trials, rejoicing in each 
 other's prosperity, and all clustering at last around the car of 
 a common liberty, like the hours in the fresco of Guido, 
 around the sun." 
 
 And when that hour cometh, — when passion, and madness, 
 and wickedness, and folly, have been stilled in every heart, — 
 
27 
 
 when the cloudf?, wKch now hang so loweringly and heavily 
 above us, are swept from the heavens, or weep only in gen- 
 tle and reviving showers, t)»ev,in tlie first golden hours of that 
 re-union, may we stand beneath the stars of our national 
 constellation, as they " sing together with joy," and with the 
 poet's verse, exclaim : 
 
 " Are ye all there ? Are ye all thtj-e ? 
 
 Stars of my country's sky ? 
 Are ye all there ? Are ye all there, ■ 
 
 In your shining homes on high ? 
 ' Count us ! Count us,' was their answer. 
 
 As they dazzled on my view. 
 In glorious perihelion, 
 
 Amid their field of blue. 
 
 " I cannot count ye rightly ; 
 
 There's a cloud with sable rim. 
 I cannot make your number out, 
 
 For my eyes with tears are dim. 
 Oh ! bright and blessed Angel, 
 
 On white wing floating by, \ 
 
 Help me to count, and not to miss 
 
 One star in my country's sky ! 
 
 " Then the Angel touch'd mine eye-lids. 
 
 And touch'd the frowning cloud ; 
 And its sable rim departed. 
 
 And it fled with murky shroud. 
 There was no missing Pleiad, 
 
 'Mid all that sister race ; 
 For the Southern Cross gleam'd radiant forth, 
 
 And the North-Star kept its place." 
 
 In the name of Humanity, in the still more sacred name 
 of the Christ of God, let us speed the coming of that day. 
 
 Sons of Ireland, Adopted Citizens, Brothers, we have received 
 you with open and generous arms, into the bosom of the Re- 
 public. We have greeted you as brothers, we have shared 
 with you the priceless inheritance of our free institutions, won 
 for us by the blood of our fathers. The altars of your faith 
 have been guarded and cherished by our Constitution, Your 
 industry has been protected and crowned with abundance. 
 Your interests have been our interests. "We love Ireland, we 
 
,28 
 
 Uyeher ehiUren. In this tour of oii'- extreiM% and peril, 
 may we not look to you in perfect faith, to guard with us this 
 Union, the dear mother of us al^, from the wricked parricides 
 who seek to destroy her ? Descendants of Montgomery, of 
 Emmett, see to it that no harm befalls the Republic ! 
 
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