.5' cry lllillMillliiiiii 012 028 397 2 > J penmailife® E 458 l^avt i- BY R. H. CHITTENDEN CONTENTS ' RE-ELECTION OF LINCOLN A HUNDRED YEAR8 AGO TO-DAY ]Brooklyn, N. Y. 1876. Entered according to an act of Congress, by R. II. Chittenden, in the otfice of the Librarian of Cougress, at Washington, D. C, hi the yeax 1876. -4-^E K ^ THE RE-ELECTION OF LINCOLN. Delivered at the Inaugural Festival of the German Union Republicans, at New York City, March 5, 1865. Mb. President and Gentlemen: I count myself highly honored l>y yonr co-araittee's invitation to be present on this memorable occasion, and I thank you cordially for yoar kind reception. Fur spvernl years I have participated in yonr social and political festivities, and I desire to acknowledge that you have uniformly extended to me, an American " to the manor born," that fraternal Fympathy which is inspired by our glorious cause, and unites in one common brotherhood the sons of Liberty of every tongue and clime. The accident of birth gives me no claim to yonr consideration, but you who have voluntarily chosen my fatherland as the home of your aioption, are thereby entitled to mine. And nobly have yon vindicated your title to American citizenship. Gloriously have you been naturalized, my German comrade, on many a hard-contested field ! That honorable scar is yonr best credential ! Many a hero who b'ed at the hands of Earopean aristocrats has died at the hands of Southern slaveocratf ! Your timely immigration gave needed strength to the aati-slavery cause I Yonr votes decided the Presidential contest of 1860. Under the lamented Lyon, Siegel, and Fremont, the path-finder, you wrested Mis- souri from the grasp of Treason. More recently you have aided in the redemption of the empire state ,from the shame- ful administration of Seymour. Therefore you may well celebrate this day ! Fonr years ago we assembled to gird ourselves for battle — to-day we meet crowned with victory ! Four years ago Southern traitors and their Northern abettors and sympathizers, declaring that Abraham Lincoln was not the President of the United States, but of a sectional majority — that he held, like Macbeth "a barren sceptre in h's grasp, no kin of his succeeding," — raised the standard of rebellion and fired upon Sumter. We took up the gauntlet, — we accepted the issue, — declared that the President de jure should be the President de facto,- that the Union must and shall be preserved. We threw aside all party preferences. I fought at Manassas with a Douglass man on my right hand, and a Bell man on ' my left. To-day we meet to celebrate the virtual accomplishment of our purpose. It is true that no kin of Lincoln has succeeded him, lor he himself has succeeded. He is no longer a minority President, no longer a mere President dejurc. We are no less enthusiastic to-day than we then were, but our enthusiasm is deeper and tempeied by sad experience. When the South revolted we were wholly unprepared for war. An embecile old man was at the helm — traitors were in his cabinet — traitors in the senate. I had the good fortune to witness the assembling of tha Senate on the fourth day of July, 1861. Though Beauregard lay encamped not forty miles from the capital, Breckinridge had the audacity to appear in our senate ! We had our Cataline, but where was our Cicero ? To-day loyalty prevails in Washington. Beauregard has fled from Charleston, and our army and navy challenge the world ! The curtain now rises upon the last act of the sublimest national drama ever enacted ! American soil the stage, American heroes the actors, the civilized world the anxious spectators ! There was a dramatic fitness in this monster, Rebellion, receiving its mortal blow on the accursed spot that gave it bi.th ! It is wonderful that before the fourth anni- versary of the attack upon Sumter, the 1 )yal hands of a gallant New York soldier raised above its shapedless walls the stars and stripes, never again to be displaced by a palmetto rag! It was most fitting that the glad tidings should reach us just as the noble Terry RE-E1,ECTI0N OF LINCOLN". marched into Wilmington welcomed by the shouts of benediction and joyful tears of the enfranchised victims of rebellion on that never-to-be-forgotten anniversary of Washing- ton's birthday. It is most fitting tliat the death of this hydra should be at Richmond, — its last ditch into which Grant, Terry, Sljerman, Thomas and Sheridan are driving it,the last misera- ble remains of the once boasted coufe'leracy, and where the valiant rebel senators are so anxious not to die ! Yes, it is fitting and proper that slavery, (he parent of this monstrous treason, should perish at its capital and by the hands of its friends! The rock upon which the Union well nigh split, has proved the ruin of Treason. Ah! je proud. chiv.ilric women-whippers of Virginia, your time has come ! The blood of two hundred tLousaud loyal man of the north, the bones of unnumbered union men of tbe South l)leaehing in swarups and thickets, — the mouldering dust of your misguided followers-and the tears of a million widows and orphans have not called in vain upon Heaven for vengeance ! Well may you pale with fear ! We hear you, even now, in tones of despair, " with bated breath and in a bondman's key," "mploring the aid of your slaves, " Save us, Sambo, Save us, Pompey, or we peiishi" But will they come when they are culled ? L^t Goverior Brown answer. "We cannot expect our slaves to fight for the enslavement of their wives and children." The Greeks at Platea won the victory by the aid of five thousand slaves whom they at once emarcipated. When General Lee proposes to follow the Grecian example, there is howl at R'chmor d : " Promise liberty to our slaves as the reward of bravery, and we ad- mit by implication that freedom is preferable to slavery ; we abaadou the principle for which we fijuht. Let us be consistent and die !" But the hour of victory is the hour of magnanimity, " Vengeance is m'ne, I will rejiay, saith the Loid."' We exult in the success of our cause, not in the punish-netit of the guilty. No wrong, individual or national, ever went unpunished. How terribly have we of the north been punished for our complicity with American slavery ! Is it not remarkable that while so long as the administration ni»de negro-catchers of onr soldiers, so long as it pur- sued ahalting, half-way, McClellan policy, so long defeat followed defeat until it seemedasif the days of the republic were numbered,bntthat as soon as the President issued his Proclama- tion of Freedom, the scale jective. His campaign Irom Chatanooga rivals Napoleon's in Italy, and by his gigantic Anabasis from Savannah to Richmond he shall win additional laurels and confer upon expectant rebels their crowning "blessing in ■dis- guise." RE-ELECTION OF LINCOLN. Bat says some timid friend, " Will yon make a solitude and call it peace ?" Yes, Mr. President, Charleston in peaceful desolition, is prefemble to Gh irleston. the hot-bed of treason. The end is at hand. The crisis came on the eighth day of November, 18(;4. That safely past, the ultimate success of onr cause was morally certain. Thai; decisive victory at the polls as well as our recent triumphs in the field, we now coinmemorafe. The jirch- traitor beholds the hand-writing on the wall and surrounds him with a double guard. His miserable dupes no iDnger desert singly but by scores. The foundation of the Union as it shall be, as Washington and Jefferson intended it to be, at hist has been laid upon the corner-stone of liberty and equality before the law to all men. The negro has forced from his mas'er a recognition of his manhood at the point of the bayonet, and there is no Taney to gainsay it. He is no longer a chattel personel, but a citizen sold'er. John Brown is vindicated and the Declaration of In dependence is no longer a dead letter or a " glittering generality." The American abroad is no longer taunted with the mi.serable inconsistency of American slavery. The republic has been renovated and enters upon a new life. Its constitution has survived the heroic treatment the disease demanded. It has been found adequate to the cri- sis. The pestilent dogma of state sovereignity, which culminated in treason, lias been confined within its legitimate sphere. The President recognizing the fu-ulamental principle under, lying all con.stitutious, salu.'^populi snpremd lex, has not hesitated to exercise the extraordinary constitutional powers which aimed rebellion called into activity, and has thereby won a npti.in's gratitude. To-day it is manifested. Bat few men have been twice[elected President. They are Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson and Lincoln. Fifty years hence the last shall be second in the hearts of bis countrymen ! To save the body politic amputation was unnecessary. The virus had not reachef the nation's heart. The moral character of the people will have been ennobled by the war. It shall come forth from the crucible purified from dross. The tree of liberty, watered by the blor)d of our braves, shall flourish and bear fruit for the healing of nations so long as we and those who follow us remain its worthy branches. We have learned that men can live 'and die, not for gold, but fDr an idea. We have shown the trembling aristocrats of Europe that the freest government is the strongest and that the only sure tenure of authority is the will of the people. It remains for us hereafter to teach them that our mission is not confined by our territorial limits, — that although there is such a thing as a balance of power in the old world, their aid is not required in conducting the aflfairb of the new. and that we do not contemplate with indiflference the subversion of a sister republic by the minions of the un- scrupulous Erapeior of the French, who like the first Napoleon, seeks to found an empire \ipon the ruins of democracy. Thank God that at last the day has dawned ! But alas, there are vacant seats at our festive board Some who joined in our cele- bration four years ago are absent. Would that they, who died to usher in this day, might join in our thanksgiving. As I bel'eve they did not svholly die, so do I believe that from their celestial abode they are now looking down upon us with delight! ' Yea, were our vision not obstructed by this mortal medium, perhaps we might behold them in our very midst! Could they speak, melhinks they would say to us: We have died in vain if ye heed not tht lesson of the past ! Individaal integrity is the life of the republic. The whole can- not be purer than its p^rts ; the stream cannot lise higher than its fountain. Permit the corruption which pollutes your great raetropol's to extend it.self to the country fireside, and you .shall read the fate of your republic in the crumbling monu'uents of ancient Rome; but carry the precepts of the Gospel int<} your public places and its foundation now s LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 012 028 397 2 ^ ^' J pH83