.1% "> f': '"'■' »°-n*-. * .0' 40 ^^ zr*'- •••■ V » • .^'% ': T."^ ^oV .5 o,. o"^ -»• V . .i V»-, *t^ jP^ ..ill'., Ur. Lincoln will long be remembered for his terse declaration 01 tl.is great truth. "It was the nation that made the Consti- tution, and not the Constitution the nation," says he, with a con- cise 8,.g icity, worthy of Aristotle. The nation was before the constitution, and without the former's pie-existence, the latter never would have been. It was the constitution o/ a nation, made b^j a nation, andyor a nation. It was not philosophy, nor abstract reasoning, perhaps, but that clear common sense for which Mr Lincoln is distinguished above other men of our day. tlnit sent him at once, and intuitively, to the conclusion. i he shallow declaimers at Chicago tell us that the states marie the constitution— organically as well as formerly, they ^'''i l?''^' l^ V"'^ ^^^"'"^ understand the distinction. The parts gj... ... ,„ ■ • ,^..,..^, ...A(ii'. the ,,"■,, •> -, ..-V,... .«.,,. LUC uiMMicuoii. me parts made the whole ; and so the cities, towns and people, made the states Jo Ignorance like their own this may seem plausible. But they forget that ihese states, too, are made of parts, that there is no special historical " sacredness " iu their boundin- 19 lines, and that when they talk of the states as certain magic corporations, separate from the peoph^ of these states, they are talking transcendental nonsense, as they would call it if used by others, and applied to the far more historical national whole. Parts may make a s?««, an aggregate, a mass of masses; but they cannot, of themselves, make a true whole. The difference between the ideas is fundamental. There is a sense, a high sense, in which it may be said, that a true whole is ever before its parts, potentially so in nature, and virtually so in time. It is not a mere metaphysical abstraction that we are here contend- ing for. It is true in physics; it is true in politics. A real organic whole must determine its wholeness, and its parts, as parts of such a whole. Without this they are not parts of any- thing, but mere contiguities. To make them parts in the sense of member ship, they need something previous, shaping their re- lationship to itself and to each other ; and this we cannot say too often, is the work of History — of the great world-move- ment, obeying the Higher Intelligence in originating, organizing, consummating, the earthly "powers ordained of God." The states make the nation. This is true as material cause. They are partially the material {ex quo) out of which the natioQ is made, just as the mor<'. local subdivisions in the last resort, or the individual inhabitants, make the state. But where is the formal cause, the effi^cieni cause — for here both these casualties unite — in oiher words what draws the parts together? What gives them value and relation as parts of such a whole? The merest accidents may make a sum or mass of contiguities, but a true whole, can only come from an organic life — in other words, a previous wholeness. There is a metaphysics belonging to the state, and men must not sneer at it, nor trifle with it, if they would avoid the most serious, practical consequences. The Albany Argus affects to laugh at Mr. Lincoln's "crude idea ;" but the editor is as incapable of appreciating its practi- cal shrewdness, its irresistible common sense, as he is of under- standing its deep philosophy. The national being comes nofc from any mere conventional arrangements, claiming either to make it, or to unmake it, as thej please. It is " Grod that hath made us, and not we ourselves." Generations that are past, generations yet to come, have an interest in this work as well as the present. This national being is the cause of such con- ventionalities, and not their effect. It holds in political philosophy, as well as in chemistry. Everywhere in the organic world, whether physical or historical, the life, according to its more or less complex law, builds up the organization, instead of the organization creatmg the life. Very different from this, is a mere outside union, that may come together and separate as accident determines. The latter has not even the lowest form o£ vitality. It lalls below that of the polypus. Cut it into as j 20 many segments as you please, and each one becomes a miserable individual polypus capable of being dissected, in the same way, _^and 80 on, . Here is our old guide book. The road is all mapped out, the way surveyed by which we march to ruin. All the dire calamities of Greece nviy be traced to this word, autonomia. The rapidity of her downward course was just in proportion to its frequency. It became in time almost the only thing that could b- heard amid the politi- cal din of Slates and factions. Infatuated Ilellas! It was the last word upon her lips. Siie died repeating autonomia. "Slate rights "—State sovereignity" — this was ever the cry until auto- nomy, and heteronomy, the Grecian power at home, the Grecian power abroad, and all hopes of Grecian nationality, perished forever in the battle of Chccroneia. Gre-'ce presented the first great proof of a fact of which we are now in danger of furnishing another and more terrible example to the world. It is the utter impossibility of peace, iu Cicoro Repub , Lib. Ill, sec. xxiii. 21 a territory made by nature a geographical unity, inhabited by a people, or peoples, of one lineage, one language, bound together in historical reminiscences, yet divided into petty sovereign states too small for any respectable nationalities themselves, and yet preventing any beneficent nationality as a whole. No animosi- ties have been so fierce as those existing among people thus geogra[)hicuny and politically related. No wars with each other have been so cruel ; no home factions have been so inceesant, so treacherous, and so debasing. The very ties that draw them near, only awaken occasions of strife, which would not have existed between tribes wholly alien to each other in language and religion. It is easy now to trace this rapid degeneracy in Greece, and to determine its causes. Had Athens been successful in the iong Peloponnesian war, it might, perhaps, have been remedied. The success of this most national of all the states, might have laid the foundation of a Grecian imperium, — not of conquest, nor of monarchy, but of united national institutions forming a noble commonweuUh in which every thing might have been as free as in generous Athens itself; for it was a feature of the times then, as it is now, that those states whose domestic insti- tutiojis were the most despotic, had ever the most to say of liberty and independence. So among ourselves; it was not in Massa- chusetts, but in South Carolina and Mississippi, that there arose filibustering schemes for tlie d."liverance of enslaved countries, and the cry of '* extending the area of freedom." The noble Athenian people, on the other hand, ever showed in all their history, that their love of individual freedom was ever in har- mony with the Panhf llenic passion, and derived its purest inspi- ration from it. It was the generous love of all Greece to which, ambitious as Athens was of Attic glory, she so oftea sacrificed her own prosperity as a sectional part. After the melancholy close of the Peloponnesian war, the Grecian history becomes a rapidly dissolving view. An abso- lute autonomy for every part, or for any part, is discovered to be impossible. The Spartan aU'umce, her (fvij.^a-)(_ia as it was mildly called, is found to be miOre grievous than any attempt of Athens, to establish a common nationality. And now there arises a new feature in these political complications. The plea of necessity comes in. It presents itself just as often as may be demanded for the convenience of the stronger power. Sparta had gone to war, for the independence ot the cities. She was fighting for all Greece, the battle of "state sovereignty;" so it was said then, as it is claimed for Jefferson Davis now. But after the sad downfall of Athens, no one of the weaker states could be allowed, at pleasure, to depart from the new Confede- racy. If any proposition of this kind came from Argos, or from 22 the old conquered Meesene, or from any of the "liberated isles," as they were called in the L:icedc'emoni;)n cant, she made the same ariswer tl at JeHerson Davis gave to the Remonstrants of ISorth Carolina. True th.-y were sovereion states— had not Sparta fought long and hard fur that— but then, this sovereignty, this autonomy, must be properly understood, it must cease to be perfect sovereignty sometimes, it must keep itself within some proper bounds of expediency. Their departure might endang.r the alliance, or produce local inconvenience. It was bad to have an en. my. or un independent state that might be- come an enemy, between Lacedccmon and Theb-s, or between Lacedcemon and Athens. And so the state riijlits of Corinth and Megara became just about as valuable, and as tenable, ;i9 those of N.'w Jers.y would be, lying in her petty sovereignty, between New York and Pennsylvania. With these greater powers on each side of her, demanding transitus for purposes of war or commerce, she will find her own petty legislature a feeble defense to her railroad grants, and her precious sovereifrntv a very poor exchange for that invaluable "state right," she once possessed in an all-protecting nationaliiy. She might protect her own oystermen against those of Delaware. She micrht exclude her own niggers from her own common schools, jmd from her own theological seminaries. These high acts of sove- reignty no one might think fit to dispute with her. But she must not assume to lay taxes on travel or trade between New lork and PhiluJelphia, or forbid the pass^ige of an army, if that should be deemed necessary. In all such cases it would soon be found that there were other "state rights," or state con- veniencies, coming in collision with her sovereisnty, and, of course, m the absence of any national regulator, there can be no other arbiter than the power of the stronger. The greater this national regulator, the less motive for any despotic acts; the farther removed from narrow, local jealousies, the more con- servative of all true and valuable liuhts. But this she has lest and now she mnst make the most of the mighty powers ihat lie under '• her great seal." A mere glance at the position of this state upon the map (and we might have taken almost any other state as well) is enough to put to silence all the famed logic of Calhoun, with every argument that ever came from that pesti- ent storehouse of mischief, -the Virginia and Kentucky reso- lutions." ■' Let US look at this matter carefully. If New Jersey always po.sse.ssed this ricrht of sovereignty, or if she never surrendered It, or has a reserved right to take back what she gave without reserve (although this last supposition involves a sheer absurdity) then, a fortiori, must she have had it during the revolution. It follows, then, that she could have refused confederacy, or could 23 have withdrawn from it. She could have made a separate treaty with Great Britain, or she could have stood alone. She could have declared herself a sovereign power in the enrth, and no other state would have had a right to question it. She could have forbidden Washington to cross the Delaware on tliat cold Christmas night when he took the Hessians. She could have told him not to put the tread of his foreign army upon her "sacred soil," just as Maryland warned back the regiments of Massachusetts when speeding on to the defense of the national capital. If not, why not? Where is the defect of the argu- ment, if there is any soundness in these state rights premises? Would Washington, however, have respected such a prohibi- tion ? Would other parties ever have allowed it under any plea, whether it had been prescription, or inherent sovereignty, or that most sacred thing, the Duke of York's hind patent. But this was a case of nece-^sity, one may say. Yes, and it has been a case of necessity ever since. It is a case of necessity now — as strong at this moment, as it was in the revolution. For this necessity is but the oiganic law of which we speak — the shaping power of history, giving every thing its place and proper sovereignty. It is God that makes nations. " He it ia that hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations." The " powers tliat be are ordained of God." We have quoted these texts before, but they can bear to be often preached from. Paul is a better authority here, than Calhoun, or the Kentucky resolutions, or even the patent of the Duke of York. God never made New Jersey to be a sovereignty, and that is the best of all reasons why she should never assume to be one. Cases of necessity ! why, there are every where just such — every where in our history, every where in our geography. Attempts at separation put them ia a stronger light than ever; they reveal others that never had been suspected before. The national agony in the crises of dis- location shows, beyond all abstract reasoning, the vile logic, as well as the damning sin of secession. p]ndless were the negotiations in Greece, arising out of such a state of things. The difficulty was felt in every part. Sparta contended that the isles should be independent, the small as well as the greater. Each should have autonomy. But then it would not do, tliat any of them should be on friendly terms with Sparta's rival, or furnish naval stations, or commercial ad- vantages to her enemies, whether old or new. And so, too, Elis must yield some of her sovereignty, that Sparta might have more coast room, and an easier access to the Gulf of Corinth. The cities of Euboea must have autonomy, but then it is also necessary that there should be- a strong Lacedaemonian power therC; with certain fortresses as pledges of security, in order to 24 counf<^ract the influence of the near lying Attic state. To he sure, tiiey must all have autononny, but then nothing must be allowed to weaken autonomy's great defender, the Peloponne- sian confedtracv. This kind of reasoning would have had a just and noble aspect had it been employed, as conservritive of the integrity of a great Grecian natiotiiilify, and as a defense against a foreign power, Persian or I^Iacedoiiian. To preserve unimpaired the Hellenic wholeness — to guard against e:^posure of it to foreign invasion, or any insidious foreign intervention, through the weakening or dejection o( any part, would have been a subliine policy worthy of Pericles and Demosthenes. But the little great men who preached state rights, in all these petty common- wealths could not see tliis. It was too large for their angle of vision, just adapted, as it was, to the diminutive and the near. They could not reach the height of this great argument^ even as Mr, Da'.is himself cannot now see how liis plea of confederate inconvenience, as against North Carolina, or tiie danger which her departure would occasion to his own j)0vver, cuts up by the Toots every argument he has employed for the right of secession. If iNorth Carolina cannot be permitted to go in peace (even with an acknowledged and solemnly guaranteed right to do so), be- cause she would make a chasm between Virginia and Georgia, or lose to the Confederacy the security of the Southern coast, we thiid^ immediately of the chasms, and deformities, and in- securines, that this doctrine of secession brings to a structure far more beautiful, far more beneficent, having far more right to live as one of the great " powers ordained of God." We cannot let you go, says Davis ; he treats it, and rightly too, as something more than a matter of conventionaliiy ; we will make war upon you, if you dare to think of leaving us — und Gov. Vance seconds the cry. Put the war for the nation, that is an atrocious wrong ; to she'd blood in defense of this precious national integrity, such a proceeding fills our pious peace men with liorror. North Carolina would n)uk(i a hiatus in the unnatural Southern nunstrosity ; Davis thinks that very bad ; but secession disfigures the fairest geographical territory to be found on the globe ; it separates from their sources the mouths of mighty rivers; it leaves, for extended frontiers, arbitrary lines of most surpassing ugliness, ami which nothing in nature or history can render permanent ; worse than an inundation of the sea, it cuts off tiiat Gulf corner of our land, with all its costly national works, so essential to our secu- ritv atiainst a foreign foe, or, what is worse, makes it the sent of a d(uiu'stic enemy vvjio may, at any time, expose to that foreign foe the most vulnerable and mortal part of our poliifcal organ- isu). 'f hougli North Carolina lias an abstract right, doubtless, its assertion would be practically very inconvenient, Mr. Davis 26 cannot part with the Roanoke and Albermarle sound ; but seces- sion may, with impunity, cut off from the United States the keys of Florida, the b;iy of Mobile, the mouth of the Missis- sippi, with all its countless advantages to the North and West! There must be no chasms in the new power; but Ohio (even to this the doctrine brings us) has a right to secede, though her doing so would leave an impassable hole in the very centre of tlie old nationality. It all comes to this; the larger, the more beneficent, the more natural, and, because the larger and the more natural, therefore the less jealous and selfisli power, is thua ever to be watched, and causelessly assailed ; whilst, on the other hand, the smaller the subdivisions the more sacred their rights, though history proves that such petty sovereignties have ever been among the greatest nuisances on earth. Such was the reasoning in Greece; such is it now with us, when men contend against nature, history and geography, as w^ell as the most solemn national compacts. We are not contending against true state rights, any more than against the rights of families and individuals. They need not be opposed to each other or confounded. There is a clear and indelible distinction between national and municipal rights, between national and municipal govern- ment. It exists in the very nature of things and ideas. The latter may be safely carried to any extent consistent with its own legitimate internal aims, and the safety of that embracing whole which gives to the parts all their dignity and value. Local government, for local purposes, is no new thing, first tried with us. It exists, more or less, iu every nation- ality. It is exercised, of necessity, and to some degree, in tlie most despotic and consolidated, whilst in such a political structure as ours, it forms a predominant, and, if not abused, a most salutary feature. It may be defined as a political power that ever looks within, unacknowledged by foreign nationali- ties and having no relations to them except through an outer nationality, of w^hich it forms an organic part. Thus Connecti- cut and Ohio have a less dependent social jurisdiction than Cornwall or Middlesex, but they are equally unknown to the world of sovereign nations. True national government, on the other h;ind, may be defined as looking both within and without, though the latter is its predominant aspect as it will appear in history. It has in charge all foreign relations. Besides this it is the only power that can truly regulate intercourse between its parts. Both are summed up in this; there is committed to it, and of necessity committed- to it, its own'^preservation, and the preservation of the parts in the preservation of the whole of which they are parts. 4 26 The general idei of national existence being thus stated, the question arises, what belongs to it? What specific powers are tlie least that can be assigned to it? The answer comes from the ver)' idea of an organic political body forming a true sove- reignty — that is, according to another of Mr. Lincoln's terse definitions, acknowledging no human power al)Ove it on the earth. Conventionaliiies may modify these powers; the manner of their exercise may be reguhited by a national understanding which becomes its constitution for that [)urpose, but they derive not tlieir origin from it — their sani^ion from it. They inhere in the very idea of nationality itself. In other words, given a true nation — whether as made by history or otherwise — and these powers are given. Let us attempt to define them. A true nation has, first of all, and above all, the power of self- preservation, of preserving its own existence according to its or- ganic law, which is the theoretical idea or constitution which history has given to it. As following directly from this, it has the power (acting through this higher orgatiic law, and without violating the mode piesented by its conventional constitution), of nuiking that conventional constitution, from time to time, such as will best contribute to this great end of preserving its own national being* which is assumed to be a "power ordained of Go; it is more than an error. The great, the ineffable crime in our land is the seek- ing to destroy such nationality after it had existed full and strong for eighty years, after generations had been born under it, receiving its rights and privileges as a [trecious inheritance 31 from their fathers, and transmitting them as the most invaluable legacy to their children. Nor is this latter fact of least import- ance in our argument. It is higher and stronger than any con- ventionality. No paper constitution has such a sanction as this silent course of nature bringing out the unborn, and placing them, at the very origin of their earthly existence, in the stream of liistoric influences, and under the educating [)Ower of settled institutions. It is the seal that God sets upon the virork. It connects the present with the past and the future. Gene- rations thus born under law, are ever, by their very law of continuity, transforming the conventional cement into organic growth, and converting what might seem, outwardly, the work of man into a true historic '• power ordained of God." But let us not lose sight of Greece, that most instructive mir- ror that God !.as given us for our perfect illumination. We see reflected there our own picture in its minutest lights and shades. Her past projects itself into our future, and from it there is no great difliculty in telling what will be the next step, if we fol- low on the downward course ot her sad history. Along with this cry of autonomy, and often in practical inconsistency with it, there arose in Greece the doctrine of "the balance of power." We know the wars that this has occasioned in modern Europe. But the adjustment of those larger and natural sovereignties has a beneht counterbalancing the inevitable evils. When the attempt is to a[)ply it between petty sovereignties arbitrarily divided, and without any ethnological ground to warrant it — too small for any beneficent ends, and having, therefore, no right to exist — it becomes evil and evil only. There is no power so despotic as well as so mischievous as petty power. A rabble of such contemptible nationalities, placed in near contiguity, where they may be ever snarling at, and biting each other ! It is a den of vipers ; and any act of God in history, whether through foreign subjugation, or otherwise, that closes its hissing mouth is to be desired and prayed for by every true friend of humanity. Along with this never settled balance of power doctrine, there came into use a peculiar political vocabulary. Such a slate was to be attacked for Atticizing ; another was cliarged with Licon- izing; all mutually reproached each other with Mediizing, and tliis was the truest of all. In the assertion of their wretched autonomy, Sparta, Ttiebes, Athens, Argos, the Isles, the Colo- nies, had each their deputies at the foreign Persian court intriguing against each other, and all secretly courting this once vanquished power, to the disadvantage of their rivals. Ifc entered into the spirit and proceedings of their home factions as they existed in each state. The i-aipsiai, the secret party meet- ings, the political clubs or caucuses, had often with them the secret foreign emissary to encourage and report. The fact is 32 repeatedly alluded to by the later historians, and well may it remind us of some feature that are beizinnin? to appear in our own photograph. We are startled, sometimes, on looking at some exhumed relic of ancient art. How like ourselves, and the work of our own times? The Persian legate in secret conclave with a faction at Corimh or Sparta, plotting the overthrow of some rival party at home, or in a neighboring state. Such a mere passing allusion in Xenophon, or Tliuy- cidides, IS like an old inscription dug out of some mouldering ruin. Clear away the rust of age, bring out the letters in their distinctness, and what do we see? It is the veritable r. cord of an event which has already taken place among us, and which bids fair, if Chicago triumphs, to be oftrn repeated in our history. It IS the British embassador privately meeting with a political club m New York, or visited, as he states, by the leaders of a political faction, who come to consult with him about foreign intervention, and the time for it that would be most favorable for their party interests. the unchan.neablen^ss of human nature? History is a repeating cycle. " The thing that has be^n is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun." This was the Greece that had vanquished the millions of Xerxes, and rescued all Ionia from the Oriental sway. She is now suffering Ionia to go back to the yoke, and the Isles to fall under the Persian dominions, just as we, in our impotence, see Mexico under a German Emperor, and Peru suffering from the insults of Spain. We cannot help ourselves for men who once sat in an American senate are now waiting for recognition at the court of Bonnparte, and New York merchants are closeted with Lord Lyons in preparing planks for the platform of a politic;d convention. O Hellas, how rapid thy deireneracy ! This deep degradation was not long after 10,000 Greeks had defiantly traversed the length and breadth of the Persian Empire. There were yet old men who had heard their fathers tell of Salamis, as we now hear of Bunker Hill and Yorktown ; and now here are the Greeks waiting in the ante-chamber of the Persian monarch, and presenting the same melancholy humiliating sj.ectaele, that we shall exhibit when fiction and "state rights" shall have re- duced us to the same condition of political imbecility. It is to be noted as an important feature in her history, that though clamoring for autonomy, Greece still had her con'federa- cies. She was ever making confederacies, and dissolving them as fast as made. It was the struggle of nature and history against utter anarchy. But these confederacies had no national bond, no geographical unity, no common historical reminiscences to k.'ep them together. They did not last long enough to make any history of their own. Tliey were formed 'on every pretext that faction could throw up. It was now Sparta and Thebes 33 and Corinth, against Athens. Again it was Sparta and Corinth, against Thebes. In these continual upturnings we find even Athens and Sparta leagued together against BcBotia. It was nothing strange that such unnatural antagonisms should, now and then, give occasion to equally strange alliances. There is a capricious pleasure, sometimes, in showing how those who have fought fiercely with each other, can tight, all the harder for it, against those whom political convulsions have made, for the time, their common foes. Thus Massachusetts and South Caro- lina may some day be (bund fighting together against Pennsyl- vania and Virginia There were times when Athens became nearly isolated. Demagogues in other states assailed her very much as New England is now assailed. But slie had an intrin- sic superiority that made it impossible she should ever be despised. Her high culture, her literature, her philosophy, gave her a proud position, even when her political power was most weakened. Even the dull Boeotian could not help feeling that there was something very respectable in the Attic alliance. That, in such a condition of things the smaller and weaker states must suffer every kind of injustice, we need not history to inform us. They were situated just as Delaware will be, when the full control of her bay and river is wanted for her strong neighbor Pennsylvania, and there is no higher power to prevent the latter from doing just as she pleases. Phocis and Ellis, Megara and Sikyon, the smaller cities of Thessaly, the scattered and helpless Isles, the distant colonies, were ever at the mercy of^he larger states, and endangered by every new and shifting confederacy. They still kept crying out for autonomy, and it was conceded to them in appearance, but nothing could be more unreal. It was ever made tlie occasion of the most despotic proceedings on the part of the larger states in their con- tinual contentions with each other. Thebes was getting too strong, and so Sparta was seized with a sudden passion for the independence of the Theban dependencies. Thebes must grant autonomy to the lesser cities which, with her, fbr(ned a surt of BcEotian confederacy as a counterpoise to the Peloponnesian. Sparta had a right to demand this ; for was she not the cham- pion of Grecian independence? When it was demanded of her in like manner, to give autonomy to certain cities of Elis and Arcadia, which she had taken under her protection, she had ready immediately the answer of Jefferson Davis, and Gov. Vance, to the Remonstrants of North Carolina. It was not convenient. It would make chasms in her boundaries ; it would weaken her frontier. Sparta must be strong — for was she not the great upholder of autonomy, the bulwark of state rights, — and, there- fore, in her case, the principle must yield, or seem to yield, to a wise expediency. 5 34 We have dwelt upon the picture minutely and at length, from a strong desire to impress it vividly on the minds of the reiKh-rs. The truth cannot be exceeded ; but the saddest thing of all is the thought, how, amid all this, the old national glory was ob- gcun.'d, and the proudest remembrances of Grecian history lost their liold upon xhv mind. And this was no merely romantic or unreal injury. Every n ition has its heroic age. It is a bene- ficent provision of God in history. Such lu'roio agt; is the foun- tain ol its p ilitical life. Wii^^n this dries up, that life withers, and decri'pitudo, premature decre[>iuide, raoidly ensue-'. Most strikingly was it so in Greece. As autonomy ring's upon the ear we hear less and less of the old Ilumeric days — less and less of Marathon, and Salamis, and Thermop) Ue, and Pauea. Have we not sotne similar experience here? The 3var8 are brief, but they are already making a rapid diilerence in the national fe^-l- ing. In a large portion of our country the Fourth of July is no longer celebrated. Washingon's birth day is beginning to bring up only the saildest associations of idea-!. It is becoming pain- ful to read of Bunknr Hill and Saratoga. We lay the book aside with tiie mournful hope, that God wiil bring again the time when the feeling of the heroic shall not be lost in the heavy depression that ni^w aceompnnies its perusal. A nation loses immense'y when it loses this. We. of all people, can. least atibrd it ; for our lieroic age, though bright, was brief. Once gone from its due place in our memories, and it is gone forever. We have no hisiorical materials out of which to construct again its reality or its semblance. This utter loss of the heroic, as connected with th-^ old Hel- lenic reminiscences, is especially seen in wh;(t is called the Peace of Antalcidas, made in the year 3S7 before Christ. It was some time belore the closing citastrophes, but we select it as the period of deepest degradation, making sure what must sooner or later come. There was a spasmodic revival of the old glory in the days of Pelopidas and Epaminondas, but it was a flickering and transient flame. Thebes had her brief turn after Alliens and Spaita, but i-.o^liing could stay the degeneracy, or heal the mortal vpouiid that had been given to the true Grecian independ- ence in the base transaction on which \ve are dwelling. There died the last hope of any Hellenic nationality. They got a peace at last, but what a peace ! It was, indeed, soon to be broken like the numbt-rless truces and armistices they had made before; the old compound fracture was past healing; but transient as was this peace of Antalcidas, this is not the main thing in it to which we would call attention. It was rather the painlul picture it presents of Grecian dc^gradation. In this respect, it could sink no lower. The subsequent subjug.itions 35 of Philip and the Romans, could add nothing to this deep dishonor. The influence of Persia in Grecian politics had long been felt — an influence arising not from her own power, but from Grecian divisions, from their foolish autonomy, their insane cry of state rights. This, however, is the first instance in which that foreign power, that ancient enemy, openly and diplomati- cally appears as the dictator in Grecian aflkirs, under the pre- tence of protecting the independence of tlie Gi'-^cian states. The Oriental despot assumes the position of defender of Greece against herself. Her endles^i and bloody wars shocked his no- tions of humanity ; he is horror struck at the fra'rici ial strife. The parallel that all this presents with some t'oings in modern times, is certainly a very curious one. Thueydides in his iv Book, sec. 50. gives us quite a graphic account of a very singu- lar correspondence between Sparta and the Persian king. The letters had been intercepted by Aristides, the captain of an Athenian ship of war. They w^re transferred, says the his- torian, from the Assyrian character, and in them Arta- xerxes is found oompluining of ihe Lacedaimonians that he he cannot tell what they mean (oj yiyvCuf-KSiv o ti Bo-oXovraiy Their plain Laconic style, in which they so prided themselves, had suddenly become tortuous and diplomatic. It was the same dif- ficulty that Napoleon finds in determining what the South means to do with Slavery. But the obscurity v/as not greater than the inconsistency. The Spartan chivalry had, in former days, been the greatest reviK rs of the Persian power. It had b^^en their political capital, just as in our times, abuse of En^jland and the charge of British influence was ever the standing party weapon of our Southern democracy. British gold for the Federalists and the Whigs, Peisiati gold for the Athenians ; the comparison runs on all fours. So Sparta, in her political diplomacy, was ever claiming to be the peculiar champion of the ancient Monroe Doctrine. She was ever accusing the other Grecian states of Mediizing. Especially was this charge made against Athens, the most truly Grecian and naiional of them all. But what do we now behold ? It is an appearance as fuH of instruction as it is of strange historic interest. When the traveler looks back from a certain hill in Germany, he sees painted on his far dis- tant rear horizon, a giant figure that seems to move when he moves, and to stand still when he stops to gaze upon it. It is caused by a peculiar state of the atmosphere. A simi- lar phenomenon is sometimes brought out in the mirage of time. We pause on some mount of his history and look back. Far off" tiiere beckons to us the passionless ghost of antiquity. Is it the Spectre of the Brocken that is mocking us with such fantastic imitations of our own acts? Is it our own 36 shadow thrown back two thousand years over the intervening waste of tiine ? It is ourselves we see, our own inseparable image deriding ns with an unmistakable fac simile of our own folly ;ind crinx-. Ti;ere we stand ; Mason and Slidell at London and Paris — Antalcidas at th--' Court ot Susa — far absent in the ilcsh. but, in the timeless sp/ri(,i\\\ ihe same, here we find Sparta soliciting intervention fr.i-^g crr,p,=ra — as though in this significant act lay the special degradation of the whole aft'iir. How curt this intervening despot's stylo ! How clearly does he show his consciousness that it is not the men of Marathon to whom he is now talking. So brief is the roya] document that we give it in full,^" Artaxerxes, the king, thinks it right that the Greek cities in Asia should be his, and also of the isles Clazomenae and Cyprus. It is his will that the other Greciim cities, both small and great, should have autonomy. Whichever party does not accept the jycace, I will make war against them with my Grecian allies, both by sea and land, with ships and money." (Signed and sealed, Artaxerxes.) What a tableau was here ! Tiribazus showing them tlic king's seal, Antalcidas, the Spartan deputy, affirmir)-g its auihenticity, the otliers standing meekly by and receiving — autonomy. Their precious "state rights !" They have them now at the hands of the Persiati monarch. Our view of the humiliating scene is concluded when we call to mind what autonomy really was under the Spartan rule, with its Dekarchies, or consular boards, its Harmosts, or agents to keep the peace, in all the states that force or diplomacy brnu^jht under her influence. Ii is just such autonomy as will be found in a Southern Confederacy, shouhl Tennessee or Arkansas ven- ture to assert their real independence. It is ju>t .'•uch " state rights," and just such "free speech," as will be allowed to ]\Iassachusetts, should a slaveholding Oligarchy, protected by France and Kngland, be allowed again to esiablish itself in our land. "This base and unholy act" (altf^^pov xa/ avoViov ?p7ov), as Plato calls it in the Menexenus, was resolutely opposed by the Athe- 37 nians. How bitter it was for tliem is seen in the mournful Ora- tion of Isocrates.* It sounds like a wailing dirge over the last hope of true Grecian independence, and of a true Panhellenic Commonwealth ; but the bitterest thing of all was the dictato- rial style, and the insulting interference, of the foreign power brought in by the very people who, in former days, had most rnviled it, and who chiimed then to be the peculiar guardians of Grecian rights. Alas! says this polished orator, "have we come to this?" l^ap'Bapcg xv^s-ai r^^; EXXwJo.c, xai cp6Xa^ r/jg sJpjju.aj sIti'd — *'The foreigner cares for Helhn, he is the keeper of its peace !" So Plutarch says, " It was a p-aoe, if we may call it such, tha brought with it more infamy (and more calamity too he might have saifi) than the most disastrous war"t These wailings of antiquity — how like a groan ihi^y sound, over something that is forever lost — such a groan as we may imagine to proceed from the graves of Gettysburg, when it is found that this sharp con- flict has been all in vain — when Northern, Southern, and West- ern confederacies shall be ever forming, ever dissolving as soon as formed, yet each of tiiem, in th' ir brief season, having their begging envoys at the courts of Europe, and vieing with each other in the degree of servility they can afford as the price of any petty advantage from foreign powers. The Peace of Antalcidas failed, of course, like all the rest; but from that time the course of Greece was ever downward, with the bright and brief exception to which we have alluded. The heroism of Epainiaondas could not avert the coming catas- trophe ; the eloquence 'of Demosthenes could not stay it. Foreign subjugation became inevitable ; and we acquiesce in the verdict whi'h is forced upon us, when convinced that no Macedonian or Roman despotism could ever exceed the horrors that, for more than a century, had forn)ed the chief picture in Grecian history. Greece failed, or rather, those noble spirits failed, who had been all along so ardently striving for a Grecian nationality. The failure there, was in ever becoming a nation. Sliall we make the greater, the far more disastrous, and far more criminal failure, of suffering our nationality to be destroyed after eighty years of such strong and proud existence ? Tlie great loss, in its political estimate, surpasses our arithmetic. But, there is another aspect in which the dire calamity comes still nearer to us, and the pain of imagining it becomes still more pungent. Shall this etibrt fail ? How, then, could we bear the thought of the piecious sacrifice that has been already made to prevent so unspeakable a catastrophe? Success may soothe our mourn- ing, thongh so hard to bear in any event. But 0, the d^^ad and * Isocrates, Panegyrica, page 184 •j- Plutarch. Vitce, Agesilaus, 23. 38 ^one. if we have no such hope to comfort us! A " nation (Irovviied in tears ! " The expression has been often used rh^'- torically in funeral (>rations, but here is no hyperbole. The language uf tlu' Prophet alone can picture it. " A great mourn- ing in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmcm in the vallfv of ]\Iegitl(lo, each fauiily apart; tiie family of the house of David, the liniiily of the house of Nathan, the fimily of the house of Levi ; each family apart, and tlK ir wives apart.'* Each private sorrow hut a minuter picture of the universal grief. In every ntighborhood, iu almost every family, some dead. All over our land, lliere are millions who are sufFeiing the same sharp grief. The loss of these precious lives, viewed only in thenjselves, how beyond all estimate ! But shall it all be in vain? Tiai is the still more trying thought. Shall it be all in vain, either through the force of opi n rebel 'ion, or the still viler treason vf those who favor rebels in the North? Ah, there is the pang unutterable. But we must not quail from looking even this issue in the face, not for discouragement, but to obtain a stimulus for greater and more heroic effort. Viewing it in even this, which seems its most painful aspect, we may ask ourselves, might tiiere not have been something still worse th^m this? Yes, something still wofs*^ tiuvn this with all its harrowing features. We say it with a full and feeling conviction of the miseries of the [last three years. Great would be the evil of secession tri- um[)hant, and terminating in natiotud disintegration ; greater still the evil of a false nationality, an artificial confederacy with the poison of seression still preserved and entering into its very bones and marrow. But there is one thing worse than all ; it is that sucl» disastrous change should have come? with no effort to prevent it, no arm lifted to stay it, not a blow struck, not a life lost in defense of a nationality so glorious — or once thought so glorious — as ours. What an unutterably sad picture that would have been; how indescribably mournful the page in history — the United States dis;ippearing from tlie map of nat'ons — each one of us going our sever.il ways, — occupied, if tiiat could be in such a state of things, with our farms, our merchandise, or our books, — and the nation dying, dying undefended, unmourned, with no protest raised against an act so horrible, so unnattiral, so utterly uidike any thing that liad ever before taken place in the history of n:ian ! Sad as is the thouglit of Chancellorville and Chickiimauga, this would have been saddi-st of all. No war, however unsuccessful, could have compared with it for disaster, not only to the political iiopes and political welfare, but to the highest moral inteiests of maidiind. Who would believe in government, who would regard it is as a divine institution, or as having any thing .livine about it, if, with all its oaths and sane- 39 tions, it could be so trampled under foot by one class of men, or so indifferently given up, or so efisily postponed to the most con- temptible wordly interests, by another? Yes — we say it with firmest conviction — f .r Better to have fongtit and failed, Tlian never to have fouglit at all. Sucb would be the unanimous decision of posterity looking at the truth from that distance which ever shows its unclouded face, and fair proportions. We are not afraid for our Christian name in thus writing. We are no advocates for war. We believe that every step consistent with right atid the higher good of mankind should be ever taken to avoid it. But the reader will see that the qutstion is not here concerning war for some point of national honor, and waged for that purpose against a foreign foe. It may well be doubted whether the Christian demand for peace should be ever violated for such a cause; but here is war tor national defense, yea more, for national existence. It is a vt^ar for law, for order, for the obligation of solemn com- pacts, for the sanctity of oaths, for religion, for morality, for social quiet, for all that secures the transmission of healthy politi- cal institutions from age to age, for all that is venerable in history, for all " that is lovely, pure, peaceable, and of good report " among men, for all that truly makes government a "power ordained of God." A war for a cause like this cannot be wnolly a fauure, even though unsuccessful at the time. As a protest alone it would have an immense value for the future. It contains in it the seeds of good for ages to come. It carries with it the germ of some natwn yet to be born again— after a century c^f anarchy, it may be— yet still preserving its slumbering vitality in the remembrance of such resistance. Again siiall spriig visit those mouldering graves. There shall ci-me a resurrection morn. The heroic idea shall stjl live through this long winter night of death, until "the ram la over and gone, the flowers again appear in the land," and the new nation germinates afresh from those mourned battlefields of what was once regarded as a failing and disastrous war. It is not a failure even though it be but to carry down the stream of time, and embalm in history, the remembrance of the heroic And here we draw again upon that storehouse of parallel incident, the Grecian oratory, and the Grecian history. We find the very case we have presented in that well known passage from the oration of Demosthenes on the Crown, still better known from what is said about it by the great critio Lonc^inus. He cites it as a remarkable example of the sublime, 40 U8 like a thunderbolt, scattering every other thonght. and making us g.-.ze alone upon the v,sion con.ained in the^W^Cs wo f It occurs soon after another striking passage, in wh c th s most h.yal orator, who h,,d so long iJbo'red to Arouse a Pan ! the noble etioits of his Attic country n.en-" What one of the lellen.an. knoweth not, what one of the Barbarians knovveth m,l, that in he Thehan wars, and in those former wars when the Laced,.n.on,answere strong, and in the still older wasVith t w-ou ill. r ^'«^'.-''''''^'y'/'n<3 with many thanks besides, 1 woudlavebeen given to A-hens to t:.ke what she pleased and to hold what she pleased, ,f she had only allowed anoXr and a foreign power, to have the rule in Greece ; but th s to the Athens of those days could never seem patriotic, it was never her na, ure ; it was ne.^M- to be thought of, never to be e du ed " of ov^fT'T'"' ""T- T^y Pri'--«tory ,0 that impassioned bur t of oyal feeling uhich marks the close of that splendid oration and lor which the world has ever yielded to it the uncoiiteted palm of eloquence. It should be borne in mind, tha? it was just after some of the most disastrous military defets Tlat v.le copperhead, ^Eschines, had been taunting him, and m'. ,>ar v with the.r failures, and the hopelessness of .U he r ef^Jr s t^J niamtam t e integrity of Greece. Chicago could not have beea more insultingly tnumphaiH, or more bitter. How glorious the reply! what a hgiit it sheds amid.t all the surroun ?da t ness what a ch.eenng beam ,t sends down to us in our own day of g oom, and alter the lapse of more than two thousand v3 of dfv rntv " bk"^^ ^"''"■"^'" ^'^^^ ^"^g^""^' " ^y t''e brladth Of divinty,— like one, 9o.o\^wo^ y,vo>,,,5 rapt with the smrit of prophecy he spake aloud that oath-like appeal to the^ld heroes of Helh.s, o .s,,.,, ,:, ^.,,,,^ .^^^ U my cout^- cZZt^C\Zt '' t'''"' '', '"'^ "^^ '^^^'- I^ -."^t be it I swear by those who died in the battle front of Marathon by n tit: f[:ht.f s^f '"'-^ '"^r^T ^^ ^^^- ^^'- ----^ in the see hght at Sa amis, and at Arfemisium— bv the many alike r ^sclibeT '^ r ^'r /r''? sepulchres,_to all of wS or .1 V ; f^'^'V ''''"' '^'^'^''''' ^^'^y ^^" »" ^lie hour of victory too oT ; " T^ *"''''' f ^^'"'^^^^^ "^ S'^^"""« burial. And just ^ 00, fo tha which was the only work for brave men to do that submiited. Ihose heroic deaths were not in vain, even thou-h Without a struggle. Its great idea would lie embalmed in the LoDginus, De Sublimitate, I ami XVI 41 world's memory, giving fragrance to patriotism and to loyalty, through all time. It would stand as a protest against the wrong, a never dying appeal in favor of the right, all the more valuable from the precious blood by which it was confirmed, all the moro prophetic of future success in some similar effort, where the cause of Grecian disaster should stand out as a warning beacoa to republics in the remote latter days of the world. The blood of the martyrs is not shed in vain. Such were the men of Marathon, such were tfie men of Gettysburg, evea should there be a longer or a shorter eclipse of the American na- tionality. But such an event we must not anticipate. Our near approach to a known catastrophe is the best warning against it, and so may be the best means of escaping a similar fate. Paradox as it may seem, yet time, in its winding course, sometimes brings us strikingly near the remote past. In the late funeral services at Gettysburg, we seem to be living over again some of the most solemn scenes in Grecian history. Iq the oration of Mr. Everett on that occasion, we have some- thing that may well compare with the choicest parts of Athenian oratory.* But it is still very different with us from what it was with the Athenians, when Demosthenes ut- tered this subHme apostroplie to the dead. We have had no such crushing defeats, no such disasters as then seemed to take away all hope. We know that we are strong, if domestic treachery, with its lying names of conservatism, state rights and state sovereignty, do not undermine our strength. Our foreign foes, though mighty, are far aw.iy, and our inward traitors are every day lessening their power to harm, by revealing more and more of their turpitude. Above all, we know ihat we are in the right, and though God may sutler the right, at times, to be overborne — though he may have great issues, and great prob.itions, which we may not clearly understand, whereby one right is postponed to another, yet the history of the world cannot be all an unending experi- Qient. " God hath not made all men in vain." There must be * Mr Everett may well be called the American Isocrates. He has all the polish of that Grecian orator, whilst excelling him in ccgent clparness of statement and reasoning. His funeral oration at Gettysburg, will ever be regarded as a most choice and classic production, ranking with that of Pericles on a similar memorable occasion, to which Mr. Everett so efl'ectively alludes. But there was one sentence uttered in the presence of those graves that will become household words, ever coming up as oft as Gettysburg is mentioned. It was one of the unstudied sayings of Abraham Lincoln, in his brief introduction lo the orator of the day. Their pathos and their power are enhanced by the unconscious greatness and simplicity of their utterance. '* The world icill little hied, nor long remember what we SAY here, but it can ^tever forget uhat th'.y lUlJ here." In the simple contrast lies the moral sublime of the diction and the thought. Notwithstanding the speakers de- preciation of his own language, so modest and unaffected, the saying will not be forgotten, for it is inseparably linked with the grandeur of the deeds. 6 42 Bomelhing filial and settloJ ; there must be some experiments that terminate in success, though many seeming failures, in the worhl's long nnil painful history, may have been preparatory to it. \VV will hope on, that it will be so with this nationalitV of ours, so wonderfully born, so wonderfully preserved, so marked in all its historical growth by providential interpositions, and having st.'cli high evidence — equal to, may wh not say, surpass- ing that of any other nation — that it was truly '* a power or- dained of God." It is because we believe it to be His work, that we think it will not die — at least a death so young and premature. Man did not make it; man, therefore has no right to unmake it, not even all the men of the nation combined. And here tomes up a question to which we have briefly alluded before, and which the reader will pardon us for dwelling upon again. Horacp Greeley is a most sagacious, and — however strange the asser- tion may seem to some — a most conservative politician. There is, however, a doctrine of his to which we can never subscribe, and which we regret his ever putting f )rth. In the beginning of our national contest, when we were all looking on wi'h be- wildering amazem'mt, and " wondering whereto this thing would tend," he see-nu'd to maintain the right of peaceable separation, in a general convention called for thnt purpose, and by proceed- ings under constitutional f >rms. We cannot assent. The nation, acting in accordance with its organic law, can undergo almost any modification, or change of outward form, or luward state, short of an absolute seli-negation ; it can riglit^y do alnio-t everything else than a voluntary act of sdf-destruction. We trace three stages of pow r, but nowhere do we find any right or ground lor such proceeding. In the Jiist place, there is no such power given in the present written constitution. It con- tains provisions for amendment, but none for dissolution. It ex- cludes it; for amending ijiiplies the continuance of the constitu- tion amended, and of the nation, or body politic, of which it is the consti'.ution. In the sccmd place, the men of the conveo- tioii which formally enacted that constitution had no right to put in such a provision: for they were delegated there for no such purpose. They were sent to make a form of givernmeut for a nation, a constitution as full or as brief, as rigid or as flexi- ble, as finislied or as amendatory, as the national exigencies might seem to require ; but they wj-re not authorized to destroy the nation itself, or to make any provision tor such destruction. Neither, in the tlilrd jducc, could ilie people who thus delegated them, by any majority, or by any unanimity even, have given them this power. It was not theirs to give. The men of that generation alone, however unanimou.s, were not the nation. They were only a part of the natiou, or the then flowing form 43 of an unchanging, and an undying whole. Past generations had siill an interest ; future generations a still deeper interest. The dead of Bunker Hill and Saratoga have a protest here ; this was not tliat for which they fought and died. The dead of Ge'tys- burg look forth from their graves; they, too, have a voice in the question whether they shall he graves of glory or dishonor. The unborn are demanding their inheritance. The men of 17S7 did not make the nation, and they had no right, as we have no right, to unmake it. It was not theirs; it is not ours, except to preserve and transmit, not to destroy or suffer to be destroyed. God made the nation; it cnnnot be said too often. He made it to live on, a representative of the spiritual and the timeless, amid the flowing generations. He ordained it as a power in the earth, and He alone has the right to destroy it when it ceases to fullfil the great end of its being. We received it as a trust; we owe it to God, and to the world, and to the unborn, that it should continue thus to live on. Any repudiation of this higher bond is of the same base nature with that lesser repudiation which has been practiced by the men who would now cancel our national existence. If it be called revolution, we can only briefly answer here, that that can never be an abstract or unconditional right. It is, as we are aware, a vexed question, but, to our mind, all its ditBculties are at once settled by the sniiple thought that revolution never can be a right, except when, and where, it becomes a duty — a most solemn and imperative duty. Let the Davis rebellion be judged by this, and there is no need ol any other argument. God may destroy the nation ; but God is placable ; " there is forgiveness with him that he may be feared." We will " cover ourselves with sackcloth ; it may be that he will turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not" Humbly we will confess our manifold sins, our foolish boasting, our vile party corrup- tion, our excessive commercial worldliness, and last, though not least, our heaven-de'ying oppression of the poor and the weak, our harsh outlawing of those •' little ones," whose lowly care God had made our high probation, and around whom we ought to have thrown the safeguard of law in proportion to th.ir expo- sure and their weakness. National repentance may avert his wrath, even for that sin of sins, the impious and unchristian Dred Scott decision. But what is the political crime of the North ? Let men cry out flmaticism as much as they please ; they can make no other record than this. According to our best intelligence, and our clearest conscience — in both of which attributes of humanity w^e claim, at least, an equality with our opponents either North or South — we voted in a Presidential election. We were pre- pared to abide its issue, if defeated, or its reversal in the consti- tutional way. This is our case — the whole of it. When the 44 sun went down on the first Tuesday in November, ISGO, a new political issue arose over all the land. All precedinir ones, such as banks, taritis, annexations, etc., had been temporary, suiierfi- cial, endurable if wrongly decided, or capable of easy remedy. This was a vital issue ; the life of the nation was involved. All other issues were buried until this was decided, and so decided as never to come up again. How often had we boastingly said to the world— look here— see this great people— how zealously we contend at the polls, what a sudden calm of order and conservatism immediately fol- lows the verdict of the ballot-box. Shall that proud assertion ever be made again? Tiiis was the new issue of that eventful day. From morn till night had the little papers, emblems of our national trust in humanity, been lalling, like snow flakes, thick and fast, over all the wide extent of our land. Even as they lay silent, and yet uncounted in the ballot-boxes, this issue of issues arose. It was as though during that solemn hour every man who had voted, had personally promised every other man— yea had sworn it wiih a solemn oath— that whatever that verdict should be. It should have its legitimate political ettect, and Its fair political trial, until in like manner solemnly reversed so help him God. Thus virtually pledged himself— 6^ the very act 0/ ro//«ir— every man to every man, every candidate to every other candidate, every Republican to every Democrat, and every Democrat to every Kepublican. As we walked together to the polls, this was the spiritual word that day ascending— this was Its sound to ears opened to the perception of spiritual thin^rs. The man of the losing party was more bound in honor, as well as in conscience, that this all superseding issue should be sacredly maintained. He was more bound in true yolicy, even as he would want the same security in some future issue of a similar kind. Ballots or bullets. They who now aflect to talk in depreca- tion of war, and in fluor of the "peaceful ballot" as takiiK-- its place, are talking absurdly, if not treasonably. " Coercion is opposed to the genius of our institutions; democrats repudiate It ; our remedy is the peaceful ballot box." Such was the fool- ish gabble uttered by one on taking the chair of the late Demo- cratic state convention of New York. The ballot box ! it lies m rums and trampled under foot. They who fight for it may, with some consistency, maintain its sacredness. They who give all the aid they can to its violators, and yet can prate of '' the peaceful ballot," have nothing but the excuse of utter sto- lidity to shield them from the consciousness of the most detest- able hypocrisy. For nearly four years now has this new and vital issue been on trial. How shall it be, not only decided, but decided in such a way as to leave no wound in the national integrity ? There 46 can be but one answer. It must be done by putting the coun- try, as near as possible, in the very condition demanded by the contemned and broken election of 18G0. By that vote Abraham Lincoln should have been for four years the unresisted President of the wJiole United Slates, just as Mr. Pierce and Mr. ]3uchanan had been before him. Those years have nearly gone into the past, with all their bloody record of rebellion. He has not had his constitutional right. He has been violently kept out of all executive jurisdiction in all the southern portion of the United States, except where the national arms have carried the consti- tution with them For the assertion of this jurisdiction, which he was solemnly sworn to maintain, he has had lavished upon him, and by men at tlie North, every vile epithet of infamy. In view of this, the remedy that shall fully restore this national integrity becomes self-evident. The election of a President, other than Mr. Lincoln, and in condemnation of him, although it might be, with more or less sincerity, on the avowed grcund of rebel coercion, would be an exceedingly defective cure. Such a position of rebel coercion, even if it were sincere, could not be maintained in the face of the most essential concession it would involve to the revolting states ; since the least compromise con- tains the whole essence of Secession. There is but one cure for this deadly stab that can be permanent and complete. There is but one proceeding that can send the nation down to posterity staunch and sound — scarred indeed, exhausted and weary, but in all the integrity of its constitutional or organic health. It is the re-election of Abraham Linccdn to the post he has not been permitted to occupy. Not for his sake, but for all that is most vital and sacred to the nation, is it right — Deo volente — that he should be four years unresisted President of these United States. Tliere are other reasons good and substantial. One of the candidates now before us, is recommended on the score of his Christianity, of which, however, we know nothing more than the asserted fact of profession, whilst we do know that he stands on a double platform, — a position, to say the least, not favorable to moral integrity. The other is only a plain, honest man, with nothing else to present to the hero-maker than that homely, unpretending virtue, whose very ordinary excellence consists, mainly, in tlie obsei-vance of an oath, and the earnest eflbrt to fulfil! a trust. In his moral poverty he has but one platform, and that is, to preserve the nation at the cost of whatever may stand in its way. The first is lauded as a statesman. So his friends proclaim him, though his statesmanship has no more evidence than his piety. The other has passed through the most trying ordeal that ever tested the strength of man ; but there he stands, yet holding firm the helm, with the vessel still steady in the storm, still heading to its port, though often seeming about to 46 foundor ill the fiercest tempest by which ship was ever yet assailed. The pilot who preceded him had abandoned the hehn, and given npali as lost ; the crew had mutinied ; tlie vessel was basely deserted by the greater part of the officers then in places of trust, and who are now the very men most clamorous in demanding another Captain — the very men who say that they alone can be intrusted with the vessel's safety. Treason was every where. With God's help the ship is righted, though not yet wholly past the rocks. Shall the old mutinous and treach- erous crew be restored to power? Sh dl any man be trusted, whatever-claims he may have personally, who is known to be iht'ir choice, and who cannot succeed without tlieir help ? To droi> all metaphor, and treat the subject in tiie most prac- tical manner, we must look at the position men occupy ; we must study their affinities. It is our surest, as well as our easi- est way. Of abstract policy, of genuine integrity, of pure Christianity, of exalted statesmanship, it is not easy judging. It is well for us that we have other tests, more prompt in their applications, whilst perfectly reliable in their decisions. We may here draw again u]>on that full storehouse of antiquity. When men were raised to office in Athens whose success was hailed in Lacedaemon, the downfall of Athens was near; when men acquired power in the states of Greece whose elevation gave joy at the court of Philip, Greece was already past hope. Is any one at a loss how he shall vote in such a contest as this, let him be guided by the instincts of the enemy. They will not deceive him. The law of contraries gives, sometimes, the surest index to our bewildered reasoning. It says, take not that road. To act upon such grounds is practical wisdom, because error reveals itself more readily than truth : evil is more appa- rent than good. The affinities of the false and the bad are thus a surer guide, sometimes, than the best arguments of an abstract kind that can be employed on the side of truth. They have all the certainly of chemical tests. Like comes to like — or, at least, alike in liking each other — even as mercury combines with tin, or chlorine runs to the embraces of hydrogen. The vile have an almost infallible way of hiowing ihcir 7nan, however seem- ingly opposite to themselves the character he may assume. Nothing is more keen than the instinct of malevolence, nothing more unerring than the unconscious logic of evil when exercised in the choice of its agents, however stupid and blind it may be in respect to the real nature of the ends it wouUi seek to attain. Here, then, is a field for the application of these tests so fur- nished to U8 by tlie common sense. There is no chance to be mistaken ; a few simple questions settle the whole matter. Which candidate is sure to receive the vote of every warmest sym[)aLhizer with rebellion in our land ? On whose side will be 47 found the men who rejoice — and their name is legion — at defeats received by our armies? For whose success will tkcy feel deep- est interest who have no tears for our gallant dead, and who stigmatize the war in which they fell as fanatical, false and in- glorious ? Where is all that is heroic, thrilling, soul-elevating in this giant contest, and on which side is there a total absence of even the semblance of any such qiuilities? Whose Chris- tianity and statesmanship can most surely count upon the hea- viest majorities in the vilest dens of vice to be found in our cities? Who will receive the most votes from the drinking cellar, the brothels, the gambling saloon ? Whose conservatism will find most lavor with such conservative characters as fili- busters, and rioters, and negro burners ? Which side confidently expects to get the most votes in those regions of our land where the densest ignorance most abounds? Whicli has most to say of " fanatical priests" intermeddling in politics? Whose elec- tion will give joy in Richmond? Whose triumph will cause mourning to every liberty-loving republican of Europe, whilst it sends a thrill of joy — more vivid than that which M icedonia felt at the fall of Demosthenes — to the soul of every liberty- hating partisan of monarchy? Patriot, as you style yourself — Christians, of every name — if these questions can be ansv/ered in but one way — and you most surely know what tluit is — how dare you vote on a side which will bring you in association with every one of the characters here described ? Never was issue more clearly joined. It is not so much the candidates as the influences that support them, and which will be made controlling by the election of the one or the other. Whatever be the integrity or intelligence of General McClellan hipiself ; whatever be the intelligence or integrity of some who intend to vote for him, there can be no doubt of the predomi- nant interests that are arrayed in his support, and which will demand recognition in case of his success. All that is most hostile to our true nationality is there. All the most extreme advocates of the mischievous doctrine of state sovereignty are there. Every one among us who is a member of a secret society in aid of southern treason is there. Every man who. whilst ringing the false charges of sectionalism against the North, is engaged in the vile work — at this fearful day the inefflibly vile work — of exciting a new sectional hatred between the East and the West — every such man is there. All who are distinguished for the most demoniac feeling toward a crushed and outlawed race, are there. They are all there. Christian and patriot, we siy again, can you vote with them? It would seem as though there were but one fitting style of speech that could be used at the bare thought of such association. It is the language of the Patriarch—" my Soul come not thou into their secret, unto their conveiitions, mine Honor, be not thi|ii united." 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