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THE AMMSTKATION AND THE WAR 
 
 The Duty of Supporting the Government— Arbitrary Arrests— Or 
 or the War to Save the Union— The Question 
 of Reconstruction. 
 
 REMARKS OP ME. H. J. RAYMOND. 
 
 OF NEW YOEK, 
 
 WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, 
 
 NOVEMBER 6, 1863. 
 
 From the Delaware Slate Journal. 
 A very large meeting of the citizens of Wil- 
 mington was held at the City Hall on the evening 
 of Friday, Nov. 6, which was addressed by Messrs. 
 H. J. Raymond, of New-York, and Butler G. 
 Noble, of Wisconsin. Mr. Raymond's remarks 
 were substantially as follows : 
 
 Mr. President : I am very glad to avail myself 
 of the invitation which brings me here to-night, 
 and which enables me to take part with you, 
 Citizens of our Common Country, in an election 
 which is to have an important influence on its 
 welfare and its destiny. It is the first time in my 
 life that I have ever attempted to make a politi- 
 cal speech in a Slave State. I have always be- 
 lieved, and have always acted on the belief, 
 that Slavery, as it has existed in some of 
 the States of this Union, was primarily 
 and mainly a local affair, and that it be- 
 longed to the people of the States in which 
 it existed to take such steps in regard to its re- 
 moval as their own conviction of justice and of 
 public policy might dictate. I have, therefore, in 
 all that I have done during my connection with 
 public affairs, which has been neither very long 
 nor very important, confined my action on this 
 subject to those aspects of Slavery which touched 
 the general welfare— which affected the rights, 
 the interests and the destiny of the country at 
 
 large. I have believed, for many years, in commoi' 
 with a very large portion of the American people; 
 that Slavery was endeavoring to usurp, and to a 
 very great extent had usurped, a degree of con- 
 trol over the National Government far greatc i 
 than it was entitled to exercise under the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. I had seen si 
 holders filling the Presidency for forty-nine out of 
 the seventy years during which the Government 
 had existed, and dictating the conduct ol that hieh 
 office for thirteen more. I had seen the slavehoM- 
 ing interest, as a distinct interest of the country, 
 not only different from, but hostile to alt its other 
 great interests, controlling, with absolute and in- 
 tolerant sway, the army and navy of the United 
 States, the distribution of public patronage in all 
 departments of the Government, proscribing ev 
 ery man in every section ot»the country who held 
 Slavery to be an evil, influencing the legislation 
 of Congress, dictating or overruling the decisions 
 of the Supreme Court, depraving the organization 
 and action of political parties and aiming 
 through their action to make Slavery, as a 
 political power, permanent and perpetual in the 
 Government of the United States. I had seen it 
 grasping at complete control of the Territories of 
 the United States, for the sake of making them 
 the basis of new extensions of its political power. 
 All these things it had achieved, or was 
 s.iming to accomplish, while the slaveholdlng 
 ; class constituted less than one-fiftieth part of 
 
the population of the United States, and while in 
 every element of legitimate political influence 
 Slavery was far inferior to other interests and 
 Other sections. 
 
 I believed, therefore, in common with a 
 powerful and intelligent portion of the 
 'American people, that if the people themselves 
 desired to retain control of their Government— if 
 they desired that this nation should continue to 
 be a Republic governed by the constitutional 
 majority of the people— it was absolutely neces- 
 sary to resist, by all just and constitu- 
 tional modes of political action, these ambitious 
 efforts of the oligarchy which rested on the own- 
 ership of slaves to obtain control of it, and to 
 convert it into something very different in its na- 
 ture and objects from what it was designed to be 
 by those who won its independence and ordained 
 jts Constitution. [Applause.] I cooperated, there- 
 fore, very early and very zealously, with those 
 who formed and organized the Republican party. 
 That party came into existence for the purpose of 
 checking and defeating this attempt of Slavery to 
 consolidate and perpetuate its control over the 
 general Government. Its active efforts have 
 been devoted to that object and to that alone, and 
 it has fulfilled its mission. [Applause.] Mainly, 
 if not exclusively, through the action of that party 
 — action provoked and rendered necessary by the 
 ambition of Slavery itself — the progress of Slavery 
 toward domination in this Republic has been ended 
 forever. [Applause] The election of a Republican 
 .president in 1860, was important in all its aspects 
 and relations ; but its paramount and supreme 
 importance consisted in the demonstration it af- 
 forded, that the people of the United States had 
 taken the Government into their own hands, and 
 that the slavehoiding aristocracy could hold it no 
 longer. The demonstration of that fact provoked 
 Slavery to a new and a final effort. It appealed 
 from the ballot-box, where a President had 
 been constitutionally elected, to the battle-field 
 for the purpose of overthrowing his Government ; 
 and for two years and a half now the Government 
 pf the United States has been engaged in defend- 
 ing itself against this attempt. For two years 
 and a half the energies of the people have been 
 expended in a war far the preservation of the Na- 
 tional existence The war on the part of the 
 United States is purely a war of defence ; of de- 
 fence against causeless and unprovoked aggres- 
 sion ; of defence against an unholy attempt to 
 overthrow the Democratic Republic of the United 
 States; and that is certainly a cause worthy the 
 Utmost efforts and the last sacrifices of the 
 bravest and the noblest people that ever lived on 
 the face of the earth. [Great applause.] It is 
 unnecessary for me to rehearse the history of this 
 rebellion, its origin and cause, its progress or its 
 prospects. It has been carried on by those en- 
 gaged in it with a degree of vigor and obstinacy— 
 
 •T? 
 
 I do not hesitate to add with a degree of courage 
 and of self-sacrifice — which would have 
 conferred lasting honor on men fighting 
 in a better cause. The resources of 
 the rebels, in men, in money and in all the mate- 
 rials of war, have proved to be far greater than 
 we had expected to find them, and the war they 
 have wagen has oeen -ar more protracted, more 
 destructive and more terrible than we supposed 
 at the outset it could possibly prove. But the 
 courage, the endurance and the patriotism of the 
 American people have proved equal to the emer- 
 gency. [Applause.] The Government for two 
 years and a half has conducted this war with a 
 degree of sagacity and a wise statesmanship to 
 which impartial history will do justice, however 
 partisan prejudice may obscure or ignore it ; and 
 the people of the United States have shown a 
 steady patriotism, a high-toned devotion to the 
 public good and an aptitude for military affairs 
 unexampled in the history of nations. [Applause.] 
 
 We have reached a new stage in this great con- 
 troversy. At the outset the people, on this as on 
 every other important question, were more or less 
 divided. There was a party in the North disposed 
 to deny the right of the Government to fight for 
 its own existence. Others denied the possibility 
 of subduing the rebellion, while they conceded 
 that it ought to be done. And some even espoused 
 openly the cause of the rebels, as founded in jus- 
 tice and in right. Differences have also grown 
 up during the progress of the war as to the proper 
 mode of carrying it on, as to the fitness of particu 
 lar men for special places, the policy or impolicy 
 of specific action on the part of the Government, 
 and indeed on all the details of the great transac- 
 tion. But as we have seen more and more clearly 
 the purpose and scope of the rebellion, — as its 
 object and the results of its success have become 
 more and more apparent, the people have made 
 up their minds, with substantial unanimity, that 
 whatever may be necessary shall be done to 
 crush the rebellion and restore the authority of 
 the Constitution of the United States. [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 There are two or three points which it seems 
 to me are sufficiently established in the public 
 mind to be taken for granted in this discussion : 
 
 1. The jirst is that the rebellion must be 
 quelled, — that the Union must be restored, — that 
 the supremacy of the Constitution must be re- 
 established over every foot of American soil. 
 [Loud applause.] This is not a mere impulse of 
 the vanity of the American people, as some foreign 
 critics would fain believe ; it is the deep and set- 
 tled conviction of the American heart that unless 
 this is done, the Republic of the United States is 
 hopelessly destroyed, the peace, order and free- 
 dom of our people give place to turmoil, anarchy 
 and 'confusion, and the last hope of (rational 
 civil liberty, resting on the right of self-govern- 
 ment, perishes from off the face of the earth. 
 
[Applause.] Ou: fathers intended this Govern- 
 ment to last forever and to be forever a free Gov- 
 ernment. They designed that it should secure to 
 its citizens the full and complete enjoyment of 
 civil liberty, and at the same time be powerful 
 enough to maintain its position and its principles, 
 if either should be assailed by any or by all of the 
 nations of the earth. And for these two objects 
 full provision was clearly and distinctly made in 
 theConstitution which they ordained. The first was 
 secured by retaining for each of the several States 
 complete control of its own local affairs. The 
 second was secured by creating a common Gov- 
 ernment for them all, which, within certain dis- 
 tinct and specified limits, embracing all great ob- 
 jects of common interest and concern, should be 
 absolutely and entirely sovereign, — which should 
 wield the force of the people, have authority over 
 the whole, and represent the will and the purpose 
 of the whole in all that involved the welfare of 
 the whole ; and with this sovereignty, thus defin- 
 ed and restricted, the States were expressly for- 
 bidden to interfere. The rebellion now In pro- 
 gress aims to overthrow this sovereignty 
 of the nation, and to reclaim it for the several 
 States. It aims, therefore, to destroy the nation 
 itself— to wrest from it the national power and 
 authority which it wields under the Constitution, 
 and thus to destroy forever all our power and 
 consideration among the nations of the earth. 
 The people have determined that this must not, 
 shall not be done. As the recent elections show, 
 they have determined to sustain the Government 
 — to crush the rebellion — to save the Union and 
 restore the authority of the American Consti- 
 tion. [Applause.] That point I consider settled. 
 2. There is a second point which seems to me 
 equally clear and equally settled in the public 
 mind, this namely,— that if the rebellion is to be 
 quelled, it must be done by force of arms. [Loud 
 applause.] Every thing that has occurred since 
 the war began proves that this is so. We must 
 surrender to the rebels or they must surrender to 
 , us. All talk and all thought of compromise,— of 
 conciliation, of making any terms with the rebel 
 authorities short of conceding what they claim, 
 independence, is seen and felt to be utterly idle 
 and hopeless. The language of all their pjblic 
 men proves it. The action of their leaders, civil 
 and military, proves it. Everything that is said, 
 and everything that is done, combine to confirm 
 the declaration of the official organ of the Confed- 
 eracy, the Richmond Enquirer, that "it is all or 
 nothing ; this Confederacy or the Yankee nation, 
 one or other, goes down, down to perdition : — one 
 or the other must forfeit its national existence and 
 lie at the mercy of its mortal enemy." This is 
 the alternative. Whether we wish it or not we 
 must accept it. And the American people have 
 declared their willingness to accept it — their 
 readiness to meet the issue and to decide, by 
 
 force of arms in the field of battle, which of the 
 two it shall be— our Government or the rebel 
 Government that is to go " down, down to perdi- 
 tion." [Applause.] 
 
 3. A third point which all concede to be equally 
 clear is that this force by which alone the rebel- 
 lion can be put down must be wielded solely and 
 exclusively by the Government of the United 
 States — by the Administration which has for the 
 time being the sole and exclusive guidance of our 
 national affairs. [Applause.] It is a national con- 
 test, and it must therefore be waged by national 
 authority. No State can carry on this war — each 
 State is expressly forbidden by the Constitution 
 to make war at all. No confederation of States 
 can do it — the States are expressly forbidden by 
 the Constitution to enter into any confederation 
 for any purpose whatever. No party can do it — 
 no Convention or assemblage of men can do it. 
 There is but one authority upon American soil 
 that can rightfully or actually carry on this war 
 and that is the Government of the United States 
 no matter what man may be at the head of it, nor 
 what political party may, for the time being, have 
 charge of its affairs. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, these three points being conceded, does it 
 not follow, with equal clearness and certainty, 
 that the Government must be sustained by the 
 people in carrying on this war, if the people 
 desire the rebellion to be put down ? No matter 
 whether you approve all the acts of the Adminis • 
 tration or not : no matter whether you helped 
 bring it into power or not: no matter whether 
 you think the members of it the best men for their 
 places or not : for the time being they constitute 
 the Government ; they represent its authority and 
 wield its force ; and if you want this thing done 
 you must aid them in their attempts to do it. 
 [Applause.] We must overlook their mistakes. 
 [Applause.] We must deal leniently with their 
 errors. We must make large and liberal al- 
 lowance for the extraordinary circumstances in 
 which they are placed. And we must give them 
 the cordial and earnest support which the mag- 
 nitude of the cause and the welfare of the coun- 
 try demand. And when, by so doine, we have 
 reestablished the authority of the Government 
 and restored the integrity and the peace of the 
 Union, we can rectify any abuses which may have 
 crept into the Government, and redress any wrong 
 which the Administration may have committed. 
 [Loud applause] 
 
 Now it seems to me that this simple 
 statement of the case is quite sufficient to 
 decide the duty of every American citizen. If 
 the rebellion must be put down,— if this can 
 only be done by force of arms, — and if that force 
 can be wielded only bv the Government of the 
 United States, then it is clearly the duty of every 
 true-hearted American so to speak, so to act and 
 so to vote as to give the utmost possible support 
 
to the Government in its efforts so to wield that 
 force as to crush the rebellion and restore the su- 
 premacy of the Constitution. [Applause.] 
 
 This, it seems to me, is all the affirmative ar- 
 gument that need be made upon this subject. 
 How is it met by those who refuse thus to sup- 
 port the Government in its prosecution of the 
 war? 
 
 The Government, it is alleged, is not carrying 
 on the war for the purpose of putting down the 
 rebellion at the Souih : it is doing it for the pur- 
 pose of putting down free institutions at the 
 North. It is doing it not to save the Union, but 
 to abolish Slavery. It makes rebellion the pre- 
 text, and the armies of the Union the weapon, 
 for overthrowing the -Constitution and for estab- 
 lishing a military despotism upon its ruins. If I 
 believed this to be true, I could not concur with 
 those who assert it, in pretending to be for the 
 prosecution of the war. Gov. Seymour, ot New- 
 York, is one of those who profess to believe it — 
 yet he has " dedicated" himself in words, repeat- 
 edly, to a vigorous prosecution of the war. A vig- 
 orous prosecution of a war to overthrow the 
 Constitution and put down free institutions in the 
 Northern States ! Either these men are insin- 
 cere in their professed belief, and are trying to 
 mislead the public judgment by assertions which 
 they do not believe themselves, or else their 
 zeal for liberty is a hollow sham. If I believed 
 that the free institutions of this country were in 
 greater danger from the action of the Government 
 than from the rebellion, I would take arms 
 against the Government. I would fight the worst 
 foe first. But Ido not believe any such thing, and 
 I find it difficult to feel any great respect for the 
 judgments of those who do, and still more diffi- 
 cult to feel any respect at all for the honesty of 
 those who assert it without believrhg it. Even if 
 the Administration had transcended its powers, 
 and committed serious wrongs in the prosecution 
 of thewar, I should be very slow in coming to the 
 conclusion that it had done so with any purpose 
 of subverting the liberties of the American people. 
 There is no man living whom I would not quite as 
 soon suspect of such a design as the present 
 Executive of the United States. [Applause.] No 
 man more upright — no man more patriotic, no 
 man more thoroughly and entirely devoted to the 
 great principles of American liberty as embodied 
 in the Constitution of the United States, or less 
 likely to do anything to their detriment, ever 
 tilled that exalted station than Abraham Lin- 
 coln. [Loud applause.] But I do not believe 
 the conduct of the Administration is obnoxious 
 to the censures that have been passed upon it. 
 [Applause.] I do not believe that it has trans- 
 cended its just constitutional authority. [Ap- 
 plause.] I do not believe that it has changed in 
 the slightest degree the objects and purposes for 
 which the war is waged— or that it has done 
 
 anything in any respect for which full warrant 
 may not be found in the provisions of the Consti- 
 tution, or which cannot be fully justified by the 
 emergencies of the case and the absolute necessi- 
 ties of the nation. [Loud applause.] And if you 
 will permit me to trespass somewhat on your 
 patience I will endeavor to vindicate this opinion. 
 
 THE MATTER OF ARBITRARY ARRESTS. 
 
 Foremost in this indictment of the Administra- 
 tion stands the charge that by its arbitrary ar- 
 rests, without due process of law, on suspicion of 
 intent to commit crime instead of on charges of 
 crime already committed, and by its \suspension 
 of the writ of habeas corpus, which was intended 
 to forbid and nullify all such arrests, the Govern- 
 ment has actually abrogated the main guarantee 
 of personal liberty provided by the Constitution, 
 and subjected the rights, and the liberties of every 
 citizen to the caprice of arbitrary power. Now 
 it is quite true that one of the dearest and most 
 sacred of the rights of every American citizen is 
 this immunity from arbitrary arrest. The Con- 
 stitution guarantees it, and without that guaran- 
 tee the Constitution never could, and never 
 should, have been adopted. And it is the very 
 last right which any American should surrender. 
 Nothing can be more dangerous to any society, 
 nothing more destructive to the personal freedom 
 of its individual members, than the power of ar- 
 rest and imprisonment on mere suspicion, with- 
 out being compelled to submit to public judicial 
 scrutiny the grounds on which such arrests are 
 made. The ordinary rule of all free society — 
 of our free society certainly — is, that 
 no man can be arrested, arraigned 
 or imprisoned except for the committal of some 
 act which becomes a crime because it is in viola- 
 tion of some specific law. And whenever any 
 man is arrested he has a right, on his own de- 
 mand, to be taken before a Court that he may 
 learn what act he is charged with having done» 
 what law it violates and on what evidence he is 
 supposed to have done it. That is the privilege 
 of the writ of habeas corpus; and the Constitu- 
 tion provides that "it shall not be suspended" 
 except in a certain specified contingency. That 
 exception was deemed necessary because the 
 contingency was one likely to arise in the history 
 of every nation. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances the peace 
 and security of society are sufficiently se- 
 cured by the punishment of actual crimi- 
 nals for actual crimes. But emergencies 
 may occur in which it is quite as important for 
 the public safety to prevent intended crimes, and 
 even to prevent intended acts which are not 
 crimes because they do not violate any specific 
 law, as to punish crimes which have actually 
 been committed. Suppose, for example, that in a 
 case of invasion some citizen is suspected of in- 
 
ending to hang up signal lights to guide an en- 
 emy's vessels into one of our ports ;— or that, in 
 case of a rebellion, some citizen is believed to 
 be on the point of sending arms, munitions of 
 war or information to the insurgents ; — who can 
 doubt that it is far more important for the 
 public safety to prevent these intended acts, than it 
 s to punish the men who do them after they have 
 aeen committed ? In the latter case the public 
 will have sustained all the injury which the acts 
 an inflict. The invader will have been guided 
 into port. The rebel will have been furnished 
 .vith weapons for the intended blow against his 
 :ountry, or with information where to strike. 
 4.nd the punishment of the criminal will not undo 
 he disastrous public consequences of his crime. 
 3ut if in such cases the writ of habeas corpus 
 s in full force and validity, the arrest of these 
 .Tien by due process of law must be an empty 
 Form. They have committed no crime — they 
 have done no act in violation of any law, and, as 
 i matter of course, they are at once released and 
 left free to consummate their meditated and in- 
 tended treason. Now the framers of the Consti- 
 tution knew very well that such cases were 
 likely to arise, because they had arisen in the 
 history of every nation ; and they deemed it 
 wise, therefore, to make provision for them. They 
 did it by declaring that " the privilege of the 
 writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended, 
 unless when, in cases of invasion or rebellion, 
 the public safety may require it." Two condi- 
 tions, therefore, must concur to authorize a sus- 
 pension of the privilege of this writ : 1. There 
 must be at the time a case of invasion or rebel- 
 lion, and 2. The public safety must require it. 
 
 So far our way is clear enough. The next 
 question that arises is, what authority shall de- 
 termine ivhen these two conditions exist ? Clear- 
 ly it must be the authority authorized to make 
 the suspension,— the Government itself. It must 
 be either the President or Congress, or both. If 
 it is an executive act, the President may perform 
 it. If it is a legislative act, it requires the action 
 of Congress, with the concurrence of the Pres- 
 ident. But as it is an act demanded to meet an 
 emergency, the nature and imperativeness of the 
 emergency itself must have great weight in de- 
 termining its character. When our rebel- 
 lion broke out, for instance, the rebels 
 had every advantage. They had laid their 
 plans and prepared their materials. Their 
 agents had been active in the Cabinet, in 
 every department of the Government, and in 
 every section of the country. ihey had been 
 largely supplied with arms from the Government 
 arsenals. Their spies were active in every North- 
 ern city. Their allies were vigorous and resolute 
 in the Northern Press, in the halls of Congress, in 
 the leadership of political parties, and in every 
 place of authority and influence throughout the 
 
 country. What was to be done? No laws had 
 been enacted making the action of these men 
 criminal. Must they be left at large? Congress 
 was not in session. The President took the re- 
 sponsibility of deciding that a case ot rebellion 
 did exist, that the public safely required the ar- 
 rest of these men on suspicion and their deten- 
 tion for the purpose of preventing the consumma- 
 tion of their intended crimes. And he, therefore, 
 suspended in their cases the privilege of the writ 
 of habeas corpus. Then the objection was taken 
 by the opponents of the Administration, that 
 the President had transcended his au- 
 thority, and that Congress alone had the right to 
 suspend that privilege. Well, Congress at its 
 next session authorized its suspension bv a law 
 which the President approved. Every require- 
 ment of the Constitution has thus been fully met. 
 The Government has exercised a power conferred 
 upon it in the most explicit terms, and in the very 
 emergency upon which its exercise is expressly 
 authorized : — yet the clamor against it is just as 
 loud as it was before. Does not this show con- 
 clusively that the real objection of these men is 
 not to the mode of suspending the privilege, but 
 to its being suspended at all ? Does it not prove 
 that their real wish is that the agents and spies, 
 the aiders and abettors of the rebellion, should 
 be Left perfectly free to prosecute their work here 
 in the heart of the Northern States ? [Applause.] 
 And is that a desire or a demand which can 
 challenge the sympathies of any loyal man? 
 
 Upon grounds of the Constitution, therefore, it 
 seems to me the action of the Administration in 
 this matter is susceptible of the clearest and 
 most complete vindication. It may be said, it is 
 true, that this action has been unnecessary — that 
 the public safety did not require it — and that one 
 of the constitutional conditions of the rightful 
 suspension of the writ is, therefore, wanting. 
 But the only tribunal clothed with authority 
 to decide that point has decided it otherwise. 
 They may have been mistaken, but they were 
 acting in their own right. They may have com- 
 mitted an error, but they have not violated the 
 Constitution ; and the error, if it be one, was on 
 the side of the public safety, in the interest of the 
 country, and therefore to be judged with leniency. 
 
 But if we may rely upon precedents in this mat- 
 ter, either English or American, they will show, I 
 think, that even this censure is unjust. Our 
 Government now has a much clearer justification 
 for its action than can be found in most of the 
 other cases. Take the case of England 
 during the Irish Rebellion of 1848. Compared 
 with ours that rebellion was a very paltry affair, 
 and found neither aid nor advocates in anv other 
 part of the United Kingdom. Yet so great was 
 the terror which it inspired, so serious in the 
 eyes of the Government was the emergency 
 which it created, that a bill passed both Houses 
 
of Parliament on two successive days — receiving 
 in each a unanimous vote — authorizing the arrest 
 of men in Ireland on mere suspicion, and depriv- 
 ing them of the privilege of the writ of habeas 
 corpus. Every leading member of both Houses sus- 
 tained it, and Lord Brougham, who has since made 
 himself conspicuous by his denunciations of the 
 action of our Government, advocated its passage 
 with an eloquence he has long since lost, and de- 
 clared, with a just detestation of treason clothed 
 in the robes of liberty, — " a friend of liberty I 
 have lived and so shall I die ; nor do I care how 
 soon that event may come, if I can be a friend of 
 liberty only by being a friend of traitors also." 
 Unhappily for our country, there are many able 
 and influential men among us who assume to be 
 friends of liberty only that they may, with greater 
 effect and with larger service, be friends of 
 traitors and of treason also. [Applause.] 
 
 And now, without anv further reference to 
 English history, let me cite lor you two prece- 
 dents from our own. The first is drawn from the 
 action of Gen. Washington and the Provincial 
 Congress, in the early stages of our struggle for 
 independence, toward the Loyalists or Tories of 
 that day — "men who," in the language of Mr. 
 George T. Curtis, in his able and most excel- 
 lent History of the Constitution of the United 
 States, "from a sense of duty, or from cupidity, 
 or from some motive, good or bad, made their 
 ejection to adhere to the public enemy, and were, 
 therefore, rightfully classed among the enemies of 
 the country by those whose business it was to 
 conduct its affairs and fight its battles." " Gen. 
 Washington," says the same authority, (who is 
 now, let me add, one of the most vehement assail- 
 ants of the Government on this very point,) "was at 
 a very early period of opinion that the most de- 
 cisive steps ought to be taken with 'these per- 
 sons." And in November, 1775, he sent ap officer 
 into New-Hampshire to seize every officer of the 
 royal Government who had " given proofs of an 
 unfriendly disposition to the American cause." 
 In January of the next year, Gen. Washington 
 gave Gen. Lee authority to march into Long 
 Island, and disarm, and, if necessary, arrest all 
 persons "whose conduct and declarations had 
 rendered them justly suspected of designs un- 
 friendly to the views of Congress." Suppose every 
 man were to be arrested now whose con- 
 duct and declarations had rendered him 
 suspected of "designs unfriendly to the views of 
 Congress /" In Que'ens County, on Long Island, 
 a majority of the inhabitants had refused to elect 
 delegates to the Provincial Convention, — and 
 for this offence, and for this only, nineteen of 
 them had been arrested, taken to Philadelphia 
 and put in prison. And the Provincial Congress, 
 then in session, at once passed resolutions de- 
 claring that " those who refuse to defend their 
 country should be excluded from its protection 
 
 and prevented from doing it an injury ;" — declar- 
 ing all the men in Queens County who voted 
 against electing delegates to be out of the protec- 
 tion of the Government, and liable to arrest and 
 imprisonment for three months if found outside 
 their county, — and also declaring that " any law- 
 yer or attorney who should commence, prosecute 
 or defend any action at law, for any inhabitant of 
 Queens County who voted against sending: depu- 
 ties to the Convention, should be treated as an 
 enemy to the American cause." [Applause.] This 
 was the action of Gen. Washington — never con- 
 sidered in his day especially hostile to public 
 liberty — in a case infinitely less imperative than 
 those which have required the action of our pres- 
 ent Government. His arrests were quite as'arbi- 
 trary as any which President Lincoln has made, 
 and the emergency which required them was far 
 less pressing. And the Provincial Congress, the 
 bulwark and champion of liberty all through the 
 war of independence, indorsed his acts, and laid 
 down the broadest principles of public action upon 
 the subject. This is one precedent from our own 
 history. 
 
 You will find another in the case of our last 
 war (the last thus far,) with Great Britain. Gen. 
 Jackson, who, in his day passed for an orthodox 
 Democrat, though I have no idea he would do so 
 now, [laughter and applause,] was in command 
 of the City of New-Orleans when news arrived 
 that peace had been concluded. As no official 
 report to this effect had reached him, he still 
 maintained martial law in the city. This gave 
 rise to warm censures in the Louisiana 
 Courier, a newspaper edited by Mr. Lou- 
 allier, who denounced his action as un- 
 just and tyrannical. Gen. Jackson did not 
 stop to argue the question, but arrested Mr. 
 Louallier and put him in prison. [Laugh- 
 ter] Mr. Louallier applied, through a 
 lawyer named Morell, to a Judge named 
 Hall, for the privilege of the writ of habeas cor- 
 pus. Judge Hall issued the writ, but instead of 
 obeying it, Gen. Jackson arrested lawyer Morell 
 and Judge Hall, and put them in prison also. 
 [Laughter.] Another editor, by the name of Hol- 
 lander, incidentally spoke of this as a "dirty 
 trick," whereupon Gen. Jackson arrested Mr. 
 Hollander, and put him in prison with the other 
 three. [Renewed laughter and applause.] That 
 was then the Democratic method, according to 
 Gen. Jackson, of dealing with enemies of their 
 country — when, in cases of invasion, the public 
 safety required it. Three days afterward, official 
 news of the conclusion of peace arrived, and the 
 four pi isoners were released. Judge Hall sum- 
 moned Gen. Jackson into Court, and fined him a 
 thousand dollars for his arbitrary arrest. Gen. 
 Jackson paid it, and was carried, in the triumph 
 of a popular whirlwind, to his lodgings. Thirty 
 years afterward a bill was introduced and passed 
 
in Congress, refunding to Gen. Jackson the thou- 
 sand dollars he had paid as the penalty for his 
 patriotic conduct, — and it received the support of 
 the great body, if not of every member, of the 
 Democratic party in both Houses of Congress — 
 Stephen A. Douglas, whom some of you may 
 remember as a Democrat, taking the lead. [Ap- 
 plause.] It was then considered Democratic to 
 sustain the country in time of war, — and it was 
 not considered either Democratic or patriotic to 
 go against it. How it is now-a-days, I leave those 
 who still call themselves Democrats to judge. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 Now, here are two precedents from our own 
 history, showing under what circumstances and 
 on what grounds arbitrary arrests have been made 
 hitherto. Let me cite to you now the most con- 
 spicuous of the instances of such arrests in the 
 present war, and see whether President Lincoln 
 has gone further in this direction than did Gen. 
 Washington and Gen. Jackson. A mem- 
 ber of Congress from Ohio — then named Yal- 
 landigham, you may have heard of him, 
 (what his name is since the late election I scarce- 
 ly know, as I seldom hear his friends pronounce 
 it,) [laughter,] went back to his State, boasting, 
 and with truth, that he had never given a vote 
 nor a dollar to aid the war against the rebellion, 
 — and there commenced a popular agitation 
 against the Government. He made speeches, the 
 direct purpose and tendency of which was to 
 prevent enlistments, promote desertions, ex- 
 cite hostility to the Government, and to cripple it 
 in its prosecution of the war. He did all this in 
 the heart of the State of Ohio. Now Ohio hap- 
 pened to be a military department under com- 
 mand of Gen. Btjrnside, [applause,] who had 
 declared his purpose to sustain the Government, 
 and to arrest any man who should resist it. 
 Upon this principle he arrested Mr. Vallandig- 
 ham and put him in prison. Mr. Vallandigham 
 applied to Judge Leavitt, a Democratic Judge, 
 through Senator Pugh, a Democratic lawyer, for 
 the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. The 
 privilege of that writ had not then been suspended 
 in the State of Ohio. Judge Leavitt heard the 
 case with the utmost patience — how much it re- 
 quired you may infer from the fact that he listened 
 to Senator PuGn for over two hours. He was a 
 Democrat, but not of the modern school, as he 
 had been appointed to office by Gen. Jackson, 
 and inherited some of his notions of patriotism 
 and public duty. And he decided that the public 
 safety, in his judgment, required the ar- 
 rest and imprisonment of Mr. Vallandig- 
 ham, and that he should not, therefore, is- 
 sue the writ. [Applause.] Mr. Vallan- 
 digham was tried by a military commission, con- 
 victed and sentenced to impiisonment for a term 
 of years ; but President Lincoln, with his usual 
 clemency, commuted his sentence to banishment 
 
 among his Southern friends. [Laughter.] Mi' 
 Vallandigham's friends took an appeal from the 
 decision of the Government authorities in thi6 mat- 
 ter, to the people of Ohio, Pennsylvania, New- 
 York and other States. The case has been ably and 
 zealously argued in them all, and unless 
 we have been sadly misinformed, every State in 
 which an election has been held has affirmed the 
 justice of the original verdict, and prolonged 
 absence of Mr. Vallandigham from the loyal 
 State of which he was not elected Governor ! 
 [Applause.] 
 
 I think now I have said enough on the subject 
 of arbitrary arrests. I have endeavored to show 
 that the action of the Government has not been irl 
 violation of the Constitution, and that it is fully 
 justified by historical precedent. True it ma> 
 prive individuals for a time of their ordinary 
 rights and privileges, but this is one of the sacri- 
 fices which war requires. We must not expect 
 all the blessings and securities of peace in 
 a time of war. War always demands sa* 
 crifices ot money, of time, of comfort, of 
 life itself: why should we expect to hold all civil 
 rights untouched, while everything else we have 
 is subject to its remorseless and destructive 
 tread ? That man must be a poor patriot who, 
 when his country is in danger, will not submit to 
 a temporary surrender of some of his rights foi 
 its salvation. Thousands and hundreds of thou- 
 sands of our fellow-citizens have waived all 
 their civil rights, and are exposing their Lives 
 on the field of battle in defence of that Constitu 
 tion which affords the only basis and guarantee 
 of our civil liberties : are we not equal to the in- 
 finitely smaller sacrifice required at our hands? 
 The sole object of this temporary surrender of our 
 priTileges and immunities, moreover, U to secure 
 them permanently to ourselves and our posterity 
 If the Constitution perishes, all these immunities 
 perish with it. If that is saved, they are guar- 
 anteed to us forever. 
 
 But the Government, it is said, is now in t ie - 
 hands of the army, and that army is used, and 
 will be used to deprive us of our freedom, am? 
 sustain the despotism established in its stead 
 Do those who urge this reflect that the army is 
 simply the people, with arms in their hands— that 
 they are drawn from the bosom of our society 
 and will soon return to it again, having precisely 
 the same rights to be preserved, the same inter- 
 ests to be promoted as all the rest of us? Are 
 they likely to aid in the destruction of their own 
 liberties,— the overthrow of their own hopes,- 
 merely to gratify the ambition of the President 
 of the United States? Besides, who that knows- 
 Abraham Lincoln, or has read anything of his 
 character and history, believes for one mome n 
 that he ever cherished a thought of permanently 
 abridging in the slightest degree, or of in any 
 way impairing the rights and liberties of the 
 
American people ? [Loud applause and three 
 cheers for President Lincoln.] Those cheers 
 are well deserved. No man has ever commended 
 himself by his words and his acts more steadily 
 or more thoroughly to the confidence of the 
 country he is seeking to serve and to save than 
 he, [Applause.] 
 
 THE CHARGE THAT THE WAR IS WAGED NOT FOR 
 THE UNION BUT FOR THE ABOLITION OF 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 I come now to another charge against the Ad- 
 ministration brought by its opponents as a reason 
 for not sustaining it in the prosecution of the 
 war. It is alleged that the object of the war has 
 been changed — that it is no longer carried on to 
 restore the Union and maintain the authority of 
 the Constitution, but to emancipate the slaves — 
 that it is not now a war for the preservation of 
 the Union but a war for the.^ abolition of Slavery. 
 If I believed ihat allegation to be true, I should 
 (sympathize with those who on the strength of it 
 refuse to sustain the Administration. I do not 
 believe the Government has any right to wage war 
 against the South for the abolition of Slavery ; 
 and even if it had the right I should doubt the 
 wisdom of its exercise. But I do not believe the 
 assertion. The object of the war, in my judgment, 
 i$ now precisely what it was when the war com- 
 menced. The purpose of the Government in car- 
 rying it on — the sole object which the Govern- 
 ment seeks to accomplish by its means, because 
 it cannot accomplish it by any other, is in my 
 opinion now, as it has been from the beginning, 
 the salvation of the Union, and not the ab- 
 olition of Slavery. And this, I think, can 
 be made perfectly clear to any candid man. 
 
 Those who insist that the object of the war has 
 been changed are in the habit of sustaining that 
 assertion by quoting a great variety of individual 
 opinions. They quote this orator and that Editor, 
 now a Senator, and next a member of Congress, 
 to prove that the abolition of Slavery is the great 
 end for which the war is carried on. Now one 
 would naturally suppose that the proper and the 
 only conclusive witness as to the object of the 
 War was the recognized authority by which the 
 war is carried on. It is for the Government of 
 the United States, and for it alone, to decide and 
 dsclare what end it seeks, what purpose it aims 
 to accomplish by the prosecution of the war. 
 Now we have from both departments of the Gov- 
 ernment, the Executive and the Legislature, the 
 most explicit declarations on this very point. At 
 the very commencement of the war Congress 
 passed a resolution declaring that 
 
 H This war is not waged in any spirit of oppression, 
 0r for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or of 
 overthrowing or interfering with the rights or estab- 
 lished institutions of the Southern States, — but to de- 
 fend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution 
 .-.i:i> to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality 
 StM rights of the several States unimpaired,— and that 
 
 as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought 
 to cease." 
 
 This was the clear statement of the object and 
 purpose of the war made by Congress at its com- 
 mencement : and nothing has since been said or 
 done by that department of the Government 
 to indicate that this object has been changed. 
 The President has been equally consist- 
 ent and even more explicit in proclaiming the 
 same thing. In his Inaugural Address, — in every 
 message to Congress, — in his correspondence 
 through the State Department with foreign Pow- 
 ers, in his letters to individuals and conventions, 
 in all he has written, said or done since the war 
 began, he has declared its object and purpose to 
 be to save the Union, — precisely that and nothing 
 more. Without going any further back let me 
 read to you from his lettei of Aug. 22, 1862, to 
 Mr. Greeley, one or two sentences, which are so 
 clear and so precise in terms that their meaning 
 cannot be mistaken. He says 
 
 '•As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you 
 say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. J 
 xvould save the Union. I would save it in the shortest 
 way under the Constitution.. 
 
 If there be those who would not save the Union 
 unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I 
 do not agree with them. 
 
 If there be those who would not save the Union 
 unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, 1 
 do not agree with them. 
 
 My paramount objeot is to save the Union, and not 
 cither to save or destroy Slavery. 
 
 If I could save the Union without freeing any 
 slave, I would do it— if I could save it by free- 
 ing all the slaves, I would doit — and if I could do 
 it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would 
 also do that. 
 
 What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do 
 because 1 believe it kelps to save this Union, and what 
 I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would 
 help to save the Union. 
 
 I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am 
 doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever 
 I believe doing more will help the cause." 
 
 Can anything be more precise, more definite or 
 more conclusive than this ? Does it not show 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt that President 
 Lincoln's object and purpose in carrying on this 
 war is, not to abolish Slavery, but to save the 
 Union ? 
 
 A Voice — But we in Delaware want Slavery 
 abolished. 
 
 Mr. Raymond — All right, my friend. I am glad 
 to hear it. I trust you will get it abolished. No 
 greater benefit, in my judgment, could possibly 
 be conferred on tlie State of Delaware than the 
 abolition of Slavery. But what I want you to 
 understand is that you must abolish it yourselves 
 and not ask or expect the General Government 
 to do it for you. [Applause, and cries of "That's 
 it," " We'll do it," Ac.] It is lor your interest that 
 it should be done, and it is your right and your 
 duty to do it. The General Government has no 
 right to do it. Its duties and its sovereignty re- 
 late solely to interests which are national in 
 their character, as Slavery most certainly is 
 not. And. while I rejoice most heartily at the 
 
new era which is dawning upon lis, when the 
 people of the Slave States can and will take up 
 for themselves this great question of Sla- 
 very, and act upon it as their own judg- 
 ments and consciences may dictate, — and while I 
 most earnestly and devoutly trust that not only 
 Delaware and Maryland, and Missouri and Ten- 
 nessee, but every other Slave State, will clear 
 itself from the stain and the blight of Slavery, 
 just as soon as the rebel armies shall be driven 
 from its soil, and the people shall be thus eman- 
 cipated in their political action from the tyranny 
 which has oppressed them so long, I desire it to 
 be understood, most clearly and distinctly, that 
 they must carry out this great reform themselves, 
 and not look to the General Government to do it 
 for them. [Loud applause.] That this grand and 
 glorious consummation will be reached, I have 
 not the slightest doubt. That the day will speedily 
 come when there will not be a slave on American 
 soil, — when the law of freedom shall be the law 
 of every State, as it is the law for the whole 
 Union, and when the pervading spirit of all out- 
 laws, local as well as National, shall be 
 the spirit of liberty, and of equal rights 
 for every human being, high or low, rich or poor, 
 strong or weak, white or black, I believe with full 
 and assured faith, and 1 thank God that its 
 glorious dawning streaks the rejoicing heavens 
 even now. [Loud applause.] But I want the 
 people of the Slave States to work out for them- 
 selves this great salvation. [Applause.] I want 
 them to catch the spirit of this great reform, — 
 to feel that it is their work, their duty, their des- 
 tiny to redeem themselves, — and that it is not 
 something to be imposed upon them by foreign 
 or superior power. [Applause.] And my spe- 
 cial pornt now is to show you that this war,in 
 which the whole nation is now engaged, — which 
 is taxing so severely the energies, the resources, 
 the wisdom and the courage of the whole na- 
 ton. — is carried on, not for any local or limited 
 object, — not for any State or for any sectional pur- 
 pose, but solely and exclusively to save the Union 
 and restore the supremacy of the Constitution over 
 every foot of the Union's soil. [Loud applause.] 
 And now permit me to say, in a single word and 
 by way of apology for dwelling so long upon 
 points that may seem too clear for argument to 
 the most of those who hear me, that in my po- 
 litical addresses I always speak on the assump- 
 tion that every one of my audience is a political 
 opponent and that my business is so to present 
 my case as to convert him, by fair argument 
 and just appeal, to my view of it. I have no ob- 
 ject and no interest in addressing those who al- 
 ready agree with me. I talk not to please the 
 righteous, but to call political sinners to repent- 
 ance. [Laughter and applause.] I beg those po- 
 litical sinners, therefore, who may hear me now, 
 (and I trust there are a good many of them here,) to 
 
 understand that the object of this National war is 
 now precisely what it was at the beginning — the 
 salvation of the Union and not the abolition 
 of i Slavery. It is that fact which gives 
 it so strong a hold on the conscience of 
 the country. It is the conviction of that fact 
 which has just led the people of the whole coun- 
 try, in the elections which have just been held, to 
 pledge their hearty support to the Government in 
 its prosecution. The destruction of Slavery may, 
 and in all human probability will, be accomplished 
 in the progress of the war and through its agency. 
 If the war continues, if the rebels persist in their 
 rebellion, and compel the National Government 
 to send its armies into all the Slave States, and 
 thus bring the whole territorial area of the rebel- 
 lion under the practical workings of the Emanci- 
 pation Proclamation, that great edict will take 
 direct effect as a war measure upon every foot of 
 the rebel territory, and free every slave on Ameri- 
 can soil. [Loud applause.] Already the armies 
 of the Union, in waging war against the rebellion, 
 have made the question of Abolition a practical 
 question of local politics — of home concern — in 
 Missouri, in Tennessee, in Maryland and in Dela- 
 ware, each one of which States will, beyond all 
 doubt, sweep Slavery from their statute-books 
 within a year. This sets free more than half a 
 million slaves. [Applause.] Our armies, moreover, 
 in the unquestioned and unquestionable exercise 
 of the rights of war now dominate the institution 
 of Slavery in Louisiana, in Arkansas, in Missis- 
 sippi, and in parts of North Carolina and Florida 
 — which have at least a million more. Slavery 
 thus holds a position of comparative security only 
 in Texas, Alabama, Georgia, and parts of Florida, 
 the Carolinas and Virginia ; and our armies now 
 hover on the borders of each of those States, and, 
 if Providence prospers our arms, will speedily 
 march into the very heart of the only region 
 where Slavery finds a tottering and precarious 
 foothold. [Applause.] And if Slavery thus falls, 
 if it is thus crushed under the blows of the war 
 which it began, — who will bewail its fate or shed 
 tears on the felon grave which it dug for the 
 Union, but in which it will find for itself an in- 
 glorious but undisturbed repose? [Applause.] 
 
 Meantime, let it be distinctly understood that 
 the war is waged, not for the accomplishment of 
 this result, but to save the Union ; and when 
 that object shall have been accomplished the 
 war will stop. We have President Lincoln's 
 declaration to that effect in. the passage I have al- 
 ready quoted from his letter. You have it in the 
 resolution passed by Congress at the very outset 
 of the war. You have it in the President's letter 
 to the Springfield Convention. You have it in re- 
 peated dispatches sent by our Government to our 
 Ministers abroad. All these render perfectly pre- 
 posterous the plea of those who refuse to sup- 
 port the Government because the war is no longer 
 
10 
 
 waged to save the Union, but to free the negroes 
 President Lincoln, in his Springfield letter, gives 
 a clear and perfectly conclusive reply to all such 
 pretences. "You say," he tells them, "you will 
 not fight to save the negroes ; fight you then ex- 
 clusively to save the Union ; whenever you shall 
 have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I 
 shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an 
 apt time then tor you to declare you will not fight 
 to free negroes." But these men insist on stop- 
 ping the war before the Union is saved, for fear it 
 will not stop then. [Laughter.] The Union is 
 not yet saved. The armies of the rebels still hold 
 the field. Until they are conquered we can have 
 no hope of peace that shall bring with it a restored 
 Union and a reestablished Constitution. Let us 
 all unite to prosecute the war until that result is 
 reached, and then we shall all unite to demand 
 its close. [Applause.] 
 
 THE QUESTION OF RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 But very many persons are checked in their 
 inclination to support the war by distrust as to 
 its practical result. Even in case of victory, they 
 say, How do you propose to restore the Union ? 
 Suppose the rebellion crushed, how will you bring 
 back the people of the Southern States to their 
 allegiance ? How do you propose to govern their 
 territory,— to put their State Governments again 
 in motion, and reconstruct the Union? These 
 doubts and questionings disturb the judgments 
 and affect the action of many very sincere and 
 patriotic men,— and this effect has been increased 
 by the heated and untimely discussions of the sub- 
 ject in which many prominent public men have 
 seen fit to engage. The question of reconstruc- 
 tion cannot become a practical question until the 
 rebellion is conquered. Until then we have noth- 
 ing to reconstruct. I cannot help thinking, there- 
 fore, that it would have been wiser in these gen- 
 tlemen, and quite as patriotic, to lend all their 
 energies to the duty that lies most immedi- 
 ately and most distinctly before them, the 
 vigorous prosecution of the war. They 
 would have served the country auite as well if 
 they had appealed to those great principles, those 
 high aims, those noble and inspiring sentiments 
 of love of country, love of Union and love of the 
 Constitution which all the people share in com- 
 mon, and thus sought to enlist them all in this 
 great work of common duty and of common 
 glory— instead of springing technical discussions 
 on abstract points sure to divide public sentiment, 
 and, therefore, sure to check and cripple that 
 common effort which the salvation of the country 
 requires. But as the discussion has been started 
 it will be pursued. And all we have to do is to 
 keep it as clear from passion and prejudice as 
 possible.to prevent it from degenerating into an ex- 
 asperating party wrangle, and to let common 
 
 sense have as fair play and as much influence as 
 can be expected lor it in heated political debates. 
 It has been urged, with ability and force, in 
 some quarters that the rebel States, by seceding 
 from the Union, have committed suicide,— that 
 their existence as States can no longer be recog- 
 nized by the General Government, which, never- 
 theless, has jurisdiction of their soil, and can cre- 
 ate upon it new local, territorial governments, in 
 its own discretion :— and that these governments 
 thus created can become States only by permis- 
 sion of Congress, and enter the Union only on 
 such conditions as Congress may prescribe. This 
 theory has zealous advocates, and will have a 
 party to support it in Congress and the country— 
 a party held together not so much by any intel- 
 lectual conviction of the soundness of the theory 
 itself, as by the determination to use it as a 
 basis for insisting that no rebel State shall 
 come back into the Union except on 
 condition of its abolishing Slavery in its 
 State Constitution. The end aimed at may be 
 desirable. I think it is,— that is, I think it highly 
 important, to their own welfare and for the inter- 
 est of the whole country, that the States of the 
 Union should all be free, and that Slavery, which 
 has been the cause of this rebellion, should never 
 have power to foment another. But no wise man 
 will permit his wishes on one point to control his 
 actions on all. Still less will he adopt an elabo- 
 rate theory of constitutional law, in a matter af- 
 fecting the permanent welfare of the nation, and 
 deciding for all time to come the character of 
 our institutions, for the sake of accomplishing 
 any one purpose, even if that be so important a 
 purpose as the abolition of Slavery. 
 
 For my own part I do not find any support lor 
 this theory in the Constitution, or in what must be 
 hereafter as it has been heretofore the con- 
 stitutional relation of the several States to 
 the American Union. It must be borne in mind 
 that the Constitution has almost nothing to 
 do with States as such. It imposes no affirmative 
 obligation upon them. It does not de- 
 pend upon them for the execution of its 
 laws. It deals directly and exclusively with in. 
 dividuals. It makes a law, and it requires every 
 individual within the scope of its authority to 
 obey that law. That law is the supreme law of 
 the land, "anything in the constitution or laws 
 of anv State to the contrary notwithstanding." It 
 is this feature, which, more than any other, dis- 
 tinguishes the Constitution from the old Articles 
 of Confederation. Under them the Congress made 
 laws for Stales to execute. It called on the 
 States for money, for men, for support of all 
 kinds,— and the States could give or refuse— could 
 execute or annul the laws of Congress at their 
 sovereign pleasure. This was the weakness 
 of that Government. It was this feature which 
 made it necessary to " form a more perfect 
 
11 
 
 Union," and that was done by ordaining the 
 present Constitution, which directs its laws to 
 every individual citizen, and requires his obe- 
 dience, no matter in what State he lives or what 
 that State may say about it. It recognizes the 
 States in this connection, as in every other, only 
 to forbid their interference with its sovereignty 
 within the defined limits of its own jurisdiction. 
 When a State, therefore, comes into the Union, 
 every individual inhabitant of that State becomes 
 subject to the Government of the United States. 
 It becomes his duty to obey its laws, and no State 
 can release him from that duty. If he refuses and 
 resists he commits a crime against the Government 
 of the United States, and no State can release 
 him from his individual responsibility for that 
 crime or from its punishment. No Slate can, 
 therefore, -possibly take any one of its citizens out 
 from the jurisdiction of the National Government : 
 —still less can it take them all out. In other 
 words, no State can possibly secede. No 
 individual in any State can sever his 
 connection with the National Government,— 
 or absolve himself from the obligation to obey its 
 l aw8 — nor can all the citizens of any State, acting 
 as individuals, as a State Government, in conven- 
 tion, or in any other form, release themselves, or 
 release anybody else, from the supreme obligation 
 which rests upon them to obey the laws of the 
 United States. Whatever individuals may do to- 
 ward that end, is a crime. Whatever States may 
 do, is a nullity. States, as such, cannot commit 
 crimes. A crime is a violation of some positive 
 obligation. The Constitution does not impose 
 positive obligations upon States, but only upon 
 their individual citizens. It is, therefore, the in. 
 dividual citizens of a State, and not the State as 
 such, that is to be punished for crimes com- 
 mitted against the United States. The State of 
 South Carolina cannot be hung for treason.though 
 every individual living in South Carolina may— 
 and perhaps ought to be. [Laughter.] In its 
 dealings with this rebellion, therefore, as in every- 
 thing else, the Government deals exclusively 
 with individuals, and not at all with States. Our 
 armies are arrayed against the rebels, not against 
 rebel States. When we come to inflict punish- 
 ments for the crimes of the rebellion, we shall 
 inflict them upon the individuals who have com- 
 mitted them, and not upon the States in which 
 they live. One of the penalties of treason is dis- 
 franchisement ; but that is a penalty to be indict- 
 ed, like all others, upon individual criminals, and 
 not upon aggregates, or communities or States. 
 A State cannot be disfranchised any more than it 
 can be hung, as a State, and in punishment of 
 crime. For other reasons and on other grounds 
 the Constitution has conferred upon each 
 House of Congress the right to judge of the quali- 
 fications of its own members .—and Congress may, 
 therefore, exclude members from any rebel State, 
 
 and may thus disfranchise that State in its discre- 
 tion ; but this is not designed as a provision for 
 punishing crime but as a just deference to the 
 dignity of Congress, and as a necessary precau- 
 tion against abuses. Nor would such exclusion 
 and disfranchisement imply that the State was no 
 longer in the Union. If the citizens of any State 
 are bound to obey the la>cs of the Union, that 
 State is in the Union. That obligation is the 
 just, constitutional test. Now will any man con- 
 tend that the citizens of South Carolina, or any 
 one of them, have been released, by their own 
 act, by the act of that State, or in any other way, 
 from their supreme obligation to obey all laws of 
 the United States made in pursuance of the Con- 
 stitution thereof? Certainly not. Then how can 
 any man contend that South Carolina is not, in 
 the eye of the Constitution, just as much in the 
 Union as she ever was ? 
 
 It is common to hear it said that the rebels, and 
 all the rebel States, are "alien enemies," and 
 must be treated as such. But if they are aliens, 
 they owe us no allegiance— they are under no ob- 
 ligation to obey our laws, and we have no right to 
 make war upon them for the purpose of com- 
 pelling their obedience. Yet all concede that the 
 object of the war is precisely that and nothing 
 more, and that it will end when, and only when, 
 they return to their allegiance. The whole war 
 thus proceeds on the assumption that these 
 men still rest under a supreme obligation of al- 
 legiance to the Constitution of the United 
 g t D ates _that nothing has happened to release 
 them from that obligation— that nothing which 
 they or their States can do can possibly effect 
 that release— and that until their independence, 
 as a distinct and separate nation, is achieved and 
 acknowledged, they will be bound to that alle- 
 giance. How, then, can they be regarded or 
 treated as aliens in any sense ? They are still 
 citizens of the United States— offenders against 
 its law, rebels against its authority, and therefore 
 to be overcome in their rebellion, and to be pun- 
 ished for their crimes. 
 
 Now these are the reasons which lead me to 
 discard wholly the theory of State suicide. No 
 State has any power to take itself or any one of 
 its citizens, from under the jurisdiction of the 
 Government of the United States. Any act or 
 ordinance which any State may pass for such a 
 purpose is simply null and void. The obligation 
 of obedience to tbe national law remains unim- 
 paired—and with that obligation goes every right 
 which the Constitution recognizes or confers. 
 Every citizen of every State is entitled to-day to 
 every civil right which he enjoyed before the re- 
 bellion broke out, unless he has forfeited it by 
 some crime for which deprivation of his rights is 
 the prescribed and acknowledged penalty ; and in 
 that case he can be restored to the enjoyment and 
 exercise of his lost rights only by the remission 
 
12 
 
 of that penalty by the proper authority. But up- 
 on such remission he at once resumes them. 
 
 But, after all, I attach very little practical im- 
 portance to these discussions. The great work 
 of restoring the Union is not to be carried on 
 upon such a basis. It is a practical work, in the 
 hands of a practical people, and it will be prose- 
 cuted and perfected in a practical manner. In- 
 deed, it is already going on, and is bringing about, 
 from day to day, its practical results. Without 
 waiting for the close of our metaphysical debates 
 as to the proper mode of reconstructing the 
 Union, the Union is rapidly taking the liberty of 
 reconstructing itself. [Laughter and applause.] 
 Societies, it must be remembered, are not 
 mechanical contrivances — they are living organ- 
 isms. They have a law of growth and a power 
 of growth quite independent of our systems and 
 of our schemes. They take shape and form 
 from the vital principles, the essential sentiments, 
 interests and impulses of their individual mem- 
 bers, and this process we see is going on now in 
 the rebel States every day. it has been said that 
 even if we were to conquer the rebel States we 
 could never convert their people into loyal citi- 
 zens. But in spite of this plausible theory we 
 see, as a matter of fact, that just as fast as the 
 rebel armies are driven out of the rebel States the 
 people of those States are not only willing but 
 eager to return to their allegiance to the Consti- 
 tution, and put themselves again under protec- 
 tion of the National flag. It has been so in Mary- 
 land — it has been so in Missouri, in Ten- 
 nessee, in Lousiana, in Mississippi. And 
 see now what has been already accom- 
 plished. Of the actual States originally claimed 
 and held by the Confederacy, extending from 
 Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande, and from the 
 Missouri and Ohio to the Atlantic and the Gulf, 
 we already occupy and hold more than half. In 
 other words, half of the Confederacy, territorial- 
 ly regarded, is already reclaimed, and has been 
 reconstructed into the Union : — and what has 
 been done with that half may be easily done with 
 the other. More than one half the white popula- 
 tion ot all the original rebel States are at this 
 moment living under the national flag. They 
 have been brought back to their allegiance by the 
 power of the Union arms, — by the overthrow and 
 defeat of the rebel forces, and by the conseauent 
 conviction in their minds that the rebel cause is 
 lost, and that every consideration of their own 
 welfare and that of their posterity requires them 
 to abandon the rebellion and return to the Union. 
 [Applause.] And if that has been accomplished 
 with one-half the population of the rebel Confed- 
 eracy, why, in the name of common sense, may 
 it not also be done with the other? If one-half 
 their people have discovered that the rebellion is 
 a failure, a ruinous and disastrous mistake, why 
 may not the other half make the same discovery ? 
 
 Now in my opinion just as last as any rebel 
 State is cleared of the rebel armies and held by 
 tne Union forces, the people of that State will de- 
 sire to resume their allegiance to the National 
 Constitution. They will desire to elect members 
 of Congress,— to reinstate their local Legislature 
 and resume the exercise of all their rights and 
 functions as citizens of a State under the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. It will be the duty 
 of the Government to hold by military authority 
 possession and control of every rebel State until 
 its people can act freely and without dictation in 
 this matter, and until it is satisfied that a fan- 
 proportion, if not an absolute majority, of 
 them, are disposed thus to act. Using its supreme 
 authority, moreover, in the exercise of the war 
 power, the Government will have a perfect right 
 to requre an oath of allegiance to the Federal 
 Constitution as a condition of holding any State 
 office or of voting for any officer, State or Nation- 
 al. But I have no doubt that in every case where 
 the people of a State may desire thus to resume 
 their allegiance and their old relations to the 
 Union, the Government will deal with them in 
 the most liberal and tolerant manner. In Mr> 
 Sewakd's letter to the French Government, de- 
 clining its offer of mediation, he had the Presi- 
 dent's authority for saying that their seats in 
 both Houses of Congress awaited the arrival of 
 representatives from the rebel States when- 
 ever they might choose to send them ; and 
 in his letter to ex-Mayor Wood, of New- 
 York, President Lincoln has declared that 
 if the people of the rebel States should lay 
 down their arms, and resume their allegiance to the 
 Constitution, a general amnesty should not be 
 withheld, if it were necessary to enable them to 
 elect members of Congress. We have thus the 
 most full and explicit assurance of the desire and 
 determination of the Government to aid the peo- 
 ple of the rebel States in resuming their old rela- 
 tions to the National authority, whenever they 
 shall lay down their arms, and resume their alle- 
 giance to the Constitution. Now, suppose the 
 initial steps in this direction to have been taken. 
 Suppose the people of Louisiana, after proper evi- 
 dence of their sincerity and unanimity, and upon 
 compliance with such just conditions and pre- 
 cautions as the Government, in the exercise of 
 the war power, may require, elect members of 
 Congress, and send them to Washington. If 
 they are admitted to their seats, that admission 
 will settle the whole question of reconstruction 
 so far as the State of Louisiana is concerned. 
 And does any man doubt that they will be admit- 
 ted? In spite of all the technical discussions of 
 State rights and State suicide which are so fash- 
 ionable — in spite of the earnest and universal de- 
 sire that Slavery may be abolished — we shall see, 
 in my judgment, an overwhelming verdict of the 
 people in every Northern State, Massachusetts 
 
13 
 
 and Vermont not excepted, in favor of their ad- 
 mission. And the same thing will happen with 
 every other rebel State as they may be success- 
 ively cleared of the rebel troops, and may, one 
 after another, seek to resume their old positions 
 in the American Union. And thus, in my judg- 
 ment, by a natural and regular process, slow pos- 
 sibly, but certainly sure in its operation, will the 
 Union be restored and the supremacy of the Con- 
 stitution reestablished over the whole of the Na- 
 tional domain. [Applause.] 
 
 Now, I am quite aware of the objections and 
 the cavils to which a reconstruction ol the Union 
 on such a basis and by such a process as this is 
 exposed. I know that men who have party in- 
 terests to serve or personal feelings to gratify, — 
 men who have hobbies to ride or pet theories to 
 establish ; men who, with the best intentions in 
 the world, think that the country can be saved 
 only in their way and by their prescriptions, will 
 regard this as altogether too prosaic a method 
 of closing so grand and dramatic a chapter in the 
 world's history as this rebellion, — as quite beneath 
 the dignity of the occasion and wholly unsuited to 
 the issues and opportunities of the age. But 
 practical statesmanship, we must remember, is at 
 best a prosaic affair — almost as prosaic as war it- 
 self. The popular idea of a great General is that 
 of a handsome man, in splendid uniform, on a 
 prancing charger, witching the world with noble 
 horsemanship, and pointing out to his multitu- 
 dinous troops the paths of glory and the grave. 
 The reality would show us a care-worn man, de- 
 scending to the minutest and humblest du- 
 ties of the camp, living on the coarsest 
 fare, exposed to the roughest weather, por- 
 ing over maps and cross-examining spies 
 and deserters by night, and beset with 
 a thousand cares which an hour's untimely storm 
 ox the misconduct of a single regiment may con- 
 vert into the most bitter disappointment and the 
 most lasting blight of all his hopes. So is it in 
 practical politics. Common sense outweighs the 
 most brilliant theories, and while the world ad- 
 gpiires and glorifies the latter it lives and is gov- 
 erned by the former. 
 
 Let me glance for a moment at some of the ob- 
 jections urged against such a solution of the 
 pending problem. It has been said, and by no 
 less an authority than Major-Gen. Butler, that if 
 we thus regard all the States as still in 
 the Union we cannot elect a President, inas- 
 much as that requires a majority of all the 
 electors. Gen. Butler is mistaken. If he will 
 consult the language of the Constitution, he will 
 find that it requires a majority only of " all the 
 electors appointed," and if the rebel States do not 
 appoint any electors, they will simply be left out 
 ot the reckoning altogether. If the election 
 should go to the House, I admit, the result might 
 be seriously affected, inasmuch as two-thirds of 
 
 all the States are required for a quorum. But 
 that contingency is not likely to occur, and the 
 possibility ot it ought not, certainly, to control 
 our action, on the general issue. 
 
 But, it is said, it we allow the States thus to 
 come back, the rebels will regain their power. 
 They are still Secessionists at heart, and will 
 send again to Congress the same men who have 
 brought this rebellion upon us. I do not think 
 there is any danger of that result. I do not fear 
 the reappearance in the National Councils of the 
 authors of this rebellion. John B. Floyd will 
 never return to the Cabinet : one reason why he 
 will not is that he is dead, and the other reasons 
 therefore need not be mentioned. [Laughter.] 
 Jefferson Davis and Mr. Mason and Robert 
 Toombs might possibly attempt to return to the 
 Senate : but they have been guilty of treason, and 
 befoie they could resume their seats they would 
 have to go through the troublesome and slightly 
 damaging process of being hung. [Laughter.] I 
 do not mean to say that they would not be quite 
 as fit for those seats after being hung as before. 
 I think they would — but as the Senate is 
 the judge of the qualifications of its own 
 members, they might have prejudices on the 
 subject and decline to admit them to their old fra- 
 ternity. [Laughter and applause.] One great fact 
 we must bear in mind in this connection. These 
 men have been the political leaders of the South- 
 ern States. They have induced the Southern peo- 
 ple to plunge into this rebellion. When it fails — 
 when the great mass of the people in the Southern 
 States find themselves utterly ruined in fortune 
 and in social standing — when they iind themselves 
 saddled with an enormous debt, discredited in the 
 eyes of the world and humiliated in their own — do 
 you suppose they will be likely to intrust their 
 political fortunes longer to the men who, 
 by false promises and for their own ends, 
 have brought all this ruin and degradation 
 upon them? Their rule is at an end. Their po- 
 litical influence and leadership are gone forever- 
 Political power in the South will pass into new 
 hands — not of a class, but of the great body of 
 the Southern people — of the men who live by 
 their own labor, and not by the unpaid labor of 
 slaves, and then we shall have a true Democracy 
 — one that rests on equal rights — at the South as 
 we ha\e had in the Northern States. [Applause.] 
 Beside this, we have no right to insist upon any 
 such adjustment, any such peace, as will secure 
 the triumph ol any political party or gny political 
 opinions. We seek to restore the Union. We have 
 
 a right to insist that none but loyal men 
 
 none but men who will swear allegiance to the 
 Constitution of the United States, shall have part 
 or lot in the conduct of its affairs; but further 
 than that we cannot go. We cannot insist upon 
 any party test. We cannot require adhesion to 
 any party platform, or to any specific opinions on 
 
14 
 
 any subject of legislative action,as a test of loyalty 
 and a condition of exercising political rights. We 
 cannot refuse representation in Congress to any 
 State or section, lest their representatives should 
 vote wrong. We have a right to require that 
 every member and every voter should be in all 
 his action a loyal man — a man pledged by his 
 oath to uphold and maintain th6 Constitution of 
 the United States. Until he breaks that oath he 
 must be deemed loyal. For all the rest, — for the 
 character of the laws which Congress may enact 
 and the votes which its members may give, we 
 must trust the intelligence and the wisdom of 
 the people, working through the ordinary chan- 
 nels of political action. 
 
 But tnis process, it is alleged, may not rid us of 
 Slavery. It is feared that Slavery may, in a 
 Union thus restored, resume its old political in- 
 fluence, and plunge us again into the horrors of a 
 civil war. The war, therefore, it is urged, 
 should never end until the last vestige of Slavery 
 has been destroyed. I concede the full force of 
 this objection. I share wholly and thoroughly the 
 feeling from which it springs. But I have one 
 or two things to suggest in reply to it. Even if it 
 were certain that this would be the result of 
 closing the war now, I do not believe we have 
 any right to wage it longer for its prevention. 
 The war is just while it is a war to put down this 
 rebellion : I doubt very much whether, when 
 that has been accomplished, we should have any 
 right to continue it for the purpose of preventing 
 another. But, however that may be, I do not 
 deem it necessary to do so, even for the accom- 
 plishment of that end. As I have already said, 
 Slavery has already received its death-blow. Its 
 power, as an element of national politics, is al- 
 ready completely destroyed. No political party 
 at the North will ever find its interest in court, 
 ing its support, and any party which may make 
 the attempt will be swept irom existence by the 
 indignation of the Northern States. [Applause.] 
 
 But more than this : — it seems to me certain 
 that Slavery must perish, not only as a political 
 power, but as a social institution, under the blows 
 which the war has already inflicted. The Procla- 
 mation of Emancipation, issued exclusively 
 as a war measure, designed to weaken the 
 military force of the rebellion and thus 
 to aid the Union cause, has already 
 worked the actual freedom of half a million 
 slaves, and laid the foundation for the speedy en- 
 franchisement of a million mofe. Let Gen. 
 Grant, after defeating Bragg, push part of his 
 army to Montgomery and Mobile, and the rest to 
 Augusta in the rear of Savannah and of Charles- 
 ton, and every remaining slave will be to all in- 
 tents and purposes within our army lines, and thus 
 set free, — and no slave thus made free can ever 
 be returned to bondage again by any power, State 
 or National, on the face of the earth. [Applause.] 
 
 But the war has produced another result which 
 is still more important and is well worth reflection 
 Hitherto Slavery has been mainly a matter for 
 agitation in the free States ; — the war is making i' 
 a subject for practical action in the Slavt 
 States themselves. [Applause.] Just as fast as 
 the rebel armies are driven out of the rebel 
 States and the people are thus left free to canvas 
 their local interests, the very first subject to which 
 they turn their attention is that of Slavery — and 
 the issue is no longer whether it shall be touched 
 or not — whether a man'shall be hung or roasted 
 alive for talking about its abolition — but whether 
 it shall be abolished instantly or allowed a few 
 years of respite and of grace, that it may die 
 more easily and with less disturbance of the pub- 
 lic peace. [Applause.] Thus you see to-day that 
 this is the great question which agitates and di- 
 vides public sentiment in Missouri, in Kentucky, 
 in Tennessee, in Maryland and in Delaware, — and 
 so it will agitate and divide every Slave State, just 
 as soon as it is delivered from the rebel power. 
 Now that is precisely the state of things which I 
 have long desired to see brought about. I have 
 always thought that the Abolition party belonged 
 in the Slave States, and had no business at the 
 North, Abolitionism belongs where the thing to 
 be abolished lives. [Applause.] And I am glad 
 to see that it has at last taken root in its proper 
 soil. It is for you in Delaware to abolish Slavery 
 here, because it is lor your interest, for your honor, 
 for your prosperity that it should be abolished. 
 [Applause and cries of " We'll do it."] I do not 
 doubt it. I have full and entire faith in the judg- 
 ment and the action of the people in every case 
 and on every subject where they are allowed fair 
 play. I believe that you in Delaware will abolish 
 Slavery because I know that it is for your inter- 
 est to do so, and because I know also that sooner 
 or later you will find it out. Maryland. I think, 
 will do so also. Missouri, I do not doubt, will de- 
 cide on immediate emancipation. In due time 
 the people of Kentucky, and Tennessee and Lou- 
 isiana and North Carolina will take the same 
 course, and sooner or later we shall see 
 every Slave State following their example. It 
 may not all be done in one year — possibly not in 
 ten ; — but even twenty would be a short term for 
 the accomplishment of one of the grandest, most 
 beneficent and most difficult reforms the world 
 has ever seen. [Applause.] Under any contin- 
 gencies, therefore, I think the apprehensions of 
 those who fear to restore the Union lest the po- 
 litical power of Slavery should be restored also, 
 or the existence of that institution should be in- 
 definitely prolonged, are without foundation. I 
 am quite certain that they ought not to control 
 their action on the general issues which this war 
 involves. 
 
 I will not detain you longer, fellow citizens, by 
 any further discussion of these great themes. I 
 
15 
 
 thank you most heartily for the patience you 
 have thus far shown, which I fear I may have 
 somewhat abused. You are engaged in a canvass 
 for a member of Congress. His vote may possi- 
 o " decide the complexion and the action of that 
 body. If what I have said is just and true, it is 
 your duty and your interest to elect that man, 
 among the candidates, who will give the most 
 heartv and effective support to the Government 
 in the prosecution of the war. [Applause.] 
 You know who he is better than I 
 
 do. See to it, that he is elected. [Ap- 
 plause and cries of "We will."] Give to the 
 Government your full support. It deserves it, 
 and your country needs it. One more vigorous 
 and united effort on the part of the people of the 
 whole country will quell the rebellion, restore 
 the Union, and again raise to unquestioned su- 
 premacy that glorious and glittering flag of our 
 Republic — the emblem of liberty and of hope to 
 all the world. [L*ud applause, and three cheers 
 for the Union.] 
 
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