MR. ]AY’s   ADDRESS.
Mr FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN :-l---

We have assembled to celebrate the eighty-sixtli birth»
day‘ of American independence, and we come together under

circumstances that seem to make us contemporaries and co—actors‘
  asgit were,with our fathers? of the revolution. ‘ The crisis which
, they met, and which their heroism decided after a seven years’
“war with Gurleat Britain, again meets us face to face. The early

scenes of their struggle for constitutional liberty, have found
in our recent experience an historic parallel of A even chronologi-

cal exactness. i i

The blood of Massachussetts, shed at Lexington on the 19th

a of April 1775, was not shed more gloriously than that of the sons

of the same old commonwealth, who,‘marching- by our national

4 highway, to the defence of our common capital, Were slain at
l lBaltimoi*e on the 19th of April, 1861. ,
 ~ The midnight ridetof Paul Revere, famed in historyand song,
1 rousingtthe" sleepers as he passed to hasten to defend their coun-

try, created no deeper emotion among the colonists of that day,

ythanrdid our" electric Wires flaslrtlng far and Widethe news of

the assault on Sumpter and the massacre at Baltimore, and t1n~i11~

1 ing withja simultaneous burst of sympathy the loyal heart of

the lAmerican,people., ~ r l

»  On the 4th of July 1776,the congress that met in the state

house at Philadelphiayapprloved the solemn instrument that de-

_ clared the independence of the American colonies, and announced

A to the World the birth of a nation. iEighty-five years have rolled

i .rbYi:,rith0i,arCt0I'S in fl116»’G,,lev,entful scene have long since tgorieto

4 0

their graves: their names belong to history: their sons have
grown to manhood and age and have followed them to the unseen
World: and We of the third and fourth generation occupy the
stage they trod, and represent the nationality which then was
born: Eighty-five years of almost uninterrupted prosperity and
unexampled growth! eighty—five years of culture and experience
in a century of progress such as the World has never seen before!
eighty-five years of thoughtful reflection on the character of the
men who laid the foundation of our national glory and of the
broad principles of right on which they based the edifice or Ameri-
can freedom! '

Those years have passed ; their results are written on the map
of America, onthe page of history, and to-day, the 4th of July
1861,~thei iAIne1'i'can congress convenes again at the call of the
president‘ at the capital bearing the name of Washington, to

i meet the question, Whether the republic is to be maintained 1]].

its integrity vvith the constitution proclaimed by W’asl1ington
based on the will of the majority, or Whethersit is to be sundered
and shattered by aiedefeatedfacition that sets at defiance the Will
of the people and vvouldtrample the constitution in the dust. ,
If ever the spirits of the departed are permitted to revisit-the
scenes they loved, and hover like angelsiaround the steps; of their
successors, we may suppose that rH1anclocl:,wandi_the :A.dam'ses,
Sherman and iWolcott, Carroll and ~Livingsto;n,-Jeiferssioiia and
Franklin, Robert and Lewis Morris, Wilsoii and rRush,~and: all
their noble compeers, look down from‘ heaven in this hourupon
the Congress at~VVashington;s~ and God grant that=hthe sturdy
spirit which inspired; the filrst~=Go11gress may equally inspire_,th*e
last! ’ ,
“ Whatever may be our ‘fates?’ said John Adams, withprophetie
vision, Eafter ~ the adoption l of Z the declaration,--—-“ be assuredtliat

this declaJrationVWitllistand. It ma’y>cost*°treasure and it may cost

blood, but it will richly compensate for both. Throughthe thick
gloom of; the prese‘ntiI,seeil the brightness of * the future* as the
sun in heaven.‘  shall‘ maikethis a glorious, an irnmfortal day.‘

a When We are in our graves‘ our children Wl-‘ll honour» Theiiy will

celebrate it vwithi thanksgiving, with ‘ Lfestivities=,’i' twithiiben-=fi,res,
with illuminations; E On its annualireaturnt they willlrflshtedl itears, not

5

c of subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of ex-

ultation, of gratitude and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the
hour is comezlalrl that Ihave, all that I am, all that I hope for in
this life, I am now ready hereto stake upon it, and I leave oif as
I began, thatilive or die, sink or swim, survive or perish, I am for
the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing
of Grocl it shall be my dying sentiment,-—-—Independence now, and
independence forever 1” V

g The ‘integrity and independence of ourlcoeuntry are again in
peril, and today the issue is with us; We come together now,
not as in past years, to rejoice over anational domain bound-
less inzextentypeopled by countrymen idiifering, it; may be, in
their views and institutions,but united in ii loyalty and affection,
at peace in their ownborders, and ‘With? the great armof» the
union protecting its citizens alikeyon sea or land,.at home or in
foreign climes.. But We meet in sadnessr : to overlook a divided
nation, and to listen to tne tramp of martial rforces larger than
ever before, trod the soil of ‘ America s: the one rarniliy,,ib.earing
proudly aloft the stars and stripes, and keepinglstep to tlrevmusic
of the union 5, the other grasping the banner of rebellion in and
the blackflag ofpiracy, ,p,rocla.iIning death. to the constitution and
the union, and rum tothe commerce of the republic. . ..

I Several states, about one-fourth , of our whole number, profess

_to have resumed ,tl1eir-izsovereignty and _sece:ded, as they terrnr it,

from the federal union : and certain‘ persons professing to act in
their name, have extemporizecl what they call the Southern Con-
federaoy,,elected a president.,Jefi”erson Davis,,and a vioe~presi-
dent,,AleXander  Stephensv, organized an army. issued letters
of marque, and .Cl80l.a1‘B€l..NV£LX‘ on the people and the government
of the Unitedlsfitates '; and they havepublicly announced, through
Walker, the secretary; of Davis, their intention of speedily seiz-
ing our capital at Washington, with its national archives and
muniments. of title.-,  , , ,
To meet the rebel force arrayed against theoapital, presideint
Lincoln has called upon the loyal I states,~.and, atrthe Word,,fresh
from the plough,'the, loom and the Workshop’, fresh «from col-

lege, seats! and the professor’s chair,from the: bar.the aplulpit,
, and the counting house,,fresh from every; department of. Ameri-

6

can industry, the army of the union is in the field, and the

  World awaits the impending crisis. Europe looks on with une

disguised and Wondering, interest, and while France and Ger-
many seem instinctively to appreciate our situation, the British
cabinet and the British press have strangely blunderecl, and
have muttered something We do not understand, about “rights
of belligerents,” “ a Wicked War,”
ble of democracy.” p

Such,in brief, isour position at home and abroad, and this day‘

i is destined tobe 1nemo1‘able»-ow-perliaps as memorable in history

A ever!”

as that Whichwe have met to celebrate. The action of ‘ the con-
gress now assembled will decide whether the national indepen-
dence established against the united strength of the British

empire in ’76 is to fall ignominiously before the attacks of a

rebel minority of our own countrymen in '61. A 
  It is to decide the question Whether in the next century our
descendan   shall refer to the fourth of July as the forgotten

‘ birth-day  anextinct republic, orWhether,When we shall sleep

witli our fathers and ourichildren lshall slumber by your side,

‘ their grandsons shall meet ash ive do this day to bless our memo-pp
ties as weblessthose of ourirevolutionarysires:tospreaclto
p the breeze from the Atlantic to the Paciifiic, on every hill side

and in every valley,thetlag of our ’ union, theistars and stripes
that weso proudly love, and join their voices in’ sfvvelling the
cry of oAcla
While the great issue, the success or failure of the American
experiment, the continuanceiof our union or its disintegration

, rests immediately with the president and with congress, it rests

um:--sot‘:

in an almost equal degree upon each one ofus. The American
people are at once citizens and sovereig'fns———tl*1e fountain and
source of the supreme authority of the land, and to us the peo-
ple, will our servantseinwcongress naturally, and properly look
for guidance in this extremity. Already have you seen how

'"“fairly an honest executive representsithe sentimentsof the ma—

 Jority of his countrymen, availing himself of their counsels, gath-
 ering Strength from theirstii e.ns.rsty,..an91 91,st~sr:aination,rrand ;sQ§"'di':   
 resting the government that its action keeps timeto the beat-

and the “bursting of the bub» A

s——é-“Independence pnovv,‘ and lindependence , for-

7 .

ing of the nationalrpulse. Already in response to the nation’s 
call has the national government arisen in gigantic strength 

\

from the depths of imbecility to which it had fallen, to a posi 
tion of grandeur, dignity and power, which has silenced the 
half uttered sarcasms of European declaimers about the inter» 

nal Weakness of popular institutions.

rMost of you-4-perhaps all ofyou---have made up your minds
deliberately,intelligently and dispassionately in regard to your
duty; and it is a general and proper sentiment among us that
this is a time for energetic action, not for discussion. But still
as I am here, honoured by your appointment tosay something
befitting the occasion, I think you will permit me, if indeed you
do not regard it as my especial province, to speak. frankly of our
present duty; to say something of the great theme which en-
grosses the nation 3 pf which We think when We rise in the mor-
ning and when We retire at night, as We go to our Work and re-
turn, to our meals, when we open the morning paper for riew.
and close it for reflection, when We kneel at the family altar and

by our own bed sides,--—-the one great overwhehning subject,

the issue of this rebellion, the destiny of our country.

I can speak to you about it more familiarly, perhaps, than
I should speak to strangers, for you are familiar with the Whole
matter, you know by heart the history of the revolutionary war
in which the county of Westchester bore from the beginning
so prominent a part, and from boyhood our thoughts and associa-
tions have been intimately, connected with the facts of our colo-
nial dependence and theincidents that marked the struggle by
which that dependence was at length terminated. Let me refer
for an instant to some of the local memories which linger all

aroundus. « On the angle of Connecticut which juts into the  

State of L N ew rYcrk, close by this town of Newcastle, stands
the boundary rock,still bearing the initials “ G. R.,’’ brief me»
rnento of King George III., whose sovereignty over our fathers,
loyal subjects though they were, and backed as was the crown

by the armies of Great Britain, faded before the steadfastness if

of their resistance to unconstitutional usurpation.
New York in ’ 76 being selected by the British as the centre

oftheir operations, commanding, as they did,» the Hudson river,

*3

8

and acting~in7*connection with a force from Canada, their march
into~rWestchester :Was designed to control the two principal
routes to New: England,.by the Way of Rye and Bedford, and so
cut off the Amerioansarmyrfrom its eastern supplies. 4 Washing
ton,~penetrating their A designs,vskilfully conducted, his forces
northwardly from King’s bridge," moving in a line parallel with

the British, keeping a little in advanc,e,facinglthem constantly

with the Bronxin his front, the banks of: the streamrbeing for-
tified in convenient places.

I-need‘ not remind « you of thebattle’ of A lWhite Plains on the
2Rthl ‘October, 1776,VWl1e1‘6 Alexander Harnilton distinguished
himself as a captain of artillery, nor "Of: the heights “of N ew-
castle, -to which Washington repaired after the-battle.‘ At ‘Bed-
ford, where We hold our vfarms under slnd-ianatitles bearing the
mark of Katonahr sagamore,7.thatl Werers conflrmedby patent of
Queen Anne, some houses were burnled in ’.7‘_9 by: lieut. colonel
Tarlton, heading a detachment of the Queen’s rangers, as related

in his despatch" to Sir Guy Carleton.t “At Poundridge and Hitch~- , A

ing’s cornerioccurred bloody slrirmishes. Then;there are near
bylxusMile+square,rWhere the Arnerircans kept. a" strong guard 3
Pine’s Lbridge, whichzserved as the , principal:zcoinmunication be-
tween» the hostile lines, and.?whe.re«.Enoch  Crosby, the »West-—
chester §py'-------knoWn » to all readers of A our great novelist as Har-
vey BiEr“'l1+--comrnen»c,ed his car_eer of secret zserv,ice.;i,King’s
bridge, the barrier of the British: lines on the Harlem river,
commanded in New York by’ Lord Cathcart,:where the cowboys
made their :renfd'ezvous 1 when they had: plundered the surround-
ing :hills, and Where a battle was fought between the -Continen-

tals and the Hessiansy. Indeed, the Whole of the “neutral
:ground,”e tasapourtrayediby Fennimore Cooper, extending to the

Croton, the banks ofithe Hudson, Northcastle and Salem, con-

.nected with the sad i drama of ,'aAndrét and the, tillrecently, un-

surpassed treason of Arino1d,..a1l'.aboun_d with « revolutionary?" inci~
dents; notfiforgetting. Valentine’s   hill at Milesquare.  where
Washington wasusencampedl in 776, Sir William Erskine in"l8,
andwhere in ’.82,¥as Mr. Boltontells us, agrand forays was made
with}; some.:6,000 : men by?Sir=. G11)? Carleton innxperson, attended

9

among other officers of note, by the young duke of Clarence,
afterwards William the fourth.

, Dwelling as you do amid scenes so suggestive, there should
be no traitors in Westchester unless indeed, they are the des-
cendants of the cowboys and skinners, those pests of the Revo-

  lution, who Were at once selfish, treacherous, cowardly, and cruel ;
and if any traitors should again be found 1n our borders-—men

ready for their own selfish interests to betray either the nation-
al principles, or the national integrity that our fathers bought
for us at so great at price, do not forget to remind them that the

‘‘ Cow--boy oak” yet stands near Yonkers, on which their traitor- t

ous ancestors;were suspended with “ a short shrift and a sure
cord ;” and thatequally patriotic oaks in every part of West»-
chester send forth their broad arms ready to perform for our
country, should its safety at any time unhappily demand it, the

  same excellent service.

You are familiar also with the history of our Constitution, and
with those marked lines of a distinction between the authority of
theStates and that of the Federal government, which to some
of the statesmen and authors of England seem so difficult of com-
prehension, and in regard to which,a perhaps naturally enough,
they occasionally fall into blunders, which unfortunately are not
always as harmless as the droll liberties they are accustomed to
take with our history, our geography, and our nomenclature.

If ever the constitutional liistory of America shall receive in

' the education of English gentlemen a tithe of the attention'be—

stowedonthe constitutions of Greece and Rome, or a share of
that devoted to the fabulous heroes, the gods and goddesses of

classic mythology, the British senate may occasionally find a
familiarity-with our institutions of noslight value, especially if it
shall save them, from rashly interrupting the cordial, friendship
of rackindrecl people. '

The universality of suchiknowledge here, makes us perhaps
more ready to remark the want of it in foreign critics» Dr.
Franklin said -during the last century, and the progress of edu-
cation and improvements in our newspapers have made the re-

imarki more tr11e;of the present thanof the,past,--“We are more

10

thoroughly an enlightened people, with regard to our political
interests than perhaps any other under heaven.” 7 . ’

You remember that in 1774 the members or the first congress
at Philadelphia, onbehalf of the colonies which they represented,
entered into certain articles of association “under the sacred
ties of virtue, honour and love of country.” That in 1778 the

statesunited in a confederacy, or What they called “ a firm league 7

of friendship with each other,” under the title of the United
States, and that under this league made by the states, they cons

. tinued until 1789, When, “ in order to form a more perfect union”----

not the states,but-—“We thepeople of the United States” oré
dained and establishedilthe present federal constitution; You

remember that from the date of the peace in ’83, when We were 7

a mere league of petty sovereignties, We sank rapidly, in the

7 words of Mr. Motley, whose conclusive essay in the London

Tonnes has enlightened Europe, “into a condition of utter imp 0-
tence, imbecility and anarchy,” which continued until we were
rescued from it by “The constitution of the United States,”
which made us, in every sense, one nation----with one supreme
government, although for convenience,‘We retained the plural
title under which We hadachieved our independence of “The

6 United States.” T

Any argument, therefore, addressed to you upon the constitu-
tional right alleged by the rebels, of a state to secede from the
union would be quite superfluous. ,Men have been allowed to
talk of state sovereignty as it liked them, because ours is a free
country and in ordinary times the utmost liberty of speech is
permissible, but the doctrine has not even a respectable foothold.
Washington, as if foreseeing the evil it has assisted to bring forth,
denounced it as “ that monster, state sovereignty.” Webster and
Jackson successively demolished it, and the argument now inso~
lently advanced by leaders of the rebel states, that in seceding

  from the Union andseizing its property, they are only exercising

their reserved rightsiunder the Constitution, is one which to
every intelligent and loyal American carries with it its own rein»
tation. T l U 7

A The man who attaches to it T the weight of la, feather, is either

11  

singularly ignorant of American history, or his reasoning powers T

are hopelessly perverted. r

The rebels, despite their pretended plea of , constitutional right,
virtually admit its groundlessness, and fall back on the right of
revolution. That is a right Which no A.merican can deny, when
the causes of justification aresuflfioient. The simple cryof rebel
and revolutionist hos no terror for us who remember that
Wrasliington and our ancestors occupied the position of both the
one and the other. a  

All then depends upon the reality and sufficiency of the as
signed causes of this attempt at revolution. Are they such as
to justify the effort to break in pieces the American union? to
destroy this last experiment of popular government ?

The arguments offered by the insurrectionists and their friends,

A to shew that the federal government and the loyal states should

quietly allow them to depart and form a separate confederaoy

are these: , i i T i    
That the rebellion or revolution is the act of the people of

those states exercising their sovereign will. a l ,

That they have been compelled to this step in self defence by
the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the refusal of certain Northern
states to fulfil the constitutional obligati on of returning fugitive
slaves. T

g That the present position of the rebels, and the fact of their ,
~ having ousted the federal government from its forts, and other

property, exhibittheir strength, make the revolution an accom-
plished fact, and render the attempt to subjugate the Southern
people utterly hopeless. , T i i i i

That evenif they were subjugated, harmonious feeling could
never be restored, and that for these reasons, and especially the
last, a War to maintain the integrity of the union Would be alike
Wicked and foolish. * V l ”

These, I believe, are their strong points fairly stated, and I will
brieflystate some of the grounds on which We believe them to

be, one and all, erroneous and delusive. 1
In the first place, the fact is clear that the rebellion at the

South was not in its inception like the rebellion of the American T

colonies,---a calm, deliberate, determined, movement of the peo«

12

ple 5. butthat itwas a conspiracy originating with a few ambi-
tiousflpoliticians, and was by them suddenly precipitated ‘upon
the people,.whose right , to: pass upon: their acts of secession has
been purposely,systematically; and practically denied. ‘,‘ There
is,” said .Websteri,-+—-and his words were never before so fearfully
illustratied-,-,-—“no usurpation so   dangerous, asthat which comes
in the borrowed name of the people ;~Wl1iCl1_ calling itself their
servant,.exercises their power without legal-right 0r,constitu-
tional sanction.”

You allremember the stern rebukes uttered bythe Southern
press, of the rash precipitancy of South Carolina, and the efforts
made by their prominent statesmen, among whom Mr. Stephens
was one, torstay the efforts of the rebel leaders to plunge the
South into rebellion. T -Even after several states had by their
conventions,————-ain.d the convention of Louisiana was elected by a
a minority of the people-—been'declared out of theunionyand
after delegates from those conventions had met in congress at

‘ Montgomery, and e::temp~orized their new Confederacy, the bolder

part of the Southernpress did not hesitate to denounce the

usurpation.

The “Augusta Chronicle and Ejentinel”-———-a leading paper of
Georgia—-—-openly declared that the result had been produced by
“wheedling, coaxing and bmlying, and all the arts of deception.”
It said : T if

T '.‘ We know as well as any one living that the whole movement

for secession and the ‘formation of a new government, so far at
least as Georgia is concerned, proceeded only on a quasi consent
of the people, and was pushed through under circumstances of
great excitement and frenzy by a fictitious, majority.” And then
passing, tothe Montgomerycongress, it added :

“The Georgia convention and the confederate congress have
gone forward in their work, asnone can deny, without explicit
and direct authoritysfrom the people.” * * * , “It is time
that this assumption of power shouldicease, and that the people
should be heard. Sooner or later they must be heard. it ”" "‘“
Before the convention assumes to ratify the permanent consti-
tution letthem submit itto a vote of the people»-or else, let us

13

have an election for anew convention. For union--¢forharmony
~—--for strength————~we ask this simple actofr justice.”

Simple justice was not the aimtof J eiferson Davis and his co-
conspirators. V To this day the people of the South have been
allowed no opportunity of passing upon the profoundest question
that can affect a. nation——.--the preservation or overthrow of its

 institutions; and'the rebei government is an usurpation of the

grossest kind, not only against the people of the United States
in their sovereign capacity, but against the people of the States
in whose name it assumes to act, and by whose will it pretends
to have been established.

 The declaration,'so solemnly. made by the seceding conven~
tions, appealing to the world for the justice of their cause, that
Mr- Lincoln’s. election, the non-execution. of the fugitive slave
law, and the personal libertyilaws of northern States, compelled
them to separate :from.a governmentthat threatened their dear-
est rights, is equally disprofven out of their own mouths. Listen
to the following utterances from the very leaders of the rebellion :

-lVIs.RnErr said :4--“ The secession of South Carolina is not the event of a
day. It isnot anything produced by Mr. Lincoln or by the non-execution of
the fugitive‘ slave law.: .It. is a matter which has been gathering head for
years.”

Miz.i:PA1‘u:EIz1.+-—“ It is no -spasmodic effort that has come~sud~denly upon us,
but it has been gradually culminating for a long series of years.”

Ma. Ke1rr.»-.—I- have been ;~ engaged in this moveinent ever -since I entered
political life.”

“Ma. Inlenrs.---Most:of;us have had this matter under consideration. for the

the last twenty years.”

Thatthese declarations had abroad basis of truth, and that a
plot to destroy theiunion has been hatching for a long period
and has been deferred only until a convenient opportunity, is no
longer a matter of speculation. ;.The election of Mr. Lincoln
was not the cause butzonly the occasion". ~ Mr. Everett, inna re-

cent. letter, said, that he was “well aware, partly from facts 
within his personal knowledge, that leading Southernpoliticians 
had for thirty yearsibeen“ resolved toibrealzzsup the unionas soon ,3?
asthey ceased to control the»United__rStatess government, and 

141

that the slavery question was but a pretext for keeping up agi-
tation and rallying the South.” , , A 1 , p

The Richmond Enquirer in 1856, declared, “If Fremont is
elected the union will not last an hour after  Pierce’s term
ezirpiires,” and a careful examination will shew that from the at-

l
5
l
i
3;
p HA.

M”

tempt at nullification by South Carolina in 1832, whichwas de-,
feated by the stern determination of General Jackson that the ,.

“union must and shall be preserved,”‘ a sentiment that was en-
thusiastically responded to by the country at large, the design

has been secretly cherished, by a knot of conspirators at the

South, of destroying the union whenever thernen entertaining

this design should no longer be able to controlits government. 

So long as they could enjoy its honors and emoluments, and use
its prestige, its treasury, its army and its navy for their own
purposes, they were content that it should stand; but the mo-

ment these were wrestedlfromltheir grasp by the will of the

people, that moment the union was to be destroyed.

So long ago as the year 1799 Judge Marshall in a letter to ~

Washington, dated at Richmond, remarked:
‘,‘ To me it seems that there are men who will hold power by

any means rather than not hold it, and who would prefer a disso-, ,

lution of the union to the continuance of an adniinistration not

of their own party.” And Mr. Stephens declared in regard to ,

the present conspiracy that the ambition of disappointed ioii:ice-

seekers constituted “ a greatpart of the trouble. , :- ‘ 1 1 J

General Jackson, after the South Carolina rebellion of   183...
was suppressed, foretold its attempted revival at no distant pe-
riod, remarking that “the firsttime the pretence was the tariff,
and that next it would be the negro question.” 1 1

In 1836, twenty—five years ago, a political novel called the

, ‘“ Partizan Leader,” was published by Professor Beverly Tucker,

of ‘William and Mary College, in Virginia. It excited no sense», 1

tion then,but it possesses a singular interest now. 1 It proceeds
upon the theory that the events it describes as then happening
would happen twenty years after, that is, in 1856, when Fremont
would have probably been elected but for the frauds in Pennsyl-
Vania ; and it gives, with singular accuracy, the programme of
the conspiracy which is now in progress. The 1 author describes

15

the southern states as seceding “ by a movement nearly simul-
taneous,” and immedirately forming a southern confederacy. Let
me quote a single paragraph : ' _ if   _

“ The suddenness of these measures was less remarkable than
the prudence with whichttheyhad been conducted. The two
together left little doubt that there had been a preconcert

among the leading men of the several states, arranging previ-T

ously what should be done. * * Nor was it confined to the
seceding states alone. In Virginia also there were men who en-
tered into the same views. * 5* Not only had they sketched
provisionally the plan of a southern confederacy, but they had
taken measures toregulate their relations with foreign powers.”

What a flood of light is thrown upon the conspiracy by these
few words from one of the earliest of the conspirators, who
seems to have anticipated in part the role to be played by his
own state of Virginia. V ‘ if f     r

V There being indications of her ultimate accession to the con-
fecleracy, the author sajyslzii V V ’ V l "V V
“The leading men” referred to “had determined to wait for

her no longer,but toproceed to the execution of their plans, '

leaving her to follow.” _ L T
Could the acute novelist have anticipated the proceedings of

the pseudo—peace convention and the conduct of Virginia trai-

tors, headed by an ex-President Tyler and an ex—Grovernor Wise,
he might have eulogised the leaders of the ancientclominion for
their treacherous skill in deluding the countrywitli schernesof

- compromise while the preparations of the rebels were advancing

A to completion.

Mr.Everett_., who was awarm advocate forelthe peace conven-

tion, lias toldus that“ those conciliatorydemonstrations had no
effect in staying the progress of secession, because the leaders of

that revolution were determined not to be satisfied.”
In reference to the ,measures referred to by Professor Tucker,

V looking towards the relations of the new confederacy with foreign

r powers, it may be worth while to allude to a recent statement,

that in the days of‘Mr. Calhoun a plan for the dissolution of the

7 union andthesformation of a great slaveholding power, was

presented by his friends to Lord Aberdeen,and.that some words

16
attributed to that ’statesman, are supposed «to have-giveni rise to
the hopes of: British rsy1npathy,i.in~which . southern politicians
have so frequently indulged. It is said on high, authority that
at difi’erent times, and especially in 1851, these projects have
been broached toinembers of ' the British ministry, and thatton
that occasion they were disclosed by Lord Palmerston to our
minister, Mr. Abbottf,rLaxvrence, and that the southern commis-
sioners disheartened by the coolness with which? their overtures

rveree received,~and also by the fate of the Lopez ,expedition,re-

turned tdiscomfited to the United States. : l v  
In 1857, Mr. Mason, of’ Virginia, announced asa. fact,_,on the

, floor of the senate, thatthe British   government had changed its

opinion on the slaveryiquestion, but an,.early occasion was taken
by that sgovernmentrtoc contradict the rassertionof Mr. Mason,
the ~Dul:eof   Argyll declaringrthat he was instructed, by her
Ma_jesty’s ministers to do so.* , . at

Blinds as we have all ‘ been to the catastrophe that awaited us,
unconscious as were the people, both at the north and at the
south, of this ipreconcertrlramongi 2 fcW.leaderstin.the <difierent
states, We can now trace step h_ steptthe progress of the con-
spiracy and read the history ‘ -' the last thirty years Without a an
interpreter ; we can undersoandthemotiveof the TeXan~hrebel-
lion, the War with Mexico, the persistent eiforts to secure
Cuba, the fillibustering expeditionsto Central ,A.merica and the
determinationto re-open the African slave trade. tWe can ap-

preciate, too, the caution Withlwhich the plan of the rebellion

was concealed, and especially the adroitness rWl.tl1-Wlllch the peo__
ple were allowed no time for reflection, no opportunity for action,
their consent assumed on the plea of necessary. haste, and the
acts of secession pushed.through the conventions, as charged by
the Georgian, editor, with no regard. to popular rightsand under
circumstances of excitement andrfrenzy, by fictitionsj majorities.
The doctrine of secession, earnestlyas it had been advocated,
failedto convince the capitalists, the planters, and the common-
sensestatesmenof the South-——~—even in South Carolina.   i

A few years since Mr. Boyce of that 5State, late a member of

' "* See a letter dated «London, December 10, 1858, published and endorsed

by tl1e&‘Gommercz'aZAdvertiser, ‘January 310, e18:61.y -  i t

17

the house‘ of representatives, in an address to the people, after
shewing that byisecession they would lose the vitality of a state,
that they would exist only ,_ by tolerance, apainful and hu1:nili--
ating spectacle, thatit Wouldinvolve a sacrifice of the present
Without in anywiser gaining» in the future, -emphatica1ly»declar-
ed, “such is the intensity of my convictionontthe.subject, that if
secession should takeplace, ‘of which I have no ide-a,<for I can-
not believe in such stupendousmadness, Irshall consider the in-
stitution of slavery as doomed, and that? the great God in our
blindness has made us the instrument of i its destruction.” :

Even so late asthe autumn of 1860 and after the presidential
electionthat announced the defeat of the slave power which had
so long ruled the country, the leading men of the South who had
not been in the plot battled manfully against it; On the 14th of
November last,’Mr. Stephens of Greorgia,now the vice-president
of the rebel Confederacy, delivered a long and able speech in the
Georgia house of representatives inwhich, in answer to the
question Whether the "Southern states should secede in “conse-
quence of Mr. Lincoln’s election, he said :i " "

“My countrymen, Itell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly,
that I do not tliinlrfthat they ~ought;” r  
, Remindingirthemi of the sacred obligationresting on them to
be true to their national engagements, he exclaimed l: ~ | a
i i“ If the republic is to go down, let us befound to the last mo-
ment standing on the deck, With the Oonstitutionof the United
States waving over our heads.” ‘ And this sentiment was greeted
vvith applause.”    g

i He expressed his belief that Mr. Lincoln would do nothing to
hazard ‘ their safety or security, and ‘shewed them the wisdom of‘

-our system with its checks andguards; :He remindedlthem that

the president was powerless unless backedby congress---that
the house‘ofpreipresentatives was largely.against-him, i and that

there would beta majority of four‘ against himin the senate, and ,.

referring!to?arsremarkdthati no Georgian, Whowvas truepto his
state, could consistently, hold <ofice”under' Mr. Lincoln‘, irlemi‘nd-
ed them » that such sofiice~*'coulrds be honorably held, -for it*Would
be   conferred’ by the approval, of %a ‘democratic rsenates-*~—--and -thls }

' exposition: was “receivedr with‘? iplrolongield rapplausefla  a  r

S18

‘ ‘ Mr. Stephens franklyavovved that he would never submit to
any republican aggression on their c.onstitutional rights to pre-
serve the union, but insisted that all their rights could be se-
cured ‘in the union, and emphatically declared, “ That this gov-
ernment of our fathers with all its defects, comes nearer the ob-
jects of all good governments than anyother on the face of the
earth, is my settled conviction.”  it “Have We not atthe
South, as Well as at the North, grown great, prosperous, and hap-
py under its operation ? Has any part of the World ever shevvn
such rapid progress in" the development of Wealth, and all the
material resources of national power and greatness as the South-
ern States have under, the general government, notwithstand-
all its defects?” ,4 r ,   r .
Mr. Stephens then, with philosophic skill, shewed that the in-
stitutions of a people constitute the matrixfrom Which spring
all their characteristics of development and greatness. “ Look,”
he said, “at. Greece. There is the same fertile soil, the same
blue sky, the same inlets and harbours, the same Egean, the
same Olympus ; there, is the same land Where Homer sung,

where, Pericles spoke ; itis the same old Greece—-—but it is living

Greece no more.” He pictured its ruin of art and civilization,
and traced that ruins to the downfall fo its institutions. , He
drew the same, lesson from Italy and Rome, once mistress of
the world, and solemnlywarned them, that where liberty is once
destroyed it maynever return again. f at G G  ,
Coming back to the stateof Georgia, he referred to the anxi-
ety of manypthere in 1850 to secede from the Union--and
shevved that since 1850 the material Wealth of Georgia, as a mem-

r ber of the Union,had nearly if not quite doubled.

, . Heuspolre. of the prosperity inagriculture, commerce, art,

science, and every department of education, physical and mental,
and warned them against listening to the like temptation as that

’ offered to our progenitors: in the Garden of Eden--—vvhen they

were led to believe that they would become as gods, and yielding
in an evil hour safvv only their own nakedness. , a
“I look,” he said, “ upon this country, with its institutions, as

e thelEden of the vvorld, the paradise of the universe. It maybe

that out of it we may become greater and more prosperous; but

19

. I am candid and sincere in telling you, that I fear if We rashly

evince passion and Without suficient cause shall take that step,
that instead of becoming greater or more peaceful, prosperous
andiliappyminstead of becoming gods, we will become demons,

and at no distant clay commence cutting one another’s throats.”

Tl1ere, my countrymen, We have the testimony of the vice—pres—
ident of the rebel confederacy, and the fact that Mr. Stephens,
like our progenitors of whom he spoke, yielded to temptation
and became a chief abettor of the scheme of ruin which he so
strongly deprecated, detractsrnothing from the value of this re-
markable speech. His treachery proves only his own Weakness;
it impeaches neither the truth of his facts, the aptness of his
illustrations nor the conclusions to which he was led by his his-
toric experience and irresistible logic.

Already in South Carolina, first and chiefest of the seceding
states, have men professing to be respectable, menawhose names
connect them in past generations, with Englishmen of gentle
blood and Huguenots of heroic fame, men who for years have
borne in foreign climes the proud title of American citizens, and
who know the simple dignity of t-he American republic among
the nations of the earth,———--already are these men, since they
discarded the protection of the federal government, so lost to
self respect that they are not only ready to submit to a foreign
yoke but, according to their eulogist, Mr. Russell, in a paragraph
I will presently quote, they actually whimper like children for
the privilege of becoming the vassals of an European princelet.

We have glanced at the secret historyof the conspiracy.
Now, let me ask, on What ground does this usurping oonfederacy
askto be recognized as independent and admitted to the family
of nations? '   V

In the convention‘ of South Carolina, in reply to an objection
that the declaration reported bythe committee dwelt too much

on the fugitive slave law and personal liberty bills, as giving it  

the appearance of special pleading, Mr. Memminger said: “ Al-
low me to say to the honorable gentleman, that when you take
position that you have a right to break your faith, to destroy an
agreement that you have made, to tear off your seal from the

document to which it is affixed, youare bound to justify yourself

20

fullv to all the nations of the world, for there is nothing that
that casts such a‘ stain upon the escutcheon of a nation as a
‘breach of faith.’’, i i

In this Mr. Memminger was clearly right, and the alleged breach

a of faith by the N ort-h, touching the execution of the fugitive

S slave law Was resorted to as affording a plausible pretext. for
seceding from the union. But the debates shew that this pretext

was a sham, and Mr.lRhettvfrankly‘ declared that he regarded
the fugitive slave law as unconstitutional, and thatiMr. Webster
and Mr. Keitt had expressed the same opinion. i A pp
You have seen, too, from Mr. Stephens, that all the constitu~
tional rights of the South Were protected Within the union--and
that the South Was indebted to the union for her safety, pros«
perity and happiness. . ' i
,What then is the real ground on which the breach of faith
committed by the seceding states is to be justified, if it can be
justified at all ; on what ground is it recommended to the preju—~
dices of the South and to the impartial judgment of the World?
After secession was an accomplished fact, so far as their con-
ventions could manage it by usurped authority and fictitious ma
jorities, and Mr. Stephens had become not only a member- but a
prominent leader of the conspiracy, he said at Atlanta: .

“ The foundationsof our new government are laid, its corner- 
stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to ,

the White man ; that slavery, subordination to the superior race
ishis natural and moral condition. This our new government is
the first in the history of the world based uponthis great physi-
cal, philosophical and moral truth.” ,

Mr. Stephens enlarged upon this distinguishing characteristic
of the government, to establish which the union Was to be dis-
solved, sneered atthe principle that all men are equal, enunciat-
ediiby ourfathers in the declaration of independence “as the
pestilent heresy of fancy politicians ”--—-declared that “African

A   inequality and the equality of white men were the chief corner-

s stone of the southern republic 1” and claimed that with a gov-

“N

’ernme'nt so founded “the World would recognize in theirs the
the model nation of history.” it t l l
Here we have their only apology for this rebellion, stripped

21 A
of all shame and disguises, and thus at length in the latter half
of the nineteenth century, stand face to face in deadly conflict,

i the antagonist systems of the new world. i 4

0

“All men,” said the founders of the American republic, “ are
created free and equal and endowed with certain inalienable
rights,.among which arelife, liberty, and the pursuit of happil-
ness.” “ Let it ever be remembered,” said the continental con-

gress, “ that the rights for which we have contended were the

rights of human nature,” and on that foundation arose the fair
fabric of our liberties. i l r as

The dalrl: shadovvarises of another confederacy which Davis
and Keittand Floyd and Toombs are striving to establish on the
ruins of the republic erected by Wasliington and Franklin and
Hamiltonrand Jefferson, and the one great plea with which this
new power seeks to recommend itself to the Christian World, is

4 the assumption that thewhite man was born to be themaster

and the black man was created to be his slave

The attempt of the slavery insurrectionists to bring into con-
tempt the great principleof the declaration of independence,
and their characterizing the men who uttered it and the men who

believe in it as “fancy politicians,” shhews how absolutely antago-V

nist in their principleswere those who rebelled in ’76 against

unconstitutional acts of parliament, and those who in ’61 are re-
l belling against the constitution of the United States. Even in

the august year which We are met to celebrate, the principles
and reasonings of our fathers commanded the admiration of
Europe, and called forth in the houseof Lords that magnificent
eulogy of Chathamyvvhen she said that for himself he rnust de-

tclarethatphe, had studied and admired, the free states of an.-

tiquity, the master states of the world :,but that for solidity of
reasoning, force of Sagacity and Wisdom of conclusion, no body
of men could stand inpreference to the congress of Philadel-

, phia. , i

Whatever may be the future of America the past is safe. ,
The confederates of the slave republic, unrivalled, as may be

~ » their skill in robbing us of material wealth, and power, cannot

rob the founders of our union of their glory—-—cannot filch from
us the treasures We possess in their great principles, cannot les-

l
x

4‘

J

g .

22

sen by the titheof a hair, the truth and force of their exam-

. ple.

On the contrary, the formation of the Southern , confederacy
adds new proof to their farsighted and prophetic sagacity.
Look at the ‘rebel states, plunged into anarchy and war by Jef-
ferson Davis, with a fettered press, free speech silenced, forced
loans, and an army enlarged by conscription, and then listen to
a single passage from William Pinkney, the great orator of
Maryland, which occurs in a speech made in the Maryland house
of delegates, in 1789 : and remember as you listen to it the proof
I have already given you that the so-called Southern confederacy
is a military despotism, extemporized and precipitated on the
people of the South, who have never been allowed to express
their will in regard to the substitution of the Montgomery con-
stitution, for the ancient constitution and government which the
confederates are striving to destroy.

Said Mr. Pinkney :

“That the dangerous consequences of the system of bondage
have not as yet been felt does not prove that they never will be.

~* * To me, sir, nothing‘ for which I have not the evidence of

my senses is more clear than that it Will one day destroy that
reverence for liberty which is the vital principle of a republic.
“While a ,majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule
with the authority of despots Within particular limits, While your
youth are reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights
of human nature are not so sacred but they may with innocence
be trampled on, canit be expected that the public mind should
glow with that generous ardor in the cause of freedom which

can alone save a government like ours from the Zurlcirzg demon of ,

usurpation ? Do you not dread contamination of principle?
Have you no alarms for the continuance of that spirit, which
once conducted us to victory and independence when the talons
of power Were: unclasped for our destruction? Have you no
apprehension that when the votaries of freedom sacrifice also at
the gloomy altars of slavery, they will at length become apos-
tates from the former? For my own part, I have no hope that
the stream of general liberty will flow forever unpolluted through
the foul mire of partial bondage, or that they, who have been

23

habituated to lord it over others, will not in time be base enough
to let others lord it over them. If they resist it will be the
struggle of pride and selfishness, not of prrzInc2'pZe.”i

The hour so philosophically predicted seventy-two years. ago
has come. The usurping hand is lifted against the most be-
nignant government the World has ever seen. The usurpation
is unresisted, the country is precipitated into war: and popular
government overthrown and a military rule established, the peo-
ple, it would seem, have cast to the Wdrld the historic memories
We this day meet to celebrate. Mr. Russell, the correspondent
of the London Times, now travelling; at. the South, treated with
every attention,charmed with their courtesy, and evidently in-
clined to regard their rebel movement with a favorable eye,
Writes from South Carolina on the 30th April, and makes this
sad disclosure : “From all_ quarters have come to my ears the
echoes of the same voice ; it may be feigned,but there is no dis.
cord in the note, and it sounds in Wonderful strength and
monotony all over the country. Shades of George III., of North,

of Johnson, of all who contended against the great rebellion

which tore these colonies from England, can you hear the chorus
which rings through the state of Marion, Sumpter and
Pinckney and not clap your ghostly hands in triumpl1?that
voice says ‘If We could only get one of the royal race of Eng-
land to rule over us We should be content.’ ” , T T T

Let me say next a "word of the means by which a conspiracy
so contemptible in its origin, so destitute of moral weight and of
popular support has attained to its present dimensions, ousting

the federal government of its jurisdiction in more than half of

our national territory to the East of "the Rocky Mountains, and
obtaining possession of arsenalsand navy yards and fortresses,
seventeen in number, which had cost the American people more
than seven millions of dollars.

Own the 29th October, 1860, before the presidential election,

lieut. general Scott Wrote a letter to president Buchanan in which T

he referred to the secession excitement which the leaders of the
conspiracy were actively fanning at the South, and remarked,
that if this glorious union were brokenby Whatever line politi-

c cal madness might contrive, there would be no hope of reuniting

24

the fragments, except by the laceration and despotism of the
sword. Pointing out the danger, he proceeded to point out the
prevention.   ‘ i

“From a knowledge of our southern population,” he said, “it

is my solemn conviction that there is some danger of an early

act of rashness preliminary to secession, viz.: the seizure of
some or all of the following posts : Forts Jackson and Philip in

the Mississippi, below New Orleans, both without garrisons ;

Fort Morgan, below Mobile, without a garrison, Forts Pickens
and McRae, Pensacola harbor, with an insufiicient garrison for
one; Fort Pulaski below Savannah, without a garrison ; Forts
Moultrie and Sumpter, Charleston harbor, the former with an
insufiicient garrison, and the latter without any, and Fort Mon-
roe, Hampton Roads, without a sufficient garrison. In my
opinion all these works should immediately be so garrisoned as
to make any attempt to take any one of them, by surprise or
coup dc main, ridiculous. A p

“With an army, faithful to its allegiance and the navy probably
equally so, and with ayfederal executive for the next twelve
months of firmness and moderatiomwhich the country has a

right to expect——-moderation being an element of power, not less
than firmness-—~—e-there j is goodreason to hope that the danger of i

secession maybe made to pass away without one conflict of
arms, one execution or one arrest for treason.” _

Gentlemen, lieut. general Scott knew well, we all know, that
what he recommended Mr. Buchanan to do an honest executive
might have done. Againtand again in theahistory of our country
have attempts been made, to resist the execution of the laws, and
again and again has the federal government triumphantly vindlg
oatedlits supremacy. i p

The first armedi rebellion was that headed by Shay in Massa-
chusetts in theiWinter of 1787. The rebels attempted to seize
the arsenal, and were met with cannon that killed three
and wounded another of their number, and the state militia, un—
der the command of Gen. Lincoln routed their forces, taking
many prisoners, and peace was restored, not by any compromise
but by the enforcement of the laws. 4 i i

95

As a Lincoln suppressed the first rebellion, so will a,Lincoln
suppress the last. ‘ .
You will readilycall to mind other similar occasions, Where the
federal government by prompt action maintained its supremacy

unimpaired.

Next came the Whiskey rebellion 111 Pennsylvania during the

administration of Washington, to suppress which the president
called‘ out fifteen thousand men from three different states led
bytheir governors and general Morgan, Whom Washington at
first proposed himself to accompany across the Allegbanies.
Next president J eiferson crushed in the bud the opening con-
spiracy of Aaron Burr. ‘
President Madison during the War of 1816, when doubts were

entertained of the loyalty of the Hartford conventionists, who

were falsely reported to be in correspondence with the enemy,
stationed major J essup, of Kentucky, at Hartford With a regi-
ment to suppress any sudden outbreak. Gen. Jackson, about
the same time in New Orleans, proclaimed martial law in conse-

quence of attempts bythe civil authorities to embarrass the-

necessary, measures of defence.

President Jackson,in 1832, repressed by the arm of general
Scott, and amid the hearty applause of the nation, the defiant

nullification of J South Carolina, and president Tyler, in 184.3, g

with the approval of his secretary, Mr. John C. Calhoun, sent

United States troops to Rhode Island to suppress the state revo- .
lution organized by a majority of the people of the state, but in
violation of, the existing state constitution, under the leadership J

of governor Thomas ‘W. Dorr. i g

. Wheniin 1860 general Scott, in advance of any outbreak, recom-
mendedfpresident Buchanan to reinforce the forts, instead of re-
commendingactive measures of interference, such as his predeces-

sorswhom I haveanamed did not hesitate to take, he simply asked c

of thefiipresident to do What any intelligent school boy could see

was absolutely proper and essential-—-ancl What he could accom-  
“plish by a single Word. Mr. Buchanan guided by his secretary of

war, the traitor and thief John B. Floyd, refused to order the re-
inforcement of the fortresses; all the forts named by general

J

Scott, excepting fort Pickens, were seized,‘ by _the_confederates ; ~


ymaes’
.9 - .. 2

26.

and on the fact of their ,_quiet possession, and the aid and com-
fort thus given to the rebels by the federal cabinet, was based
the secession of the traitorous states and the formation of the new
confederacy.

The fact thus becomes clear as day, that not simply all the
strength the rebel confederacy originally possessed but its very
organization and existence, were due not to the people of the
South] on Whom Without their sanction it was precipitated, nor to
the leaders, skillful as they may have been, who had neither arms
nor armies to overpower the government, but they were due to
the federal executive and his advisers of the cabinet. This fact
is so interesting as a matter of history, it is so important to a
right understanding of the whole subject, and bears so clearly
upon the question,what is our duty as citizens and What the
policy of our government, as regards the tolerance or suppression
of this rebellion, that you will allow me to quote one authority
upon the point from among the rebels themselves.

The _Richmond Emcoantivzer in an elaborate eulogy of Floyd, who
in the extent and infamy of his treachery certainly excelled his
fellow traitors in the cabinet, makes this plain avowal. “ All Who
have attended to the developments of the last three months and
knew aught of the movements of the Buchanan administration up

_ to the time of Floyd’s resignation, will justify the assertion that

“ Southern

the southernconfederacy would not and could not be in ex-
istence at this hour, but for the action of the late secretary of
War.

“ The p'lan_invented by general Scott to stop secession was like
all'.campaignws;mdevised by him, very able in its details and nearly
certain, of general success. The Southern states are full of arse»
nals and forts commanding their rivers and strategic points:
general Scott desired to transfer the army of the United States
to ,tl1eS€};. ‘yforts as speedily and as quietly l as possible. The
states could not cut oil‘ communication between the
government and the fortresses Without a great fleet, which they
can not build for years ; or take them by land Without one hun-
dred thousand men, many hundred millions of dollars, several

campaigns, and many a bloody siege. Had Scott been able to

T27

have got these forts in the condition he desired them to be, the
southern confederacy would not now exist.” I

Such is the truth fairly stated by the Richmond Examiner, in
the interest of the rebels. The union has been severed, not by
violence from Without, but by treachery Within. It hasibeen
convulsed from its centre to its circumference, not from any in»
ternal Weakness in our federal system, but by the infernal vil-
lainy of our federal rulers. T

Traitors i have betrayed the union, traitors have betrayed our
forts ; and the betrayal no more proves moral Weakness in the
one case than it does material Weakness in the other. There is
no fortification so impregnable but that a traitorous governor
may yield it Without ' a blovv——-neither is there aiiyigovernment
on God’s earth, that secret treachery may not enfeeble or tempo-
rarily overthrow. i i

“If,” said Webster‘, “those appointed to defend the castle

shall betray it, Woe betide those Within. Let us hope,” he add- t

ed, andhovv vain the hope as regards ourselves! “that We shall
never see the time when the government shall be found in oppo-
sition to the constitution, and when the guardians of the union
shall become its betrayers.” ‘ y  

I do not mean to say, gentlemen, that president Buchanan,
Who, at the close of his administration partially redeemed its
character, by calling to his counsels those brave men and true
patriots, Mr. Holt and general Dix, was personally privy to the

designs of the false secretaries Whom they replaced: but it is

nevertheless true that he is the man who, under the constitution,
is directly responsible to the American people for the acts of
his administration. . p T l  

In hisposition timidity was treason and inaction was crime.
He alone could execute the laws, he had the power to execute
them, andihe did not execute them ; and for the simple Want of

their non-execution thecountry drifted rapidly towards destruc-

tion. T This was a case which the founders of our republic had
not anticipated. As Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, aptly said, “the
constitution ‘provided against every probable vacancy in the
office of president, but did not provide for utter imbecilityf’

r , I am aware that Mr. Buchanan’s friends attribute his conduct

28 A

in the whole matter to an amiable credulity and a humane desire

T to avoid the shedding of a drop of blood. - I am sure that none

of us would wish to deprive him of whatever benefit he may de-

irive fromthe plea of virtuous motives, but allowing them all

the force theyare entitled to, we must stillexclaim : _
“ Curse on his virtues, they’ve undone his country!”

For no other of the confederates in this great villainy will the

candid historian venture with success, the apology of mental im-
becility or moral cowardice. They are men who make the boast
that for long years ‘it has been the aim of their existence to over-
throw, not by open and honorable opposition, but secretly, trai-
torously, and by subornation of treason, the most benignant
government in the world, and one to which they were bquiid by
solemn oaths and by sacred honor. , They are men who, pretend-
ing to be gentlemen, have made conspiracy a trade and perjury
a habit. They have blended professions of patriotism with the
practice of treason, linked the duties of a senator with the posi-
tion of a spy, and made a seat in the cabinet the oflice of a thief.
With a refinement of meanness that could befong to no chivalry
but that of slaveholding, and would be practised by no knights
save those of “the goldencircle,” they-have to the last moment
drawn their official salaries from the nation they were betraying;
they -have perfected their schemes of plunder in the very capital
which they were seeking to cripple, and beneath the folds of the

flag that they were swearing to support and plotting to humble-

They .are men in brief—-—for the subject is a revolting one-—-who,

imitating Judas andrivalling Arnold, have made their daily life

simply-and purely a daily lie. , j j ‘"
Did time permit me, I would like briefly to refer to the national

events that, following in quick succession, have interrupted what ,

Mr. Seward happily calls “the majestic march of our national
progress--;” the successive seizureeof Southern forts in obedi-
ence to telegrams from the senate chamber, the spread of
Southern treason like the wild fire of the prairies, the consterna-
tion of the people, the apathy of the executive, the plot to seize
the capitol, intended to be executed in January and repeatedly
postponed till the attempt involved too serious danger, the sys-
tematic efforts in the departments of the treasury, of the interior,

29

of war, and I fear also, of the navy, to cripple the United States,
to strengthen the rebels, and to close the term of the administra-
tion by a coup cZ’état, that should give to the new confederacy the
power and the prestige of the old. government, andthe prepara-
tions imade bynorthern confederateswhom the rebels had been
taught to believe represented the great northern democracy, for
assisting the plot and joining at the right moment in a general
revolution.   .

Lost themselves to a sense of honor, they ceased to believe in
its existence at the North.” They seem to have been unable to
distinguish between a, defence of the constitutional rights of
slaveholders within the union and under the constitution, and a
war in behalf of slavery for the severance of the union, the
overthrow of the constitution, the desecration of our flag, and
thehumiliation of our country. Then came the interruption of
their plans bythe premature discovery of the theft of the In-

dianibonds and other villanies, compelling the retirement of the ,

traitorous secretaries Cobb, Thompson and Floyd: the advent
of Holt and Dix reviving the hopes of the nation, and the im.
mortal order of the latter, which rung likea trumpet through
the land, “If any man shall attempt to pull down the national
flag shoot him on the spot.” V v   , v t

Then came the ofiicial announcement to the country, by the
counting ofthe electoral votes, of the people’s choice, next the
safe arrival of Mr. Lincoln in Wasliington, unharmed by the as-

sassins who had sworn to take his life ; then the inauguration,

simple and imposing,the. oath administered bythe chief jus-

‘ tice of the United States, and the quiet transfer of such rem-

nants of the federal property as had not been stolen fromthe
people under the retiring, administration.

A month of apparent inaction on the part of the new admin-
istration, engaged in disentangling the web of treachery, and
learning how much of treason lingered in the departments---a
month ofactive preparation by the rebel confederates, and we

began to hear thebitter taunts of England at the spiritless
people of the great North who werebeing driven to dissolution r
and infamy without an elfort at rreisistance,r and relinquishing i

'30

their nationality to a rebellion without striking a blow in its de~

fence.
We had a brief foretaste of the ignominy that awaits a nation

which basely surrenders its integrity and its independence, and
we heard the prelude of the shout that would greet the downfall
of the union, and the epitaph that should record :

* * “ But yesterday it might V‘
Have stood against the world ; now lies it there
And none so poor to do it reverence.”

Assured of the integrity and patriotism of the President and
the wisdom of his cabinet, the North waited as only abrave

people, conscious of their strengthand of the justice of their

cause could afibrd to wait. The strength of the government was
gradually developed, the war and navy departments began to
exhibit signs of life-—-~and the great statesman of the West, who
sacrificing political ambition and personal preferences, had con-
sented to preside over a depleted Treasury, renewed the miracle
attributed by Webster to Alexander Hamilton : “He smote the
rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue
gushed forth. He touched thedead body of A the public credit,
and it sprang upon its feet.” A
Desperate as our situation seemed, capitalists demanded no
other security than the name of Chase, and when he asked for a
loan of eight millions, more than thirty millions were instantly
offered. ‘ l

Gentlemen, I have not time to dwell on the attack on Sumpter,

the attack of ten thousand men on one hundred men, and the ill-
judged boast of Governor Pickens that they had humbled the
stanspangled banner for the first time in seventy years. They
themselves by that act and that boast initiated an irresistible
conflict that will hardly cease till the stars and stripes again float
in their beauty from every fortress in our land.

That bombardment, as was remarked by one of the Judges of the
supreme court, “ blew all the plots of the traitors into the air,
and inaugurated a change in the sentiment of the country that
seemed all but miraculous.” It awoke the deep love of country
which had slumbered beneath the platforms of party and com-

31

mercial interest. It ended at once the absurd cry of “no coer-4
cion,” as applicable to a government in enforcing its laws, and
protecting its existence. The rebels by that act closed the door

i of compromise and reconciliation which had thus far been kept

open. Theyrejectedthe appeal to a convention of the American
people, to which the president in his inaugural had assented——~
they selected instead the arbitrament of force, the great trial by
battle. They strucl: at the very heart of the nation when they
sought to humble the flag of our union that had protected them
from infancy, and which from childhood we have loved. They
themselves inaugurated war. They imposed upon us the most
sacred duty that can devolve up on a people of protecting their
nationality, and theworld that had wondered at a forbearance
which they could not understand,_now wondered again at the
spontaneous uprising of a mighty nation. T

The tlirhatened attack on Washington, the disloyalty of Balti-
more, the cutting off of all communication by railroad and tele-
graph between the national capital and the great North, com~
pleted the work begun at Sumpter.

Party lines grew faint and vanished as completely as though they
had never existed. Washington has been described as leaning
in the darkest hour of the revolution, with one arm resting on
Massachusetts, and the other on North Carolina. The faithless-
ness of the latter to her historic memories, prevents the parallel
being now complete, but we may say of Lincoln what can be
said of no other president since Washington, that in this dark
hour he rests with one great arm upon his political friends, and
the other on, his political opponents, and that, as he looks abroad
over the country whose destinies are in his keeping, he sees

neither republicans, gnor ”democrats———neither nativists, nor

aliens»-he sees but two classes, loyal citizens on the one side,
and traitors on the other.

The feeling exhibited throughout the loyal states is not as
some Europeans have supposed, an ebullition of enthusiasm,
based upon sudden and evanescent passion, but the expression of
a profound conviction gradually forced upon them by a long
trainof facts that culminated at Sumpter, that both duty and

A A dreamed.

32

honor imperatively demandthat. they shall crush this gigantic
conspiracy against the integrity of the country.
It was thisthat, within six weeks, called forth, as if by magic,

i an army of 200 000 men converting our cities into caméps and making

the repression of this rebellion the one great business of the
American people. ' r v   i i i l V

. The scene has been one Which, day bygday, has thrilled us
with emotion, one upon which the Bancroft and the Motley of
the next century will linger with admiration. *

Nwm,

M53»

it  Massachussetts first in the field, as in the olden days of trial,
tr».

shedding the first blood at Baltimore, first to occupy and protect
the capital, where her great senator was stricken down, against
the traitors, whose hatred to him foreshadowed their hatred to-
wards the American constitution, of which he had been the faith-
ful and eloquent expounder. . ..

 New York, “ herself the noblest ‘eulogium on: the union,” fol-
lowing close behind with her gallant Seventh, reaching Washing-
ton by a march already famous, and insuring bytheir presence
the safety of the Capital. The New England states, ‘Pennsyl-

V Vania and the great west,pouring in their quotas with generous

rivalry, and our foreign population rising instantly to the gran-
deurirof the occasion, and hastening to the defence of their
adopted country," present features of strength in the.American
republic of which the most ardent of its eulogists had hardly

If any man has regarded our large foreign element as one that
threatened danger to the perpetuityof popular institutions, let
him glance at the regiments now gathering to battle in their be.

i half. , He will find among them .men;who have fought for free-

dom in other lands, and who have pined for their love of it in
continental dungeons. He will find scholars from far-famed uni-
versities,and graduates of the military schools of ‘Europe who
have emerged from positionsin which they were gaining an in-
dependency to p=rofi‘erto their country their dear bought. expe-
rience, and guide and instruct the military ardour that sweepslike
a whirlwind over the land. Call theiroll of nationalities and you

Vwill have responses from Englandtand Ireland, Scotland and

Wales, from natives of catholic France and protestant Germany

334

---—you will have replies from Poles who yet dream of an inde-
pendent Poland, from Hungarians in Whose ears still lingers the
eloquence of Kossuth, from Italians rejoicing in a regenerated
Italy, and who are fresh from executing the policy of the lamented

‘ ~ Cavour and from fighting by the side of I Garibaldi. Every peo.

pleof Christendom has its representatives inthei army of the

I unionithat has gone forth to fight for national unity, national in-

 dependence and the rights of human nature, against the confede—- .

  rated forcesof slavery and treason.

In this crisis of our national history it is natural that we should
regard with interest the view taken of our course by the great
‘powers of Europe, and especially by that country, with Which,
asicolonies, We were so long connected,'and which, despiteythe
two Wars that have been waged between us, we are accustomed
to remember as our rnother-land. Mingled with our Dutch and
Huguenot ancestry, a very large proportion of the older families

I of America trace their descent froin England, and many who do
  “not are yet connected with her by no common ties. For myself,

I may say that I have always entertained for her peoplean
hereditary feeling of attachment, from the factlthat my Huguenot

i ancestors, when they fled from Rochelle after the revocation by

Louis XIV; of I the edict of Nantz, found upon her soil a Wel-
come and a home: and that one of them volunteering for King

  VVil1iam against James II., shed his blood for English freedom at

the battle of the Boyne, that great era in English history, ending,

as we hope forever her civil wars, from which dates the estab-
itlislnnent on a firm basis, of the unity, the strength and the world-
wide‘ dominion of the British empire- Such. memories, and-

doubtless, my countrymen, you have many such, descend from
father to son liundimmed‘ by national revolutions. They inspire

sentiments of affection and kinship, that like family heir-looms

gather new value from the lapse of time, and instead of fading
as years andcenturies roll by, seem the more sacred andlim-
perishable from the thought of the generations by Whom they
have been cherished and who have -eachin turnadded a link
to the chain of association.  ~ I it I  ~ 9  “
The recent visit of thewpriincetof Wa1es,“coming*t1o uses the
representative of the British nation, characterized,as it Was, by

34.

the most graceful courtesy and cordiality on his part, and by the

' heartiest Welcome upon ours, with the single exception of the

rude treatment he met at Richmond—-—-~novv the headquarters“ of
the rebels-—-had accomplished What no diplomacy could have
effected. It seemed to have blotted out the last lingering rem-

nant of ill-feeling, and left on this side the Atlantic at least, the A

belief that henceforth there was a firm alliance between Eng-

land and America, not based on treaty stipulations,but upon that  

heartfelt cordiality which springs from mutual regard, and from
a common devotion to the" great principles of right which belong
to the institutions of both countries and which their example is

recommending to the world ; nor should we overlook the belief

cherished by many thoughtful men that if in the distant future
England should be set upon by the despotisms of Europe, and
should require the aid of her American daughter to save her
from annihilation, that aid would be promptly, effectively and
cordially given. i -

It is with profound regret that We have seen that friendly feel;
ing suddenly converted into one of intense and bitter disappoint-
ment by the conduct and tone of the English government and
the ill-judged comments of the English press. ‘

The election of Mr. Lincoln for the first time entitled to the
control of the federal government, a party with Whose political
principles the English people were supposed to sympathize. By
a scheme of A treachery unparalleled in baseness, a few of the
defeated faction holding oihce in the, cabinet, in congress, in the
army and in the navy, conspire together to betray the forts
arsenals and other property of the government into the hands of
their confederates, with the view of ,destroying the union, and
erecting upon its ruins a Southern confecleracy, of which slavery
is to be the grand permanent andfiidistinguishing characteristic.
They accomplish the seizure of the public property Without dif-4
ficulty, for they themselves were entrusted with its guardianship,
and they proceed to develop the great conspiracy and organize
the rebel government, while the loyal citizens of the United
States are helplessly compelled to awaitthe inauguration of the
new president. The 4th of March arrives at last, Mr. Lincoln
takes the “oath to maintain the constitution and the laws, and

35  

when in obedience to thatoath he orders the rebels to disperse,

‘ and calls upon thecountry for assistance, the loyal states, as one l_
a man, prepare to crush the conspiracy and restore the integrity and 7

the honor of the nation- Neither from England nor from any
foreign power have We asked or would We accept assistance in
regulating our own household, but from England, of all the states
of the world, We thought We had at right to expect a ready sym-
pathy, and that moral support which is given by the countenance
of a great nation. V

The Southern rebels also counted upon the support of England,
on the simple ground that her interest in cotton would incline

herlo their side,but We, although well aware of the demoralizing l

effect of interest upon national principles, still believed it im--
possible that the British government could consent from pecuni-
ary motives to look with complacency on the progress of a rebel-
lioniwhose only strength Was gained by treachery, and Which
was avovvedly prosecuted for the maintenance of a system which
England herself had taught the world to regard with abhorrence.
In thus believing, we were confirmed by the tone of the English
press when the insurrection first began, one of the ablest repre-
sentatives of which indignantly declared in substance that Man-
chester and Birmingham would be the first to reject as an insult,
the idea that they were to be moved from their position by pe-
cuniary appeals, and that it any British cabinet should sacrifice
the anti-slavery principles of the nation to the question of cot-

ton, England would lose, and deservedly lose, her place at the ,

council table of Europe. a -

The exclamation of Lord John Russell in reply to a question
as tothe position of England, “For God’s sake let us keep out
of it,” was followed by What is termed a proclamation of neutral-
ity in which British subjects are forbidden to render assistance

to either theUnited States on the one hand, or the states’,

calling themselves the Confederate States on the other,hotl1 of

which parties are recognized by the proclamation as “helli-

gerents.” i ‘ , B V l E
The British government isaccustomed to preserve an attitude

of neutrality towards contending nations, but it would seem that
neutrality does‘ not so far interfere with the sympathiesand free~

36

dom of its subjects as to compel it to issue proclamations against

Irishman enlisting with Francis Joseph, or Englishmen fighting I

for Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi.

The proclamation in this case is so Warmly eulogized by the
British press as precisely the proclamation demanded by the
crisis, they profess such profound astonishment that the
American people are not satisfied with it, and rate so severely
Mr. Cassius M. Clay for expressing with western, bluntness his
frank surprise, that I will dwell for a moment on what seems to
be its meaning and effect. i

What has the proclamation effected? How did We stand be-
fore it was issued, and how do we stand now?

, In the case of the United States, the laws of England and its
treaty stipulations with our government already forbade its sub-
jects from engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow our institu-
tions. The proclamation, therefore, in forbidding English sub-
jects to fight in the service of the rebels against the United
States, simply declared the law as it was already understood;
while in forbidding Englishmen to fight for the United States
against the rebels, it intervened to change the existing practice,
to revive the almost obsolete act of Geo. III. forbidding Eng-
lish subjects from engaging in foreign service without the royal
consent, which had slumbered in regard to',A.ustria and Italy, for
the purpose of forbidding Englishmen from assisting to main-
tain in the United States constitutional order against conspira-
cy and rebellion, and the cause of freedom against chattel slavery.

The first effect of the proclamation, therefore, Was to change
the position in which England and Englishmen stood to the Uni-
ted States, to the disadvantage of the latter. Before the procla-
mation, for an Englishman to serve the United States govern-
ment in maintaining its integrity was regarded honourable ; after

' the proclamation such service became a crime. The proclama-

tion malres it an ofience now for an Englishman to fight for the
governmentat Washington as great as it was for Englishmen
before the proclamation to fight for the rebels of Montgomery.
It thus, in a moral view, lowered the American government to
the level of the rebel confederacy, and in the next place. it pro-
ceeded, in an international view, to place the rebel confederacy

. a «pun-an quail!‘

37

on apar with the American government by recoghizing them
not as rebels and insurgents to be dealt with by our government
as ‘our constitution and, laws should determine, but as a belligerent
power, to be classed with the United States (of which they were
but a rebellious fraction), and equally entitled with the United
States to the rightsof belligerents under the law of nations.

N oingenuity can blind bus to these facts :—---Before the procla~
mation, to support our government was an honorable ofiice for
the subjects of G‘rreatBritain, and the rebels were insurgents
with no rights save under the American constitution. After the
proclamation for an Englishman to servefthe United States is a
crime andithe rebels are elevated into a belligerent power-wand
this intervention of England, depriving us of a ‘support which her

, practice permitted, andgiving the rebels a status and right they

did not possess, We are coolly told is neutrality. Dr. Johnson in

;his famous letter gave us a sketch of a Chesterfieldean patron

seeing a man struggling for life in the water, and when he reach-
ed ground encumbering him with help. Lord John has taught
us the meaning of British neutrality towards a nation supposed
to be in like condition. Let us trust that the English people
will not endorse the definition.

What would England have said to such a proclamation of neu-
trality from us in her domestic troubles in Canada, in Ireland or
in India? What would the English people have thought of a
state paper from Washington, declaring it the sovereign will of
the people of the United States to remain perfectly neutral in
the contest being waged in I-Iindostan between the British gov-
ernment on the one side and the Mogul dynasty on the other, and
forbidding American citizens to enter the service of either of
the said belligerents. What would they have thought of the
American president intimating with cold etiquette that it was a
matter of profound indifierence to this government which of the
belligerents should be victorious, the king of Oude and Nana
Sahib, or Lord Canning and the immortal Havelock. -Orvjis it
that the British have become so enamored of rebellion, aye and
of treachery too among their sepoys, that they thus court our
great mogul and his fellow traitors of Montgomery ? p
y, This Queen’s proclamation strikes not simply‘ at the moral

38

position of our government, but according to the English press
it strikes also at our right to execute our own laws against piracy ;
and we are told by the London Times that if we venture to hang
under these laws, a pirate who is licensed to plunder and mur-
der by J efferson Davis’s letters of marque, now endorsed by the
sovereigns of England and France, it will be regarded as an
outrage by the civilized world ; andthis gentle intimation comes
to usrfrom a nation who are hardly recovered from tlieipeffects of
a rebellion, to end which, without staying to ask the opinion
of the world, they blew, their rebels from the guns. 0 : A

It was intimated thfit the British cabinet were puzzled holwrto
act in regard to the United States on the one hand, andher rebel

conspirators onthe other, and that after a careful search for pre-r

cedents, one was found in the royal proclamation touching the
war between Greece and Turkey, and that on that was based the
proclamation which has so displeased and wounded the American
people. , i 0 ,

It could not have escaped the cabinet in“ their search for pre-
cedents, for we know with what thoroughness such searches are
made, that a. very similar state of things existed but a few years
since between Great Britain and the United States, when the in-
tegrity and honour of the British empire were assailed by her
Ctanaclian colonists, and she had occasion to learn what in the
opinion of the UnitediStates constitutes the duties of neutrality
towards a friendly nation. Unsuccessful rebellions are soon for«
gotten, and perhaps many Englishmen may besurprised on being
told that the Canadian rebellion was so deeply seated and so
widely spread, as seriously to threaten the crown with the loss
of the Oanadas. Mr. Leader declared in Parliament that all the

English government‘ could do, would be to subjugate and hold, '

the principal cities, leaving the country occupied by rebels. The
number of British troops under Sir John Colbourne was only
20,000, while the rebels are said to have had 14,000 at Montreal,

4000 at N apiersville, and thousands more in arms in ‘differently

parts of the Canadas, fierce with indignation at the murder of a
partyiof patriots by Indians in the employ‘ of the British govern-
ment. " i r r or   c “

r In Noyember ’3'Ttwo battles were fought between the British

39 s

)-

and the rebels,‘the one atSt, Dennis, and the other at St,Gharles, U

which was taken from aforce of 3,000 Canadians of whom, 200
were killed and 30 wounded, r

In December Mackenzie, the head rebel, who seems to have 

been the prototype; of Davis, organized a previsional government,
and assuming the right to dispose of] “ ten millions of acres of
land,fair and fertile,” took possession of Montgomery House near
Toronto, with a band of insurgents, and sent a demand to Sir,
Francis 13. Head to dissolve the provincial parliament, and to
leave Toronto Within fifteen days. i r 1 r
n Then came Lord Gosford’s proclamation at Quebec, declaring
martial law, and denouncing the conspiracy and rebellion, and on
the 8th of January 1838 came the first proclamation from presi-
dent Van Buren. After, reciting the efforts made by him and by
the governors of New York and Vermont to prevent any unlaw-

i feel interjfereozce on the part of our citizens in the contest unfortun-

ately commenced in the British provinces, and that notvvithstand -
ing the presence of the civil oflicers of the United States who by

his direction had visited the scenes of commotion, arms and amu- .

nition had been procured bythe insurgents, in the United States,
the proclamation proceeded: T

, "‘''‘ Now, therefore, to the end that the authority of the laws may
be maintained and the faith of treaties observed, I, Martin,Van
Buren, do most earnestly exhort all citizens of the United States
who have violated their duties to return peaceably to their re-
spective homes, and I hereby Warn them that any persons who
shall compromise the neatral2'ty of‘ this goverrimemf by interfering in
an unlawful marmer with the affairs of the neighboring British
provinces will render themselves liable to arrest and punishment
under the laws of the United States,” 850., 850.

At the request of Lord Durham, Mr. Van Buren,had directed
our commanding officer on Lake Ontario to co-«operate in any
measures which might be suggested by Lord Durham for rooting
out the band of pirates who had their quarters among “ the
thousand isles,” Without the slightest regard to the official pro-
clamation of their chief, Mr. William Johnson, holding a commis-
sion from the patriot government, that the patriots would care-
fully respect neutral Waters and the rights of all citizens of the
United States. T

40

1 On the 21stNovember, 1838, president Van Buren issued a
second proclamation, calling upon the misguided and deluded
persons to abandon projects dangerous to their own country,
fatal to those Whom they profess a desire to relieve, impractica-
ble of execution Without foreign aid, which they cannot rationally
expect to obtain, and giving rise to imputations, however un-
founded, against the honor and good faith of their own govern—
ment. i

The proclamation further called upon “every officer, civil and

military, and upon every citizen, by the veneration due by all
freemen to the laws which they have assisted to enact for their
own government, by his regard for the honour and good faith of
his country, by his love of honour and respect for that sacred code
of laws by which national intercourse is regulated, to use every
power to arrest for trial and punishment every offender against

the laws providing ‘for the performance of our obligations to the ‘

other powers of the World.”

On the 4th of December, 1838, the president,in his message to
congress, declared “If an insurrection existed in Canada the
amicable disposition of the United States, as Well as their duty to
themselves, would lead them to maintain a strict neutrality, and
to restrain its citizens from all violation of the laws which have
been passed for its enforcement. But the government recognises
a still higher obligation to repress all attempts on the part of its
citizens to disturb the peace of a‘ country where order prevails
or has been re-established.” 8

Such was the neutrality on the part of the United States
towards Great Britain. it It recognized the rebels of Canada

‘ not as belligerents, but as +£72asm"ge9zts, and it enforced its neu-
trality not by forbidding its citizens to assist Great Britain to

maintain its authority against the insurgents, but by forbidding

them to interfere in an wzZauy"al manner with the affairs of the l

provinces, ,   r ,

It needs no intimate knowledge of international law, no study
of Grrotius, or Pufl’endorf,. or Vattel, or Wheaten, no definitions
of the rights of belligerents and privateers from the Uonsolcufo
del Mcwe, from Lampredi, Galiani, Moser or Hiibner, to enable us
to appreciate the wide difference between the neutrality We

41

practiced towards England and her rebels, and that which Eng-
land has inaugurated against us; and no refinement of reason-
ing, nor subtle glosses indulged in by the English press, have
at all blinded the American people to the unfriendly character
of this royal proclamation. A

The recognition of the independence of the southern confed-
eracy is a matter in the discretion of England, and of all foreign
nations. When this independence is established as a matter of
fact We expect it to be recognized, but England does not so re-

cognize it. She recognizes the confederacy as simply struggling ,

for independence as were the insurgents in Canada, and pend-
ing the struggle she volunteers, under professions of neutrality
to ignore our constitutional right to subdue them, and to recog-

nize their rebellion has lawful War. Bound to us by‘ treaty

stipulations, she elevates them to an " equality of position as
regards belligerent rights under the law of nations. A She
places their usurped government, based on treachery and slave-
ry, on a par with that founded by Wasliington and his associ-
ates on the broad consent of the American people. She intro-
duces Jefferson Davis and his confederates to a limited extent
into the family of nations, endorses the licenses given by them to
pirates Whose brutal cupidity is stimulated by bribes of blood
lzuoney-—,———-twenty dollars for every murdered American! and
transforms them into letters of marque which the ships of all na-
tions’ are bound to recognize, respect and obey.

Had she treated themas vinsurgents they would liave had no
other rights on the sea than had Bill Johnson, the pirate of the
St. Lawrence. Haging proclaimed them belligerents she has
given them a commission not simply to capture American prop-
erty in American vessels, but to capture on the high seas Amer-
ican property onlboard of Whatever vessel it may be found, and
to carry the neutral vessel and cargo into a belligerent port for
further examination. She recognizes the ‘right of the men who
have robbed our treasury, betrayed our forts and hlched our
navy yards and arsenals to establish prize courts to decide upon
the lawfulness of captures made by their commissioned cruisers,
and brought into court for adjudication, and the title to be given
by Davis’s courts is to be held valid by the law of nations.

"‘-3!:

_  -1%?
“V«“~:.~gs-1

min:-an-av

ff,
yw_ . 

.;
4:2

This is What the proclamation of neutrality really means. i This is
the neutrality which England has inaugurated and which France

has adopted ; and those two great powers who recently declared .

in the congress at Paris that privateering is and shall remain
abolished,-—by royal and imperial proclamation have countersign-
ed letters of marque for the destruction of American ships,and
which threaten with spoliation the commerce of the World. The
aim and effect of the British prpclamation seems to us so clearly
unfriendlay and injurious, that it is hardly Worth While to note
the discourtesy of adopting such a policy, and giving ita defi~

nite and irreversible shapein advance of the arrival of Mr. Ad-T

ams, without allowing us the opportunity to offer a Word of
explanation or remonstrance. Mr. ‘Adams reached Liverpool
the 18th of May. The next day the proclamation was printed
in London. \

The United States bytheir neutrality broke thelback of the
Canadian rebellion, dashed the hopes cherished by the rebels oi
effective American sympathy, in good faith assisted the British
government in maintaining its authority, and restoring order,
and thus materially diminished the cost of treasure and of life at
which alone their subjection could have been accomplished. a

The British government by their neutrality have made our
task far more difficult, apart from the injury wemay anticipate
from the fleet of privateers whose letters are so respectably
countersigned. But we learn from this proclamation one les-
son, that will be perhaps Worth all that it shall cost us: We
learn the treatment we may expect, if We fail to maintain our na

or tional integrity and the honour of our flag. ,3

If a mere supposition that the rebels of Montgomery are likely

9*? to be successful, can in a moment dash from the memory of the
B English government all recollection of pastfriendship, and induce

her in our moment of trial to condescend to a course so difierent
from thattrvve had pursued towards her; What treatment may
We not expect from her, andfrom every other European cabinet,

 if We ourselves by ourconduct admit that we are powerless at
 home ? How will We be treated abroad, if we yield to the threats
3, of a fraction of our own population? What will beour standing
T among nations if, consenting to separation, We lose nearly half of

43 A " B ' 

our territory, and two-thirds of our Atlantic seaboard, and des-

E
‘Ii’ o

\\

l

cend to the position of a third rate power ? Or what respect will 
be paid us, if to maintain our territory we compromise with rebel. *
lion ; if we yield at the cannon’s mouth, what the people have 

an example that we may be bullied with success, and that when

" deliberately refused at the polls -, if we teach the world by such 

we resist on principle unreasonable demands, it is only necessary. 
to humble our flag, and to threaten Washington, to induce us

ignominously to submit?
a Let us discard all reliance upon other help than that of God,

a right, cause and a strong arm, and let us recognize the ‘stub.  I

born fact.that “the government or nation that fails to protect
itself against foes, whether
ing1oriously.”* B

. Before . leaving the question of England’s neutrality, I think
we should distinguish between the hasty action of the British
cabinet and the deliberate conviction of the British people.

That the heart of that great nation is sound,and that as soon
as they understand the motives and manner of this rebellion as
you understand them, they will appreciate our position, approve

our resolution and wish us God speed in our great work of res- 
toring the federal union to its integrity and its great original 

principles of freedom,I cannot, I will not doubt. ,

Already their cabinet has partially atoned for the first pro-
clamation by an order that will prevent the privateers of Davis
from entering British p-orts, and both the government and the
people must soon recognise the fact that we have the ability and
the will to ‘crush this rebellion and maintain our integrity, how-
ever long the struggle, however great the cost 3 and that we no
more recognise the right of England nor of Europe to dictate to
us in this matter, than England would have recognized our right
to interfere between her and Nana Sahib. The material interests
based on cotton must yield to the national and moral duties that
to-day devolve upon the American people, in determining, per-
haps for untold ages, the destiny of the American continent.

The English people will see that our resolve to crushthe con-

* Gruetano Filangieri. B

4., ;“ 3 v, , .
‘n V
“  c t 3

I 1;» ;
9’ -

foreign or domestic, deserves to perislt, ti,

44:

spiracy for the establishment of a slave empire, is not based on
any evanescent burst of enthusiasm, but on the most sober calcu~
lations, of honor, duty, safety and economy; and that it is the true

interest of England, her pecuniary,her political and her moral

interest,that the war should be as brief as possible, that the re-

bels may no longer be deluded into the belief that any true Eng—~

lishman who understands the history and the object of their rebel-
lion can regard it with other feelings, than those naturally aroused
by a policy of fraud, treachery and oppression.

That the restoration of the integrity of our union is, to be ac-
complished without a vast expenditure of treasure, and perhaps
of blood, no one anticipates. We all know something of the cost
of European wars, but we know also our own resources and the
immense stake for which we will be fighting. Our fathers fought
for seven years for our national freedom, and the spirit abroad
throughout our land indicates that their sons, if necessary, will
fight seven years more to save it from destruction and disgrace.
Whether the debt incurred for its preservation shall be hun*
dreds or thousands of millions,it will be a sacred legacy to future
generations. WA debt of five hundred millions, as remarked by
an English journalist, would leave this nation less severely taxed
than any nation of Europe. a

If any man supposes that this republic can be advantageously
sundered into two, let him cast his eye upon the map and endea.
vour to find a natural line to separate the two confederacies.

The geographical formation of our country indicates that it is

one : nature has provided no boundary line between the North
and the South: no river like the Mississippi, no mountain chain
like the Alleghanies, or the Rocky mountains, running from the
West to the Atlantic, and forming an Alpine boundary to divide
the sections. On the contrary, the father of waters stretches out
his great arms to the East and to the West bearing on his bosom
to the gulf, the generous products of the valleys which they fer"-
tilize, and carrying back in their place the cotton, rice and sugar
of our Southern borders, and imports from foreign climes.

The Mississippi, source and channel of prosperity to North and
South alike in every mile of its progress: on the West to Minne-

45  ‘

'  sota,IoWa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana; on the East to

Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, pro~
claims to the citizens of the immense region which it Waters
through thousands of miles in extent, from North to South,
and East to West,’ that our country is one and indivisible.

Our duty to the South forbids our acquiescence in this rebel-
lion, for it would reverse the American policy for the last half
century, and reoonsign to foreign invasion, to anarchy and ruin,
the immense territories which We have rescued from European
sway, and united as parts of our great nation.

Look back to the olden time and see What the Southern coun-
try would again be_come. Trace the history of Florida from the
days of Charles V., from the adventures of De Leon and De Soto,
the persecution of it protestants from France, and the retaliation
on the murderous Spaniards ; the capture of St. Augustine by Sir
Francis Drake, the buccaneering inroads of the English, the
transfer of Florida to the British crown ; its partial settlement
from Italy and Greece, the piivateering exploits in our revolu-
tion, the capture of Baton Rouge and Pensacola, until its pur-
chase by our government in 1819. ,

Remember that the Spaniards navigated the gulf of Mexico
for two centuries, Without discovering that it was the outlet of
the great river of the North, a fact which perhaps induces the
Southern confederates to imagine that we also may be persuaded
to forget its existence. Look at Louisiana from the days of Law
and the Mississippibubble to its cession to Spain in 1762, and its
retrocession to France in 1800, when we hastened to buy it from
the First Consul, and you will find nothing in Florida, in Louisiana,
nor indeed in Texas, to indicate even the first beginning of the
prosperity which has been so rapidly developed under the foster-
ing protection of the federal government.

Let the American union be dismembered, and what is to pre-
vent foreign powers from re-entering upon our national domain
from which at such great cost and labour they have been ousted ‘E

An old ofiicer of the French empire writing to the Uourrier des
Etats-U'm's, has predicted that in the first place France would
retake Louisiana, according to ancient treaties, that Spain would
reclaim Florida, that England perhaps would seek to appropriate

46

Oregon, and that Mexico, under foreign protection, would retake V
New Mexico, Texas and California; or supposing that We should

3 consent to the establishment of the so-called Southern confederacy,

i which We know to bee mere military despotism, what possible gua- «

, rantee can we have for peace in the future, when each state re-

serves the right tosecede at pleasure and enter at will into foreign

alliances, inaugurating universal chaos and chronic dissolution!

Even now, while the struggle is being Vvaged, the leadingmen of

South Carolina, already sick of their independence before it is ac-

complished, repudiate republican institutions and sigh for a British
prince to lend the odour of royalty to thearistocracy which they
boast,-—~—-an aristocracy based not upon historic deeds and noble
heroism, but simply upon the colour of their ‘skins, and their des~
potic dominion over helpless slaves :--——an aristocracy Whose Wealth
is invested in human flesh, and whose revenues are col

lected in the field by thelash, and on the auction block by the

hammer ! \

    Let our union be divided with theview of accomplishingpre-?
sent peace, and not only would the United States fall fromher

position of a first class power to that of a minor republic, with
a contracted sea-boardand adefenseless border, but the act‘
of separation would inaugurate an exposure to hostilities, firsti
from our newand unfriendly neighbour, and then from every'_
foreignpower with which one or all of the Southern states might
choose to forms an alliance. Either contingency-would necessarily.
change our national policy, require the,maintenance~cf a standing
army, and complicate endlesslymyour commercial relations. Now,
We stand aloof from the quarrels of the rest of the World and can
devote our energies to the development of our marvellous re-

sources and the extension of civilization and freedom over the

American continent ; then we should be compelled to an attitude
of perpetual self—defence to save us from constant entanglement
in the Web of European politics. Already have We had a fore-
taste oftthe sort of treatment which Europewill accord to the

' severed fragments of the American republic.

To maintain the respect of the World We must maintain first

. the integrity of our national territory, and next the integrity of

ourfundamentalyprinciples. ,. As for the argument that if the re;

‘'1

47

bellion "is crushed harmony can never be restored, -Canada.fur-
nishes the refutation. The bloody feuds of .1838 have hardly left
a trace to mar the tranquil prosperity which marks the progress
of that great province. There is reason tobelieve that the union
men of the South await but the coming of the federalliorces in
sufficient stength, to show themselves again the cordial supporters
of the federal government. But even if this were not so, and there

was reason to fear a long period of distrust and disaffection, the

fact remains that the interests of the American people impera-

tively demand that the integrity of the union shall be preserved,

whether the slavery propagandists of the Southlilze it or like

it not. .

A This is one of those decisivepepochs that occur inthe history. A

offlall great nations. One came to our fathers in 1776. Submis-

sion to usurped authority, or national independence, was the issue : T T
and on the day we commemorate they chose the latter; and the  

force of their example on the world is yet to be determined.
Today the imperious demand comes from slavery, “submit or be ‘

destroyed!” Already has a blow been struck by slavery at our ,
republic, the force ,of which reverberates through the world.  
Two hundred millions of debts due from rebels to loyal citizens .
are repudiated, the business of the country is arrested,bank- 4

ruptcy stares us in the face; worse than all, our flag has been
insulted, our prestige impaired, and, from foreign courts, we have

received treatment that our American pride can illy brook, .

Honour, interest, self-respect and the highest duty call upon us

to crush, and crush speedily, the insolent traitors whose secret, '
and atrocious perfidy has temporarily crippled us: and while .

we recall the motives that combine to compel us to resist-
ance, let us not forget the duty which this nation owes to the op-
pressed race who are the innocent cause of all our troubles, and
who have no friends to look to but ourselves, to prevent the

spreading of slavery over every foot of American, territory, and r
the waving of the flag of the slave trader over the fearful horrors ,

of the middle passage.

Gentlemen, as in our revolutionary struggle our fathers had to
contend with the timid and the avaricious,‘who feared the evils
of war and continually cried peace! peace 1 where there was no

, ,,.....—.-..-.--...»

4:8

peace, so may we expect to be constantly hampered by declaim-
ers in favor of compromise. I do not stop to consider the fitness
of our lending an ear to such a cry until the insult to our flag has
been atoned for and until our supremacy is acknowledged, for

V’ the great mass of the people of the country will be unanimous
on this point; they will regard the bare suggestion of treating

with the rebels whose hands are stained with the blood of the
sons of Massachusetts, of Ellsworth and of Winthrop, of Grreble
and of Ward, as a personal insult, and will reply to it as did
Patrick Henry-—--“We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!”
The sword is now the only pen with which we can write “peace”
in enduringcharacters on the map of America. 0 .

The day of compromise is gone: “thatusort of thing,” as the
secretary said, “ended with the fourth of March.” We have had
devices enough for saving the union, devices suggested by the
men who are now striving to destroy it.

Thereis one goodold plan provided by the constitution that

was successfully practiced by Washington and J acksonr: we are

about to try that‘: let us try it thoroughly ; it is simply the due
execution of the laws by whatever degree of force the exigency
may require. If our army of 300,000 men is insuflicient, a
million stand ready to follow them to the field. W s

It wouldbe difficult, my countrymen, to exaggerate the solemn ’

importance of our national position. A struggle 0‘ for life and
death has commenced between freedom andslavery, and on the
event of the struggle depends our national existence. Let us
falter, let us compromise, let us yield, and the work of our fa»
thers and the inheritance of our children, our own honor and the
hopes of the oppressed nationalities of the world will be buried
in a common gravel Let us be demoralized by defeat in the
field, or what is infinitelyworse, by submission to rebellion, and
in foreign lands a man will blush and hang his head to declare
himself an American citizen. A whipped hound should be the
emblem of the Northern man who whimpers for a peacethat can
only be gained by dishonour. i a i ,
But let us remember our fathers who, eighty—five years ago, this
day, made universal freedom and equal right the corner stone of
this republic ; let us exhibit, as we have begun to do, their stern

49 

resolve and high devotion in behalf of constitutional freedom,
and we shall secure for our children and our children’s children
a gigantic and glorious nationality, based upon principles of
Christian civilization, such as the world has never seen before.

There islnothing i1:npossible,nothing improbable in our speedy
realization of a g101‘i011S future. '

The seeds of this rebellion have long lurked in our system : for
years it has been coming to a head, and simply from want of-
proper treatment, it has now burst with angry violence : but the
pulse of the nation beats cooly and calmly, the partial local in-

flammation butserves to exhibit the lusty healtlrof the body

politic, and when this rebellion is extinguished, and its cause re-
moved, we may hope that we are sate from an organized rebel-
lion for at least a century to_ come. a

it Wiith,what speed this rebellion shall be crushed, depends sole-

 upon yourselves. Let public feeling lag throughout the land,
and the war department will lag in Washington. Let us become
careless and indiflerent about the matter, and contractors will

 

cheat our soldiers, incompetent oflicers will exposethem to de-L

feat, official indifference will produce general demoralization.
But let us keep ever inmind the lesson we have so dearly learned
--~that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Let the administra-
tion and the army feel that their every act is canvassed by an
intelligent people, and when approved, greeted by a hearty ap-
preciation : that every branch of industry awaits the ending of
the war, and that from every part of the land comes the cry of
“forward,” and the arm of the union at Washington will obey the
heart of the nation, whenever a prayer rises in its behalf, or its
flag kisses the breeze of heaven. L '
i Let us with this sleepless vigilance on our part, repose a gene-

rous confidence in our president who has won the generous ap-y

plause of his democratic opponents, nor scan too impatiently the
warlike policy of Scott.  

Like all true-hearted and brave veterans he wishes to spare as *

far as possible the blood alike of loyal soldiers and deluded rebels,
and to carry with the flag of our union not simply the power to

make it respected but the more glorious attributes that cause it I

to be loved. “Not,” to adopt the words of Gov. Andrew, of

50,

Massachussetts, “to inaugurate a war of sections,;nct to avenge
former ‘wrongs, not to perpetuate ancient griefs or memories of
conflict,” will that flag move onwards until it floats again in its
pride and beauty over Richm0nd,and Sumpter, and Montgomery,
and New Orleans : but to indicate the majesty of the people, to
retain and reinvigorate the institutionsof our fathers, to rescue
from the despotism of traitors the loyal citizens of the South, and
place all,loyal or rebel, under the protection. of a union that is
essentialto the welfare of the whole. a l

l The eyes of the whole world are this day fixed upon you. To
Europeans themselves, European questions sinlrtoinsignificance
compared with the American question now to be decided. Rise,

my countrymen, as did our fathers on the day we celebrate, to i

the majestic grandeur of this question in its two-fold aspect,

as regards America, and as regards the world. Remember that

with the failure of the American republic will fall the wisest
system of republican govrnment which the wisdom A of man
has yet invented, and the hopes of popular freedom cherished
througliout the globe. , l s
Letus, standing by our fathers’ graves, swear anew and teach
theloathto our children, that with God’s help the Americanlree
public, clasping this continent in its embrace, shall stand un-

moved, though all the powersof slavery, piracy, and European
jealousy shouldcombine to overthrow it; that we shall have in l

the future, as we have” had, in the past, one country, one consti-in
tution,and one destiny; and that when we shall have passed
from earth and the acts of to-day shall bermatter of history, and
the dark power now seeking our overthrow shall have been itself
overthrown, our sons may gather strength from our example in

every contest with despotism thattime may have in store to try n

their virtue, and that they may rally under the stars and stripes

to battle for freedom and the rights of man, with our olden war A

. cry, “ Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.’,’ A