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 LECTURES 
 
 UN 
 
 THE REBELLION. I 
 
 SUBJECTS : 
 
 HOW WE GOT IN. 
 HOW TO GET OUT. 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 TEMPERANCE HALL, TRENTON, N. J., 
 
 BY REV. 1. W. WILEY, A.M., M. D. 
 
 REPORTED BY JAMES R I S T I N E . A. M.. 
 
 For tlio Kenofii: of tlie 
 
 < o mini >.-* ion. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 TRENTON, N. J. 
 THOMAS U. BAKER, PRINTER 
 
 1864. 
 
 
 
TWO LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 THE REBELLION. 
 
 "V 
 
 SUBJECTS : 
 
 HOW WE GOT IN. 
 HOW TO GET OUT. 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 TEMPERANCE HALL, TRENTON, N. J., 
 
 BY REV. iv-W. WILEY, A. M., M. D. 
 
 REPORTED BY JAMES RISTINE, A.M., 
 
 tlie Benefit of tlie Sanitary Commission. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 TRENTON, N. J. 
 THOMAS U. BAKER, PRINTER, 
 
 1864. 
 
+$- 
 
 NW67 
 
BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Lectures were delivered at the request 
 of many citizens of Trenton, in behalf of the Sanitary 
 Commission. The subjects of the Lectures were also 
 assigned me, almost in the words which I have used in 
 their titles. Ill health prevented me from any extended 
 preparation for them, and they were delivered extempo- 
 raneously, being taken down by Mr. Ristine, with great 
 accuracy, as they were spoken. In this form they ap- 
 pear ; I have made but few changes in the reported copy, 
 preferring that they should go forth as the free and 
 spontaneous utterance of the occasion. As such, of 
 course, they lay no claim to any literary merit, nor do I 
 hold myself responsible for their publication, this being 
 the work of the Committee. If their delivery in Tem- 
 perance Hall, or their subsequent publication and circu- 
 lation, shall in any way contribute to a better under- 
 standing of our present struggle, and to a more earnest 
 loyalty to our noble government, I shall be abundantly 
 compensated for all part I have had in the work. 
 
 I. W. WILEY. 
 
 TRENTON, March 1, 18C4. 
 
HOW WE GOT 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FELLOW CITIZENS : 
 
 I am glad to be able to meet you on this occasion, after having been 
 under the necessity of disappointing you some weeks ago. I have much 
 recovered my health, but still am laboring under some difficulties, and 
 shall speak to-night somewhat under embarrassment on account of that 
 illness. 
 
 There are speakers whom we have heard, who always have to say 
 something before they begin ; and it seems to me altogether right and 
 necessary that I should say something of my personal character, before 
 entering directly upon the subject of niy lecture. 
 
 I have been invited by some citizens of Trenton to deliver these two 
 lectures, or otherwise I would much rather have remained at home, and 
 kept still ; but being called upon for this service, I am ready to render 
 this, as all other services in my power, to promote the welfare of our 
 country ; to lead to a better understanding of the difficulties we are 
 in ; to point, if possible, to the way to get out, and in any way to con- 
 tribute to the establishment and perpetuity of our great and good go- 
 vernment. And yet there are men known to many of you, belonging 
 to different classes, and holding different positions in life from that occu- 
 pied by me, that doubtless would treat these questions in a much more 
 able manner than I shall be able to do. I am not a politician, and still 
 less a partizan : therefore, I do not recognize this invitation as coming 
 from politicians, or from any partizans, and I do not feel to-night that I 
 am here to plead the cause of any party, or to speak in behalf of any 
 particular view of the question which shall come before us. I am not 
 a statesman. I have never enjoyed any of the public or official positions 
 of the country, and I am very sure I have no wish to enjoy any of these 
 positions. I stand before you in the character simply of an American 
 citizen, one that loves my country, who loves to study its history, and 
 with an honest heart, desires to find out what are the difficulties that 
 are now hanging over this nation. It has been my duty in one position 
 I have occupied, to be a student of history, and I have had some experi- 
 ence in this matter. My duty has called me to study the history of our 
 
6 
 
 own country, and when I take up a question of the kind, I shall discuss 
 it simply in a historical manner ; tracing out the causes that have led 
 to the present Rebellion, by a review of the history of our country ; and 
 as I have no partizan objects to gain, and no party to please, none to 
 commend and none to condemn, it shall be my simple business, as far 
 as I possibly can, and with as little prejudice as possible, to review these 
 circumstances, and to bring out from our history the facts that bear di- 
 rectly upon these results that are now before us. I must be permitted 
 further to say, that if I should bring out here to night some facts that 
 may strike you as novel, you must still allow me the honesty of simply 
 presenting them as facts, in my view. If I should state some things 
 contrary to your prejudices, still you must not look upon me as the 
 author of the facts, or simply announcing them, as constituting either 
 approval or disapproval of the fcicts themselves. With these prelimi- 
 nary observations I start the question, How came we in the present war ? 
 What were the causes operating in the past, that have brought into our 
 country this great Rebellion ? And I answer three : if I should have 
 time I would introduce a fourth. I think we will have time to discuss 
 only three. 
 
 The first is this : THE WANT OF HOMOGENEOUSNESS IN THE POPULA- 
 TIONS OF OUR COUNTRY : the second, THE GROWING POLITICAL CORRUP- 
 TION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF OUR GOVERNMENT ; the third, ACTUAL 
 COLLISIONS WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF OUR COUNTRY, the last of which 
 
 constitutes the, Rebellion itself. 
 
 I say then the first cause that led to this Rebellion is, a want of unity 
 or homogeneousness in the population of the country itself. Now when 
 we come to consider a great question like this, What has brought on 
 this gigantic war? of course we cannot trace it to causes immediately 
 preceding the outbreaking of the Rebellion ; to mere superficial circum- 
 stances of momentary operation among the people ; but it must be traced 
 back to deeper principles, lying in the constitution of the country itself. 
 There are deeper causes than those that float upon the surface ; and 
 among those deeper influences that have led to this Rebellion is the one 
 that I have mentioned we have not been one people. By it I mean simply 
 this that while throughout our nation we have many things in common, 
 and there are many national characteristics in which we agree, there are 
 many things in which we disagree, and have disagreed from the com- 
 mencement of our history. It requires but a little study of our history 
 and little observation of our national life, to find that we have in this 
 country at least two people, and ha've had from the origin of the coun- 
 try itself; and that the distinctions between these two people have been 
 
showing themselves in all our past history, arid are now exhibited most 
 prominently in the Rebellion that is upon the land. If for instance we 
 go back to glance at the origin of our country,; at its settlement by our 
 fathers, we see that two classes of people came to this country, and 
 originally settled the colonies. We remember that one class who 
 came as our fathers, came driven out from their homes under the opera- 
 tion of great religious and national influences, and came to this country 
 under these impulses, inspired with noble motives, sighing after liberty, 
 seeking for a quiet place in which they might worship God, entering into 
 covenant relations with the Most High as they were on the ocean voy- 
 age, and committing themselves and all their descendants to a perpetua- 
 tion of this covenant in all coming time. We know also in another part 
 of our country, many of the colonies were settled on the mere principle 
 of wild adventure, of large and unscrupulous speculation, of extravagant 
 anticipations of wealth, a heroic rushing out to find vast territories and 
 to accumulate vast treasures. Permit me here to make this preliminary 
 remark ; when I say we have two people in this country, I mean we have 
 one people in the North and one people in the South, I mean the divid- 
 ing line that separates these two classes is the line sometimes called 
 Mason and Dixon's line, and I wish the remarks I have made to apply 
 in this respect. I would qualify it simply with regard to Virginia, Dela- 
 ware and Maryland, lying upon the south side of this line. With regard 
 to these states we have some exceptions in their settlement and historical 
 development ; and as we look at the history of these states, at their 
 sympathy and co-operation in the battle of the Revolution, and the 
 maintenance of our government, we can see there was a difference in 
 the origin and settlement and spirit of these states. But passing far- 
 ther south, the remarks I made apply strictly to the Carolirias, to Geor- 
 gia and Alabama, and still more strictly to that large territory occupied 
 at the commencement of our government, and at the time of our Revo- 
 lution, by an entirely different people from us, I mean of course Florifla ? 
 and the large territory known originally under the name of Louisiana, 
 occupied by Frenchmen, by Spaniards, and by half-breeds, since pur- 
 chased by our government, and having still large numbers of their de- 
 scendants occupying these states. I say then, in our historical origin, 
 in the settlement of our country, we see that the people of the two sides 
 of this line have started out with different principles arid moved under 
 different impulses 5 the one sighing for a civilization higher than they 
 had yet reached at home, panting for religious liberty, for a free and en- 
 lightened commonwealth : the other launching out simply with an adven- 
 turous spirit to settle a nation and found an empire, with but little refer- 
 
8 
 
 ence as to what should be its characteristics or spirit. Now go a little 
 farther forward in our history to. the time of our Revolution, and you 
 will find in this great struggle to gain the liberty of our country, again 
 we stood forth as two people, excepting to some considerable extent the 
 three states that I have mentioned. When the tocsin of war was sounded 
 for the great battle of freedom, the North rallied to a man. New Eng- 
 land poured out her fathers and sons : Virginia stood side by side with 
 New England, and Maryland and Delaware did the same. The Caro- 
 linas hesitated, "South Carolina stood coolly back, and threw the weight 
 of her influence on the side of Great Britain. When we go back to 
 trace the history of those " times that tried men's souls" we find, true 
 as history itself, that within the borders of little South Carolina, there 
 were more tories and traitors to the contest for liberty, than in all the 
 other states put together. Here they gathered, until the government, 
 oppressed by the schemes and plottings of these Carolinians, sent down 
 that grand old hero, General Marion, who, by his conduct there, won 
 for himself the title of the " American Fox," to hunt them out in South 
 Carolina, and destroy the influence and power of those traitors who were 
 working for the* enemy. (Applause.) Does this seem like a severe charge 
 against a sister state ? Let us refer to a fact or two in the history of 
 the times. In the spring of 1780, Sir Henry Clinton and Vice Admiral 
 Arbuthnot, in command of the British naval forces, presented themselves 
 in Charleston harbor, and actually demanded the surrender of that city. 
 General Lincoln as boldly defied the challenge of these British officers? 
 and said " if they wanted any American soil it was their duty to come 
 and take it." Lincoln was a good name you see in 1780. (Applause.) 
 The South Carolinians have hated the name ever since. (Laughter and 
 applause.) Immediately after this truly American and patriotic reply 
 had been given by General Lincoln, two hundred and twenty-six citizens 
 of that city (Charleston) signed a letter written to Sir Henry Clinton, a 
 most beggarly entreatment that he should reject the reply of Lincoln as 
 in no way representing the spirit of South Carolina, that yet owed its 
 allegiance to his majesty of England the most pusillanimous letter that 
 was ever written in all the history of our Revolution. At the same 
 time they charged upon the Northern States the guilt of the Revolution 
 and declared to Sir Henry Clinton, that the inhabitants of South Caro- 
 lina, and including not perhaps unauthorizedly Georgia, had no sym- 
 pathy with this, as they styled it, " rank democracy," which the men of 
 the North wished to establish ; on the contrary they desired nothing 
 better than obedience to his majesty, George of England, and pledged 
 themselves to use all exertions in the furtherance of the designs of Sir 
 
9 
 
 Henry Clinton. Clinton wrote immediately to the Secretary of State of 
 Great Britain this fact, and concluded his letter by saying, " I may truly 
 say that within the state of South Carolina we have either every man 
 upon our side, or the few that are against us are prisoners in our hands." 
 You see then we have but to appeal to the history of the past to find 
 that at the commencement, these people entered into no sympathy with 
 the Republican institutions of our country. Let me call your attention 
 especially to the remark in the letter of these men denouncing the " rank 
 democracy of ihe North." That is it. From the commencement they 
 have been in no sympathy with the Republican and Democratic institu- 
 tions of our land. They are men who love monarchy, who sigh for it, 
 and who wish to be recognized in our whole land as the chivalry of the 
 nation, ready not only to throw oft* the yoke of the government under 
 which they have lived, but in a spirit similar to that of the past, to se- 
 cure for themselves a monarchy again. 
 
 Let us look a little farther. When we .came to enter the original 
 compact for fighting the battle of freedom, again we find the North, in- 
 cluding the three Southern states I have named, heartily entering into 
 that compact, and esteeming even the articles of confederation as a sa- 
 cred and perpetual obligation : that for the present they were to minister 
 to the great work of guiding the country through the Revolution, and 
 then were to be developed into a more permanent and binding compact 
 for the nation. South Carolina and Georgia refused at first to enter. 
 It was not until two years of Revolutionary struggle had passed that 
 these two states accepted the articles of Confederation, and they never 
 came into the compact with any other interpretation, than that it was a 
 mere temporary arrangement for fighting the battle of the Revolution, 
 and which, when the war was over, was to leave these states sovereign in 
 themselves as before. And when, in 1788, the new constitution was 
 presented to the new nation the old articles of Confederation having 
 been found insufficient again we find these two states holding back most 
 strenuously against accepting the new constitution, and for the very same 
 reasons that they have been urging in our ears ever since, and which 
 have culminated in the Rebellion. What reasons ? 
 
 First. We are independent and sovereign states, and refuse to yield 
 our independence and sovereignty to a bond like this. 
 
 Second. We look at the articles of your constitution) and find in it 
 no guarantee (to use the language of the times that we have grown 
 familiar with), nothing to secure and guarantee to us the peculiar institu- 
 tion that characterizes the South. 
 
 Not until that Constitution was so modified as to allow them tacitly 
 
10 
 
 to interpret it as a temporary compact, and to introduce a guarantee 
 both for slavery and the slave trader, did this proud little Miss Carolina 
 of the South consent to associate with her sister states in this Union. 
 Now then a step farther. 
 
 What man who has travelled in our country and crossBcl the line that 
 divides the North and South, has not felt that in passing from the North 
 into that South, he has entered a new atmosphere : he gets among a 
 new people. The form of life, the customs of society, the institutions 
 of the people, the spirit, the whole tone of civilization of the Southern 
 country, strikes him at once as different from that in which he lived in 
 the North. The Southern gentleman is different from the Northern 
 gentleman. The Northern gentleman is a man of industry, a man who 
 honors labor, that is not ashamed to toil for his own good and for the 
 good of his fellows, and he may come from his workshop, from behind 
 his counter, out of his office, away from his business, whatever it may 
 be, and feel that he is one of " nature's noblemen," clothed in a different 
 garb of cjvilized and social life. He feels he is a man because he is a 
 laborer, a laborer for God a laborer for his fellow man. 
 
 The Southern gentleman is a man who is dressed in broadcloth, with 
 an exceedingly large watch-chain dangling in front, a considerable amount 
 of hirsuteness in his face, and an immeasurable amount of self-conceit 
 and bold defiance in his demeanor. Go to any of our watering places, 
 and without a microscope or telescope you can point out without difficulty 
 who is the Northern and who is the Southern gentleman. You can see 
 one staid, upright, thoughtful, honest, honorable, and the other gene- 
 rally of course I admit many honorable exceptions a swaggerer, a 
 boaster, a smoker, a chewer, and a man who puts himself outside of a 
 glass of brandy as quickly as any gustatory experiment you ever saw. 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 In the North again, progress is the spirit of our national life, and as 
 a foundation for a free Republican commonwealth, we have struggled to 
 elevate the masses. We have built the free church ; we have established 
 the free pulpit ; we have instituted the free school ; we have insisted 
 upon the free press ; and we have been proud when we have been able 
 to establish institutions that would elevate the humble and poor, and lift 
 them to higher levels of life. Now pass this line and all is changed. 
 You must not have a free pulpit ; why ? The preacher might say some- 
 thing about something. (Laughter.) You must not have a free press - 
 why ? That free press might disturb somebody. You must not have 
 free schools ; why 1 The free schools might reach this great multitude 
 of poor white men, and by giving them enlightenment and instruction, 
 they might see the gag that we have been keeping on their mouths in 
 
11 
 
 the past years. In fact you must have nothing free but we, the aris- 
 tocracy of the South, the chivalry of the nation. You must not elevate 
 the poor man to a' higher scale of good. The South loves to cast its chains 
 around the poor, and enthrall both black and white men, building up on 
 this lower stratum of society, an aristocracy of self-styled chivalry, 
 having for its motto the degradation and bondage of the black man. 
 
 " I know you would not have talked so plainly three or four years 
 ago," says some one. If they had behaved themselves and made the 
 best of the circumstances of the nation, we would not have spoken so 
 plainly yet of what all knew in the past to be facts. You knew them, 
 and I knew them for ten or fifteen years, and everybody knew them, but 
 we wanted the house to be quiet. 
 
 Let me show you a specimen of this. About five years ago I stepped 
 into a store in one of our Western states. It was just after an election 
 that had gone Republican (as a ^ood many things are going now-a-days), 
 (Laughter and applause.) A gentleman from Kentucky, who had been 
 dealing largely at that house, came into the store and spoke to the pro- 
 prietor came in as Southern gentlemen generally do, quite pompously 
 in style. Said he, " Mr. Smith, (that was the name actually) (laughter) 
 I wish to make a purchase to-day, but before doing it I wish to ask a 
 question with regard to this house ; I wish to know how many of this 
 house voted on the Republican side at this recent election T' Well, Mr. 
 
 Smith thought that was coming to the point, and he replied, " Mr. . 
 
 I would like to inform you sir, that it is none of your business how 
 many men in my house voted on the Republican side of this question." 
 (Applause.) " But," said the Southern gentleman, " Do you know, sir, 
 who I am ?" " Of course I do," said Smith. " I am a gentleman from 
 the South, who has dealt largely with you in the past, but am deter- 
 mined to deal no more with you, until this question is answered : all we 
 Southern gentlemen resolved to deal with no house that patronizes that 
 side of the question." "Well, sir," said Mr. Smith, "I think the time 
 has just about come when we Northern gentlemen ought to tell you 
 Southern gentlemen, exactly what we Northern gentlemen think of you, 
 and have been thinking of you in all the past. We are men of trade, 
 that buy and sell to get gain : we have bought and sold to you to get 
 gain, and so long as you dealt simply upon principles of business, we 
 could deal with you ; but now, sir, the time has come when the film is 
 torn away, and we wish you distinctly to understand, that we Northern 
 gentlemen know you Southern gentlemen, and hereafter neither you nor 
 any other of the South, can have goods from this house without paying 
 down the cash." (Applause.) I saw that, and simply mention it as a 
 
12 
 
 fact, to show what we all knew ; that in the past there was trouble in 
 the family, there were some bad children in the house ; but in order to 
 keep peace we said nothing. Now the war has come and the South and 
 North acknowledge the fact, and acknowledge it so as to prove to the 
 world that one of the most powerful influences leading to the present 
 Rebellion and disruption, has been that want of harmony, that absence 
 of homogeneousness in these two sections of the country. Now since 
 the war has broken out, Southern papers express their real sentiments. 
 
 The Richmond Inquirer, some few months after the rebellion com- 
 menced said, " We never were in sympathy with the Northern Democracy." 
 It meant the Democracy in its good sense, for it has a bad sense. (Ap- 
 plause.) "We have never loved Republican institutions, we have never 
 believed in the freedom of the people ; on the contrary, we have believed 
 in government, in law, in rule, in power, in subjugation, and we wish 
 the world to understand that hereafter the Southern states lift up the 
 cry, instead of liberty, equality and fraternity slavery, government 
 and submission." That is the spirit that has been in the South all 
 along. One part of this country has had for its beau ideal, liberty, and 
 has taken up in its true and noble sense, the motto of " equality, liberty 
 and fraternity." Down in the depths of the heart of the other part? 
 they have not dared in the past to use the cry, yet now, when they 
 think they are free, they do use the cry of " Slavery, subordination, 
 and bondage." 
 
 We all recollect that remarkable speech of Alexander Stephens, after 
 he had made up his mind to cast in his lot with this terrible Rebellion. 
 << In all the past," said Stephens, " we meant to lay as the foundation of 
 our social life human bondage, and we must come out and boldly say that 
 the corner-stone on which the Confederate States should be built, is 
 that of human slavery." And yet I heard a gentleman say, not very 
 long ago, that in Mr. Stephens' own house, in the year 1860, he heard 
 Mr. Stephens say, that " whenever disunion takes place in this nation, 
 our negroes will not be worth the salt we feed them." 
 
 What did this man mean ? He was a noble and true man. He saw 
 through it all, understood it all ; but when the fatal die was cast, he 
 simply chose to take his own share with the rest, and launched out in 
 the full significance of rebellion, which he distinctly understood to mean 
 subjugation, submission, and the thraldom of the lower classes. 
 
 i think, then, we have seen sufficient to show that I am not mistaken 
 when I say that, lying at the foundation of the war, is the spirit, the 
 customs, the habits, the wants, the institutions, and in a word the civili- 
 zation of the two different sections of our country. This difference has 
 
13 
 
 had a large share in causing, and is the very foundation of. the Rebel- 
 lion in which we are now engaged. 
 
 Some of you might ask the question if what you say is true, had we 
 better not separate? I would simply answer no, never ! (Applause.) 
 and next Tuesday night will give the reasons for my no. (Applause.) 
 
 Let us pass to the second. My second proposition, which I have 
 stated as a cause that has led to this Rebellion, has been, the growing 
 political corruption that has. entered into the government of our nation. 
 Our country, our government, national and state is corrupt, profoundly 
 corrupt. In its forms, in its constitutions, in the laws, I believe it 
 would.be the best government that God ever gave to a people dwelling 
 on this earth. In its administration, T believe for the past thirty years, 
 it has been one of the most corrupt governments that the eye of God 
 could look down upon on the face of this globe. 
 
 We had like all other nations^ in our infancy our Golden Age, our 
 time of Republican purity, the days of our fathers when men pursued 
 honest legislation, when statesmen and members of our legislative 
 bodies felt that their business was to minister to the true welfare, to 
 the real good of the nation; and we look back with just pride to these 
 golden days of our nation's history. But I tell you, ladies and gentle- 
 men, and you know it just as well as I do, that these things simple, 
 plain and pure, " were forty years ago !" I am going to make a state- 
 ment that perhaps some will say is downright heresy : but it is a fact 
 and I cannot help it. If I was to point to the time, when this political 
 corruption first entered the country and began to breathe out its pesti- 
 lence and death upon the nation, I would lay my finger on the year 1829 ; 
 and though I dislike very much to say it, that is the year in which 
 General Jackson became President of the United States. Now I know 
 some will say that is heresy. " General Jackson ? why he is the hero 
 of the nation." So he is. " He is the idol of multitudes of the peo- 
 ple." So he is ; but I take it, we are here to study history. All 
 honor to General Jackson for his glorious battle of New Orleans ! All 
 honor to this true patriot for defeating the base schemes of nullification 
 in 1832! But we must stultify our senses and ignore the facts of our 
 history before we can refuse to write alongside of this honor, the his- 
 torical fact that the birthtiine of the political corruption of our nation 
 was in the administration of this very General. Go back now and look 
 at our history, and up to- that very time we can measure the Golden 
 Age of our country. In the administration of his immediate predecessor, 
 John Quincy Adams, we had as pure an administration as ever blessed 
 this country, and throughout the whole nation, North and South, 
 
14 
 
 there was peace and prosperity and virtue and unity and harmony, that 
 reminds the reader of the golden days when such men as Washington 
 and Jefferson, and the elder Adams themselves held the reins of our 
 government. Every interest of the nation was prosperous. John 
 Quincy Adams administered this government with men of all parties. 
 He ignored no man for his political relationship. He exercised no 
 power of his position to continue in office. He had nothing to do with 
 that principle, c 'To the victors belong the spoils." Whenever he could 
 find a good, true and honest man, whether he had been upon his side 
 in the election or against him, he placed him in his cabinet or in the 
 highest positions. The legislation of those four years was directed 
 honestly and fairly to the welfare of the nation. I simply refer you to 
 the history of the country to prove, that one of the proudest periods and 
 noblest administrations, is that of John Quincy Adams, immediately 
 preceding the year 1829. (Applause.) Now things are changed, sadly 
 changed; and we need not go back to trace up the gradual unfolding of 
 this change. The change, my hearers, was like a clap of thunder out of 
 a clear sky. The change came instantly upon a people in the highest 
 state of prosperity before 1829. Before 1833 came upon the nation 
 danger, corruption, want, threatening poverty, anarchy, derangement of 
 business and everything else deteriorated. What are the facts of the 
 case ? One of the first acts of this earnest old General was a political 
 proscription, putting out of every office every man on the opposite side ; 
 the next was the establishment of a pensioned press, extending an in- 
 fluence that could not be seen or touched, and yet that was mighty and 
 powerful throughout the whole nation. I say we can find in history 
 that just at that time were born into the nation's life three of the most 
 damning principles that ever entered into the administration of any 
 government. I mean first that suicidal principle " To the victors 
 belong the spoils" I mean secondly, that abominable principle, that 
 the administration in power must use the power of the government to 
 secure its continuance in office. I mean thirdly, that equally ruinous 
 one, that the legislation of our land must be directed toward the same 
 end of perpetuating the power and the influence of the party. Now I 
 say just then the history of our country shows, were born those very 
 destructive principles into our national life. 
 
 Look at the first one. Could it have been born anywhere else than 
 in the depths of corruption " to the victors belong the spoils !" The 
 very sentence smells of blood, and looks like spoliation. Victors in a 
 Republican government ! " To victors," in a government for the ad- 
 ministration of free institutions, "belong the spoils !" "We have won 
 
15 
 
 the battle, we have routed the foe, we have resorted to all means to 
 gain the day, the spoils are ours /" What nation could live under a 
 motto like this ? No nation at all, and much less a Republican nation. 
 Then it was born, and from that time to this it has been practiced, not 
 by one party, but it has been accepted by all the parties of the land, 
 and has become an unblushing, boldly announced cry of the politician, 
 " To the victors belong the spoils." Men say it and do not blush ! I 
 wonder the Devil could say it and not blush ! In a free country like 
 this, in the midst of Republican institutions, " We have won the politi- 
 cal battle, and the spoils are ours!" " Out with every man opposed to 
 our party, cast him out of office," " direct all legislation to the continu- 
 ance of ourselves in power j" and why? " We are victors and the spoils 
 are ours!" 
 
 I have said this has entered into all the parties. When we had won 
 the victory some two or three years ago, there was a little, insignificant 
 position that a good Democrat had been occupying, I don't know how 
 many years. I was desirous they should keep in place a good man, an 
 honest man worthy in every sense well versed in the functions of the 
 office. The whole community nearly wished him to be retained, yet 
 because of this ruthless proscription, that has become the motto of the 
 day, this gentleman was put aside, out of office. I thought I would call 
 on a Senator from New Jersey in relation to this matter. I went and 
 spoke to this man, telling him I thought it would be exceedingly pleas- 
 ing to the Republicans as well as the Democrats, if this gentleman were 
 allowed to continue in office. The Senator heard me quietly for a little 
 while, listened to what I said, stroked his whiskers, and then without 
 offering an argument said, " Well, Mr. Wiley, the * spoils belong to the 
 victors.'" (Laughter.) 
 
 What injury has this done in the nation ! It has distributed corrup- 
 tion and pollution into all the political parties of the land ; it has 
 elevated men into office, the most unworthy to hold those positions. 
 It has become definitely understood that the game played for in nearly 
 every political campaign is but a game for spoils that when victorious 
 they may gather in the fruits. It is a contest for gold and power. It 
 has excited strong political partizanship in our land. It has intensified 
 the contests of these parties. I wish I could believe, and you wish you 
 could believe, when we carry on a stern and intense political campaign 
 for the election of President or Governor, that both parties were zealous 
 to get the best man in the position, the best officers in power, the best 
 laws passed. I wish in my heart I could believe it, and you wish you 
 could believe it. We know it is not this patriotic desire to place the 
 
16 
 
 best men in positions, and to secure to the government the best legis- 
 lation ; but we know perfectly well, that the scheming, the plotting, 
 the zealous efforts on both sides are, to get the positions for the rewards 
 that are returned. 
 
 Passing to those other two principles, they are equally bad and de- 
 structive in their influence on the nation, Look at the legislative 
 assemblies, look not far away from Trenton, when any subject comes 
 before the Congress of the United States or the legislature of a single 
 state, and see with what unerring accuracy you can tell how men are 
 going to vote. You know the Republicans will vote on that side ; and 
 the Democrats will arrange themselves on that side. The vote is 
 counted, and we are as familiar with it as with our a b c ; it is a party 
 vote. It is not a broad, patriotic, comprehensive view is this measure 
 for the welfare of the state or nation ? It is not a broad .patriotic and 
 comprehensive view is this a good law or is it an injurious one ? But 
 it is this will it satisfy our constituents ? How will this meet the 
 wants of the party ? How must I vote as Republican or Democrat ? 
 And when the vote is taken you can tell precisely how the two parties 
 stand. What has been the consequence ? Some of the basest laws 
 ever passed by an enlightened nation, have been passed by our national 
 and state governments j and some of the best laws, that would have ad- 
 ministered to the welfare of the nation, have been cast aside, simply on 
 the principle of a party vote like this. I say I wondered long ago that 
 the God of heaven looking down on this nation, so dead to patriotism, 
 so devoted to selfish gain and partizan politics, so reckless of the true 
 interests of the nation and of the government, had not let his thunder- 
 bolt fall upon us long ago. 
 
 Some ask, what has that to do with the Rebellion now upon us V 
 It has much to do with it every way. What is the Rebellion that is 
 upon us ? It is a partizan strife. It is one -party that has been taught 
 through all these thirty years, this lesson, that if you gain the victory 
 you secure the spoils. It has been taught by this political corruption 
 to struggle for the gain of mere official position, to hold the reins and 
 rule and direct the affairs of the nation. It has disseminated political 
 ambition. It has given rise to scheming and plotting in Congress and 
 out of Congress. It has awakened the most intense party strife in the 
 history of the past, and laid the foundation for that political aspiration 
 for high positions in our land, that has taken full possession of one part 
 of our country, " Wdll rule, or ruin." Who will rule or ruin ? Men 
 that love gold. Who will rule or ruin ? Men that understand dis- 
 tinctly that if they gain the victory they are entitled to the spoils. 
 
17 
 
 Who will rule or ruin ? Men who see in the onward progress of virtue 
 and righteousness and truth, that these abominable schemes are to be 
 checked, the government taken out of their hands, and they are to be 
 laid on the shelf. As soon as we reached a point in this political cor- 
 ruption when the integrity of the people said, this thing shall go no 
 farther ;" as soon as we reached the point when we resolved to take 
 out of the hands of the South the power of the nation, what was the 
 result 1 ? Why they said, if we can't rule we'll ruin. What does it 
 mean ? It means the time has come when the South cannot rule the 
 North, when it cannot have command over the treasury and government 
 of the nation. It means the day has come when the people will elect 
 honest men to fill the positions of the country, and will defeat those 
 abominable principles that were originated thirty years ago. (Applause.) 
 When these dishonest politicians south or north of Mason and Dixon's 
 line found this time come upon us, they were ready to ruin rather than 
 givejip the spoils. We have a few north of this line as well as south. 
 (Applause.) They don't like to see the spoils go out of their hands. 
 They don't like the day to reach them when they shall no longer be 
 able to dip their hands into Uncle Sam's pocket. (Laughter.) They 
 don't like to know that a new class of men are to come, and try their 
 hand in working this nation. 
 
 I say then in every way, in many respects it is this political corrup- 
 tion that has led to this disruption in our land. It is this that has 
 awakened the spirit in the south after the day of the dissolution of 
 these men had come to " let loose the dogs of war, and cry havoc" 
 
 Let me call your attention to the third. I have stated it to be 
 c ' actual collisions occurring in the administration of our government." 
 It was to be expected that in the administration of the government of a 
 great country like this, with such separate and varying interests, with 
 so many differing localities under that government, that we should have 
 collisions and should have difficulties ; but it was equally to be ex- 
 pected that we would always have wise and honest men who would be 
 ready to meet these conflicts and guide the ship of state safely through 
 them. Thanks to God's providence ! we had these men sterling, 
 honest, patriotic men for many years in the history of our country, men 
 whose names are indeed venerable and hallowed in the history of the 
 nation first among them stands the great Father of his country himself. 
 (Applause.) Then such men as Jefferson, and Madison, and Monroe, 
 and Clay, and Webster, men who have gone down to sleep in honorable 
 graves, whose names our children will mention to the last generation 
 upon our land. (Applause.) These men have passed away. It has 
 2 
 
18 
 
 been many a year since sterling and honest, upright and noble patriots 
 like these stood in our congressional halls, and were ministers in our 
 legislative assemblies. Heaven grant the day may soon come when, out 
 of the multitudes of capable and honest and wise men throughout our 
 once happy land, we shall select men not for their mere party services, 
 not for their mere availability in an election, not for their mere purse 
 that commands many votes, not for their mere political and party rela- 
 tionships, but for their might and power as patriots and as statesmen. 
 I say, then, Providence having favored us with men like these during 
 many years of our history, we guarded off these necessary collisions that 
 came in the course of our government ; but at last one came for which 
 we had no wise hand at the helm, and the ship ran upon the rocks. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Let us look at a few of these collisions. The first was in 1819-20, 
 it was the one usually called " the great Missouri contest," arising out 
 of the admission of Missouri to membership in the Union as a state.- At 
 the 'session of 181819, the house of Congress passed a bill admitting 
 Missouri into the Union, on the condition that all children born in Mis- 
 souri after the passage of that act should be free when they reached the 
 age of twenty-five, and no other means should be made use of for the* 
 introduction of slavery in the State of Missouri. The bill thus passed 
 in the House, went up to the Senate, and was returned without the con- 
 dition. The House refused to concede this point, and of course the bill 
 providing for the admission of Missouri into the Union was laid on the 
 table. 
 
 Congress adjourned, and the excitement that had already been awak- 
 ened by the discussions in Congress, went out among the people. The 
 first great contest, now more than forty years ago, arose on this question, 
 the same that agitates us to-day. Flaming orators went through the 
 North and the South discussing the slavery question, and the admission 
 of Missouri into the Union. Conventions were called and agitated by 
 this question. Legislative bodies acted upon it the South taking the 
 ground that Missouri should be admitted with slavery, and most of the 
 northern conventions opposing the admission of a new state burdened 
 with this institution. Thus matters stood in 1819 and 18'20. It came 
 up again before Congress. The House still stood upon its previous bill, 
 that Missouri should be admitted on the condition that the children of 
 her slaves should be liberated as they reached the age of twenty-five. 
 
 The South took its ground broadly on what it termed the Constitution 
 
 that we, the government, had nothing to do with the status of slavery 
 in Missouri, that it belonged to Missouri alone to settle that question. 
 
19 
 
 The North took the ground, that as Missouri was not a state, it was in 
 the power of Congress to say under what conditions she should be 
 admitted into the Union. Then'came the battle, the great contest that 
 shook the nation to its center at that time, and there was raised even 
 then forty years ago -perhaps the first cry of the dissolution of the 
 Union, and that cry came up from the same South that has been hurl- 
 ing it out on every critical occasion that has arisen in otlr country. There 
 stood up one of the great men I have mentioned. He looked over this 
 contest, and, as he said, "trembled at the danger that threatened." He 
 threw himself between the parties and endeavored to pacify the elements 
 and restore peace. That man was the illustrious Henry Clay ! (Ap- 
 plause.) He came forward and stood in the breach between the two 
 angered parties. He proclaimed himself as standing on the interpreta- 
 tion of the South. He stated it as his view that it belonged to Missouri 
 alone to settle the question of slavery for herself, but then distinctly 
 stated this, that so decided was his own antagonism to this terrible insti- 
 tution, that if he were a citizen of the State of Missouri, he would rather 
 wish her to remain out of the Union, than come into it with this stigma 
 and blot upon her. He went farther, and predicted, that while he thought 
 in the abstract this was the right of Missouri, yet he lifted his warning 
 voice and said to the South, " If in the coming time you insist upon this 
 abstract right, and claim that the approaching territories that arc coming 
 into this Union shall have the power to enter into it clothed with this 
 badge of infamy, you will inevitably bring a disruption of this Union.'' 
 Then came the grand compromise of 1820. Missouri^ was admitted, 
 admitted without the condition, the House yielding the point, on condi- 
 tion that the great northwestern territories should forever be dedicated 
 to freedom. That contest was safely over. 
 
 We passed on till 1832. Then we had another the great Nullifica- 
 tion Contest when this little lady from the South said she would not 
 submit to the laws passed by the Congress of the United States with 
 regard to the Protective Tariff; and when that stern old Unionist Gen- 
 eral Jackson, heard of it, he said if she did not submit, every foot of the 
 soil of South Carolina should be covered with her own blood. That was 
 about the right way to talk. (Applause.) It is a strange thing when 
 we go back to study the history of that contest, to find that the first 
 bill for the Protective Tariff was introduced by a Mr. Lowndes from 
 South Carolina, and that the bill was advocated most strenuously by 
 Hon. John C. Calhoun, the father, perhaps the true father, of Secession 
 in our day, and a very little while after the leader in the great Nullifi- 
 cation Contest. 
 
20 
 
 The Protective Tariff became necessary by the war of 18^2. ID 181 & 
 Mr. Lo wndes of South Carolina brought forward his bill, and, after 
 various successive modifications, we had a well-established Protective 
 System about 1S24. I might remark, it is just as strange when Mr, 
 Lowndes brought forward this bill that the Republicans of New Eng- 
 land and Massachusetts went strongly against it. Whyl Then New 
 England was not quite so large a manufacturing place as now, but her 
 great interest lay in the carrying trade r in the boating and shipping busi- 
 ness, and this tariff touched that a Little, and therefore New England 
 stood against it. In the- course of fifteen years things turned round. 
 The staple of the Smith,, she saw, was cotton. She saw she could afford 
 to sacrifice wheat, corn, everything else,, to raise this .staple and export 
 it abroad. She saw that this manufacturing skill in. the North, that has 
 become so mighty,, was then slowly developing itself to meet the wants 
 of the country. She discovered this fact, that after she had sent her 
 cotton abroad, and England manufactured it iato goods- and it was- 
 brought back to this country again, she was paying a tariff on her own- 
 product. She said, " I wont do it," and came up to the session of 1832. 
 and said, " we must have an end of this Protective Tariff system, and 
 we will not pay duties on eur own goods." New England found then, 
 that her great interest lay in- manufactures that the South conld raise 
 their cotton or other staples, but that by her own mighty head and 
 skilful hand she was compelled to make her fortunes. She stood up 
 against this. South Carolina, who- led off in this- contest,, said she would 
 not submit, and claimed the power of every state in th@ Union to nullify 
 at its pleasure the laws passed by the Congress of the United States. 
 General Jackson listened, and said it was not the power of ne state to 
 nullify the acts of Congress. He iss-ued a proclamation ordering South 
 Carolina to obey the laws of Congress, He ordered soldiers into the 
 state. The navy began to gather into Charleston harbor. Yet the 
 proud little Miss stood up boldly, held a convention on the 19th Novem- 
 ber, 1 832, in Columbus, and passed an ordinance there that the State 
 of South Carolina was an independent and sovereign state, and that it 
 iras her power, and she would claim it and maintain it to the last, to 
 nullify the acts of the Congress of the United States. That ordinance 
 passed by the convention was brought into the legislative body of South 
 Carolina, and they passetl it, and laid down the test-oath that every 
 officer of South Carolina, military and civil, should pledge himself upoii 
 oath to render his first allegiance to South Carolina, and t stand for 
 the independence of his state. She threw out also a broad hint, that 
 application would be made to Great Britain for aid in this contest. 
 
You sec now she still looked to England ! In every emergency she has 
 been sighing for these flesh-pots of England. The 'General stood firm ; 
 but both agreed finally to a compromise. 
 
 Again I nrast say something about General Jackson. He did -what 
 every good, honest ruler would have done he did what I wish in my 
 heart James Buchanan nad done. (Laughter and applause.) But there 
 was this difficulty in the case of General Jackson ; lie was ready to yield 
 the whole ground to the saucy South, and was In sympathy with the 
 movement of the Soutn, and wished the overthrow of the tariff principle. 
 He would have given up the whole ground, had not that same patriot 
 come forward again, Henry Clay, and with the wisdom of a statesman 
 pacified the contest (applause), saving the Protective System and satis- 
 fying the South by laying aside, for the time being, the tariff on all 
 those manufactured articles which came into competition with the manu- 
 factures of our own country. That storm was over, and we have little 
 idea now, except as we study the history of those times, ho-w nearly that 
 conflict came to realizing a rebellion in our land. South Carolina was 
 armed and ready for the battle ; and who for one moment doubts, if she 
 had struck the blow, she would have been followed by her sister states 
 of the South. Timely wisdom, honorable statesmanship, true patriotism, 
 stepped forward and saved the wreck. 
 
 We had another collision. I would date it about 1844, continuing 
 until 1850, or perhaps I might say, .continuing to the present day j for 
 it is the same struggle originating about that time that has thrown 
 us into this contest. 
 
 When we go back to about 1840, or even back to 1832, we find the 
 South had learned the fact that its interest was in cotton. It discovered 
 the fact that cotton is a powerful exhauster of the soil, and must have 
 increasing territory, into which it may move itself, that it may continue 
 profitable and advantageous. There lay just west of this fertile South, 
 now nearly exhausted, one of the most beautiful tracts of land on the 
 continent. It was the territory of Texas. Into that country Southerners 
 began to move by emigration, an.d about 1836 they had already poured 
 into the minds of those native Texans the idea of their independence, 
 and striking for liberty from the government of Mexico. The Texans 
 liked the idea, and in 1836 proclaimed their independence, the result of 
 which was war. The Texans obtained help from this country, princi- 
 pally from the South, but largely too from the North. I had personal 
 friends, I remember you had some, perhaps to enter into this contest 
 of the " lone star" for her independence from Mexican rule. Our coun- 
 try was hasty in Doming forward to acknowledge the independence of 
 
the struggling Texans ; and I have sometimes thought that during this 
 contest, when we' have said so many hard things against France and 
 England, we do not remember how soon, how offensively hasty, we were 
 to recognize the independence of that state before Mexico had yielded 
 the contest. In recollecting this, we might hesitate in some of our 
 charges against these nations abroad. However, Texas gained its inde- 
 pendence, and the great question came forward then, as she stood out 
 alone, whether she should be admitted into the Union. The North 
 strenuously opposed its admission. You recollect who was a prominent 
 candidate for the Presidency then, Martin Van Buren, and you remem- 
 ber when the time came for selecting the candidate for the Presidency, 
 Martin Van Buren, who was^opposed to the admission of Texas, was set 
 aside, and James K. Polk chosen, a man so little known that most of 
 the people would ask, who is James K. Polk ? Where did he come 
 from ? But who was pledged to the admission of Texas, and put in 
 opposition against that noblest of patriots, Henry Clay. I still remem- 
 ber that contest. You recollect how the opposite party said one thing 
 in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia. You remember how they 
 cried " tariff and no Texas" when they came into the outside counties 
 of Massachusetts, and cried " no tariff and Texas" south of Mason and 
 Dixon's line. James K. Polk was elected President of the United 
 States against the best known man, and one of the most honest patriots 
 and wisest statesmen that our nation had ever produced. We know the 
 people were largely opposed, in the North, to the admission of Texas 
 into the Union. We understood, or our statesmen understood, that the 
 admission of Texas as a state, already bound in perpetuity to slavery, 
 would be laying the foundation of such a strife and contest in this 
 nation that it would never end until it led to bloodshed and the destruc- 
 tion of the Union. Mr. Clay looked over the ground and gave us a 
 prophecy that has been fulfilled to the letter. " I dread," said this 
 statesman, "the day when Texas shall be admitted into this Union. It 
 admits a precedent that will be pressed upon the nation until it can 
 endure no more, then it will refuse ; then will come the cry of disunion, 
 and beyond that I dare not look." But Polk was elected, Texas ad- 
 mitted into the Union, and up came the old contest again with regard 
 to her admission as a slave state. The battle was fought. Texas was 
 carried in, slaves and all. A large territory, big enough for five states, 
 was thus carried into the Union, and slavery established forever there, until 
 we shall wipe it out. (Applause.) Then came a war costing $200,000,000. 
 But we could well pay for that, for we got two big slices out of the 
 Mexican territories, and gained the vast gold mines of California, and 
 
23 
 
 I 
 
 that rich silver district of New Mexico. Again came the encounter. 
 What about ? These states. The South said, " Here is territory free 
 that must be slave." " No," said the North, and again came the con- 
 test, and battle that was finally ended by excluding forever out of 
 California, and nearly excluding out of Mexico, this introduction of the 
 badge of infamy, and throwing to the angry lion the crumb of that new 
 fugitive slave law of 1850, which makes every Christian man's heart 
 shudder and recoil, when he thinks that by any law of his native land 
 he should become a hunter and catcher of his fellow man in bondage ! 
 (Applause.) It was not a large enough loaf to throw to the excited 
 South. It was an outrageous doctrine to make every northern man a 
 slave catcher ! The people muttered and murmured, and the thunder- 
 ing continued in the nation from that day until this. I must give you 
 another little episode. 
 
 About this time, when we thought the compromise of 1850 had 
 brought a little peace into the country, there was born a new giant, 
 some of you may remember his name, " Native Americanism" he was 
 called sometimes, " Know-nothingism." The young fellow grew rapidly 
 and mightily, and began first to elect local officers, then to put in go- 
 vernors of states, and by the year 1854, he gave a pretty plain indica- 
 tion that in the contest of 1855 he would elect a Know-nothing Presi- 
 dent. There was a Know-nothing President elected in that year. 
 (Laughter and applause.) But he did not belong technically to that 
 class or party. It was a clear case as politicians looked over the field, 
 that if something was not done to put withs around this giant, or crop 
 the hair of this growing Samson, there would be a Know-nothing Presi- 
 dent in 1856. The giant arose and struck the Democracy at one of its 
 weak points, and gave the contest the popular aspect of putting the nation 
 on its guard against the mighty influence of the foreign element that 
 that party had been securing. I think no statesman, no historian, on 
 looking back over these times could doubt the question, that if that 
 giant had been allowed to go on he would have made the next Presi- 
 dent, and established the new party. But now good and wise politicians 
 and statesmen began to look over the ground and said, u This wont do. 
 What shall we do? We must strike a new issue. We cannot go into 
 this approaching campaign of 1855 on the issue of Native Americanism 
 and Democracy. What shall we do ? We shall strike a new issue." 
 A new issue was struck for the people. There was introduced into 
 Congress that bill that proposed to repeal the Compromise of Missouri of 
 1820, around which the memories of the nation, as a great pacificator, 
 had been clustering for more than thirty years. Stephen A. Douglas 
 
24 
 
 the keenest politician we have had in modern times, saw exactly 
 where to strike this nation's heart, and when he and his compeers 
 brought forward, in the Congress of the United States, the famous 
 Kansas and Nebraska bill, that proposed to throw open the territories 
 of these United States to the ingress of slavery, the watchword of the 
 Rebellion -was spoken. Whether those men, by their political manceuv- 
 ring, meant simply to throw out a new startling issue before the people 
 of this nation, and thereby defeat this young giant; whether they 
 looked forward in the dim future to see the coming storm they were to 
 wake up, and saw this powerful agitation that was to move and stir the 
 nation to an extent that no political exorcism in the future could put down ; 
 whether they foresaw it would inevitably result in rebellion and bloodshed 
 and the cry of disunion, I don't pretend to say ; but history, when it comes 
 to analyze the events leading to this Rebellion, will write down upon 
 one of its earliest pages the man that spoke the watch-word of Rebellion 
 in this country was Stephen Ji. Douglas. That watch-word was the 
 Kansas and Nebraska bill, and the repeal of the compromise of 1820. 
 (Applause.) It verily made a new issue that fixed the heart of this 
 nation, north and south. Every man in the South lifted it up and said, 
 " That is the true doctrine for us : all the territories open to the pecu- 
 liar institution. Away with the compromises of the past !" The men 
 of the North said " No ! not one step farther for this shame of the na- 
 tion. (Applause.) 
 
 A new party sprang into power, a young giant, full-grown at its birth, 
 with teeth in its mouth. (Applause.) This party nominated for its 
 candidate T admit on partizan or sectional grounds John C. Fremont. 
 (Applause.) The latter party took up just as sectional a candidate for 
 the Presidency though born in the North, and the North has not felt 
 very proud of him. (Laughter.) The contest waged was a battle for 
 the Kansas and Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
 mise. It was a question of slavery in the territories of the nation. 
 But Buchanan was elected, the bill was passed, the Compromise was 
 gone, Kansas was open. The most terrible chapter of blood and mutual 
 slaughter that our nation had ever had in its history before, was written 
 upon the plains of Kansas. Four years of the most corrupt, imbecile, 
 extravagant and traitorous administration our government had ever 
 known, passed then ; an administration when beneath the very eye, if 
 not with the collusion of the President himself, treason was practiced 
 and matured and ripened into life. The South distinctly understood 
 from the time of that contest the Toombses, the Davises, the Yanceys, 
 the Tulees all saw that the contest sprung upon the nation in 1855, m 
 
25 
 
 1859-60 would win upon the side of liberty, right and the law ; and it 
 was a foregone conclusion they must separate and divide. The Southern 
 papers spake it out clearly, conventions announced it distinctly James 
 Buchanan was to be the last President of the whole United States. 
 During those four years, I say, everything was done, distinctly and 
 avowedly, to prepare for this contest. Men occupying positions in the 
 Cabinet itself were traitors, scattering our armies, sending off our navy, 
 distributing into the South arms and munitions of war practicing those 
 arts of treason beneath the very eye of the President himself. Oh ! 
 what a blot on the history of this nation will be those four years of the 
 administration of James Buchanan. Now another campaign came, and 
 we must have new candidates for the great struggle of 1860. The Re- 
 publican party laid down its platform. It was a platform that had for 
 its most prominent principle the exclusion of slavery from the territo- 
 ries of the United States forever ; and selected for their candidate 
 honest Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) A convention to elect a can- 
 didate for the opposite party met in Charleston, and from the commence- 
 ment it was evident that there were two parties on hand ; a Northern 
 party, ready for the same old Douglas platform of the previous four 
 years ; ready to make every concession that could be made to this Mo- 
 loch of Slavery, whose thirst was so great that nothing would satisfy it, 
 but the free access and ingress of slavery to all the territories of the 
 United States. Even the Democratic party could not swallow that, and 
 the convention voted, one wing nominating Stephen A. Douglas, a man 
 who has gone to render his account to God. The old logical saying, 
 nil de mortuum nisi bonum, I would apply to Mr. Douglas, a true and 
 honest patriot I freely believe in my heart ; a man that meant well to 
 his country, 1 have not a doubt, notwithstanding what I have said above. 
 I am only sorry it was not in the counsels of the Infinite One to leave 
 him for us in this contest. We would have found him heartily on the 
 side of the government and of the Union, and his powerful influence 
 might have told mightily in this struggle. He has gone to his reward 
 and to his portion. 
 
 Another party bolted, but met again in preliminary convention at 
 Richmond. (Laughter.) They laid down a new platform, and reassembled 
 in Baltimore to establish their new creed by the nomination of Breckin- 
 ridge and Lane. Then we had three parties in the contest. Let us 
 look for a moment at the platforms offered to the American people. It 
 was the contest that brought on the Rebellion. You will find the divid- 
 ing line of all was the simple position they took with regard to the status 
 of slavery in the territories of the United States. Said the Republican 
 
26 
 
 party, " Slavery must not be extended any farther into the territories of 
 the United States Congress has the power to limit it." Said the party of 
 Mr. Douglas, and of that platform, " Leave the question of slavery alone 
 to be settled by these territories themselves, and after they have settled 
 it, and come up to Congress asking for admission into the Union, it is 
 the simple duty of Congress to admit or reject: Congress has no power 
 over the matter." Said the Breckenridge and Lane platform the ex- 
 treme Southern platform, " Slavery is entitled to its position and place 
 in all the territories held as the common property of the United States, 
 and Congress has the power and owes the duty, to guard and defend it 
 in its introduction into these territories. 
 
 The three parties took their grounds. It may appear to some that the 
 party that ought to prevail was the middle party, the one that proclaimed 
 what might be called a compromise. We have the saying, " in media 
 tutissimus ibis" safety lies in the medium ; avoid extremes and you 
 have the safe course. I admit here was the medium. There was the 
 Republican party, saying " No slavery in the territories at all ;" there 
 was the other, the extreme Southern party, saying " Slavery in all the 
 territories if we can put it there ;" and there stood the medium party 
 saying, " Let it alone, if the North can keep it out of the territories it is 
 best, if the South can put it into the territories, all right." That seems 
 like occupying the middle ground. I voted for the first one, for the plat- 
 form of the Republican party, and you have a right to ask the question, 
 why not follow then the old adage? Would it x not have been wise to 
 have taken that middle ground which would probably have pacified both 
 parties^ I answer I had read with tears in my eyes the terrible history 
 of Kansas v I. had seen this experiment of " letting it alone." The 
 nation had been groaning for four years under the cries of suffering men 
 in this far western state as the North was trying to make Kansas free, 
 and the South to make Kansas slave, and I recoiled, and tens of thou- 
 sands, yea millions of voting freemen of the North, recoiled from the 
 thought that Nebraska should be a Kansas, and Utah should be a Kan- 
 sas, and New Mexico should bo a Kansas, and every coining territory 
 and developing future state of our country should be a Kansas, drenched 
 with blood, baptized with the slaughter of its own children, before it 
 should come into this Union. That is what the platform meant, and 
 that is why the parties arranged themselves side by side, understanding 
 distinctly there was no compromise when they had reached these two 
 extremes. They intended somebody should win, and they knew who 
 would be elected. The South meant that the Republican party should 
 succeed, and Abraham Lincoln be President of the United States. It 
 
27 
 
 was a success, and Abraham Lincoln was elected : and now the idea of 
 secession, disunion and separation came up all over the South. The 
 die is cast, we can live no longer with the North. 
 
 On the 20th December, 1800, before any act whatever had been 
 passed by Congress, and long before Mr. Lincoln had been inaugurated, 
 South Carolina unfurled the banner of Rebellion. Congress assembled, 
 bills were offered to pacify the South, compromises were presented, no- 
 thing was accepted. The same Mr. Douglas now came forward like an 
 honest patriot, and took his stand on the side of the Union, and said to 
 the man who is now the President of the Southern Confederacy, " Mr. 
 Davis we can get for you, without a difficulty, the Crittenden Compro- 
 mise ;" said Mr. Davis, " We will have no compromise, we mean to 
 separate." They were yet as you understand distinctly, in both houses 
 of Congress, in power, and might have passed any laws or any bills of 
 concession ; and with a little trembling and misgiving, many a Repub- 
 lican too in that Congress would possibly and probably have gone over 
 when the coming storm was in the futnre. No, it would not do. A peace 
 convention was called. The best and wisest statesmen of the North and 
 South met to devise measures to make peace. They offered the Critten- 
 den Compromise ; you remember what it was " We will give you all 
 south of 36 40', and all you can get besides on the southern side of 
 that line was implied in it will that suit you V " No," said a promi- 
 nent leader in this Rebellion, " If you were to get us a carle blanche 
 on which to write our conditions we would write nothing ; we mean to 
 separate." On the 7th day of January, 1861, Senator Tulee of 
 Florida, wrote to his constituents froin Washington, in these words 
 " I send to you herewith a report of the doings of a meeting of south- 
 ern representatives, representing the States of Florida, Alabama, Geor- 
 gia, Louisiana, and Texas, held in this city last night, to take into 
 consideration the best means of separating from this Union. We 
 agreed that it was best for the Southern States to separate, and that 
 the separation should be made on or about the 14th of February. We 
 put it off thus into the future to enable Louisiana and Texas to join with 
 us." Signed by fourteen Senators, representing seven Southern States. 
 You remember South Carolina was already out. How that reads like 
 the doings of the celebrated Convention of 1790, in bloody Paris ! How 
 that reads like the history of Catiline and his co-conspiritors eighteen 
 centuries ago ! Fourteen Congressmen of the United States sitting by 
 day in January and February of 1861, sitting by day in the halls of 
 Congress, plotting to separate from the Union, and in spite of all 
 efforts of the administration to stay the coming storm, at night retiring 
 
28 
 
 to their silent caucuses to develop more securely still their schemes of 
 disruption and rebellion 1 Oh ! that we had had in that day a Cicero 
 for these Catilines ! Oh ! that we had, as Rome had, its dark chamber 
 beneath the capitol into which the traitor entered, but out of which no 
 man ever came. (Applause.) The die was cast. State after State 
 seceded from the Union, fort after fort was taken, arsenal after arsenal 
 was robbed, mint after mint, and the property of the nation appropriated 
 to the use of the Rebellion. Major Anderson moved from Moultrie into 
 Sumter promptly 'Carolina moved into Moultrie. The Star of the 
 West on her pacific voyage to feed hungry men entered the harbor of 
 Charleston, and the first gun of the Rebellion was fired upon this peaceful 
 messenger, and all this before a single man had been called by the 
 newly elected President, all this before the 4th day of March, 1861 ! 
 All what ? Why the South had seceded, the Southern Confederacy 
 organized, Jeff. Davis inaugurated, thirty thousand men called for, a 
 pacific vessel fired upon by the traitors, fort after fort, naval position 
 after naval position seized upon by these men, and then at last, though 
 the President was inaugurated and gave out his pacific proclamation, 
 determined to adhere strictly to the platform on which he had been 
 elected, though the North stooped even to pusillanimity again to make 
 friends with these men, at the last the emergency came, and our noble 
 heroes of Sumter were starving. Again our proposals peacefully to 
 give them food on which to live were refused. " No," said the men, 
 *' we must have war." 
 
 The President of the Southern Confederacy, on the llth of April, 
 " cried havoc, and let loose the dogs of war." It was done to fire the 
 heart of the South, and it fired the heart of the JVort/i. ( Applause. ) An 
 indignant people now endeavored to crush the Rebellion beneath the 
 hand of the government. Mr. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand 
 men, and thirty-five thousand more were called for by Davis. This is 
 the beginning of the struggle. Yet said these men, " you drove us into 
 the war." After making every preparation and every arrangement to 
 strike the first blow, against every concession a free, and generous, and 
 noble people could make, yet these miserable traitors and their sympa- 
 thizers in the North say, " You pressed us and left us nothing but 
 battle and war!" 
 
 You ask now, in conclusion, " how we got into this war ?" Two 
 people differing in spirit and aspirations, two societies differing in their 
 civilization have come at last, after slow and long development, into an 
 actual conflict of arms ; a conflict that perhaps no human wisdom could 
 have prevented. One or the other of two antagonistic civilizations as 
 
29 
 
 these must be crushed, for both cannot live together. Do you ask what 
 brought us into this conflict ? I answer the corruption that was spread 
 throughout all our land, the defection of politicians from the true prin- 
 ciples of national government, and the consequent ministering to party 
 schemes and partizan interests. You ask what led to this struggle ? I 
 answer chiefly, and above all, slavery is the heart, the spirit, and the 
 soul that lies at the bottom of all the causes I have mentioned before, 
 (Applause.) Why are we a different people and have a different society 
 and spirit and civilization ? Because in the North we are free, and in 
 the South they hold their fellow-men in bonds. Why have we become 
 profoundly politically corrupt in the past ? I answer ; because there 
 was one section of our country that had an immediate interest incorpo- 
 rated with its life, around which it rallied all its power, over which it 
 threw its whole guardian care, and for which it bought the votes of the 
 nation to sustain it in existence. What has brought these collisions 
 that I have mentioned in the past? I answer since 1820 it was slavery ; 
 in 1832 it was slavery; in 1844 it was slavery; in 1850 it was 
 slavery ; in 1855 it was slavery ; in 1860 it was slavery. It was the 
 corner stone of the Confederacy. In the first speech of the Vice- Presi- 
 dent, of that non-descriptj the cause of the war is represented to be that 
 institution which has nursed its spirit in the South, and has awakened 
 opposition in the North. 
 
 We are in war. Why ? Because the world moves, because society 
 grows, because Christianity advances, because the earth, in each cycle 
 it makes, sloughs off a mass of sin and hell, and rolls onward toward 
 that brighter day, when heaven and earth in peace shall meet and kiss 
 each other. (Applause.) Why are we in war? Because the world 
 has grown too old to be blotted any longer by slavery. Why are they 
 in Rebellion ? Because Christianity has gone so far that the time has 
 come to cry liberty to the bondsman. (Applause.) 
 
 Slavery then, we answer, and the recoil of human nature against this 
 system, has been the spirit, the life and the soul of this Rebellion. 
 " No," says some man, " it was you Yankees." (Laughter.) " It was 
 you Northerners. You would not let slavery alone." I don't agree 
 with you. I don't believe that that caused the Rebellion ; but if it did, 
 if you are right in that opinion, it simply proves what I have said. It 
 is a very clear case that the Yankee would not have talked about a 
 thing if it had been non est. If there had been none of this evil, it 
 would not have stirred the heart of Christianity, not simply in Yankee- 
 dom, but through the whole North throughout the whole world. I 
 admit that speech-making, book-writiBg and sermon-preaching had 
 
30 
 
 much to do in awakening this contest. T admit that the world is 
 moving onward in its march toward better tilings, and that stirred the 
 hearts of the men who felt guilty in their consciences of a wrong against 
 humanity. Why didn't they keep still ? Because they could not. 
 Why didn't Peter and John keep still when the Jewish Sanhedrim said, 
 "speak no more or we will give thee stripes and imprisonment." Said 
 Peter and John, " we cannot but speak the things we have seen and 
 heard." Put down the voice that speaks against this oppression and 
 wrong ? Dam up the Niagara ; stop the already exploding volcano ; hurl 
 back the flashing lightning, and then talk of this 'advancing spirit of 
 humanity, and command it to be still in the presence of this human 
 wrong! Only a little while ago in this advancing spirit of the age, 
 Russia offered deliverance to her serfs, and shall we in this great 
 country, whose pride is. liberty, and which God has made the palladium 
 of human rights, shall we keep still and let this gigantic wrong grow 
 and spread and prosper in our land ? No. (Applause.) You ask too 
 large a price for the privilege. What is it ? Some few families, at the 
 utmost measurement some three hundred thousand men, in the South, 
 cried out " let us alone, we must have these bondsmen, it is our institu- 
 tion, it is our right." Mark it ! three hundred thousand men, women 
 and children, perhaps some ten thousand families have this claim on 
 these millions of men they are holding in bondage ! And now what 
 price do they ask ? They say to the world, " stop your free press ; 
 close up your free schools : silence your free church and pulpit ; away 
 with all these utterances of evil and these cries after the welfare of 
 humanity ; stop the car of human progress ; stay the onward march of 
 Christianity; hold back the course of civilization itself!" Why? 
 Why shall I not speak from my sacred pulpit the counsel of God ? 
 " Because / want to hold slaves." Why shall I chain the free press of 
 America and distort its utterings? "Because /(this little minority of 
 humanity) wish to hold slaves." Why must Christianity distort itself, 
 and misrepresent itself, and become corrupt, and bow, and cringe, and 
 stoop, and stay its onward progress of triumph, why ? " Because 7 
 wish to hold slaves." Admit your ground is right, that it is the 
 onward progress of liberty and right that has brought on this collision 
 between the two sections of our country ; then it still is true, that 
 slavery lies at its foundation. I don't believe that that is its cause. It 
 has been mighty ; but tenfold more mighty has been that degeneracy of 
 society, that corruption of the community ; that hardening of hearts, 
 that searing of consciences, that development of a thirst for gold, that 
 
31 
 
 ambition for lawlessness and aristocracy, that is the fruit of slavery 
 itself, that has led us into this conflict. 
 
 With these remarks, I thank you for the patient hearing you have 
 given me. I have talked longer than I thought to have clone. I have 
 presented to you -what strikes me as the causes of the present Rebellion. 
 I have tried honestly to answer the question, " How we got in ?" If 
 some of my facts as I have stated them are new, they are the results 
 of patient study and examination. If some of them cross } T our preju- 
 dices, it is not a time for prejudice when a nation trembles in the bal- 
 ance held up by its God. It is not a time for prejudice when weeping 
 widows and desolated houses are saddening the whole North and South. 
 Away with all these prejudices, and look fairly in the face of the facts, 
 and see the black and damning cause that has led this nation steadily 
 on until it has plunged us into bloodshed and war. (Applause.) 
 
HOW TO QET OUT. 
 
 I shall have to crave your indulgence again this evening with a few 
 personal remarks. You have already discovered that I am quite hoarse. 
 I should much better, I presume, be at home in bed, than attempting to 
 speak to-night 5 yet I think if you will allow me to talk a little carefully 
 at first, until I get my vocal organs warmed up and ready for opera- 
 tion, I shall be able to continue the lecture of the evening. 
 
 I have come, then, such as you find me, and shall try to do the best 
 I can in presenting the thoughts of the evening on the subject announced 
 for the lecture " How to get out of the war." 
 
 We tried to direct your attention on last Tuesday evening to " Plow 
 we got into the war," and we did so because we think it essential to 
 getting out that we rightly understand how we got in. As a practicing 
 physician for a number of years, I learned that it was very important in 
 coming to visit a patient to find out what was the cause of the man's 
 disease, especially if it was a cause within himself or that was constantly 
 operating, in order to relieve him from his malady ; and when I had found 
 out that cause, I had gained so much towards his cure. I recollect about 
 a year ago at a meeting occupying the platform in the city of Philadelphia 
 in connection with another gentleman. We were speaking on the sub- 
 ject of the war. He was a peculiar kind of War-Democrat, and friend 
 of the war and government, and had a great deal to .say about these 
 " hot Republicans," and about the reverence that was shown to the 
 negro and to slavery, and used one of the most powerful sentences I 
 think I ever heard in showing the absurdity of paying any attention to 
 the cause of this Rebellion. I felt a little warm while I was sitting 
 behind him, and listened to his remarks pretty decidedly, not knowing 
 exactly where I could hit him, until he finally made use of an illustra- 
 tion. It was this : " What would you think of a physician who came 
 to attend a man with a cold, who would begin to examine his boots, 
 and on finding that his cold had come from his having a hole in his boot, 
 to cure the man, would order the boot to be mended? Would not that 
 be absurd ?" Perhaps it would ; and yet there are some occasions in 
 which the mending of the boot; although it might not cure the cold that 
 
 (32) 
 
33 
 
 he already had, would hare a decided effect in keeping off the next. 
 (Laughter.) I thought I had the advantage, and could give a better 
 illustration. You see his illustration was simply a special one to apply 
 to a general subject. I took as my illustration a general one, that led 
 its application to a general subject such as the Rebellion is. I called 
 the attention of the citizens of Philadelphia to the condition of their 
 streets, their sewers and alleys, and said, suppose there was a fatal 
 disease ravaging this city, spfung evidently from the corruption and 
 filth collected in your streets and alleys, would there be anything 
 absurd in removing these filthy accumulations in order to stay the 
 ravages and progress of this disease ? And the audience saw my illus- 
 tration was best, and took him down and put me up. (Laughter.) 
 
 Before I take up the question "How are we to get out of the 
 war" I would like to consider it in a negative form, and show how not 
 to get out of it. I think that during the past two and a half years "tfe 
 have had not a few people in this country that are not particularly 
 anxious to get out of the war, and decidedly prefer to continue in y 
 especially in some quarters where it is a paying operation, or with some 
 because it makes political capital ; some especially who would wish the 
 war to continue at least during the year 1864. You can contribute 
 very considerably towards the perpetuity of the war upon us by being a 
 peace man always talking about the pleasures of peace, always refer- 
 ring us back to the halcyon days that we had before the war came, com- 
 plaining terribly about the taxes that this war is bringing upon us, 
 talking about the loss of our liberty, the terrible tyranny and oppression 
 0f our government. To perpetuate this war, do everything you can to 
 make the community in general believe that the country is going to be 
 ruined. If you are down in the lower walks of life, oppose every- 
 thing the government undertakes to do. A capital thing to oppose is the 
 draft. If the government calls for men to sustain itself, don't go your- 
 self, and don't let any other man go if you can help it. If you are not 
 a pious man, swear a little, curse the negro, say all you can against this 
 downtrodden and persecuted race. If you are an editor, you have a 
 large field and much better opportunity for carrying out this idea. If 
 you are an editor, bring out a leading editorial in every paper against 
 the absurdity of the measures of the government. Convince the people 
 that read your paper the government is wrong. Give them to under- 
 stand that if you were placed at the head of the administration you 
 would soon bring the war to a close. But the best capital you can 
 make is by speaking of the tyranny of the government. Convince the 
 people they are losing their liberty, so that every man who reads your 
 3 
 
34 
 
 paper can see while you are complaining about the curtailment of 
 liberty you have gone yourself into Jacobinism and libertinism. If 
 you are in the legislature, you are in a capital position to continue the 
 war for several years to come. Make the legislation of simple billg 
 that for three readings would last three days, make them last all the 
 winter. Divide yourselves off into strict party votes. Insist on every- 
 thing that shall be made to bear on the interest of your party, that a 
 measure shall be popular or unpopular, just as it promotes the interest of 
 the party platform on which you stand. 
 
 When the government comes forward to ask for men, use all the 
 legislation you can command against it. Become terribly afraid about 
 the independence and sovereignty of the individual states. Be greatly 
 alarmed for the honor of his excellency the Governor, for fear he should 
 lose his dignity. Get up a bill to keep the soldiers at least two miles 
 away from any polls of an election. (Applause.) Be sure that on no 
 account you allow the soldier to have a vote, for he is generally likely 
 to be a loyal and true man, and true to his country. (Applause.) If 
 you are Governor of a state, you are in a capital position to continue 
 the war for an indefinite period to come. Get out your naming message 
 every time the legislature meets. Put in your message the most ridicu- 
 lous and absurd distortions of all that has been done the previous year 
 by the administration. Be remarkably strict in standing on your 
 dignity as Governor of the State. If there should come a draft in your 
 state, be particular about the number of men ; be sure to count the en- 
 listments under your administration, so that you see how many men have 
 been taken ; if you make a mistake of seventy thousand men, it don't 
 make any difference, it delays the government. Make the humbler 
 classes believe they are persecuted, that they are awfully burdened by 
 the grandest tyranny that ever came into the world. Excite them under 
 the idea of the persecution that has come upon them in the form of a 
 draft. If you get them so excited that they begin to gather in mobs in 
 the streets, if they begin to kill men and destroy property, and make a 
 new Rebellion, don't be scared, just go in among them and call them 
 friends. (Applause.) If you can get in Congress, you have a fine 
 opportunity to delay the operations of the government, and to continue 
 the war. I need not delay you long on the chances you would have in 
 this position, because we have had some capital examples. There is 
 Vallandigham. You can follow in the footsteps of Breckinridge during 
 his ^brief congressional administration. You can follow Burnett of 
 Kentucky, or his patron from the same state, Davis, and oppose every- 
 thing that tends to a vigorous prosecution of the war. Insist upon it 
 
35 
 
 that the most profound respect and reverence shall be paid to the pro- 
 perty question. And here permit Hie to say, that of all the absurd 
 things that has come before my mind in this war, nothing has made me 
 feel smaller as an American than this same property question. Read 
 over the doings of the- legislature and Congress, and you would think 
 that property was truly the rcat Deity of the American people. The 
 right of all rights., the sacred thing above all saered things* And no 
 matter in what form that property is found, whether it is real and im- 
 movable estate, of movable estate standing on two feet, it is the same 
 thing. You may take men, you may protract the war, you may shed 
 seas of blood, but don't touch property. Stand on that ground as you 
 stand on your life. No pity for the poor widow's son : take him, no 
 matter; take the father's joy and hope, no mattery take the stay and 
 support of a family : iet them all .go ; but don't touch the man whose 
 face is black ; don't touch a man whom another claims as property ; in 
 fact risk the perpetuity of the Republic rather than lay your hand on 
 the great ideal of human property. I am sick of this> 
 
 la reading over one of the speeches ki Congress, made by a gentle- 
 man already named to-night, did you ever see anything more absurd 
 than the ground taken by that gentleman on the paying-for-the-negro 
 question? Now I don't care, nor do you care, whether cr not the 
 owner is paid for his slave ; but in this time of war, in this struggle for 
 the Ration's life, it does strike me as the most nauseating thing I have 
 ever found in human history, that we may take all the white men for 
 the service of the government, with not a word about pay, but must not 
 touch a black man who is held in bondage must sacredly observe the 
 bonds of this poor wretch. The draftsman may go into your house and 
 take the son, the hope of your future life, worth ten thousand slaves in 
 your estimation, and who is to pay, or who dreams of asking the 
 government to pay for this son of your heart's love, and of the care of 
 years ! Yet, if he enters into the Southern man's house, or into the 
 border states, and lays his hand on this biped, the government may- 
 have him on the condition that he is paid for ! The poor widow's son 
 may be 'thrust into the army, and who talks about compensating or 
 paying her for the use of her son ? Yet the black man must be paid 
 for because he is property, and the government must stoop from its 
 high position assumed eighty years ago, and for the sake of this miser- 
 able principle recognise property in man* Where in the Constitution of 
 the United States is ever recognized that principle ? Throughout that 
 sacred document, we have never yielded the point j our fathers were 
 wiser men than that to recognize in a public document the corner 
 
36 
 
 stone of our national government property in our fellow man. The 
 term the Constitution uses for these men is " persons held to service," 
 and recognizes them distinctly as persons, and has always (permit me to 
 say very unjustly) been allowing a large representation in the govern- 
 ment of our country in behalf of these persons. And yet when these 
 persons so noticed in the Constitution of the country, and so represented 
 in Congress, are needed for the country's service, editors by hundreds 
 and politicians by thousands, say the country has no right to touch this 
 property, or to lay hold upon a man who is held as the property of an- 
 other. It is just like that other absurd principle that has seemed so 
 strange to me the demand for recognizing the rights of traitors under 
 the Constitution of the United States ! You must not confiscate the 
 traitor's property. Why 1 Property is something sacred and beloved 
 in the American mind. Be careful of the traitor's Constitutional 
 Eights. You must not hurt the traitor. Whip him easy, get him 
 subdued softly, bring him back gently ', leave him as well off when the 
 war is done as when he commenced it; fight him with magnanimity, 
 with philanthropy ; but above all things don't hurt the traitor ! Where 
 in all the history of the world have we learned the fact except in 
 America a principle largely used by some men that the traitor 
 having gone out from under his government, thrown off his allegiance 
 to the government, takes up arms against his government, grasping at 
 the very throat and life of the nation, must have still preserved the 
 Constitutional Rights that belong to him as a true and loyal citizan * 
 My hearers, I read history, and I learn there is one right that belongs 
 to a traitor. When a man lifts up his arm to shed the blood of the 
 country, he forfeits all rights but one, and that is the right to hemp 
 enough to hang him. (Applause.) 
 
 Now look at the absurdity. The traitor has lost every right, even 
 that of his life and is not life the most sacred possession ? Is it not the 
 most valuable possession 1 ? And yet here is the cry, "you must not 
 touch his property nor harm anything that belongs to him." You must 
 religiously conduct the war in such a way as to leave him as well off 
 in the end as he was when he began. If you follow out this plan as 
 citizen, as editor, as legislator, as governor, and as congressman, you 
 can perpetuate the war for any indefinite number of years to come ; 
 and if any of you should happen to get into the position of general, then 
 you have a capital opportunity. You have simply to gather your army 
 together, take nearly one year to drill it ; (Laughter) every other day 
 have a grand review of a division, get everything ready to move, tell 
 the country you are going to move, and then find out that the ambu- 
 
37 
 
 lances are not on hand. (Laughter.) Get the ambulances all ready, 
 tell the nation you are ready now to move, then find out that you need 
 thirty wagons to carry your baggage. (Laughter.) When the thirty 
 wagons are made you can call in council your other generals, and con- 
 clude it is not time to move yet. (Laughter.) No matter if a higher 
 power says move, you delay, and when you do move you will only 
 have to battle with double-headed Dutchmen and Quaker guns. 
 (Laughter.) What difference? You have delayed the war! Try it 
 again ; strike out and take some new and unwonted course to find the 
 goal Richmond and settle down before Yorktown, lose a good ex- 
 ample (Laughter), and if there is only ten thousand men there so much 
 the worse. If you have one hundred and eighty thousand or two hun- 
 dred thousand men, what is the use of making a sudden attack on these 
 men ; that would not be fair. (Laughter and applause.) Begin to lay 
 siege to the town : throw out miles of fortification, spend thirty days in 
 front of these ten thousand men, and all the time throw out the idea 
 that you are going to bag them. (Laughter.) When the thirty days 
 are up and you have done the story of the bag, if the bag is empty so 
 much the better ; the ten thousand men will live to fight again . 
 (Laughter.) Give the enemy abundant time to know you are coming, 
 and never take him foul. Carefully guard his property, for that is 
 sacred ; send a large number of your soldiers for this service, and be 
 especially careful of biped property, which is movable. Continue this 
 until the enemy is so fortified that he is too strong to take, and is likely 
 to take you, then change your base. (Laughter.) It is an interesting 
 operation. (Laughter.) If the enemy gets tired of this and attacks 
 you, follow him at a respectful distance. If he corners you and you 
 can't get out of it, fight him, and as you have good and brave soldiers 
 you will whip him. But don't follow him too closely, that is ungener- 
 ous ; let him go over the river, give him a month to recover. If he 
 be disheartened, and his army is broken, and you send him back 
 howling into rebeldom, wait until he has recovered. 
 
 It is an easy thing to answer the question, " How not to do it, and 
 how to continue the war." So many have practiced this interesting 
 game, that a war that would not have lasted a single year, had the true 
 strength of this country been exerted as the force of one man, has been 
 perpetuated until the present time, and may be, should this continue, for 
 years to come. But this will not continue. This whole class of men I 
 have been referring to, have grown wiser. They find that all that kind 
 of thing can be seen through, and that there is a vast amount of com- 
 mon sense in American society, and that while that game may be played 
 
38 
 
 rrpon them for a little while, we are apt to look the thing right into 
 the eye and before long come to a just and honest conclusion- and 
 Congressmen who act in this way soon go up to Canada or some other 
 place. (Laughter.) Legislators of this kind don't go back j they 
 board at home next winter. (Laughter.) Governors that pursue this 
 eours-e, don*t find votes enough to reinstate them ; generals that delay 
 battles in this style quit before long ans! go into a business that pays 
 better making out presidencies. (Applause.) We bring m a new class 
 of men. We have such men now as Grant. (Applause.) United States 
 Grant. (Applause.) U. S. Grant, f Laughter.) Never Surrender 
 Grant. (Applause.) Always Ready Grant. | Applause.) Uncle 
 Sam Grant. (Applause.) That is the kind of men that knows how to 
 do it, and that has never wasted his time in the miserable art how not 
 to do it. We have a Meade that is a very gentle drink to take in 
 summer, but it will be strong Meade next summer. (Applause and 
 laughter.) We have a Butler f applause) who has started out from the 
 commencement just about right. He understood this war, because he 
 helped to make it, (Laughter and applause.) He knew its character 
 and spirit as well as any man knows his own e-hild, but in this General 
 Butler there is a great American spirit. When Jefferson Davis reported 
 his determination to carry out Secession, said Butler, "Mr. Davis, 
 we'll whip yoia to death if you do." u No," said Mr. Davis, " the 
 Yankees are cowards." "No," said Butler, "we'll annihilate you, 
 and I'll be one to lead in the work.'" (Applause.) And he has been 
 leading ever since. If yon will give us a few more men after this 
 stripe, that have no future prospects to look after, but have the only 
 grand work in view of whipping out the Rebellion from our land, it will 
 be but a short time until the mighty strength of the government will 
 show itself ia the conquest of her foe. 
 
 Now let us turn to the positive side of the question. We have seen %. 
 enough how not to do it. All wars must come to an e1ad, and must 
 come to an end, too, by some agreement on terms reached between 
 the belligerent parties ; and we are all anxiously looking forward to 
 the time when we shall see at least the coming of the end of this great 
 contest. I think there are three ways of getting out of this war. I 
 can conceive of no other than three. The first is by separation ; by 
 acknowledging the right of disunion, and submitting to the disruption 
 of the Republic ; and we have some who, of course, desire this result 
 and are fighting for it ; and yet it is altogether appropriate to specify 
 who are the men who desire a disruption of the Union. When I turn 
 attention to the North, I don't believe we iiave any class or body of 
 
39 
 
 men who are disunionists. I think we have some men as individuals, 
 some emissaries of the South, perhaps hired and paid for their services 
 rendered to the South, who are engaged in doing all they can to bring 
 about a dissolution of the Union ; yet I have never for a single moment 
 thought that we had any political party that desired this result in the 
 North. I know that some people hastily charge on the Democratic 
 party this intention, or state at least that the Democratic party would 
 as leave see the Union disrupted as not to have it restored in their own 
 particular way, and in such a way as would again give to them the 
 government of our country ; but 1 don't believe a word of it. I do not 
 believe that the Democratic party aims at the dissolution of the 
 Union. I have never thought so for a single moment. I know that 
 party is a great political affair ; I know it is exceedingly acute and far- 
 seeing ; I know it has the best politicians in this nation ; I know they 
 can lay their schemes a little wider, a little longer, and a little more 
 accurately than any other political organization in the country ; they 
 have been doing so for years, and are well skilled in the work. I 
 should lose my confidence in the great Democratic party if it was not 
 engaged in the same interesting business now ; if it were not in these 
 great times looking forward to the future ; yet we can see no possible 
 motive why any national party this side of Mason and Dixon's line 
 should for a moment desire the disruption of this Union. The doom I 
 think of the Democratic party would be written forever if the line of 
 division was drawn upon that Mason and Dixon's line. They need the 
 South : they need the Southern influence ; and instead of desiring a final 
 disruption of the Republic, they would aim at such a conclusion as will 
 bring back again into the field this great political organization, the 
 power and influence of the South. It is sometimes charged upon one 
 wing of the Republican party, that they desire disunion ; and the only 
 copperhead meeting I ever attended I didn't intend to tell you that, 
 (laughter) but I did attend one once, a very interesting one that was 
 reported here in Trenton as a grand success. It was held up here 
 somewhere a few miles above Pennington ; some two or three hundred 
 were gathered together, and three very celebrated speakers were 
 present. It was reported here next day as a grand convention of 
 several thousands ! There were only about two hundred and fifty men 
 women and children (laughter) at the meeting, it was charged upon ene 
 wing of the Republican party that they desired the disruption of the 
 Union, and the proofs brought forward were the expressions of some 
 radical men in the United States that have been radical for years in 
 the past and I presume are radical to-day but who never in any 
 
40 
 
 single respect represented the Republican party. The men quoted were 
 Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison, and many of their say- 
 ings, made a number of years ago, were brought forward to prove that 
 the Republican party was aiming steadily and uniformly at the disrup- 
 tion of the Union. We know that some of these radical men a few 
 years ago and they may stand on the same ground this day took this 
 position, that " if there was no other way to correct the wrong of 
 bondage to the black man if there was no way to stop this terrible 
 influence of a compact Southern oligarchy ruling over the nation, its 
 politics and government, than by a disruption of the Republic, they were 
 willing to see the Republic rent asunder, rather than this gigantic evil 
 and these influences should continue in the nation." But I presume that 
 all concede to the Republican party an honest intention to carry on this 
 war to restore the Union. In the North I cannot think we have an 
 element amounting to any strength that desires this war to terminate in 
 disunion. When we pass South of this line we find disunionists. When 
 we go back to trace the history of the war, we find even in the Southern 
 country men who loved the Union. There were then two parties. In 
 the first place you must permit me to recognize humanity wherever I 
 find it with the habiliments and the appurtenances of man I say in the 
 first place we have four millions of men in the South that certainly 
 never desired the disruption of this Union ; iwho felt that their future, 
 their liberty, their welfare, lay in the continuance of this Union. Then 
 we had a vastness in the South of what is called " white trash," or 
 ignorant white people, who knew nothing and cared nothing about the 
 Union. They were profoundly ignorant of the movements going on in 
 the nation, and were only taught the one grand element of their creed, 
 to hate the Yankee, and they didn't know why. Here is another vast 
 class that had no interest in the disruption of the Union ; and when the 
 facts come to be known, perhaps there are but two states that honestly 
 and truly voted themselves out of this Union. 
 
 Let us turn our attention to Louisiana : we have never had a report 
 of the vote taken upon which the Act of Secession was passed. We 
 turn to Tennessee, and the majority was against the Act of Secession. 
 Texas was the same as Louisiana. Never to this day has there been a 
 vote of the people. The slaveholders were tired of the Union and 
 wished to retire from connection with this great government. There 
 are three hundred thousand men, three hundred thousand slaveholders, 
 that are the disunionists of this country ; and it makes me feel some- 
 times exceedingly indignant when I see that in this nation of more than 
 thirty millions of souls s three hundred thousand slaveholders, and even 
 
41 
 
 that number could be eliminated and reduced down to half of it, have 
 risen up in this gigantic Rebellion, laying its foundation in wrongs, 
 spreading its power in falsehood, distilling lies and perjury among the 
 ignorant masses, awakened up so large a portion of all this country 
 against the best government that God ever gave to men ! (Applause.) 
 We have, then, I say, about three hundred thousand people that are the 
 prime movers and this number can be reduced to one-half without any 
 difficulty who struggled for the disruption of this Union, and who per- 
 haps still desire it. The other vast majority are still bound in their 
 heart's love to the old stars and stripes, still love the memory of our 
 fathers, still cherish one common history, still look forward to the per- 
 manence of our government, the palladium of human liberty, down to 
 the evening of time. 
 
 We have other enemies who desire the disruption of this Union 
 enemies who have been working to bring about this end as one " most 
 devoutly to be wished." We have an enemy to our republican institu- 
 tions and government in England, and to the great principles and growth 
 of our country, to the grand idea that man ought to be free, because he 
 is capable of being free and governing himself. I say we find a great 
 enemy to all these things in Great Britain, and doubtless long before 
 this time, if it had not been for the hardy yeomen of that nation, the 
 honest men whose hands are hardened with honest labor, the industrious 
 mechanics who rank as we rank, who stand on the common level of 
 humanity, and who understand what this great contest means, kept per- 
 petually saying to the aristocrats of England, "No, this war is for 
 human rights, for the perpetuation of free government, and you must 
 not and shall not interpose." The aristocracy of England is against 
 us. Only two weeks ago we read in the Times, the great organ of 
 British aristocracy, an honest confession that, throughout its whole 
 past career with reference to this country, it was moved by the one sole, 
 pusillanimous thought that this nation was growing too strong, that it 
 was getting to be too mighty a republic, and that it ought to be divided ; 
 that the interests of England demanded that this young giant should 
 not continue to grow into such great strength. 
 
 Cross the channel again, and you 'find a subtle and keen enemy to 
 our republican institutions in the " nephew of his uncle," whose only 
 merit lies in his great relative, who would like to see the South prevail 
 over the North ; who would then find a grand opportunity of carrying 
 on his Mexican and south-western expeditions on this continent. Thero 
 we find an enemy ; and there again, among the stalwart peasantry, we 
 have friends by the thousands, who say, " JVb, no emperor and no 
 
42 
 
 aristocracy shall interfere with this young representative of free humanity 
 that is growing up into a strong and gigantic life." Well may it be said, 
 God is on the side of free institutions. Eternal right is on the side of 
 this young republic. Humanity in its true and common impulses the 
 world over is on the side of our government, and against the perpetua- 
 tion of our republic no emperor, no aristocracy can carry out their 
 designs in the face of feelings like these, while we do right and stand 
 true to the destiny that God has ordained for us. (Applause.) 
 
 You see, then, after all, it is hardly worth while to discuss the ques- 
 tion, Shall this Union be separated ? Why should it separate ? At 
 the bidding of some three hundred thousand men who hold property in 
 their fellow men ? For the mere interests of England, that she may 
 remain queen and mistress of the ocean, and continue to dictate to the 
 nations ? "At the bidding of Louis Napoleon, that he may carry on his 
 particular schemes of aggrandizement in the south-western parts of this 
 continent ? For whom should we disrupt this grand and glorious Union 
 that the God of heaven gave our fathers, to descend to us and our chil- 
 dren ? No, never ; never can we for one moment yield the point in 
 settling this' question by granting the secession of those who have risen 
 in rebellion against the government. 
 
 We have men whose vigor and youth are passed away, who are terri- 
 bly afraid of war, terribly afraid of taxes, and who would, at almost any 
 price you can mention, buy the boon of peace, even saying to these 
 men, as one said three years ago, " Erring sisters, go in peace." 
 "JVb," I say, "erring sisters, come back and behave yourselves." 
 (Applause.) Why can't we use this polite language and disrupt the 
 republic ? I answer First, God never intended this continent to 
 be divided into little petty governments ; our geography and history 
 indicate that fact plainly. Take down your map and look upon this fair 
 province that God has given us. He has stretched out its streams, its 
 lakes, and mountain courses, so that while emigration passes from East 
 to West on lines of latitude, all the great streams of our country run 
 from the North to the South. The mountain ranges extend from North 
 to South. These streams carry the benedictions of the North to the 
 extreme Southern shores. These range of mountains, with their solemn 
 echoing, catch the voices of the North and sound them far down again 
 into the South. Where, in the geography of the country, could you 
 draw a dividing line ? Nowhere has the God of Nature made barriers 
 or reared division lines that would say, " divide and here be t/iou 
 separate." 
 
 I say again, No, for not only does the geography of our country forbid 
 
43 
 
 it, but to admit the idea of secession would be to lay down for all future 
 time that most suicidal doctrine in our country that as soon as one party 
 is dissatisfied rebellion is the cure. If there is one natural barrier that 
 would serve for a dividing line, it is the great Rocky Mountain range. 
 Let us acknowledge the independence of the South, and in a few years 
 more the interest of the great western countries might make it apparent 
 to some that it would be better for them to separate from the govern- 
 ment at Washington. No government can live under the doctrine of 
 secession. When our fathers made the compact of union, it was made 
 perpetual. Tt was intended as a permanent arrangement. They were 
 not madmen. Who could for a moment suppose that men laying the 
 foundation of a grand commonwealth could plant in the midst of this 
 foundation an element .*that was to lead to the disruption and destruction 
 of the nation itself? 
 
 We dare not accept this doctrine again, because it would not meet 
 the occasion in settling the disputes between the two parties. I always 
 thought that Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison, and all that party, 
 made a great mistake when they talked about disunion, and used to say 
 they would rather see the country disrupted than that the Northern 
 people should continue complicated with the great evil of the South. 
 What would (his do towards ending the difficulties ? Could we live 
 peacefully together as enemies, when we could not live together as 
 friends ? Could we not agree on the slave question when we were one, 
 living under one constitution, one government? How, then, can we 
 agree on this question when we should have drawn a line to separate the 
 two sections ? What terms could we make with regard to this slave 
 question ? We now consider this an independent country. We now 
 have a foreign nation lying at our side. Grant them all they could ask, 
 and lead back to bondage their liberated slaves, would you consent to 
 be huntsmen for your fellow-men ? And if you did, how long would it 
 be before a nation, starting out in its rebellious career, would cease to 
 be the sister Ilepublic on our South, and would become what it aims to 
 become to-day, a grand monarchy, frowning upon us from our Southern 
 borders ? Why those men are tickled to death by the idea of kingdoms, 
 dukedoms, and earldoms. King Davis would sound mellifluously in the 
 trumpet of fame. Earl Mason and Duke Slidell would be grand titles. 
 (Laughter.) You smile at this ;, yet it is the inspiring thought of these 
 men. "We are tired," said they, " of this rank Democracy , we are 
 tired of this Republicanism. It is a failure." /It was a decided failure 
 with them ; but we will teach them that it is not a failure, but that it is 
 a power, and the most intense kind of power that can be concentrated for 
 
44 
 
 the government and perpetuation of the Union. I say we would soon 
 have a monarchy at our side. My good old friend would then say, u Oh 
 these horrible taxes," for there would be far greater taxes when the 
 country would be under the necessity of maintaining a standing army of 
 several hundred thousands, stretching along the border line between 
 these two nations. You talk about the loss of life. There would be 
 greater loss of life in the perpetual hostilities that would arise between 
 these two portions of this nation. God never meant two people should 
 occupy the country that is appropriated to this republican government, 
 and no matter who those two people are, this continent, the whole bound- 
 less continent, is ours. (Applause.) No power can ever divide it. It 
 is settled in the counsels of the Almighty. (Applause.) Civilization 
 says no. A voice comes from the humble men of England, of Ireland, 
 of France, and of all Europe, saying, " Never yield ground to this up- 
 rising of barbarism." Thousands of these men send us their letters, 
 their commendations, their sympathies, telling us our interests are 
 staked with yours, and humanity itself lies trembling in the balance of 
 this great war. "You are fighting," say the noble spirits of Europe, 
 " you are fighting not America's battle alone, but the battle of humanity. 
 End it j whip out of your country this spirit of insurrection. Crush it, 
 this wrong that has been a stain on your escutcheon all through your 
 history ; and in the future the God of heaven will smile upon you, and 
 use you as He has ever intended to use you, as the center of a higher 
 and nobler civilization." (Applause.) Disunion in this day, when the 
 nations are moving forward to embrace each other in their arms ! Dis- 
 union in America, this type and model of national life ! Why, it is the 
 last place on earth where any such principles should enter the minds of 
 the people. Disunion here, when Europe is coming nearer together, 
 and we seem to be nearing that time when nation will hail nation as its 
 brother ? Brejik up this grand Republic at a time when God in His 
 mighty Providence seems roiling on events for the brighter and better 
 days that shall acknowledge the brotherhood of men throughout the 
 entire earth ? JVb, never. Every interest appertaining to our nation, 
 to humanity, to reason, to everything else, says, " However long this 
 contest may be, we must at least never yield it up by granting the 
 secession to the South." (Applause.) 
 
 Now come some enemies to the government, or rather, as they please 
 to call themselves, enemies of the administration, and they are not 
 small in number, who say, " we know it will never do to allow this 
 nation to be broken in two, for that would be the end and ruination of 
 our great republican institutions ; but we should end this war by a 
 
45 
 
 suitable, and appropriate compromise with them as soon as possible, and 
 recover our disaffected brothers and friends back to the fellowship and 
 amenities of our common family." Here, I say we have a large class of 
 men, and a great many of them too are honest men, who think that 
 about the only way to end this war, and that the true way is to offer 
 terms of conciliation to those in rebellion, and such terms as they will 
 accept, and consent to come back and unite their fate and history again 
 with ours. 
 
 But there are some men in these ranks that are not honest men ; and 
 who do not move in this direction out of a pure love of the country, 
 a pure desire for peace ; and as I desired to speak historically and 
 plainly on last Tuesday evening, permit me to speak plainly at this 
 point to-night. I think that this cry for a compromise is a political 
 cry, and instead of being (I make great exceptions) an honest declara- 
 tion of the heart for peace and the adjustment of our country's difficul- 
 ties, it is simply the plotting and scheming of politicians for the future 
 welfare and position of their party. Let me illustrate this. About a 
 year ago, I was in conversation with a prominent citizen of Trenton 
 here, and he accosted me with this question, "What do you think of 
 the war now-a-days ?" Well, you remember about a year ago we were 
 blue about the war. I was decidedly blue. " Well," said I, " I am 
 a little down." " Well," said he, " what do you think will be the end 
 of this thing?" "Well," I answered, " I think this will be the end. 
 I think designing men will so far interfere with the movements of the 
 government, and stay the progress of our arms, and hold back this war 
 month after month, and year after year, until we get into another great 
 Presidential campaign, and then you will most likely elect a Democratic 
 President, and put a new party into power, and create a new adminis- 
 tration, and then 'you will go forward with your old compeer of the 
 South, and offer terms of concession, and they will accept them. You 
 will then shake hands, take a drink, and it will be all over." " Now," 
 said he, " you and I are pretty much alike, after all." " Yes." 
 " Well," said he, " I am glad you have come to that ground. You 
 and I hold the same opinion." " Yes," said, I, " that is my opinion, and 
 that is where it will end. But there is as great a difference between 
 you and me still, as between the north and south pole." "What is the 
 difference ?" said he; "I believe what you believe." " Yes," said I, 
 " I believe it sorrowfully and sadly believe it j but you hope for it, 
 and work for it. That is the difference." And that is precisely the 
 difference. 
 
 I come only to look in the face of this question, not for the sake 
 of politicians, for they are keener than I am, but for the sake of honest 
 
46 
 
 American citizens; and as I look into the face of this question of 
 compromise, I am compelled as an honest patriot to say with regard to 
 this, as with regard to a separation, " JVb /" this war cannot and ought 
 not to end by compromises with the South. (Applause.) I looked 
 into the South up as far as we could get the mail. I got Southern 
 papers and read them over. I found in them the bitter spirit breathed 
 out by these men. There was no indication there that the storm would 
 ever end in compromise ; no terms to come back to the Union. They 
 gloried in secession, and considered the act final and forever: they said 
 no power of arms could bring them back into association again with the 
 Yankee and with the Northern government, I look to this day as far 
 as I can, and 1 never heard of one single offer of compromise or asking 
 for terms on the part of the South ; but I find on the contrary only in 
 the North, and that too in a class of men whose associations hitherto 
 have been intimately connected with the South, throwing out this doc- 
 trine of compromise and adjustment to the South. The South never 
 asked for it. In the midst of death and desolation, with poverty and 
 want staring them in the face, no man yet except those who have come 
 into our lines and have never been traitors to the country no one who 
 has lifted his hand in this Rebellion, has asked any terms or pointed to 
 any by which he could be brought back again into the Union. 
 
 Shall we end this war by any compromise with the South ? What I 
 mean by compromise is making such concessions to them as will satisfy 
 them, and will bring them back to their allegiance and submission to the 
 government of the country. I have answered no* The first reason is, 
 they have never asked for it 5 and I can look upon it in no other light 
 than as pusillanimous in the extreme, for a great government to go 
 forward in this gigantic llebellion, and call these men to come back by 
 offering terms of compromise, and thus purchasing their friendship. 
 
 Let me draw your attention to a point in which lies a sophistry which is 
 played on the minds of many men in these war times. There is a great 
 difference between repentant rebels coming forward to ask terms from 
 the government against which they have rebelled, and that government 
 coming forward and offe> ing terms to rebels still in arms. Where in 
 history have you read of a government that came forward to rebels yet 
 in arms, pressing every resource at their command into the service f 
 treason; where have you yet seen a government, unless that government 
 was powerless or subdued, that came forward and sued for terms at 
 the hands of rebels ? Shall we, this new born nation of Freedom, this 
 great Republic, shall we teach this pusillanimous stooping of the govern- 
 ment, to come and beg at the hands of traitors in arms ? No, never, 
 
47 
 
 never! (Applause.) You may say it is philanthropy. No, it would 
 be meanness . to the utmost extreme. It would be philanthropy that 
 would bring eternal infamy and disgrace upon the nation. Here is 
 just the point where that grand message that we read awhile ago coming 
 from a certain governer that called a certain class of people his friends, 
 (laughter) in which he played off this great sophistry upon the amnesty 
 proclamation of the President of the United States. I like that amnesty 
 proclamation very much. I think it is just about the thing. It is just 
 about as far as the President ought to have gone to maintain the dignity 
 and honor of the government. He could have gone no farther. What 
 was the point in the grand message that pleased some people in the 
 month of December ? That amnesty means nothing, it offers nothing to 
 these men. It selects a party. It cries out to one-tenth of the people in 
 the South, if you come back and lay down your arms we will receive 
 you into the government again ; you may organize your legislatures, 
 elect your governors, and take your places in the Union with all your 
 rights sacred, except one alone. I say that was a generous offer com- 
 ing from a government to rebels in arms. Mr. Lincoln said, " I do not 
 say that these are the only terms that shall be offered to men returning 
 to their allegiance." He knew if the men would ground their arms, if 
 they would cease their treason against the government, and come for- 
 ward and say, ' ( now we are ready to come back, what terms will you 
 give us ?" then would have been the time, and not till then, to make 
 large and generous terms. Let Mr. Davis come, let the Masons, the 
 Slidells and Cobbs, come and say, " We are done with the Rebellion, 
 now what will the government offer as terms of concession," and you 
 will find as big a heart as ever beat in one of the largest men that ever 
 lived open to receive them on the most generous terms the government 
 could offer. (Laughter and applause.) That is my first reason. They 
 have not come forward to ask for compromise. 
 
 We cannot compromise because of the large multitude of men in the 
 South that would be sacrificed by this very means. There are men 
 in the South who have never sympathized with this Rebellion, and 
 others little connected with the great evil of the nation. They have 
 loved our history and love our nation until this day. They have 
 spoken out boldly and fearlessly against this outrage of the nation- 
 These are the men that would be sacrificed to the Union by a compro- 
 mise. Said the Governor of New York in his note to the President, 
 " it is selecting a party." To be sure it is selecting a party j but a 
 party who stood true to the government. Why should he not have 
 said, " as soon as yon can rally one-tenth of the population we will 
 
48 
 
 acknowledge you as true and loyal citizens of the United States." 
 Compromises would inflict calamities for years to come. There is a 
 passage in the good old book which was recorded of a rebellion long 
 ago, complaining of those who would heal too lightly the hurt of the 
 people, and which applies to this Rebellion. I am not ready, for 
 one, to enter into terms of compromise with the men that created this 
 Rebellion. I want them punished severely. 
 
 One of the strange things of this war is the difficulty with which we 
 realize the enormity of the crime committed by these men. We may 
 love their souls, and if they would come forward and be honest citizen* 
 of the United States we would share our last loaf of bread with Jeff. 
 Davis himself; but Jeff. Davis, arch traitor, and we, are enemies so long 
 as he is arch traitor, (applause) or any other man in the South so long 
 as he goes against the government of our country and against hu- 
 manity. We talk to-day of these slaveholders " Oh, they are our bro- 
 thers." They are bad brothers then, and need whipping. We say, 
 " they have been associated with us in the past." So they have, and 
 we are bad teachers or we would have taught them better things. 
 They have plotted for more than thirty years for this wrong, to let 
 loose the dogs of war upon this peaceful land, scattering death and 
 desolation over the plains of this country ; put thousands of families 
 into mourning ; opened up hundreds of thousands of graves to their 
 fellow men ; shed seas of blood in accomplishing one of the most 
 damnable schemes that ever was conceived by the mind of man ; and 
 yet these sickly philanthropists come forward and say, " don't hurt 
 them." They ought to be hurt. They deserve to be hurt. Men 
 who have awakened anguish and sorrow, and started tears, and spread 
 desolation and havoc throughout this land, deserve the execration of 
 men down to the end of time. (Applause.) I have said it is almost 
 impossible for us (but I don't know why, it must be because of the 
 generous principles of the government under which we live,) to realize 
 the crime of treason. Treason ! it is the blackest deed that can be 
 committed in the sight of heaven. Treason ! it is the forfeiture of every 
 right that appertains to man. But what kind of treason is this ? 
 Treason of the deepest, darkest, and blackest die. Treason against the 
 noblest government the world has had in all its history ! Treason 
 against the brightest hopes of humanity ! Treason against the most 
 plainly written indications of Divine Providence itself! Why He has 
 not let the thunderbolt fall upon this people in the very act of so terrible 
 a treason, I know not that must lie in the counsels of the Almighty 
 himself. No, I recall that. Most fearfully has the Judge of all the 
 
49 
 
 earth let His thunderbolts fall upon this guilty people. I pity their 
 plains drenched in blood ; I pity their soil upturned by the ploughshare 
 of war; I pity their empty and desolate households, their poverty- 
 stricken land. Ah, yes ! they have drawn down upon themselves a 
 terrible judgment from the hand of God. 
 
 I have another reason why I cannot go this compromise doctrine. 
 It is this, / am afraid oj it. I am afraid to try it. I don't want the 
 South to come back as it was back for twenty-five or thirty years in the 
 past. I know it is a dangerous thing to say that I am not in favor of 
 the " Union as it was ;" and yet I am ready to say it. I hope that we shall 
 never have again this Union as it was. (Applause.) The Union ! I 
 would give my life for it, and I would do anything in my power to 
 restore to peace and union our sorely stricken country ; but the Union 
 such as we have had it for twenty years Heaven cannot smile upon. A 
 Union such as we have had, would be but to rush forward again in the 
 mad career of political strife, to end in a few years more in another 
 contest more bloody and terrible than this. I want no Union with the 
 groans of four millions of souls going up to the throne of God. (Ap- 
 plause.) I want no Union with representatives from one section stand- 
 ing upon the floor of Congress pistoled or caned to command votes, 
 and stamping their foot upon the necks of Northern freemen. (Applause.) 
 I want no Union in which I can travel South of Mason and Dixon's 
 line only at the peril of my life. (Applause.) I want no Union where 
 one section undertakes to claim the right to open up the United States 
 mail bags, and examine all their contents, to see if anything is there 
 incendiary or dangerous in its character. (Applause.) I want no 
 Union, the foundation of one side of which rests on hemp, and tar, and 
 feathers. (Laughter.) No, let us have such a Union as God intended 
 it should be ; as our fathers intended, where we shall have free speech, 
 free press, and jree men from Maine to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific. (Applause.) Now suppose you enter into a compro- 
 mise with this party ; suppose we say to the Southern States, " Come 
 back, and we'll give you your price ; we'll grant all you want, we per- 
 haps made a mistake on the slavery question, and were perhaps in too 
 great a hurry," and if they should come back, how long would it be 
 until all these demands, all these intrigues upon liberty, all these 
 disgraceful acts in the Congress of the United States, and this party 
 scheming and political machinery, would again be at work in our land ? 
 I cannot consent to a compromise that only lays the foundation for 
 future troubles, and for perpetual infamy and disgrace to rest upon the 
 nation. 
 4 
 
50 
 
 But I Lave yet another reason why I cannot go this compromise. 
 There are four parties in this contest. Two of them we are exceed- 
 ingly prone to forget and ignore. The government is upon one side, 
 itruggling in her integrity ; and the Rebellion is on the other, gigantic 
 and mighty in her spirit of revolution. Between the two lies a helpless 
 race, numbering four millions of people a third party. And above 
 them all, the God and Father of all, whose eyes look down upon all his 
 children. You dare not compromise with wrong when parties like these 
 are in the field. God has let you move along in comparative quiet 
 these eighty years in the past, until the mad tyrant lifted up the dagger 
 to strike at the nation's heart ; then God seized the dagger for Himself, 
 and sent it back to the heart of the assassin. (Applause.) God has 
 come upon the stage, and is working in this nation. Who has not heard 
 the stepping of His feet ? Who has not seen the moving of His Divine 
 hand as He has steadily moved forward from the first outbreaking of 
 this war until now, saying, " You began it, and / will end it ; let my 
 bondsmen go ." (Applause.) Now you will come forward in the face 
 of events such as our war has been writing during the past two and a 
 half years, and, in the face of God, cry for a 'pusillanimous peace by 
 selling four millions of your fellow-men! The heavens would grow 
 dark above us, and infamy eternal from all the nations of the earth 
 would settle upon us. You, the advocates of liberty ! You, the friends 
 of human rights ! You, the leading nation of the globe ! You that are 
 the hope of the future ages of the earth! You pusillanimously stoop to 
 buy peace from men in rebellion by selling back to bondage four mil- 
 lions of your helpless fellow-men ! JVb / no ! God and humanity for- 
 ever forbid that at such a price we shall buy peace in our land, 
 (Applause.) Have you any other compromise to offer? Buy peace 
 with what ? With the negro ? What else have you to say to Davis, 
 then ? " Get down off your throne and we'll give you Sambo." What 
 have you to say to men in arms ? Down with your arms and we'll send 
 the nigger back. The negro is not yours to give, and God will not 
 allow him to be sent back, except with broken shackles. Woe to this 
 nation, or that party, that dares buy back again these rebels at the price 
 of human blood. (Applause.) 
 
 "You cannot allow them to separate 1 ? JVb. Cannot compromise 
 with them ? JVb, not on that question. What then ? There is one 
 way left yet. What is it ? Whip it out of them. (Long-continued 
 and loud applause.) That is about the true doctrine. (Applause.) Go 
 right forward. Whip them into submission. You seem to understand 
 the thing exactly. (Laughter.) I wonder why I was invited to lecture 
 
51 
 
 about "How to get out," when you all know how to get out? (Ap- 
 plause.) You see the point as well as I do. (Laughter.) The in- 
 stincts of common honest men and women point the road to independence, 
 to liberty ; and that road is by gathering together the strong forces of 
 the government and rolling them upon this Rebellion, and crushing it 
 beneath the power of the nation. 
 
 Now I am in favor of two things some people are not in favor of 
 coercion and subjugation. If you would ask me again to put into other 
 words what I have said what is the true method of getting out of this 
 war 2 I would say coercion and subjugation. We used to be terribly 
 frightened over these two words 5 yet, when we come to look at them, they 
 are a mere bug-bear after all. Coercion ! What does that mean ? My 
 wife coerces me every day (laughter), and I am exceedingly fond of the 
 coercion. My little children coerce me every day. I like to be coerced. 
 You see the word is not frightful. It is altogether in its application it 
 has been made to appear so. In some relations it is delightful ; in others 
 it is not so good. In this war it is simply making those men do their 
 duty ; making them behave themselves ; making them stop the Rebellion 
 and lay down their arms ; making them become citizens of the United 
 States, and whipping them until they do. (Applause.) I have been 
 coerced now nearly forty years by this government, and I never felt it 
 hard ; it sets easy. Yet the government coerces you and me every day. 
 We don't dare to steal. Why ? Because the government coerces us. 
 We don't dare to commit murder. Why ? Because the government 
 coerces us. We don't dare to be anything else than honest, peaceful 
 citizens of the state and of the United States. Why ? It is the terrible 
 government that is coercing us. We want Jeff. Davis coerced as we 
 are, so that he shall not steal, and shall not commit murder, and shall 
 not rise up in arms against the government j that he shall be the honest, 
 straightforward citizen of that United States government that we are, 
 { Applause.) What else can you mean by subjugation ? Peace needs 
 no buying. You don't buy war. What do you mean by subjugation * 
 We mean South Carolina shall behave herself like New Jersey, and 
 shall come back again under the stars and stripes (applause), and shall 
 send her representatives to Washington instead of Richmond, and shall 
 move forward in honest obedience to the government of the United 
 States, under which she was made all that she is. We have had a 
 terrible outcry against coercing and subjugating states. Mr. Lincoln'* 
 idea of it is correct to whip them until one-tenth are ready to come 
 back, then receive them, and let that be a state of honest, true, and 
 Joyal men. (Applause ) 
 
52 
 
 Now when we talk about war as a means of bringing the war to an 
 end, some say " you have become bloodthirsty ; you have become im- 
 bued with the spirit of war." I answer JVb, I can only look upon it as 
 the highest Christianity, and I can only see in it the purest charity, to 
 go vigorously and earnestly at work, and bring it to an end as speedily 
 as possible. Bring all the forces of this great government to bear on 
 this Rebellion, and before 1864 closes you will have the Rebellion 
 closed, and this waste of life and treasure put an end to. It is this 
 miserable delaying, this holding back, this lying in swamps where 
 soldiers die by thousands, this wasting of life and treasure, that is most 
 cruel and impolitic. It is true charity to bring forth the nation's 
 strength and press the war with vigor and energy. Do you want the 
 war ended before 1864 shall end 7 ? Then work for the government. 
 Rush to the standard of the nation. Come one, come all, and inarch 
 down to the South in one grand solid phalanx. Present bristling fronts 
 of bayonets to the rebels in arms ; one more vigorous and stirring effort, 
 and ere this year passes away you will see the end of the war, and that 
 you are safely out. Let us consent for a little while to forget party, to 
 forget politics, to forget the offices of the future, and stand once to- 
 gether to show the strength of our government, and see what results 
 can be accomplished by this steady, straightforward, and simple course. 
 I think we have done remarkably well in this war. It has not been 
 a long war ; we have not yet been engaged three years in it. It has 
 been a gigantic struggle ; history will furnish no greater one in all its 
 records of the past ; and yet more than half of this rebel territory is 
 under the guardianship of the glorious old banner of the stars and 
 stripes. (Applause.) More than five and a half millions of the popu- 
 lation of the rebel states are again under the shelter of the government. 
 Tennessee is nearly all back. Kentucky has been taught her serious 
 and sorrowful lessons, and is quiet, and peaceful, and loyal. She has 
 had enough of war and bloodshed. My Maryland will not be disturbed 
 in the future. Arkansas is ready to come in. Texas is moving, and a 
 large portion of Louisiana is ours. North Carolina is trembling like a 
 needle to the old pole that she used to love. While the war is well 
 nigh over, we have done the hardest part of the work. Who does not 
 see plainly that to conquer the first half of the Rebellion and the first 
 half of its wicked population to bring them again over from this 
 Rebellion under the influence and power of the government, is not to 
 have accomplished vastly more than half the great result. I think the 
 administration has done well. I like good old honest Abraham (ap- 
 plause), who started out into the world exceedingly poor. The Cobb* 
 
and the Floyds left him almost a beggar when he commenced house- 
 keeping our ships were all away, the treasury was emptied, and rebel- 
 Hem was staring him in the face ; and yet how calm the old man hag 
 been with it all ! I have admired that very spirit of honest joking that 
 sits so calmly on the face of this man, who has the weight of a nation upon 
 him, as if he could see it all from the beginning to the end. Trusting in 
 the God of battles, he can be even cheerful while he guides the great 
 ship through the shoals and breakers. (Applause.) I say he has done well 
 in the course of these three years past : and one thing allow me to say .at 
 the close, I think the best method of getting out of the war is to give him 
 another turn for the presidency. (Applause.) He has his hand in it, 
 is quite well acquainted with it, and I would not like to risk new hands. 
 Give Abraham a chance to finish, and we'll enshrine his name alongside 
 the first and best of all names, " Abraham, the good President" who 
 safely led us out from the terrible realities of war. For, with such a 
 cause to inspire our efforts, and with the smile of heaven and the ap- 
 proval of the common instincts of humanity all over the world, we can- 
 not fail. We will come out of it rightly, as the morning sun breaks out 
 of the dews that cloud his rising. Come out of it ? Yes j better than 
 when we went into it a strong, a free, and brave people, and honored 
 throughout the world as having stood true to our government, true to 
 our God, and true to our common humanity. (Long and enthusiastic 
 applause.)