458 
 
 SPEECH 
 
University of Calif ornia Berkeley 
 
<-, .<-'. 
 
 s DP IE IE o 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL M C DOWELL 
 
 m Cpef 0f % $.$. pilitsrs Jfurm an % $ari& tost, 
 
 AT PLATT'S HALL, SAN FRANCISCO, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 EVENING OF FRIDAY, OCTOBEE 21sr, 1864, 
 
 AT ONE OF THE 
 
 Most 'Crowded and Enthusiastic Meetings ever held in this City. 
 
 
 
 IF> El IE O IE! 
 
 OF 
 
 HON. JOHN CONNESS, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 PLATT'S HALL, SAN FRANCISCO, 
 
 . 1 ON 
 
 TUESDAY EVENING OOTOBEB 18, 1864. 
 
V 
 
 
-" 
 
 SPEECH OF MAJOR-GENERAL M C DOWELL 
 
 When, soon after my arrival in California, I 
 met for the first time the citizens of San Fran- 
 cisco on a public occasion, and evaded as long 
 as I could, and finally declined ; when I could 
 evade no longer making an address^ or even a 
 few remarks though the occasion made it 
 eminently proper and fit that I should do so 
 I acted in accordance with my feelings, still 
 unchanged in that particular, and in harmony 
 with the antecedents of my whole life. I have 
 ever had the greatest repugnance to mingling 
 in any way with the current party politics of 
 the day. It would be difficult to find any man 
 throughout the United States of my age who 
 has had so little to do with them as I, and it 
 has been with a reluctance, that I fear I shall 
 fail to make you appreciate, that I have within 
 a few days broken through a life-long rule, and 
 attended a political meeting, and ventured to 
 make a public speech. Nothing but an over- 
 powering sense of what I think is due from me 
 in this crisis could make me so far deviate from 
 a course I have hitherto followed, and which is 
 in every way so much more congenial to my 
 tastes, my prejudices, and my habits. 
 
 But I have been told by those whose opinions 
 in such matters I respect, that there has been, 
 and still may be, an impression prevailing to 
 some extent in the States on the Pacific coast, 
 that in the political contest now pending, the 
 sympathies of the military Department of the 
 Pacific are generally for the officer who has 
 been placed in nomination by the party who 
 oppose the re-election of Mr. Lincoln I 
 
 Also, that as the next President will still 
 have war on his hands, it is the belief of a re- 
 spectable pHrty that it is in the interests of the 
 country that our next President should be Gen- 
 eral McClellan, who is competent to carry on 
 the war, rather than Mr. Lincoln, who is not. 
 That, therefore, it has become a question of 
 some considerable interest, and one which 
 would be apt to influence many well-intentioned 
 and patriotic men, whether General McClellan 
 continues to receive the confidence and support 
 of his fellow-soldiers, for, if so, under existing 
 
 circumstances, this would be an argument in 
 his favor. 
 
 I am not here to pledge the sentiments, much 
 less the vote, of any person in the military ser- 
 vice of the United States in the Department of 
 the Pacific, but myself. This is a matter for- 
 eign to my duty ; but, in the time I have been 
 here, and with such opportunities as my duties 
 have given me to become acquainted with this 
 command, thus far I have heard of but very 
 few persons in the Department, who have not 
 the opinion, I have thought, and still think, all 
 officers and soldiers should have as to the exist- 
 ing war, as to the nature and extent of the sup- 
 port the Government should receive in its efforts 
 to maintain it, or as to whom the government 
 of the nation should be entrusted those who 
 now administer it, or those who seek their 
 places* And I believe they will do as I intend 
 to do, though not because of my intention or of 
 my acts, but because their own good sense, and 
 their true, sound, and self*sacrificing; patriotism 
 tells them to do it vote for the re-election of 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 In ordinary times, when the country is in its 
 normal state of peace and prosperity, I have 
 ever maintained, for reasons too obvious to 
 dwell upon, that officers and soldiers should 
 have nothing to do with the ordinary political 
 contests of the day not that they should feel 
 no interest in them, and exercise, if they are in 
 a position to do so, their right of suffrage, but 
 that they should not take an active part ; but 
 in the present contest, they have not only 
 the general interest of American citizens, but 
 of every lover of civilization, of freedom, and 
 self-government. Besides the special inter- 
 est and it is a deep and abiding one that 
 is felt by every person who has done, and 
 is again to do, battle, and peril health, limb 
 and life for that cause, concerning which the 
 stay-at-home voter speculates, argues and ques- 
 tions, and this interest is become greater since 
 a soldier has been taken up b} the opposi- 
 tion. I feel, therefore, there is no class of 
 Americans to whom this next election is so 
 
momentous, cone who have a better, few so 
 good a right to be heard, or whose votes should 
 have more influence. 
 
 As the political, moral, social and humani- 
 tarian aspects of this mighty struggle have 
 been so frequently, so recently, and so ably 
 discussed by those who have made them their 
 special study, I will confine my self to theprac^- 
 tical question as to whom the country should 
 entrust with the management of this war from 
 and after the expiration of the present Presi- 
 dential term. 
 
 It is not now a question whether a better 
 man might or might not have been nominated 
 from the leaders of the Union party, or a bet- 
 ter or worse General might have been taken 
 up by the opposition. The question is nar- 
 rowed down to a choice between two per- 
 sonsMr. Lincoln and General McClellan. I 
 have not read with any great care the Balti- 
 more platform of the Union party, on which 
 Mr. Lincoln stands, or the Chicago platform of 
 the opposition, on which General ' McClellan 
 does not stand ! and I think the mass of the 
 country will not recollect much of either of 
 them. But we laymen in politics know enough 
 of these platforms ; enough of the two parties ; 
 enough of the two candidates and their sup- 
 porters to be able to see the postion they do, in 
 fact, actually occupy. They both seek peace ! 
 
 Mr. Lincoln leaves us in no doubt as to the 
 terms on which he seeks it. He wishes it after 
 the rebellion is put down, after its armies are 
 defeated and dispersed, and the flag of the 
 Union is hoisted, respected and recognized 
 over the length and breadth of the land. He 
 does not want peace till it is, nor should any 
 true American wish it. 
 
 General McClellan either means to seek peace 
 by treating with traitors in arms, as if they 
 belonged to what they claim to have, a separate 
 independent sovereignty, invaded by a hostile 
 foreign nation ; to seek it by compounding this 
 felony of secession, or he means to seek it on 
 the same basis and conditions as Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 If on the former, the question needs no dis- 
 cussion ; if the latter, then it comes to the 
 point that as both are seeking the same con- 
 clusion to the war and on the same terms, and 
 I am willing, for the purpose I have now in 
 view and the remarks I have to make, to admit 
 it, then, wherein does the character, the patri- 
 otism and the talents, the acquirements, the 
 public services and the antecedents of Gen- 
 eral McClellan make him, rather than Mr. 
 Lincoln, the better man to carry on this war, 
 and terminate it by an honorable and a lasting 
 peace ? 
 
 Both these men have been before the nation 
 during this war, in the two most prominent 
 positions. It is so well known what Mr. Lin- 
 coln is, and what he is not ; what he has done, 
 and what he has omitted to do, that I will 
 
 only refer to him incidentally with his opponent. 
 
 It is not pretended he has made no mistakes, 
 and as I do not admit he should be set aside 
 because he has not, I do not, on the other hand, 
 propose that General McClellan should be re- 
 jected because he, in his turn, has made them ; 
 for it has been truly said, by one of the great- 
 est captains, that " he who has made no mis- 
 takes has never made war.' 7 
 
 But the question is, is it true that General 
 McClellan has that breadth of brain, that 
 greatness of heart and that depth of soul, that 
 comprehensiveness of view united to the knowl- 
 edge of detail, those high professional acquire- 
 ments combining the theory of war with the 
 practical execution of its laws and maxims ; 
 that high, pure patriotism, unsullied by any 
 unworthy ambition, and devoid, as he so fre- 
 quently protested it was, of all personal COB- 
 siderations? Did he come, as he says, with 
 reluctance, and at a sacrifice of his private 
 happiness, from what he calls the obscurity 
 from which events drew him, and what is of 
 more consequence is he honestly anxious to 
 return to it? Is it true, as he states, that his 
 nomination was unsought by him? Did he 
 never look forward to it? Did he never do 
 anything to procure or induce it? What I 
 have to say will bear more or less on some of 
 these points. 
 
 I do not propose that my remarks shall be in 
 reference to events in their chronological or- 
 der, or in any particular order at all. Nor do 
 I mean, by citing some instances, to have it 
 inferred there are not others perhaps stronger 
 than those I bring forward ; but they are those 
 with which I have been in some way connected 
 or concerned, and in relation to which I there- 
 fore feel more particularly called on to speak. 
 
 The incidents of military service brought me 
 on duty in the city of Washington, just prior 
 to the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. In the 
 service then at the capital were Cooper, Lee, 
 Joe Johnston, Huger, Pemberton, Magruder, 
 Sam Jones, Fields, Lomax, and Elsey, all of 
 whom left the Government in its greatest need, 
 to become leaders in the enemy's army, and I 
 soon found myself one of the senior officers 
 there ; and as I did not follow the example of 
 those I have named, and did not go, I natur- 
 ally came to be trusted, confided in, and, to a 
 certain extent, consulted. The most of those 
 whom Mr. Lincoln had in his Cabinet confess- 
 edly knew nothing of either military affairs or 
 military men. 
 
 It was thus I came to have a full share in 
 the responsibility of bringing Gen. McClellan 
 into the military service, and of placing him, 
 so far as my opinion and earnest recommenda- 
 tion went, in the high position he soon filled. 
 
 Here let me ask your pardon for referring to 
 a personal matter, an'd say, once for all, and in 
 answer to not a little that has been said on the 
 
5 
 
 subject, that I am under no personal obliga- 
 tions whatever to Gen. McClellan, and as illus- 
 trating a prominent trait in his character, I 
 will add, that I once thought I was, in one par- 
 ticular; but 1 see from his official repert that 
 he says he "carefully abstained" from doing 
 what, before it was written, he told me and my 
 friends he had done. 
 
 Immediately after the disaster of Bull Run, 
 Gen. McClellan came to Washington to com- 
 mand the forces in that vicinity. When he 
 first came he had, I believe, the proper feelings 
 and views of a soldier, and was for immedi- 
 ately doing something to retrieve the ground 
 lost in that battle. In his conference with m,e 
 his whole soul seemed to be in that direction. 
 He wanted to know how soon a force of 20,000 
 men could be had for a short service. He 
 spoke of coming over the river (Gen. Scott was 
 then in command in Washington), and of en- 
 camping with his army, He came at a time 
 when the troops on the Virginia side were in 
 large numbers going out of service, and as the 
 force he named could not be immediately as- 
 sembled from the command on that side, the 
 plan, if any, was given up, and nothing, what~ 
 ever of an offensive character at all commen- 
 surate with his forces soon increased to an 
 immense army, with the enemy for many weeks 
 not further off from him than Oakland is from 
 this hall was done during the months of Au- 
 gust, September, October, November, Decem- 
 ber, January, February, and March. 
 
 Gen. Barnard, in speaking of this delay, 
 says : 
 
 " Of all Gen. McClellan's faults and incapacities, 
 nothing, not even his irresolution and mismanage- 
 ment in' the face of the enemy, or his inability, ever, 
 in any case to ACT when the lime came, furnished a 
 clearer proof of the lack of those qualities which 
 make a great general or a great statesman than his 
 failure to do something for these eight months." 
 
 Gen. McClellan, in justification of this delay, 
 says, after reciting the instructions given to the 
 officers commanding the armies in Kentucky, 
 Missouri, and the expeditions to North Caro- 
 lina, South Carolina, and New Orleans: 
 
 " The plan indicated in the above letters compre- 
 hend in its scope the operations of all the armies of 
 the Union, the Army of the Potomac as well. It 
 was my intention, for reasons easy to be seen, that 
 its various parts should be carried out simultane- 
 ously, or nearly so, and in co-operation ahng the 
 whole line. If this plan was wise, and events have 
 failed to prove it was not, then it is unnecessary to 
 defend any delay which would have enabled the 
 Army of the Potomac to perform its share in the 
 execution of the whole work." 
 
 When were these instructions given? To 
 Buell on November 7th and 12th ; Halleck, 
 November llth ; Burnside, January 7th ; Sher- 
 man, February 14th ; and Butler, February 23d. 
 
 Well, what, if anything, was done by the 
 Army of the Potomac prior to even the earliest of 
 
 these dates? Nothing! Why was nothing 
 done? Was the enemy inaccessible to the 
 army ? No, not further off than the seal rocks 
 from this place. Were they so entrenched, so 
 fortified, or were they so numerically our su- 
 periors as to make it impossible to dislodge 
 them ? Nothing of the kind. We it was who 
 were intrenched, and our forces, compared to 
 those who occupied Munson's and Upton's 
 Hills and adjacent positions, were more than 
 three to one, not counting those on the Wash- 
 ington side. Was there any co-operation re- 
 quired from any other army, pr was any possi- 
 ble? No. The nearest army was then in 
 Western Virginia, more than two hundred 
 miles off. Why, then, was nothing done all 
 time by one who, in the beginning, was so anx- 
 ious for 20,000 men for a short expedition ? 
 The men he had; and the enemy had greatly 
 shortened the expedition to be made. It was 
 a thing to be done between breakfast and din- 
 ner, and involved no transportation of baggage. 
 It was because he had become thus early filled 
 with ideas of personal aggrandizement, and he 
 cared not at what cost he pursued them. 
 
 It is well known to many who were in Wash- 
 ington at that time, how on account of the 
 hopes centered in him, of the immense trust 
 and power conferred on him he absorbed all 
 the interest of the day. Foreign ministers 
 spoke of him at the dinner table as the next 
 President. The opposition saw in him, at an 
 early day, material for their present purposes ; 
 and the press of all parties vied with each 
 other who should sustain him the most thor- 
 oughly. It was natural, under the circum- 
 stances, they should, We all did; and had he 
 realized but one tenth of what he promised, and 
 had he shown an average amount of earnest- 
 ness, of sincerity and of disposition to self sac- 
 rifice to which he so often made claim, he would 
 not now have an opponent in Mr. Lincoln for 
 the Presidency, but would have gone in by the 
 acclamation of all parties. But as it was, he 
 wanted to make sure of his case ; he would run 
 no risk himself, others must do that. He cared 
 not at what cost of millions of treasure, and 
 took no thought of the thousands of lives, so he 
 made his election sure. He had the highest 
 place in the army. He stood well, and, fol- 
 lowing the old adage, he stood still !" 
 
 He says in his report he had hoped to make 
 a general advance during the good weather in 
 December, but was defeated in that hope by 
 not the condition of the Army of the Potomac 
 but as he says, by the " utter disorganiza- 
 tion and want of preparation which pervaded 
 the Western armies." They lacked, he says, 
 when he came to command as General-in-Chief, 
 " transportation, arms, clothing, artillery and 
 discipline," certainly a bad state for an army 
 to be in. But. he does not say that one of the 
 great causes of their deficiency in the material 
 
6 
 
 of war was on account of his absorbing every- 
 thing for his own army ; for even before Gen. 
 Scott retired, he had everything he asked for 
 that could be had. But his army being in good 
 condition, and the Western armies being defi- 
 cient in everything which goes to make an 
 army efficient, is it not strange that these 
 Western armies moved and fought the battles 
 of Mill Springs, took Fort Henry, Fort Donel- 
 son, Columbus and Nashville, and reached the 
 southern borders of Tennessee before the Army 
 of the Potomac under McClellan had fairly in- 
 augurated its campaign? 
 
 Where here \\as that grand co-operation of 
 which McClellan speaks, and of which the 
 Army of the Potomac was to perform its share ? 
 The army attacked nothing, and did not pre- 
 vent the enemy what was left of him from 
 retiring at his own good pleasure and without 
 molestation from Manassas, and going where 
 he pleased, and wherever his means of commu- 
 nication enabled him. This grand combina- 
 tion was called in the language of the day, the 
 great Anaconda movement. It was claimed for 
 it that it was something Napoleonic in its com- 
 prehensiveness, something above the apprecia- 
 tion of the ordinary matter-of-fact man. What- 
 ever it was, good or bad, his part in his own 
 plan was not carried out. He kept his own 
 especial well appointed army inactive, and left 
 the badly prepared, badly equipped, badly sup- 
 plied Western boys to do the fighting, and they 
 did it and no credit or thanks to him, either. 
 
 In connection with this subject, and as an 
 illustration in a remarkable degree of the rela- 
 tions between Mr. Lincoln and Gen. McClellan, 
 I will mention here some interviews between 
 Mr. Lincoln and mvself in the early part of Jan- 
 uary, 1862. What occurred struck me, at the 
 time, as something so extraordinary in the his- 
 tory of a great nation, revealing a state of 
 affairs that I am quite sure never existed be- 
 fore, and I was a ssure could never exist again, 
 that I made, at the time, notes of these inter- 
 views, and have thus retained them fresh in 
 my mind. 
 
 The questions discussed at the time have long 
 since become matters of history, and I feel, on 
 that account, and because of existing circum- 
 stances, justified in referring to them. 
 
 It was on the 10th of January, 1862, that, 
 being at Arlington, I received a telegram, and 
 soon after a confidential note, saying the Pres 
 ident wished to see me. I went to the White 
 House, and was ushered into the northeast 
 room, where I found the President and Gen. 
 Franklin. The President appeared to be 
 greatly depressed in consequence of the despe- 
 rate condition of the national affairs. He 
 spoke of the exhausted condition of the treas- 
 ury ; of the loss of public credit ; of the Jaco- 
 binism in Congress ; of the delicate state of 
 our foreign relations; of the bad news just re- 
 
 ceived from the West, as contained in a letter 
 Prom General Halleck, on the state of affairs in 
 Missouri; of the want of co-operation between 
 Generals Buell and Halleck, each having to 
 report direct to Washington ; but, more than 
 all, of the sickness of General McClellan. 
 
 The President said he was in great distress, 
 and as he had been to General McClellan's 
 house, and the General did not ask to see him, 
 and as he must consult somebody, he had sent 
 for General Franklin and myself, to obtain our 
 views, and our opinion as to the possibility of 
 soon doing something with the Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 To use his own expression, " if something 
 was not soon done, the bottom would be out of 
 the whole affair 1" and " if Gen. McClellan did 
 not want to use the army, he would like to 
 borrow it, provided he could see how it could 
 be made to do something." 
 
 It is unnecessary to go into the details of the 
 conferences had on this occasion. They lasted 
 several days. In reference to the movement of 
 the army, I advocated its going out from Alex- 
 andria against the enemy then in front of that 
 place, and Gen. Franklin, at first, favored its 
 going by way of York River. We directed our 
 inquiries to both cases, and were ordered by 
 the President to obtain all the information 
 necessary to form an opinion from the staff offi- 
 cers of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 It was on the 10th of January that the Pres- 
 ident in person went to the headquarters of 
 Gen. McClellan, but could not see him. Secre- 
 tarv Seward had also gone to McClellan's 
 headquarters, but was refused admission be- 
 cause the General had been, and was, so sick 
 that he could not be disturbed. This, at a time 
 when Gen. McClellan's chief of staff was absent 
 sick, and when there was no one at Washing- 
 ton but Gen. McClellan himself who knew 
 anything about his plans whatever they may 
 have been or the instructions to be given our 
 armies in the field at a time they needed them 
 to secure their effective co-operation, or to place 
 them in a position or condition for the cam* 
 paign. 
 
 Yet, if you will refer to Gen. McClellan's 
 report, you will see that just prior to this date, 
 when he could not see the President of the 
 United States, nor the Secretary of State, he 
 was (January 7th) writing despatches' to Burn- 
 side, and I was 1 assured by a gentleman of high 
 character and position, and of undoubted ver- 
 acity, that at this very time of our conferences, 
 he himself had had an interview with McClel- 
 lan, not on his own direct application, which 
 had been denied, but through the intervention 
 of a reporter of an influential newspaper, the 
 New York Herald. 
 
 During these conferences with the President, 
 and shortly after the visit of the gentleman be- 
 fore referred to if, indeed, not in consequence 
 
of it Gen. McClellan left his house and went 
 to see the President. When he did, the Presi- 
 dent told us that, as Gen. McClellan was now 
 looking very well, and would take charge of 
 the army himself, he would dismiss further 
 proceedings with us, but he wished we would 
 come together once more and meet Gen. Mc- 
 Clellan. 
 
 At this final meeting the President explained 
 to him why he had called in and consulted Gen. 
 Franklin and myself, going over pretty much 
 the same ground he had already gone with us. 
 To all of which Gen. McClellan said, "the case 
 was so clear a blind man could see it." 
 
 At this meeting, where Gen. McClellan, Gen. 
 Franklin, myself, and several members of the 
 Cabinet were present, the subject of the ensu- 
 ing campaign was brought up, and a member 
 of the Cabinet put a direct question to Gen. 
 McClellan as to what he intended doing with 
 his army, and when he intended doing it ? 
 After a long pause, he answered that he was 
 very much averse to telling his plans, as, in 
 military matters, the fewer knowing them the 
 better; that he would do so if the President 
 ordered it! but "that any movement of the 
 Army of the Potomac must be preceded by 
 that of Buell's army in Kentucky, and that 
 that movement I with emphasis] might now be 
 forced I" 
 
 The President then asked him : " Have you 
 counted on any particular time I do not ask 
 what that time is ; but have you, in your mind, 
 any particular time fixed when a movement can 
 be commenced?" He replied, he had. "Then," 
 said the President, " on that I will adjourn this 
 meeting !" 
 
 I cite this as an example of great trust on 
 the part of the President, and as showing to 
 what an extent Gen. McClellan was allowed to 
 have everything his own way. 
 
 This movement of BuelPs in Kentucky, 
 which Gen. McClellan thought, in the middle 
 of January, could be forced, was nothing less 
 than a march through Cumberland Gap to 
 Knoxville, to cut off railroad communications 
 from Virginia to the South and West. This 
 was to be done by this badly supplied, badly 
 armed, badly clothed, and badly disciplined 
 army, over two States, Kentucky and Tennes- 
 see, and a chain of mountains ; whilst McClel- 
 lan, on a subsequent occasion (October 7th, 
 1862), declared that he had concluded to adopt 
 for his fine army, "the line of the Shenandoah, 
 for immediate operations against the enemy,now 
 near Winchester." But that over the smooth, 
 broad stone road which leads up this valley, he 
 says : " If the enemy abandon Winchester, and 
 fail back on Staunton, it will be impossible for 
 us to pursue him by that route." " We can- 
 not go," he says, "more than twenty to thirty- 
 five miles beyond a railroad or canal terminus !" 
 
 What is this line, so impracticable for McClel- 
 
 lan ? The very one on which a hundred 
 miles from where he said he could not go the 
 gallant Sheridan has gone, and on which, near 
 Strasburg, a day's march beyond McClellan's 
 stopping point, Sheridan has just gained his 
 great victory over Early ! 
 
 January and part of February having passed 
 by without anything being attempted by the 
 Army of the Potomac, the twelve Generals of 
 Division were called together in council at 
 McClellan's headquarters, to determine on a 
 plan of action, to be submitted to the President. 
 The question was determined on personal 
 grounds, not on the merits of the case. I knew 
 nothing of political caucusses, but the action 
 then appeared very like what I suppose them 
 to be. After some discussion between the 
 Generals, Gen. McClellan came in and submit* 
 ted his plan, which was to leave the enemy 
 where he was, and fight him where he was 
 not ; to embark his army at Annapolis, and go 
 around and up the Rappahannock to the rear 
 of the, enemy, and thence into Richmond before 
 the enemy could take his army back to its de- 
 fence by direct railroad communication. This 
 magnificent scheme involved, first, the divi- 
 sion of his army into two parts, and second, 
 the embarkation of the larger part, with its 
 batteries, cavalry horses, forage, munitions, 
 siege guns, commissary stores, teams, etc., and 
 transportation of the same by water, and land 
 marches, to the gates of Richmond ! And all 
 to be done in a week from the time it should be 
 commenced, 
 
 To show how little he had digested his own 
 plan, and how just were the objections urged 
 at the time, as to the possibility of his making 
 such a movement so as to answer his purpose 
 -just refer to his own opinions when he be- 
 came wiser by experience, when, on being re- 
 proached by Ilalleck for his tardiness in coming 
 up wjth his army from the Peninsula to rein- 
 force Pope, he says August 12th, 11 P. M. : 
 
 " With all the facilities at Alexandria and Wash- 
 ington (6) six weeks, about, were occupied in em- 
 barking this army and its material." 
 
 Yet he was to march forty miles to Annapolis, 
 and embark without so many facilities, and get 
 to the Rappahannock in a week! and before the 
 enemy should find it out and get down to re- 
 sist him. 
 
 I opposed the plan as impracticable at the 
 time, and for the purpose required. Three 
 Generals Sumner, Heintzleman and Barnard 
 agreed with me in the plan of going to the 
 front from Alexandria against the enemy, 
 where he then was, with the whole army, in** 
 stead of [a part, and by the shortest line. 
 Eight were against us a majority of two 
 thirds. Then it was proposed as is the case, 
 I understand, among politicians to make it 
 unanimous. This I refused to sanction, so far 
 as I was concerned. We went to the President 
 
8 
 
 in a body, and found him doubled up, sitting 
 "by the fire-place. He said he was glad to see 
 us; hoped something would be done; for, as 
 he remarked, " Napoleon himself cjuld not 
 stand still any longer with such an army. I 
 don't care, gentlemen, what plan you have; all 
 I ask is for you to just pitch in I" 
 
 When the scheme was broached to him, his 
 countenance fell, and he said he did not see 
 how he could get his consent to allow the army 
 to leave Washington with the enemy in front 
 of it and the Potomac blockaded ; that if the 
 army was to be removed from its present base, 
 some of it at least must go down the Potomac ! 
 Nothing came of it, however, for the enemy 
 havinsr staid as long as he pleased, left the 
 Potomac and abandoned Manassas, and we 
 went there, after they had retired in safety! 
 
 McOlellan then went to the Peninsula, and 
 took up the plan of campaign by way of York 
 River and the Chickahominy. 
 
 The Peninsula campaign and the causes 
 which led to the separation of my corps from 
 Gen. McClellan's army, are among the most 
 important matters effecting Gen. McClellan'b 
 reputation. Any account that would be at all 
 justice to them would extend my remarks be- 
 yond the time that can now be given. Fortu 
 nately, these subjects have been most ably 
 handled by one who, as a soldier, an engineer, 
 as a man of the highest professional attain- 
 ments, of the greatest military knowledge, as 
 a distinguished graduate of the Military Acad- 
 emy, and subsequently as the Superintendent 
 of that institution, as'a mathematician, and a 
 man of science and of letters, and as a man of 
 character and perfect independence of thought, 
 has no superior in the army or out of it. I 
 mean one not unknown to many of my hearers 
 Gen. Barnard, who but lately gave a beauti- 
 ful example of self abnegation in asking the 
 President to withdraw his nomiation from be- 
 fore the Senate for the place of Chief of the 
 Corps of Engineers of the whole army, when 
 he learned that his senior, Gen. Delafield, was 
 strong enough physically to discharge the 
 duties of the place. 
 
 This view of the Peninsula campaign is so 
 full, so overwhelming, that I am sure if my 
 friend if he will suffer me so to call him Mr 
 W. T. Coleman, will be at the pains to procure 
 and read it, he will have an internal trouble 
 in all candor, to reconcile his position as sub 
 leader of the opposition, with the conviction 
 that will be forced on his mind of the worth 
 lessness of his chief! There is one point fox 
 characteristic of Gen. McClellan, and too much 
 connected with my own operations, for me t 
 pass by. At the close of his report he says : 
 
 " The brilliant battle of Hanover Court Hous 
 was fought, which opened the way for the Firs 
 Corps (then forming part of the Army of the Rap 
 pahannock,) with the aid of which, had it come, w 
 
 hould then have gone into the enemy's capital. It 
 ever came! " 
 
 How disingenious, to say the least of it, this 
 s. The First Corps of the Army of the Poto- 
 nac, as organized by him, consisted of the 
 hree divisions of Franklin, King and McCall. 
 Of these, at the time to which he refers, he had 
 ranklin and McCall. He had, on the 7th of 
 Fune, assured the President he would be in 
 erfect readiness to move forward and take 
 lichmond the moment McCall's division 
 eached him and McCall reached him on the 
 2th and 13th. On the 14th of the same month 
 le was still asking for more troops, which he 
 nsisted should be sent to him by water. The 
 roops he wanted were under my command and 
 near Fredericksburg. FromFredericksburg to 
 Richmond it is about 58 miles, about the dis- 
 .ance from here to the New Almaden mines ! 
 The country was the same over which subse- 
 quently Grant marched his army. There was 
 hen nothing of the enemy between Gen. 
 McClellan's army and mine. The march 
 would not require for my forces more than three 
 days. I had an abundant supply of wagons 
 and beef cattle, yet Gen. McClellan would not 
 bear of my marching down the straight open 
 road, but insisted my troops should be marched 
 to the river-and embarked on transports, so as 
 to come in his rear instead of on his right to 
 come by detachments instead of in a body, even 
 when he knew from his own experience, and 
 was reminded in the most pointed manner by 
 the President that it would take three times as 
 as long. He ends one of his despatches at this 
 time with this remarkable statement: "If I 
 cannot fully control all his (McDowell's) troops, 
 I want none of them, but would prefer to fight 
 the battle with what I have, and let others be 
 responsible for the results." 
 
 Let it be understood that he had then precisely 
 the control of McDowell's troops which he asked 
 for ; but even if he had not, is it not rather an equi- 
 vocal position for a patriot to occupy, to be willing, 
 in this pert manner, to throw away what he swore 
 before a court, to be a certainty of taking the enemy's 
 capital and crushing the rebellion, because the Pres- 
 ident, whose orders he had sworn to obey, wished 
 the troops should go to him in the most expeditious 
 manner. 
 
 Why was this ? He says to the President : " The 
 stake is too great to allow personal conside'ations 
 to be entertained ; you know I have none." He 
 thanks God he is not like other men ! 
 
 The simple, plain, unvarnished truth, I have been 
 told by those who were in McClellan's army at the 
 time, was that the whole affair was one of personal 
 consideration. He wanted my troops sent to him in 
 such a way as to reinforce his partizans; I subse- 
 quently found that McCall's division had been as- 
 signed by him to Gen. Fitz John Porter. 
 
 One instance more, and I will have done. The 
 conduct of Gen. McClellan at the second battle of 
 Bull Run has been represented by his party as some- 
 
thing noble, patriotic and self-sacrificing to an un- 
 heard-of degree. 
 
 That on this occasion he was disgraced by the 
 Administration, confined at Alexandria, and com 
 pelled for hours to listen to the distant sound of the 
 conflict, and when the army in front was defeated 
 and routed, scattered, disorganized, disspirited, and 
 totally incapable of making a successful defence 
 he was sought with tearful eyes, arid entreated to 
 save the capital, which he magnanimously consented 
 to do! 
 
 He protests in his report that he lost time in 
 moving the Army of the Potomac from the Peninsula 
 to the support of the Army of Virginia ; that he 
 left nothing undone in his power to forward supplies 
 and reinforcements to Gen. Pope ! 
 
 He is, I suppose, the best judge of what he was 
 capable of doing. If so, I can only say that it 
 amounted to but little. 
 
 The whola of this case is very fully given in Ray 
 mond's book on Lincoln's Administration and in the 
 Congressional documents and these may be safely 
 referred to, to prove, that, instead of doing anything 
 to send reinforcements or supplies to Pope, he did 
 just the reverse. And I here wish to assert it as a 
 fact, which you can see yourselves from McClellan's 
 own reports in the books before mentioned that 
 one of his first acts' on taking charge ot the duty as- 
 signed him at Alexandria, was to countermand the 
 order for Cox's brigade, then on their way to Pope, 
 and place it with Franklin's corps. And that this 
 corps ordered over and over again, in the most 
 peremptory manner, to move by forced marches, 
 and reinforce an army then actually engaged in a 
 battle, the distant sound of which he heard was 
 not suffered by McClellan to join Pope till after Pope 
 had been fighting the enemy for three days, and he 
 (McClellan) had succeeded in his efforts to procure 
 his defeat. 
 
 First Cox's command, then Franklin's Corps 
 then Sumner's, and then others all withheld! 
 Sumner himself testifies that had he been ordered 
 forward, upon landing at Alexandria he would have 
 been in the second battle of Bull Run. 
 
 I will not, I am sure, be thought by any one who 
 studies the testimony, to use too strong language 
 when I say these corps were all withheld on the 
 most miserable, flimsy pretexts such pretexts r.s 
 would have caused him to withhold Kearney, 
 Heintzelman, and Porter, had he arrived before they 
 marched. 
 
 He also refused to send forward any supplies till 
 Pope should send his troops then engaged with 
 the enemy back to escort them ! I This when 
 Banks' wagon train was coming down from the 
 front without any molestation whatever! 
 
 One fact of hid conduct on this occasion should 
 not be forgotten. He was told by the superinten- 
 dent of the railroad Gen. Haupt that Gen. Scam- 
 mon was holding Bull Run brlJge with 1,500 men, 
 and needed reinforcements. Now, this is a case in 
 which strategy is not involved, but a plain simple 
 question, that any person in this assembly is per- 
 fectly competent to understand an officer holding 
 a position with a inferior force, and within a few 
 miles of a large body of his comrades. 
 
 The following ia Haupt's testimony in the case : 
 
 " Question -What action did Gen. McClellan take 
 upon the information which you communicated? 
 
 Answer He decided that it would not be safe to 
 send an expedit'on to reinforce the co nmand of Col. 
 Scammon until he could get further information of 
 the number and position of the enemy. 
 
 Q. Did you recommend that the command should 
 be reinforced ? 
 
 A. I was very anxious that it should be either 
 reinforced or relieved. I wished also to bring off the 
 remainder of Gen. Taylor's command, and, if I had 
 not found Gen. McCle'lan, would certainly have 
 sent out a force that afternoon. 
 
 Q. Had you reason to believe that this move- 
 ment cou'd have been made successfully? 
 
 A. I thought the circumstances were such as to 
 justify spme risk, and as Gen. McClellan did not 
 seem willing to send a force for the reasons as- 
 signed, I determined to assume the responsibility of 
 making a reconnoissance on the following morning, 
 unless positively forbidden. I accordingly sent to 
 Gen. McClellan the following telegram : 
 
 AUGUST 27, 1862. 
 
 I propose to start at 4 o'clock, precisely, a wrecking and | 
 construction train, bound for Bull Run; also, a forage train 
 and subsistence train. It is, perhaps, proper that two hun- 
 dred good skirmishers should be sent with the trains, who 
 should be at the depot at Alexandria before 4 A. M. to-morrow 
 morning. Gen. Pope will oe notified by courier to-night to 
 have his wagons ready at Sangster's Station by daylight to- 
 morrow. If the troops are not here by 4 A. M. we propose to 
 go ahead without them. H. HATJPT. 
 
 Maj. Gen. McClellan. 
 
 No reply having been received within the time des- 
 ignated. I sent out the train ! I cannot speak in too 
 strong terms of the zeal and courage of the railway 
 employes and, of the telegraph operators, who, with 
 a full understanding that the service was very haz- 
 ardous, volunteered for the ocasion." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Not safe to reinforce because he did not know how 
 great was the danger ! and then neither reinforcing 
 nor withdrawing this command, but leaving it to iti 
 fate! 
 
 Fortunately, the indefatigable Haupt, without 
 any aid from the military, and with his brave corps 
 of civilians, railroad employes, and telegraph opera- 
 tors, did what the General did not feel himself au- 
 thorized on military grounds to attempt! 
 
 Haupt further testifies to the fact that nearly all 
 the information given to the Government at Wt sh- 
 ington, during this battle, was given by civilians ! 
 And you will .'ee that not a particle was obtained 
 by Gen. McClellan, though he had under his con- 
 trol nearly 40,000 men, with a sufficiency of every- 
 thing necessary f >r the purpose. 
 
 The animus with which all this was done was 
 not left in doubt even by his own reports. You 
 will see that he actually suggests to the President 
 to withhold all help from Pope, and to leave him 
 which means many thousands of gallant men " to 
 get out of his scrape as best he can !" This on the 
 pretext to make the capital secure ! 
 
 Yet when, soon afterward, he, McClellan, was 
 again at the head of this army he proposed thus to 
 be sacrificed, he says (September 11, 1862): "But 
 even if Wa-hitigton should be taken, this would not 
 bear comparison with the ruin and disasters which 
 would follow a single defeat of this" his " army." 
 
 When he had charge of Washington he proposed 
 
10 
 
 to sacrifice the army ; and when he has the army, 
 he proposes to sacrifice the capital ! Yet he is con- 
 stantly protesting he has no personal considerations ; 
 that high, patriotic, unselfish and disinterested 
 motives only have animated him! Yet will any 
 one, in all candor say, from these statements, that 
 he has not given ample evidence of the very re- 
 verse ? 
 
 How came it that with a knowledge of his con- 
 duct on this occasion, the President should have re- 
 placed him in command of the army ? It was on 
 account of the representations made to him that 
 that army would not fight under any one else, and 
 that he must accept McClellan or the enemy! 
 
 I was at boch battles of Bull Run. What I did 
 or did not do at the first, is of no consequence in 
 this connection ; that matter has been abundantly 
 investigated and commented on; but what I said is 
 of consequence. For I claim to have given the 
 country a true and faithful account of it one that 
 has never been gainsayed ; and I claim therefore to 
 
 be believed now when, in reference to the second, I 
 tell you that those representations as to that army 
 being routed, disorganized and demoralized, and not 
 willing to fight under any one the Government 
 might assign to it, are false, utterly false ! and that 
 personal considerations were at the bottom of the 
 whole matter ; and it was on personal grounds, and 
 not on public and patriotic ones, that McClellan 
 WHS at this time forced on the President. 
 
 This is the General whom the opposition wish to 
 take the place of Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln is con- 
 fessedly not a military man. You have seen how 
 he confides in and sustains those whom he trusts. 
 Whom does he now have to conduct this war? who 
 are his Lieutenants? 
 
 Look at the brilliant campaigns of Vicksburg, 
 Atlanta, and the Shenandoah, and tell me if you 
 want other or better men than Grant, than Sher- 
 man, than Sheridan ("No! no! no!") Then here 
 I rest the case without another word on this subject. 
 
 SrEECH OF HOE JOHN COMESS, 
 
 At a Mass Meeting of Union men, held at Platt's 
 Hall, San Francisco, on Tuesday evening, the 18th 
 instant, Senator Conness was introduced to the au- 
 dience, and spoke as follows: 
 
 Mr. Chairman, ladies and fellow-citizens of San 
 Fruncisco: I have been summoned before you to- 
 night by the inexorable order of the Union State 
 Central Committee. It is not, fellow-citizens, by 
 even a wish of mine that I appear before you, and 
 you must not think it strange that I say this. How- 
 ever I may have acquired some reputation for public 
 speaking by reason of its having been forced upon 
 me in conflicts through which I have passed, it is 
 not my forte. I fear it. I fear public audiences, 
 and more than I can tell you. In addition to that, 
 fellow-citizens, in this canvass I have been unfortu- 
 nate enough not to be possessed of my ordinary 
 vigor, and I have been advised of the necessity of 
 husbanding what little I have, in order that in the 
 sphere of my official duties I, too, may contribute to 
 the success that we all so earnestly contemplate 
 the preservation of the country, of liberty and free- 
 dom in America and the whole world. [Applause.] 
 
 It has been said by some that there is a luke- 
 warmness felt by me in this contest. Why, fellow- 
 citizens, there are none who have heads to think 
 and hearts to feel who can possibly be lukewarm in 
 a contest such as the one before us. [Applause.] 
 The mightiest stake is at issue, the greatest contest 
 is being waged that was ever known in America. 
 Heretofore, for generations past, since our country 
 began, all questions, no matter how important their 
 
 character, were determined by the popular voice. 
 We are now to determine by the popular vice the 
 great question of who shall be the Chief Magistrate 
 of this nation for four years to come; and by and 
 by, in addition to that, we are to determine whether 
 or not we shall continue to be a nation whether or 
 not the United States of America shall still be con- 
 sidered, and be in fact, the home of the oppressed of 
 every nation ; the home, the secure home, of liberty. 
 [Applause.] But while this civil contest is going on 
 at this time, war, deadly and horrible war, is car- 
 ried on upon the fields of this country a war in 
 which the lands and homes of the country are laid 
 waste and her sons are slaughtered by hundreds of 
 thousands. We have thus a double contest inaug- 
 urated against us one of the most important civil 
 contests and one of the most terrible and sanguin- 
 ary conflicts that the world ever saw. 
 
 *Who is it that is responsible for this double con- 
 test? Who is it that has invoked this terrible war 
 and brought it upon us? la part, that is the theme 
 of our discussion to-night. And I submit now to 
 this audience, to you, fellow-citizens, to every man 
 in the land who has a spark of reason and a particle 
 of justice in his composition I submit to all the 
 question whether there was cause for this terrible 
 war; whether we might not have gone on as we 
 had gone on ever since the nation began its exist- 
 ence, submitting every question to popular .arbitra- 
 ment, and in that respect commanding the admira- 
 tion of all the nations of Europe? Until this war 
 began, no matter bow fierce our contests were, no 
 matter how strong and deep our convictions were, 
 
11 
 
 when the majority decided, the great body of the 
 people acquiesced in the decision. Then we were 
 the admiration of the civilized world ; now, we have 
 almost become its sport. 
 
 I say we have come together in part to discuss, 
 to-night, and determine as to who are responsible 
 for this terrible change, and to shape our actions 
 accordingly. No ordinary influence could have pro- 
 duced this great result, this dire calamity. It must 
 be a cause or causes that enter deep into the con- 
 victions of men. It must be a cause or causes that 
 stirred up the passions of men to their deepest 
 depths and have aroused them to the exertion of 
 their utmost power. What was it ? Some States 
 of this Union professed and pretended that their 
 rights were invaded that they possessed a class of 
 property guaranteed to them by the Constitution of 
 the United States, which another part of the country 
 was contantly engaged in trying to wrest from 
 them. That was their assertion. They maintained 
 that assertion in various forms for a number of 
 years, and what is singular and remarkable is, that 
 they maintained it strongly and constantly while 
 they as constantly held the power of the nation in 
 their own hands. They invariably, or almost in- 
 variably, elected the Chief Magistrate of the nation. 
 They almost invariably had Congressional power. 
 They organized the Courts. They obtained decis- 
 ions ; and their fellow-citizens of the free or North- 
 ern States acquiesced in the decisions made. If 
 they protested civilly, if they carried their protests 
 into discussion, public discussion, complaint was 
 made by Southern men in the halls of Congress, 
 and on the stump in the various districts and States. 
 Yet the protest of the North, at the best, was but 
 the expression of an opinion, based on the nobleness 
 of nature and humanity, against human slavery. 
 [Applause.] But so educated had the people be- 
 come even to the existence and toleration of slavery 
 which the great majority of them hated and detested; 
 so educated, I say, had they become, to acquiesce 
 in the decision of the majority, that, excepting in 
 the rarest instances instances so rare and so con- 
 temptible by the measure of their power, as to be 
 unworthy of notice nothing but civil discussion 
 ever arose as a consequence ef any decision. But 
 they tulked of State rights the men of the South. 
 What State rights had they been deprived of? As 
 I before stated, they invariably controlled the power 
 of the Nation. They held the offices of the Nation; 
 they filled the army, they filled the ranks of the 
 navy. To such an extent did they do that, that it 
 was no matter whether the President elected was a 
 Northern President or a Southern President ; they 
 alike had the power, and wielded it. And when 
 they inaugurated this terrible war upon us they 
 controlled the Administration, in the person, aye, 
 the hated and detested person of James Buchanan. 
 [Applause.] They had, through him, filled every 
 embassy that we sent abroad. There was no court 
 of Europe at which we were not represented either 
 by a Southern man, like Faulkner, of Virginia, or a 
 baser and mojBe detested Northern man, like Glaucey 
 Jones, of Pennsylvania. [Approbation.] And 
 they were not idle with this great potent agency. 
 Let me tell you, my fellow-citizens, a fact that is 
 not generally and popularly known and I state it 
 to you from the highest source of intelligence 
 
 that when Mr. Lincoln took the office of President 
 of the United States, in 1861, the education of every 
 court in Europe, aye, and in South America, that 
 was of the slightest political consequence, was com- 
 plete; having been carried on and completed by 
 American ministers. They had been taught by 
 those ministers that our country and Government 
 were at an end. ["Shame".] Yes, it is a shame, 
 and a damning proof of a treason early hatched, 
 and thus attempted, in the most fraudulent and 
 despicable manner, to be launched against a gen- 
 erous, a magnanimous and a noble people. [Cheers.] 
 
 This fact, fellow-citizens, accounts for a most re- 
 markable circumstance a circumstance entirely 
 new in the history of the intercourse of nations, 
 namely, the immediate recognition of belligerent 
 powers in this bastard Confederacy. It had no 
 sooner sprung into existence than the powerful na- 
 tions of the earth recognized them as our equals, 
 admitted their pirate ships into their ports and gave 
 their representatives audiences. This circumstance 
 is accounted for by the fact I have stated to you 
 that they had been told, and educated to believe, 
 by the ministers of our country, that our nation was 
 at an end; and so they hurried up to divide the 
 garments of Christ between them. They desired to 
 make an early association with the Southern Con- 
 federacy. They clamored and strove, each with the 
 other, for early treaties and bargains, by which they 
 could gain advantage ; and they were unwilling to 
 listen to the declaration of our Government that we 
 could maintain it intact. 
 
 And this state of facts, now forming a part of the 
 history of the country, exists, while those blatant 
 allies, to which your Chairman referred, of the trait- 
 ors South, now talk about Democracy of organiz- 
 ing what they call Democracy that the South in 
 arms against us may carry out their damned pur- 
 pose of destroying our country, thus pre-arranged and 
 predetermined by those men who had possession of 
 the Government. 
 
 I need not say what is so oft repeated, that a 
 more causeless and baseless war the world never 
 knew. [Cheers.] Why, upon the subject of slav- 
 ery our Government, the Republican Administra- 
 tion, the Republican Congress, offered to do every- 
 thing. It is within your recollection that one of the 
 very first acts of that Congress was to pass an 
 amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
 which should put it out of the power of the Central 
 Government to aflfe,ct slavery hereafter in any State 
 of the Union, especially disclaiming the exercise of 
 any such power. That amendment came to our 
 State Capital when I had the honor of a seat there 
 as a representative. It had the name of William H. 
 Seward [applause], Secretary of State of the United 
 States of America, attached to it. I gave it my 
 vote. And I tell you, fellow-citizens, to-night, that 
 it did not get rny vote because I loved slavery, nor 
 because I did not detest it ; but it got my vote be- 
 cause I felt, as every good citizen felt, that every 
 reasonable concession should be made, that every 
 reasonable protest should be hearkened to, in order 
 that peace and unity might still abide with us. 
 [Cheers.] That Congress, too, although the politi- 
 cal platform on which a majority of its members 
 were elected declared in favor of the rig'ut of Con- 
 gress to prohibit slavery in the Territories organ- 
 
12 
 
 ized Territories on what we call the principle of 
 popular sovereignty, and thus ceased to exercise the 
 power it claimed. There was another great and 
 liberal act on the part of that party on the part of 
 the men against whom the South launched its com- 
 plaints, that they were going to take possession of 
 its properly, or destroy the value of it, going to ruin 
 its industry, to leave it without State rights or in- 
 dependence. 
 
 But more than that, fellow-citizens. While, after 
 the war began thus causelessly and thus basely, the 
 South used its myriads of negroes in producing the 
 means, and the only means, by which war could be 
 made by the people of the South against us, the 
 Government forebore to act against slavery as an 
 institution ; and it was not until a very large body 
 of people, an immense body of people, demanded 
 that slavery should be attacked, because it was a 
 war weapon of the South, that the President of the 
 United States issued his great Proclamation of 
 Emancipation, [immense applause] which, let me say 
 to you now, was the first honest word officially 
 spoken by America to the people of the civi ized 
 world in favor of the rights of all men. [Great 
 applause.] We, up to the time of the issuing of 
 that proclamation, the enunciation of that great 
 edict, had denied upon all occasions any intention to 
 interfere wiih slavery. It had been announced, and 
 steadily insisted upon, by the President, by the 
 Secretary of State, by a solemn resolution of our 
 Congress in civil convocation, that the paramount 
 nay, the great, the only object of maintaining the 
 war against those that made war upon us, was 
 simply and singly to preserve the Union, and to do 
 nothing else. And our President went so far, at a 
 very late period, as to declare that if, to preserve 
 the Union, it was necessary to abolish slavery, he 
 would abolish it [cheers ;] but if, to preserve the 
 Union, it was necessary to preserve slavery, he 
 would preserve it. [Applause.] In other words, 
 the preservation of the Union was declared by us, 
 prior to the great proclamation, as the paramount 
 and great object of the American people in the con- 
 test. [Cheers.] 
 
 There is no doubt, I think, that if a vote .had 
 been taken at any time before or at the beginning of 
 the contest upon the question, Shall we have war 
 without seeing its end or termination, and attempt 
 to abandon e avery as a system in the Union, or 
 shall we have peace and Union? a majority would 
 have decided in favor of the latter proposition. But, 
 fellow-citizens, the time finally came when patience 
 ceased to be a virtue, when forbearance was misin- 
 terpreted or denominated cowardice, and when the 
 rfatal hand of foreign intervention would not have 
 ibeen stayed had not the President, representing the 
 American pe >ple, the loyal, humane, enlightened 
 American people, issued the great edict telling the 
 people of the world that we are now for the Union 
 without slavery [great applause] ; that there can be 
 no peace with slavey. [Applause.] Slavery was 
 .furnishing our enemy with power building his for- 
 tifications, producing his supplies, his forage, his 
 subsistence, and was corrupting the minds of his 
 people and demoralizing the minds of a part of ours, 
 .and the Chief Magistrate resolved to strike it down 
 May the Lord God bless him for that ! [Vociferous 
 and repeattd applause]. 
 
 When the war was begun upon u a , a set of men 
 in this State, that we and all loyal men call and 
 know as Secessionists, opposed what they called co- 
 ercion. They echoed the feeble and traitor voice of 
 the traitor President who had said that there is no 
 power in the Constitution to make war upon a State. 
 States could make war upon States and upon the 
 National Government, and upon libetty ; but there 
 was no power in the Government to make war upon 
 a State ! The pettifogging dishonesty of that man, 
 in cooking up and presenting that proposition in 
 that light, cannot be contemplated without ex- 
 citing the uttermost contempt. Why did he get up 
 a false issue of that kind, that the National arm 
 might be paralyzed? Why did not the base, cow- 
 ardly man take his position then side by side, as 
 his false Ministers had done as his Cabinet had 
 done, with the leaders of the rebellion, and aid to 
 the full and entire extent of his power the dismem- 
 berment of the Union ? Why, if there can be any 
 such thing as an honest devil, an honest devil is 
 more respectable [applause and laughter] than a 
 cowardly, hypocritical, deceitful devil. [Cheers.] 
 I don't know that there are degrees of this kind, 
 but it is enough to say, that in that false arid de- 
 ceitful issue presented by him he exhibited himself 
 in the meanest aspect of them all. [Applause ] 
 
 We call them Secessionists, I said. You all re- 
 member the session of the Legislature of this State 
 of 1861. Sidney Johnson was in command of your 
 forces here, and in the State Library of this state 
 and in the Supreme Court room there were nightly 
 meetings of those reptiles to determine when blood 
 should begin to flow, when civil war -should be 
 organized in California, as it had been organized in 
 Maryland, in Kentucky, in Missouri and in Tennes- 
 see. They scarcely called themselves at that time 
 by the somfwhat respectable, certainly once respect- 
 able, certainly theoretically grand, name of Demo- 
 crats. Why, there was not a loyal man in the State 
 who had been a Democrat that would allow fellow- 
 ship with them. [Applause.] They call themselves 
 Democrats now. What is democracy ? Is it not 
 that scheme of government which proposes to confer 
 rights alike upon you and upon me ? Is it not that 
 scheme of government that proposes the greatest 
 extent of civil rights to mankind consistent with 
 civil order ? [Cheer?.] If it is not that, it is not 
 worth much, and its votaries, whatever honest vota- 
 ries it ever had, have been miserably deceived. The 
 men who are now haranguing the multitudes and 
 calling themselves Democrats did not admit then 
 that those original Secessionists were Democrats; 
 nay, they were opposed at that time to being known 
 themselves as Democrats men like Eugene Cas- 
 serly. After the Legislature of 1861 had >tood up 
 nobly to the cause of the Union, and the minds of 
 the people of the State were aroused, and it was 
 palpable that the Union people would sweep the 
 State by an immense majority, what were Casserly 
 and Hoge, and others like them, doing ? I will tell 
 you what they were doing ; for I know perhaps 
 more intimately than the great body^ol the people 
 at large. I sat in the office of Eugene Cas-eily, in 
 this city, attending a meeting of what was then de- 
 nominated the Union Democratic State Central 
 Committee, and read (I confess it) admiringly the 
 product of bis pen, in the shape of resolutions to be 
 
13 
 
 Subrnitted to that Committee, in which he denounced 
 all party. Those resolutions were all written by 
 him every line, every word; every punctuation 
 mark was made by him ; and they were presented 
 to the Committee, by a traitor named White, who is 
 now upon the secession electoral ticket of this State. 
 [Cheers.] I have here, thanks to the Sacramento 
 Union, which keeps an exact record of the times 
 [applau-e], the resolutions as they came from the 
 pen of Casserly. I will only trouble the meeting 
 and c >nsume your time by reading a very small 
 portion of them ["Read them all," "Read them 
 all,"J to show you the drift of the mind of the man 
 at that time: and then I will, perhaps, attempt to 
 give you somp of the reasons for that drift. These 
 are the resolutions before they were amended by 
 the State Central Committee to which they were 
 presented, and as they came from Casserly's pen : 
 
 " W HEREAB, The Democratic party has ever been the party 
 of fealty to free government and fraternal devotion to the 
 rights of the States of the Union, and of unwavering fidelity 
 to the laws, the Constitution, the Union and the country 
 ready to maintain them by all proper means and at every 
 sacrifice; 
 
 " And, whereas, The country is now defending itself 
 against a war without justih'cation or decent excuse, waged 
 upon it by c rtain seceded States, which is manifestly a war 
 for the invasion of our National Capital ; for the overthrow of 
 our National Government ; the oppression of the loyal States; 
 the Biilijugatiou of the Union ; a war to humble in the dust 
 our National flag; to wrench from the American people their 
 constitutional rights of determining for themselves their own 
 policy, foreign and domestic, and to blot them out from the 
 class of the great Powers of the world ; 
 
 "And, whereas, Such war, so aggressive in its character 
 and so deadly in its purposes, forces upon the country an 
 issue which < an be met but in one way by any people having 
 the common instinct of self-preservation, or worthy of an 
 existence as a nation; 
 
 " Therefore be it unanimously resolved by this Committee, 
 
 "1. That at this time, when the country is resisting with 
 all its miy;ht a war of invasion and destruction, indifference 
 is impossible to the patriot, and neutrality is cowardice, if 
 not premeditated disloyalty." [Applause.] 
 
 That is a pretty good resolution. [Applause.] 
 
 "2. That the people of California in the past have been 
 most anxious for peace throughout the land, and will hail 
 with joy an honorable adjustment in the future ; at the same 
 time they are, above all things, for the Union, the country 
 and the fbtg against all assailants no matter who they 
 are, whence they come or with what power armed. 
 
 "3. That this is the great crisis of the American nation 
 and name, our State will always, as heretofore, faithfully dis- 
 charge her constitutional obligations to the Union and the 
 Federal Government, and, as in duty bound, will earnestly 
 sustain the constituted authorities at Washington in all 
 measures necessary to defend and protect either against this 
 most unjustifiable and unnatural war." 
 
 The f urth relates simply to steamships. I will 
 pass that. 
 
 "6. Thiit all former partisan differences are lost in the 
 present overwhelming crisis; and he who would seek, by 
 reviving thorn, to distract the people, or to wrest from their 
 honest and patriotic devotion some sordid partisan advantage, 
 is not true to the country nor worthy of the name of Ameri- 
 can citizen [Immense applause.] 
 
 " 6. '1 hat as Californians, we appeal to the whole people of 
 California," not to any party ' but without distinction of 
 party or reference to partisan issues, to stand with us by our 
 country and our flag, that all may know that the great Union 
 party of California is the overpowering majority of her citi- 
 zens. [Applause.] 
 
 "7. That with these views we cordially invite all patriotic 
 men, who hold these sentiments, to meet in Grand Mass Con- 
 vention not Df mocratic Convention of the State at Sacra- 
 mento, on the 4th day of July next, at twelve o'clock, to 
 nominate candidates to be supported at the ensuing election; 
 and we recommend in the election of delegates, that the only 
 test be approval of these resolutions and willingness to sup- 
 port the candidates nominated." 
 
 Notv, fellow-citizens, I was a member of the Com- 
 mittee that considered those resolutions. Mj r name 
 stands at the bottom of a report of the sub-commit- 
 tee to whom they were referred, reporting them 
 tack unanimously for adoption to the committee. 
 "We desired then, C'asserly desired he professed to 
 desire an abandonment of party. That was the 
 temper of the times ; and, let me say, it was the 
 only avenue to power. But was Mr. Casserly at 
 that time the advocate of those resolutions because 
 they were true, or was it because he deemed them 
 the true means and only avenue to power? We 
 went into the committee with the resolutions. There 
 was a majority there to strike out words here and 
 there and insert partisan words in their places. 
 This was against the wish of Mr. Casserly. It was 
 against the wish, as I believed then, of the true 
 men in that committee and in the State. But they 
 were so amended. I went back to Sacramento, to- 
 the Capital, where the Legislature was still in ses- 
 sion, and within a week I discovered that Eugene 
 Casserly had concocted those resolutions to make- 
 himself Governor of California. [Cheers.] Fellow- 
 citizens, I tell you to-night from this stand that that 
 was the secret of my candidacy in 1861. [Ap- 
 plause.] When I found beyond any controversy 
 that Mr. Casserly was in league, as he was at that- 
 time, with men that I believed to be false to the- 
 country, I determined, for one, that if any effort of 
 mine could prevent it, the power of the people of 
 California should never be vested in his hands.- 
 [Great applause.] The contest went on. It was a 
 remarkable one, and Casserly was beatea in the 
 popular Convention of the party, and he did not 
 become Governor. [Laughter and applause.] You 1 
 can now see by his present course how basely he- 
 would have betrayed the Union men of California. 
 He stands to-day more responsible than any citizen- 
 of this State for the unpatriotic I undertake to say 
 it, the unpatriotic position of a large portion of the- 
 Irish people of California [applause] a people who- 
 love liberty by instinct [cheers] with whom love- 
 of freedom is a passion, but who, unfortunately <foiy 
 themselves, have too little learned from their teach- 
 ers at home and abroad the value of individual', 
 judgment, and who are thus led off by false and 1 " 
 heartless teachers and traitors like these. . [Tre- 4 
 mendous and long continued applause.] I pass over 
 and by the ascent of that man into my room at the-; 
 Orleans Hotel at Sacramento and the presentations 
 of his hand voluntarily; I rarely seek the hand of a- 
 Judas [cheers] with the assurance that he would* 
 support me, who had received the nomination. I passr 
 that over, as well as subsequent acts of antagonism 
 and opposition to the candidate nominated in opposi- 
 tion to me. They cut no figure in this contest. Per- 
 haps it was well that the people chose Leland Stan- 
 ford as Governor. [Applause.] It may be that if 
 I had been chosen 1 too would have been false to> 
 liberty. [ " No ! " " No ! " No ! " ] But, fellow- 
 citizens, my words are on record on that point. 
 After I had received the nomination for Governor, 
 and Leland Stanford was nominated, I met him in 
 the Orleans Hotel in Sacramento, and I said to him 
 in these words : " Governor, we are both nominated 
 for the office of Governor. One of us, in my opin- 
 ion, must be elected. I don't know what your 
 
14 
 
 course will be if you are elected, but I will tell you 
 what mine will be: Believing it to be the first ne- 
 cessity, a national necessity above and beyond all 
 party, I shall, if I get the power of the State, under- 
 take at once to organize a Union party in Califor- 
 nia; and if any partisan of mine shall put himself in 
 my way in that undertaking I will cut him off at 
 the knees." [Great cheering.] If Casserly had 
 been elected I don't think he would have swung 
 his political scythe among the men who would stand 
 in the way of organizing a Union party. No. Short- 
 ly after his defeat before the Convention his com- 
 mon language was, as this great contest progressed, 
 expressions of grief for what they call their South- 
 ern brethren that now he was in favor of estab- 
 lishing slavery in every free State. ["Nary time."] 
 Such is one of the men who undertake to teach, 
 to govern, to reign, to control the Irish heart of Cal- 
 ifornia. God 1 God I in Thy mercy look down 
 and act upon this people I Take them from out the 
 hands ot these vile teachers and make them what 
 Thou iutendest them to be, advocates and apostlea 
 of liberty and freedom ! [Tremendous applause.] 
 "Where, I ask, and when, out of the republic, and 
 before they came into it, did they, the Irish, find 
 their education against freedom to the negro? Why, 
 I undertake to say, there is none of it in the land 
 from which thoy have come. [Cheers.] O'Connell 
 denounced it. The inspiration of the greatest bard 
 of the country was directed against it, and he sang 
 against it in noble strains in the first and only visit 
 that the lamented Moore made to America. [Ap- 
 plause.] He could not understand, great soul that 
 he was, he could not understand how a people pro- 
 fessing liberty and freedom, enjoying it for them- 
 selves, and stand by, and, by statute, by custom, by 
 habit, by daily observation, see children produced 
 as beasts are for sale in the market, sold from the 
 public block to the highest bidder. He could not 
 not und rstand it. [Cheers.] And, 0, think of 
 that people following the Casserlys and turning 
 their backs to the O'Connells and the Moores 1 
 [Applause.] A base, degraded, bleared sheet, pre- 
 tending to be a Catholic organ, yclept the Monitor, 
 says I have no right to talk to Irishmen. Well, 
 fellow-citizens, it never has been my habit to clas- j 
 sify society anwhere. [Applause.] If Irishmen | 
 who take the obligations of citizens upon them- 
 selves in this great republic are not by that and in 
 that made Americans, they are the basest creatures 
 that ever saw the light. [Vociferous and long con- 
 tinued applanse.] If they desire, or their instincts 
 teach them, to look back to their native land, to 
 bring in review to their minds the places where 
 they played, the brooks by which they strayed, the 
 churches in which they assembled, the fireside that 
 they adorned, perhaps they may do all that; yet 
 beyond that and above it, it is a high, a glorious 
 privilege to each of them to be ennobled by being 
 made an American citizen. [Applause.] A great 
 American who, having seen much of his country, 
 some years ago, perhaps a quarter of a century 
 now, traveled extensively in Europe ; his position 
 in society gave him access to the highest circles on 
 the continent of Europe ; he was received at the 
 courts, and by the statesmen, and by the divines of 
 those countries he visited. I allude to the now ven- 
 erable and distinguished Orville Elwell Rev. Or- 
 
 ville Elwell now residing at the capital, and now 
 a sound and true Union man. [Cheers.] On his 
 return, he wrote what he saw, and I remember a 
 simple passage in his book. It was entitled, I 
 think the book was, "The Old World and the 
 New." He said: "I have been in the halls of en- 
 throned monarchs, but I was proud that I was an 
 American citizen." [Applause.] Yes, fellow citi- 
 zens, there was a time when the panoply of Amer- 
 ican citizenship spread as broad and ample a shield 
 over a citizen of the repnblic, as Roman citizenship 
 ever spread over a son of the Eternal City. There 
 came a time again, under the administration of one 
 James Buchanan, when the ministers of the repub- 
 lic taught abroad that there was an end of Ameri- 
 can citizenship and of the groat republic. There is 
 a time now, when all the manhood, all the nobility, 
 all the courage, cemented and made invincible by- 
 right and patriotism, nerves the sonl to say that the 
 republic shall be glorious again. [Applause.] 
 
 Every subterfuge that meanness could suggest, 
 that cowardice could invent, that treason, dark and 
 foul, could spawn forth, has been exercised to dis- 
 cover excuses and reasons for opposing this war. 
 First they were against coercion. There was no 
 power to make war upon a State. You could not 
 maintain the Union by force. The simple proposi- 
 tion that the Government could only live among 
 any people by two simple principles by the love 
 the people bear for it or the fear that it imparts to 
 objectors was denied. They would have us under- 
 stand that that simple proposition was not true and 
 well understood, and that when any contemptible 
 fragment of the Nation saw fit to rise up in opposi- 
 tion and rebellion, we had but to ground our arms 
 and become, as I said before, the sport of the 
 world. To that end when we bean to employ 
 negroes as laborers in building fortifications, they 
 protested that it must not be done. It prevented, 
 they said, poor white men from getting employment! 
 Oh, what a prostitution of the instincts ot generos- 
 ity ! Next, they should not be employed as sol- 
 diers. That passed away, and then they must not 
 be paid as other soldiers were paid. Next they 
 were opposed to the draft. Then that particular 
 portion of the draft law called and known as the 
 three hundred dollar clause was against the poor 
 man, they said, and they were opposed to it on that 
 account. Well, in Congress we proposed to repeal 
 that clause, and every Copperhead in the Senate 
 voted against the repeal. [Laughter and cheers.] 
 Why ? Because they were opposed to the raising 
 of soldiers. That was it. They fomented and in- 
 vented every species of opposition against this war, 
 and now they are for peace. 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, for one moment let me give 
 you a glance, or glance yourselves, at the class of 
 men in this State, in your midst, who are for peace. 
 Just think of those Ki rights that are now traveling 
 on the mountain roads, putting pistols at the head 
 of every traveler aud demanding his money or his 
 life think of the men who went around through 
 this State for ten years or more, like traveling arse- 
 nals, bestrung with deadly weapons, and drawing 
 them upon their superiors, destroying our noblest 
 men and putting them to death, establishing a 
 bloody and terrible code which made, as the lament- 
 ed Baker said, "the mere trick of the weapon 
 
15 
 
 superior to the noblest cause and the truest cour- 
 age." [Applause.] Just think of those men cry- 
 ing *' Peace 1" Just think of their becoming mis- 
 sionaries of peace and apostles of civilization I 
 [Cheers and laughter.] If they would only now 
 perform one office I don't know but I would forgive 
 them a great many sins of the past. If they would, 
 in their wretched agony, as their power has passed 
 away, and as their ordinary means of filching a liv- 
 ing from the community illegitimately has passed 
 away or is passing away if they would but turn 
 about and' use their arsenals upon the Casserlys, 
 the doughfaces and dirteaters of the North [great 
 applause] I don't know but I would forgive them a 
 part of their former wrongs and misdeeds. Thev 
 would rid us of the meanest, the most despicable 
 and lecherous crew that ever disgraced our country. 
 [Laughter and cheers.] Why they stand by and 
 see the proxies of the enemies of the country organ- 
 izing in the Union in a raid against New England 
 making a plot by which New England is to be set 
 off, the West is to be made another Confederacy, 
 the Middle States another, so that Jeff, may have 
 his way ; and as an excuse, too, and pretense for 
 all, Cox of Ohio, known as Sunset Cox, and Cas- 
 serly agree that the great crime of New England is 
 that her people mix morals with their politics. 
 [Laughter and applause.] They want politics with- 
 out morals. [Laughter.] Well, they have got it. 
 [Vociferous cheers and laughter.] They have quit 
 their raid on New England. Her granite rocks and 
 her hearts of steel have resisted their deadly and 
 contemptible shafts, and she stands to-day one of 
 the proudest and most peerless parts of the world. 
 [Cheers.] The West, the noble West her sturdy 
 and stalwart sons have left their fields, have left 
 their shops, and have thundered along the Missis- 
 sippi and pushed the current into the sea. [Ap 
 plause.] The great Central States take Indiana 
 from the West, and the noble Buckeye State and 
 the Keystone of the arch have recently spoken in 
 the night of the Republic's gloom, and they sing a 
 hymn to liberty. [Cheers.] 
 
 But they say the war has been reduced to a con- 
 test for the abolition of slavery. 1 great God, 
 shall it be said, can it be maintained to-day, eighty 
 years after the organization of this Republic, after 
 eighty years of teaching, first by the fathers and 
 then by every good and great man along the line to 
 the present period, that, to tell the world that we 
 will rise and remove the damning stain is a crime ! 
 [Cheers.] Ignorant and untaught men sometimes 
 imagine that if negroes get their freedom, that is, 
 if they have a right to themselves and to the profits 
 of their labor, that they will be encroached upon. 
 Do they not know that they never can be elevated, 
 that they never can rise, that capital has its foot and 
 its heels upon labor as long as such a mill-stone 
 weight as slavery hangs around the neck of labor? 
 [Applause.] If there be one class who, above an- 
 other, ought to sing peans to .the rising star of 
 liberty in the land, it is the men who toil and sweat 
 in daily labor. [Cheers.] 
 
 I don't know, fellow-citfoens, that I should close 
 tnis brief and somewhat irregular address without 
 alluding, and I hope that you will pardon me for it, 
 to the little intimations made by some of our papers 
 that the enlightened, honest and patriotic man who 
 
 stands at the head of this Government and myself, 
 n my humble capacity, have disagreements. Why, 
 ellow-citizens, I have stood day by day and night 
 by night giving all that I had and all that I could 
 think and feel to build him up and make him 
 stronger. [Immense applause.] How ridiculous 
 now that any man shall be found professing to be a 
 Unii:n man who shall talk about this man or that 
 who reaches a high public station, and has one 
 spark of the light that fits him for it. as thinking of 
 mere groveling conditions, and not giving himself, 
 whatever there is of him, be it little or much, to the 
 great cause of American liberty 1 [Cheers.] The 
 President with me never sinks the President in the 
 Senator, and it is not necessary for me to say to 
 those who know me that to him the Senator is 
 never, has never been and never will be sunk in 
 the President. [Cheers.] We each, in our sphere, 
 stand by each other through this great conflict. 
 [Cheers.] We stand by you, the great Union peo- 
 ple, and you stand by us. [Deafening applause, 
 renewed again and again.] In that, like the Union, 
 I trust and religiously believe, we will be one and 
 indivisible. [Applause.] Otherwise, divide, disa- 
 gree, or stand by in a false or fancied security, and 
 let these creatures elect the man that they have 
 proposed, and I would not give this piece of paper 
 that I hold in my hand for the great American Re- 
 public. [Cheers.] I have passed days and nights, 
 and weeks and months, in agonizing toil and mental 
 sufferings because of the scenes, and acts, and facts 
 transpiring around me. I do not upon every occa- 
 sion seek to emblazon them all. War has its great 
 horrors We understand it makes no cause better 
 to constantly present them. Leave that cowardly 
 office to the base traitors who would make capital 
 out of it against their country. We know that 
 many brave men must fall. We know that no such 
 cause as ours was ever won but by the consumption 
 of humanity by the great Moloch. It should be our 
 manly part to realize these principles, and realizing 
 them, allow them to go on with steady tread to the 
 consummation of the great gl ry. [Cheers.] 
 
 From the condition thut I have described of our 
 foreign affairs let me say it to you now, for it can 
 be stated publicly we are now in security and we 
 can state it from the condition of things not more 
 than two years since, less than that time, when we 
 had not taught the nations of the world that the 
 teachings they had received from traitor Ministers 
 were not true and that the nation would certainly 
 live from that condition of things our foreign policy 
 has been brought by the wise man who stands at 
 the head of the Department of State [applause], so 
 that we are oftener consulted to-day by foreign na- 
 tions in their disputes than they consult each other 
 concerning our troubles. [Applause.] And the 
 War Department is presided over by a m;m of in- 
 tegrity, decision, nerve a man by whose dexterity 
 and courage and prescience of judgment the mighty 
 armies of the Republic are hurled against the ene- 
 my. [Cheers.] I cannot close this address with- 
 out saying to you, fellow-citizens ^nd Union men of 
 California, when this great battle shall have been 
 fought and the great national victory won, there 
 will be no single man in America entitled to more 
 unqualified praise than Edwin M. Stan ton. [Great 
 applause.] And I might speak of the Naval De- 
 
16 
 
 partment in like terms. [Cheers.] We improvised 
 the gieatest navy in the world, and are now begin- 
 ning to sweep the miserable pirate ships of our 
 enemies from the seas. [Applause.] Nay, in ad- 
 dition to that, we are beginning to present an in- 
 vincible iron front to the nations of the earth. 
 [Cheers.] 
 
 We have had a Minister of Finance who has con- 
 duett d tlie war up to the maximum of about two 
 thousand millions of debt, without borrowing a dol- 
 lar from a foreign country. [Applause] These 
 base, miserable traitors, these cowardly traitors in 
 our midst, who prate about the depression of cur- 
 rency why, it is a success beyond human contem- 
 plation. The world has never seen anything like it. 
 And it was based, by the great man who originated 
 it, upon the faith he had in the patriotism of the 
 American people. [Cheers.] When he wanted 
 to borrow money, he conferred with the bankers in 
 the East, who felt that they hold the big, long, and 
 well filled purse, and that they had a kind of right 
 to lend, as well as the power to loan. And when 
 he negotiated with them about the first thirty mil- 
 lion dollars, and found the per centage at which it 
 could be had. lie then said: "Gentlemen, that will 
 only last about thirty days; what can we obtain 
 the' next v fifty millions for ? " They looked wild, 
 and very serious, as moneyed men always look 
 [laughter] and they named a figure, although very 
 loth to do it did not desire to press it. " Now," 
 said he, " gentlemen, that will last thirty or !orty 
 days more : what can I obtain the next fifty millions 
 for?" They could not answer. It was an exten- 
 sion of credit by the Government that they had 
 never contemplated, and it was a use to wh ch 
 they had never thought of putting their purses. 
 "Well," said he, " gentlemen, it is apparent to me 
 
 that you have not got any credit at all unless the 
 Government has a credit, too. If the people of this 
 Republic do not believe that this Government shall 
 exist, your credit is not worth anything. [Cheers.] 
 If the people of the Republic do believe it, and 
 that it can and will exist, that is the best basis for 
 borrowing in the world/ 1 [Cheers] And it was 
 upon that plain, simple, invincible logic that he 
 based his credit scheme. And what have you got 
 to-day? You have got the securities of your Gov- 
 e'nment gold paying bonds scattered through 
 ev^ry loyal Slate in the Umon. [Cheers.] The 
 banks have them. The merchants have them. The 
 mechanics have them. The laboring men have 
 them. And servant-girls have their one-hundred- 
 dollar bonds. [Cheers.] And the credit of the 
 Government is safely lodged in the faith of the peo- 
 ple in the perpetuity of the Republic. [Great ap- 
 plause.] But the Copperheads whine. TVieywhinel 
 The majority of them in this State never had much 
 money to lend. [Laughter.] To use a trite and 
 common phrase, they had an excellent reputation 
 on the borrow, [renewed laughter,] but they had a 
 very bad reputation on the pay. [Great merri- 
 ment.] And, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Mayor, when 
 a man is bad on the pay, it is not any wonder to 
 find him bad on the patriotism. [Applause.] 
 
 But, thank God again, the Republic will live. 
 [Applause.] It lives in the hearts, in the minds, in 
 the courage, and in the virtue of the people. 
 [Cheers.] We are told that there is one glory of 
 the sun, and another glory of the stars. Let it be 
 our?!, f,.llow patriots and citizens, that the Republic 
 shall live in glory, represented by the national 
 >tarry ensign the signal of hope, the light of the 
 world, and the security of liberty for mankind. 
 [Tremendous applause.]