128.44 
 N42 
 
 New York citizens 
 
 Proceedings at the mass 
 meeting of loyal citizens
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ass Electing 0f 
 
 ^ ^> ' *W 
 
 ON 
 
 UNION SQUARE, NEW-YORK, 
 
 15th DAY OF JULY, 1862. 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 
 
 THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, THE UNION 
 DEFENCE COMMITTEE OF THE CITIZENS OF NEW-YORK, T 
 COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 AND OTHER COMMITTEES 
 
 OF 
 
 LOYAL CITIZENS. 
 
 LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF 
 
 R OF THE COMMITTEE OK ARRANGEMENTS UNDER THE SUPERT.SIOX OF 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, JR., Secretary. 
 
 N E W - Y R K : 
 GEORGE F. XESBITT & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 CORNER OF PEARL AND PINE STS. . 
 1862.
 
 PROCEEDINGS 
 
 AT THE 
 
 ttg f fl pl Cites, 
 
 UNION SQUARE, NEW-YORK, 
 
 15th DAY OF JULY, 1862, 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 
 
 THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, THE UNION 
 
 DEFENCE COMMITTEE OF THE CITIZENS OF NEW-YORK, THE 
 
 COMMON COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK, 
 
 AND OTHER COMMITTEES 
 
 LOYAL CITIZENS. 
 
 LETTERS AND SPEECHES. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE OF ARRANGEMENTS UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, JR., Secretary. 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 GEORGE F. NESBITT & CO., PRINTERS, 
 
 CORNER OF PEARL AND PINE STS. 
 
 1862.
 
 PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS, 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW- YORK, | 
 
 NEW- YORK, July 3d, 1862. \ 
 
 At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, held this da} T , the 
 President in the chair, the following Preamble and Resolutions 
 were unanimously adopted : 
 
 On the 1 9th day of April, 1861, the Chamber of Commerce of the 
 State of New- York declared its sentiments in regard to the duty 
 of loyal citizens of the United States to sustain the Government 
 in its efforts to suppress a wicked and injurious rebellion, then but 
 recently commenced. 
 
 In accordance with the sentiments at that time expressed, and 
 in the discharge of the like obligations of duty to the country, this 
 Chamber does hereby 
 
 RESOLVE 
 
 First. That it will continue to sustain, by its influence with the 
 commercial community and to the fullest extent of its means, the 
 National Government in a vigorous and determined effort to main- 
 tain the integrity of the Union, and effectually to put down 
 rebellion. 
 
 /Second. That in the recent appeal made by the President to 
 the loyalty of the country for additional military forces, the Cham- 
 ber recognizes the patriotism and energy which should insure con- 
 fidence in his fidelity to the Constitution, and in his determination 
 to preserve the National honor. 
 
 Third. That this Chamber will cordially unite with other bodies 
 of loyal citizens in any measures calculated to give efficiency to 
 the military and naval power of the Government, and to preserve 
 and maintain the character of this community for patriotism and 
 loyal devotion to the Union.
 
 Further. That a Committee of thirteen members be appointed 
 by the chair to consider and recommend to the Chamber, such 
 measures as they may deem advisable, to give practical effect to 
 this expression of the sentiments of the Chamber. 
 
 The President named as such Committee : 
 
 GEORGE OPDYKE, Chairman. 
 
 JOHN A. STEVEXS, CHARLES H. MARSHALL, 
 
 A. A. Low, S. D. BABCOCK, 
 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE, GEORGE W. BLUNT, 
 
 DENNING DUER, ROBT. B. MINTURN, 
 
 WILLIAM E. DODGE, JONATHAN STURGES, 
 
 CHRISTOPHER R. ROBERT, ROYAL PHELPS. 
 
 A true extract from the Records of the Chamber. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 A copy of the Preamble and Resolutions was, by direction of 
 the President of the Chamber, engrossed and forwarded to the 
 President of the United States. 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW- YORK, ) 
 NEW-YORK, July 5th, 1862. f 
 
 To the President of the United States : 
 
 SIR, I have the honor to present a copy of Preamble and Resolutions unani- 
 mously adopted by this Chamber at their general meeting this day. 
 
 The Chamber show the will to meet with cheerfulness all present sacrifices, 
 and the determination to aid the Government to the extent of their ability in 
 prompt and vigorous prosecution of the war, until the national authority is re- 
 established and the integrity of the Union restored. 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVEXS, Jr., 
 Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 On the 5th July, the Committee of Thirteen, appointed by the 
 Chamber, met and addressed invitations to the Union Defence 
 Committee of the citizens of New-York and the Common Council 
 of the city of New-York, inviting their co operation. 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ROOMS, ) 
 NEW- YORK, July 5th, Jb62. j 
 
 To the Union Defence Committee of the Citizens of New-York: 
 
 GEXTLEMEX, I have the honor to communicate the following resolution, 
 unanimously passed this day by a Committee appointed on the v part of the 
 Chamber to take into consideration the present state of our national afl'airs :
 
 Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed to meet a similar committee 
 from the Union Defence Committee, and committees from other bodies of loyal 
 citizens, to unite upon the proper measures to sustain the National (Government 
 in crushing out this rebellion, with power to call this committee together to re- 
 ceive their report. 
 
 Under this resolution the following gentlemen were appointed on the part of 
 the Chamber of Commerce : 
 
 Hon. GEORGE OPDYKE, Chm'n, JONATHAN STURGES, 
 C. R. ROBERT, DENNING DUER, 
 
 JOHN A. STEVENS. 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 UNION DEFENCE COMMITTEE OF MHE CITIZENS OF NEW-YORK, ) 
 
 NEW-YORK. July 8^,1862. J 
 
 John Austin Stevens, Jr., Esq., Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce : 
 
 SIR, I am instructed to acknowledge your communication of this day. invit- 
 ing a deputation from this body to confer with a committee of the Chamber of 
 Commerce in relation to the public affairs of the country. 
 
 This committee will cheerfully unite with the Chamber in the furtherance of 
 any measures calculated to promote the public welfare ; and I am accordingly 
 instructed to transmit to you the following Dames composing a committee of 
 conference : 
 
 Messrs. HAMILTON FISH, A. C. RICHARDS, 
 
 A. T. STEWART, R. A. WITTHAUS, 
 
 R. 31. BLATCHFORD, SAMUEL. SLOAN, 
 P. M. WETMORE. 
 
 I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE, 
 
 Secretary pro tern. 
 
 UNION DEFENCE COMMITTEE, ) 
 NEW-YORK, July 12th, 1862. f 
 SIR: 
 
 In accordance with the expressed desire of the Convention of Committees 
 appointed to ca'l a public meeting of the citizens of New- York, I am instructed 
 to inform you that ihe action in question received the sanction of all the members 
 of this committee prt-sent at the meeting of the 8th inst., viz. : 
 
 HAMILTON FISH, Chairman, R. M. BLATCHFORD, 
 
 SIMEON DRAPER, M. H GRINNKLI., 
 
 SAMUEL SLOAN, R. H. McCuRDY, 
 
 WM. E. DODGE, R. A. WITTHAUS, 
 
 Hon. GKO. OPDYKE, W. F. HAVEMEYER, 
 
 ROBT. T. HAWS, A. C. RICHARDS. 
 
 ISAAC BELL, P. M. WETMORE, 
 
 I am. respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE. 
 
 Secretary pro. tern. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS. Jr., Esq., Secretary Joint Convention.
 
 PROCEEDINGS OF BOARD OF ALDERMEN. 
 
 The following communication was received from His Honor the 
 Mayor, transmitting a communication from the Chamber of Com- 
 merce, relative to the state of our national affairs : 
 
 MAYOR'S OFFICE, NEW-YORK, } 
 July 1th, 1862. J 
 To the Honorable the Common Council: 
 
 GENTLEMEN, The events of the last fortnight appear to call for a renewed ex- 
 pression of our devotion to our country, and of our unfalt'-ring determination to 
 sustain the Government in its efforts to suppress the rebellion. After an almost 
 uninterrupted series of victories for half a year, we have at last met with two re- 
 verses one at Charleston and the other before Richmond which, though inde- 
 cisive and temporary, do yet disappoint our confident expectations, and tend to 
 prolong the war, supposed by some to be well-nigh ended. Upon such a disap- 
 pointment, it seems fitting that we. as the official organ of the most populous and 
 opulent city of the Republic, should repeat the declaration of unwavering con- 
 stancy, which neither victory nor defeat can change, and our unalterable 
 resolution to stand by the Government in maintaining the supremacy of the 
 Constitution and the integrity of the country, at all hazards, and at every neces- 
 sary sacrifice of life and treasure. 
 
 In the presence of the great conflict in which the country is engaged, we will 
 forget all past differences of party or opinion -for all party considerations sink 
 into insignificance in the presence of danger to the Government itself: we will 
 summon every loyal citizen to join us in supporting the Government, and to 
 aid us by his services and counsel ; we will give a generous confidence to the 
 President and all whom, in the exercise of his just authority, he thinks proper 
 to place in positions under him ; and while we must exercise the privilege of 
 freemen, to criticise public men, and exact from them fidelity to their trusts, 
 vigor and promptitude in action, and such a comprehensive and we'1-considered 
 policy, as to adapt the means to the end availing, for this purpose, of all 
 the instrumentalities that the usages of civilized warfare will justify we will 
 dec'are to them that our lives and fortunes are at the service of our country, 
 and that we ask only to be informed how much is needed, and to be assured 
 that what we give shall be faithfully and wisely applied to that service. 
 
 It is one of the uses of national reverses that they serve to winnow the dis- 
 loyal from the loyal. Now is the time to know who is true and who is false. 
 The country never needed the services of traitors, and now less than ever. But 
 she does need the services of all her loyal children, that she may not only over- 
 throw this gigantic but causeless rebellion against her authority but may repel, 
 with becoming spirit, the first approach to that foreign intervention in her 
 affairs which is at times obscurely threatened, and which we cannot admit for 
 one instant without national disgrace. Let us. then, seek out. discover, and 
 brina: to punishment every disloyal person : and let us call on all the loyal to 
 stand together, and to speuk and act as one man. for the safety and honor of 
 the'r country. If we had never had a victory ; if. from the beginning of the war 
 till now, a series of uninterrupted disasters had fallen upon our armies, we could 
 not even then have compromised with revolt, or submitted to dismemberment, 
 without the basest pusillanimity. But our arms have been, for the most part, 
 victorious ; the area of the rebellion has been gradually contracted by the 
 advances of the armies of the Union ; the great rivers of the West have been 
 opened ; all but four of the seaports on the whole coast, from Cape Henry to 
 the Rio Grande, have been retaken and restored to the Union. The Federal 
 auth -rity has been re-established over many fortresses and cities, where a year 
 ago it was contemned, and we are gradually winning them all back by the irre- 
 sistible force of our arms. Our country has, therefore, no cause of discourage- 
 ment, but every reason to hope, and every motive to persevere.
 
 Considering these things, I suggest respectfully to your Honorable Bodies, 
 the propriety of passing resolutions, pledging the people of this Metropolis to the 
 support of the Government in the prosecution of the war and the maintenance 
 of the national honor ; and that you authorize your Joint Committee on National 
 Affairs to unite with the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, and other 
 committees acting with them, in calling a public meeting of citizens of all parties, 
 to express, without reference to any party question whatever, their undimmished 
 confidence in the justice of our cause, their inflexible purpose to maintain it to the 
 end. and to proffer to the Government all the aid it may need, to the extent of 
 all our resources. 
 
 Since writing the above, I have received the accompanying resolution of the 
 Chamber of Commerce, on the same subject, with a request that it be transmitted 
 to your Honorable Body. 
 
 GEORGE OPDYKE, 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, ) 
 NEW- YORK, July 5th, 1862. f 
 
 To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of New-York: 
 
 I have the honor to communicate to your Honorable Body, the following 
 resolution, passed unanimously this day, by a committee appointed on the part 
 of the Chamber of Commerce, to take into consideration the state of national 
 affairs : 
 
 Resolved. That a committee of five be appointed, to meet a similar committee 
 from the Union Defence Committee, and committees from other bodies of loyal 
 citizens, to unite upon the proper measures to sustain the National Government, 
 in crushing out this rebellion, with power to call this Committee together to re- 
 ceive their report. 
 
 Under this resolution, the following gentlemen were appointed on the part of 
 the Chamber of Commerce : 
 
 Hon. GEORGE OPDYKE, DENNING DUER, 
 C. E. ROBERT, JOHN A. STEVENS, 
 
 JONATHAN STURGES. 
 
 With respect, your obedient sen-ant, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Alderman DAYTON" moved that the communication from his 
 Honor the Mayor be referred to the Joint Committee on National 
 Affairs, and that the Committee on National Affairs be authorized 
 and directed to co-operate with the Committee of the Chamber of 
 Commerce, in the manner recommended by his Honor the Mayor 
 in his communication. 
 
 The whole subject was referred to Committee on National Af- 
 fairs.
 
 8 
 
 Same documents sent to Board of Councilmen, and thereupon 
 Councilman ORTON moved that the communication be received 
 and referred to the Committee on National Affairs, with power to 
 confer with any other committees relative to the state of the 
 Union, if in their j udgment advisable. 
 
 Which was carried. 
 
 The Joint committee on National Affairs appointed as a sub- 
 committee to confer with the other committees the following : 
 
 COUNCILMAN WM. OETON, Chairman. 
 Aid. PETER MITCHELL, Councilman WM. H. GEDNEY. 
 
 " HENRY SMITH, Aid. IRA A. ALLEN. 
 
 This committee attended, and chose Aid. MITCHELL to represent 
 them on the Committee on Eesolutions.
 
 9 
 MEETING OF CONVENTION OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 The joint Committees of the Chamber of Commerce, the Union 
 Defence Committee and the Common Council, met on Wednesday, 
 the 9th of July. A Committee of five on the part of a body of 
 citizens, who met at the Mayor's office, July 7th, consisting of 
 
 JUDGE JAMES W. WHITE, Chairman, 
 Dr. FRANCIS LIBBER, GEO. D. PHELPS, 
 
 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, ISAAC SHERMAN, 
 
 appeared, and was requested to take part in the proceedings ; as 
 was also a Committee of five, on the part of a body of citizens 
 who met at Fifth Avenue Hotel : 
 
 EGBERT H. McCUEDY, Chairman, 
 CHARLES GOULD, MORRIS KETCHUM, 
 
 WILLIAM CURTIS NOTES, NATHANIEL HAYDEN. 
 
 A sub-committee was appointed to draft and prepare an Address 
 and a series of Eesolutions, to be submitted for ratification to a 
 public meeting, to be called at an early day. 
 
 An Address and Eesolutions were submitted on the 10th of July, 
 and unanimously adopted. 
 
 The Committee of Thirteen appointed by the Chamber of Com- 
 merce, met on the same day. and unanimously ratified the action 
 of their sub-committee. 
 
 The Chamber of Commerce met on the same day, to receive the 
 report of the Committee of Thirteen, which was unanimously 
 accepted, and the Committee continued, with power to carry out 
 the objects proposed. 
 
 A true abstract of the proceedings of the Chamber of Commerce 
 
 and of joint Convention. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary of Chamber of Commerce and of Joint Convention. 
 9
 
 10 
 
 INVITATION TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In accordance with a resolution of the Committee of Arrange- 
 ments, a sub-committee consisting of Hon. George Opdyke, J. W. 
 White, Samuel Sloan, Denning Duer, and R H. McCurdy, was ap- 
 pointed to visit Washington, and to request the President of the 
 United States to be present at the meeting. Two of the Committee 
 being unexpectedly prevented by other pressing engagements from 
 fulfilling the commission, F. S. Winston, though not a member of 
 the Committee, was subsequently added. A copy of the Address 
 and Resolutions was handsomely engrossed and placed in the hands 
 of the Chairman, for delivery to the President ; and the following 
 letter was also addressed, to serve as the credentials of the Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 EOOMS OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, ) 
 
 NEW-YORK, July 10fA, 1862. } 
 To the President of the United States : 
 
 SIR, I have the honor to inform you that at a Convention, held this day, of 
 Committees severally appointed by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of 
 New-York, the Union Defence Committee, the Common Council of the city, and 
 other bodies of loyal citizens, it was unanimously 
 
 Resolved, To hold a public meeting of the citizens of New- York, in favor of 
 supporting the government in the prosecution of the war, and the suppression of 
 the rebellion ; to express, without reference to any party question whatever, their 
 undiminished confidence io the justice of our cause, and their inflexible purpose to 
 maintain it to the end, and to proffer to the Government all the aid it may need, 
 to the extent of all their resources. 
 
 A Committee of Arrangements was appointed, to take all measures to render 
 the meeting as effective as the occasion for it demands, by whose direction, and 
 in whose behalf, Messrs. J. W. White, R. H. McCurdy, and F. S. Winston, 
 visit the capital to earnestly invite the presence of the President of the United 
 States at the proposed meeting, believing that such course will arouse the enthu- 
 siasm of this city, of this State, and of the whole country, in this imminent crisis 
 of the national destiny. 
 
 By order of the Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 GEORGE OPDYKE, HENRY SMITH, 
 
 DENNING DUER, GEORGE D. PIIELPS, 
 
 JONATHAN STURGES, J. W. WHITE, 
 
 SAMUEL SLOAN, CHARLES GOULD, 
 
 P. M. WETMORE, ROBERT H. McCuRDY. 
 PETER MITCHELL, 
 
 A true extract from the Minutes. 
 
 Respectfully, your most obedient sen-ant, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 Secretary of Convention, and of Committee of Arrangements.
 
 11 
 
 WASHINGTON, July 12th, 1862. 
 
 To the President : 
 
 SIR, The undersigned have been appointed by a Convention of Committees, 
 from the Common Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Union Defence Com- 
 mittee, and other loyal bodies in the city of New-York, to proceed to this city 
 and present to you the invitation of the Convention, to attend a mass meeting of 
 the citizens of New- York, to be convened on Tuesday, 15th instant, for the 
 purpose of declaring their continued inflexible determination to support the 
 Government at all hazards, and in every measure necessary for the suppression 
 of the existing rebellion, " and, to that end, to proffer to the Government all the 
 aid in their power, to the extent of all their resources." 
 
 Presenting to you, sir, this invitation, which we have been commissioned to 
 deliver, we beg leave respectfully to add, that we have been charged by the Con- 
 vention to say, that, in their judgment, nothing could be more gratifying to the 
 people of New- York, or would tend more to invigorate the patriotism which ani- 
 mates every loyal heart, than to meet their Chief Magistrate thus in General 
 Council in this momentous crisis of our national destiny. 
 
 The Convention are aware that the act to which they thus invite the President 
 of the United States to attend a mass meeting of citizens assembled to consider 
 important national questions is one not in accordance with any previous usage 
 or precedent ; but when they remember that the occasion is one without a pre- 
 cedent in the past, and which they trust in God will be without anything like it 
 in the future a struggle with a rebellion which, in the history of the world, has 
 no parallel, for its causelessness, its magnitude, and its monstrous wickedness as 
 a crime against the whole human race, the Convention hope that you may be able 
 to lay aside for a day other important public duties, and meet your loyal fellow- 
 citizens at the time and in the manner suggested. 
 
 * We are, sir, with the greatest respect and consideration, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 JAMES W. WHITE, } 
 
 ROBERT H. McCuRDY, > Committee. 
 
 FREDERICK S. WINSTON, ) 
 
 To ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States. 
 
 REPLY OP THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 EXECUTIVE MANSION, ) 
 WASHINGTON, July 14th, 1862. j 
 
 Messrs. James W. White, Robert H. McCurdy,and F. H. Winston, Committee: 
 
 GENTLEMEN, Your letter conveying to me the invitation of several loyal and 
 patriotic bodies in New- York to attend a mass meeting in that city, on Tuesday, 
 the 15th inst., is received. While it would be very agreeable to me to thus meet 
 the friends of the country, I am sure I could add nothing to the purpose in the 
 wisdom with which they will perform their duty ; and the near adjournment of 
 Congress makes it indispensable for me to remain here. Thanking you and those 
 you represent for this invitation, and the kind terms in which you have commu- 
 nicated it, 
 
 I remain, your obedient servant, 
 
 A. LINCOLN.
 
 12 
 
 INVITATION TO CORPORATIONS, ASSOCIATIONS AND SO- 
 CDZTIES TO ATTEND THE MEETING OP LOYAL CITIZENS. 
 
 NEW-YORK, July llth, 1862. 
 SIR: 
 
 At a Convention of Committees, severally appointed by the Common Council 
 of this City; by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New- York ; by the 
 Union Defence Committee ; and by bodies of Loyal Citizens of this city, it was 
 resolved to hold, on Tuesday, the loth instant, a Mass Meeting of all parties 
 who are in favor of supporting the Government in the prosecution of the war 
 and suppressing the rebellion ; and to express, without reference to any party 
 question whatever, their undiminished confidence in the justice of the cause, and 
 their inflexible determination to sustain it ; and to that end to proffer to the Go- 
 vernment their aid to the extent of all their resources. 
 
 In accordance with this purpose, the undersigned were appointed by the Con- 
 vention a Committee to invite the attendance of all Associations, Corporations, 
 and Societies. 
 
 In performance of this duty, we request that you will issue a call to the mem- 
 bers of your Association, and convene them on the afternoon of Tuesday, to 
 proceed to the Square, where accommodations will be provided, and places on 
 the Stands be reserved for your officers. 
 
 JAMES "W. WHITE, ~j 
 
 GEO. OPDTKE, 
 
 SAMUEL SLOAN, ~ , 
 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE, 
 
 DENNING DUER, 
 
 CHARLES GOULD, 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., Secretary of Convention.
 
 13 
 CALL FOR THE MEETING OF LOYAL CITIZENS, 
 
 The citizens of New- York, of all parties, who are for supporting 
 the Government in the prosecution of the war and the suppression 
 of the rebellion, are requested to meet on Union Square, on Tues- 
 day afternoon next, 15th inst, at 4 o'clock, to express, without 
 reference to any party question whatever, their undiminished con- 
 fidence in the justice of our cause, and their inflexible purpose to 
 maintain it to the end, and to proffer to the Government all the aid 
 it may need to the extent of all their resources. 
 
 NEW- YORK, July 10th, 1862. 
 
 Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 GEORGE OPDYKE, Chairman, JOHN A. STEVENS, 
 
 CHARLES H. MARSHALL, A. A. LOW, 
 
 S. D. BABCOCK, P. M. WETMORE, 
 
 G. W. BLUNT, DENNING DUER, 
 
 ROBERT B. MINTURN, WILLIAM E. DODGE, 
 
 JONATHAN STURGES, C. R. ROBERT, 
 ROYAL PHELPS. 
 
 Committee of the Union Defence Committee. 
 
 HAMILTON FISH, Chairman, SIMEON DRAPER, 
 
 ROBERT T. HAWS, R. M. BLATGHFORD, 
 
 SAMUEL SLOAN, ALEX. T. STEWART, 
 
 WILLIAM E. DODGE. R. A. WITTHAUS, 
 
 MOSES H. GRINNELL, A. C. RICHARDS, 
 
 ISAAC BELL, WILLIAM F. HAVEMEYER. 
 
 Committee on National Affairs of the Common Council of New- York. 
 
 WILLIAM ORTON, Chairman, HENRY SMITH, 
 
 PETER MITCHELL, IRA A. ALLEN, 
 
 WILLIAM H. GEDNEY, TERENCE FARLEY, 
 
 CHARLES J. CHIPP, MORGAN JONES, 
 
 JOHN HOGAN, ALEX. H. KEECH. 
 
 A Committee of Citizens who met at the Mayor's Office. 
 
 JAMES W. WHITE, Chairman, FRANCIS LIBBER, 
 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, GEORGE D. PHELPS, 
 
 ISAAC SHERMAN. 
 
 Committee of Citizens who met at Fifth Avenue Hotel. 
 
 ROBT. H. McCURDY, Chairman, CHARLES GOULD, 
 WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, MORRIS KETCHUM, 
 
 NATHANIEL HAYDEN. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., Secretary.
 
 14 
 
 BEQUEST TO CITIZENS TO CLOSE PLACES OF 
 BUSINESS. 
 
 The loyal citizens of every class and profession are respectfully 
 and earnestly invited to attend the Grand Mass Meeting, to be 
 held on Tuesday next, 15th inst., at four o'clock, on Union 
 Square. 
 
 It is recommended that all places of business be closed at three 
 o'clock, in order that those who desire to show their loyalty to the 
 Government may be present. 
 
 By order of the Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 GEOKGE OPDYKE, 
 
 Chairman. 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 The Committee of Arrangements, together with speakers and 
 invited guests, met at the Everett House, to receive their several 
 badges, and at precisely four o'clock, the procession was formed, and, 
 preceded by the band and headed by the Mayor, moved toward 
 the designated stands, amid salvos of artillery and accompanied by 
 thousands of citizens.
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 STAND No. 1. 
 
 Under charge of Committee of Arrangements, 
 
 JONATHAN STUBGES, SAMUEL SLOAN 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr. 
 
 President. 
 
 HON. GEORGE OPDYKE, Mayor of the city. 
 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 JOHN T. HENRY, 
 JOHN J. PHELPS, 
 A. LOCKWOOD, 
 STEPHEN CAMBRELENG, 
 ELIJAH F. PURDY, 
 EGBERT T. HAWS, 
 EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 
 HIRAM BARNEY, 
 HORACE GREELEY, 
 EUFUS F. ANDREWS, 
 
 A. C. KlNGSLAND, 
 
 JAMES BOORMAN, 
 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, 
 SAMUEL B. BETTS, 
 NEHEMIAH KNIGHT, 
 WM. B. SHIPMAN, 
 CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, 
 EDWARD LEARNED, 
 SIMEON DRAPER, 
 CHARLES P. DALY, 
 ABRAM WAKEMAN, 
 CHARLES H. BUSSELL, 
 HENRY E. DAVIES, 
 PETER S. TITUS, 
 W. V. BRADY, 
 S. B. CHITTENDEN, 
 CHARLES BUTLER, 
 JOHN C. HAMILTON, 
 EGBERT MURRAY, 
 PAUL SFOFFORD, 
 GEORGE W. BROWN, 
 CHARLES BURKHALTER, 
 GREENE C. BRONSON, 
 SYDNEY MASON, 
 JOSEPH WALKER, 
 JAMES WHITING, 
 
 DANIEL F. TIEMANN, 
 MORRIS FRANKLIN, 
 CHAS. YATES, 
 CHAS. W. SANDFORD, 
 CHARLES LAMSON, 
 CHARLES J. CHIPP, 
 WILLIAM WATT, 
 
 A. DAVIDSON, 
 HENRY A. HEISER, 
 CHARLES H. MACY, 
 
 B. WESTERMANN, 
 FRED. WILLMAN, 
 N. EOSEMAN 
 BERNHARD COHEN, 
 HENRY BRUGGMAN, 
 JOSEPH LAWRENCE, 
 GEORGE T. ELLIOTT, 
 GEORGE F. THOMAE, 
 SAMUEL WETMORE, 
 WM. G. LAMBERT, 
 EDWIN HOYT, 
 WILLIAM OOTHOUT, 
 OLIVER S. STRONG, 
 ISAAC SHERMAN, 
 JEREMIAH BURNS, 
 ANDREW CARRIGAN, 
 JAMES A. HAMILTON, 
 GEORGE GREER, 
 EICHARD M. HOE, 
 FREDERICK H. WOLCOTT, 
 WALDEN PELL, 
 
 TEUNIS QUICK, 
 HYMAN MORANGE, 
 GEORGE B. BUTLER, 
 JAS. W. BEEKMAN, 
 ELI WHITE,
 
 16 
 
 JOHN BAILEY, 
 J. M. MARSH, 
 CHARLES NELSON, 
 JOHN J. BRADLEY, 
 WASHINGTON SMITH, 
 WM. H. ANTHON, 
 DAVID BELDEN, 
 AMOS BOBBINS, 
 C. Y. WEMPLE; 
 JOHN B. BRADY, 
 JOHN J Cisco, 
 E. DELAFIELD SMITH, 
 GEORGW DENISON, 
 JOHN P. CROSBY, 
 NATHAN CHANDLER, 
 J'. S. BOSWORTH, 
 CHARLES G. CORNELL, 
 JAMES MONCRIEF, 
 HENRY BREWSTER, 
 GEORGE STARR, 
 S. S. WYCKOFF, 
 JAMES BROOKS, 
 GEORGE BLISS, 
 EDWARD S. JAFFRAY, 
 THOMAS LAWRENCE, 
 HENRY HILTON, 
 CLARENCE A. SEWARD, 
 GEORGE P. NESBITT, 
 GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 
 ERASTUS C. BENEDICT, 
 THOMAS STEVENSON, 
 MORGAN JONES, 
 WILLIAM F. HAVEMEYEB, 
 NATHANIEL HAYDEN, 
 JOSEPH HOXIE, 
 ELEAZAR PARMLY, 
 IRA A. ALLEN, 
 GEO. F. TALMAN, 
 BENJ. F. MANIERRE, 
 
 C. C. PlNCKNEY, 
 BlCHARD BUSTEED, 
 
 JAMES KELLY, 
 
 CHARLES S. SPENCER, 
 
 LEVI APGAR, 
 
 WILLIAM C. WETMORE, 
 
 ALEX. H. KEECH, 
 
 H. N. WILLHELM, 
 
 B. WEIL VAN GENESBACK, 
 
 A. WlNDMULLER, 
 
 FREDERICK KUHNE, 
 
 D. LlCHTENSTEIN, 
 
 M. LEVIN, 
 ANDRUS WHILMAN, 
 JOHN HAYWARD, 
 
 B. W. OSBORNE, 
 DANIEL SLATE, 
 DANIEL WELLS, 
 P. PFEIFFER. 
 
 WILLIAM W. TODD, 
 J. PIERREPONT MORGAN, 
 C. H. MARSHALL, Jr., 
 HENRY VANDEWATER, 
 M. D. GALE, 
 JOHN HAYWARD, 
 
 C. H. SAND, 
 
 B. VONDER HEYDT, 
 N. WHEELER, 
 J. B. CORNELL, 
 CHARLES STEINWAY, 
 ERNEST PREDT, 
 JOSEPH BALESTIER, 
 BUDOLPH DULON, 
 OTTO ERNST, 
 DAVID MILLER, 
 M. S. DUNHAM, 
 MAX SCHAFFER, 
 CHARLES TAYLOR, 
 HENRY SEAMAN, 
 J. PENNIMAN, 
 LATHAM PARKER, 
 NATH. WORLEY, 
 ENOCH CHAMBERLAIN, 
 WM. H. WEBB, 
 HENRY S. SMITH, 
 JAMES HORN, 
 PHILIP HAMILTON, 
 WARREN WARD, 
 
 D. A. WOOD, 
 WADE B. WORRALL, 
 JOHN H. WILLIAMS, 
 FREDERICK BEICHFUSS, 
 EUGENE S. BALLIN, 
 JOHN WATSON, 
 BENJAMIN FLOYD, 
 JULIUS BRILL. 
 WILLIAM A. KOBBE, 
 CHARLES SCHAFFNER, 
 THEODORE J. GLAUBENSKLEE, 
 LEOPOLD BIERWITH, 
 SIGISMUND KAUFFMAN, 
 EDWARD BYRNES, 
 
 HENRY A. CASSELEER, 
 Louis NAUMANN, 
 WILLIAM AUFERMANN, 
 JOHN C. BRANT, 
 ISAAC G. OGDEN, 
 OLIVER HOLDEN, 
 ELIAS HOWE, Jr., 
 JAMES K. PELL, 
 NATH'L W. BURTIS, 
 
 A. MlCHELBACKER, 
 
 PHILIP FRANKENHEIMER, 
 A. MENZESHEIMER, 
 CHARLES CLUDIUS, 
 WILLIAM SCHARFENBERG, 
 WILLIAM TELLINGHAUSE.
 
 IT 
 
 JOHN BROOKS, ISAAC DAYTON, 
 
 JOHN E. GAVITT, ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 
 
 F. E. WELLINGTON, JOHN HOGAN, 
 
 SETH B. HUNT, ROBERT BAYARD, 
 
 FRANK E. HOWE, SAMUEL HOTALING, 
 
 RICHARD BERRY, J. M. OLESEN, 
 
 JAMES GORDON BENNETT, SIGISMUND WATERMAN, 
 
 EZRA NYE, WILLIAM C. PKIME, 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., SIDNEY WEBSTEK, 
 
 JOHN M. WHITE, R. FULTON CRARY, 
 
 FREDERICK STURGES, LEWIS CARR, 
 
 WM. S. OPDYKE, JOSEPH H. CHOATE, 
 
 EDWARD A. WETMORE, N. W. HOWELL, 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JAMES COUPER LORD, 
 
 BROCKHOLST CUTTING, STUYVESANT LsRoy, 
 
 FRANCIS A. STOUT, ETHAN ALLEN, 
 
 EDWARD KING, ROBERT MORRIS VANDENHEUVEL,, 
 
 WILLIAM F. GARY, Jr., JOHN McCLAVE, 
 
 JAMES W. UNDERBILL, OSCAR SCHMIDT, 
 
 PETER MARIE, JOHN H. WHITE, 
 
 CHARLES G. CLARK, CHARLES H. TYLER, 
 
 ALEXANDER BECKER, SAMUEL W. TUBBS, 
 
 JAMES E. MAURAN, JOSEPH HOWARD, Jr., 
 
 CRUGER OAKLEY, THEODORE TILTON, 
 
 WILLIAM J. TODD, JOHN J. WHITE, 
 
 WASHINGTON MURRAY, WM. H. EVERETT, 
 
 J. HOWARD WAINWRIGHT, WM. H. PEET, 
 
 G. NORMAN LIBBER, JAS. H. FROTHINGHAM, 
 
 MURRAY HOFFMAN, CHAS. E. STEVENS, 
 
 GEORGE McC. MILLER, CLINTON RICE, 
 
 HENRY WINTHROP, DAVID ROWLAND, 
 
 GEO. F. BETTS, FLOYD SMITH, 
 
 WM. F. SMITH, B. H. HOWARD.
 
 STAND No. 1. 
 
 SALUTES OF ARTILLERY, by the ANTHON LIGHT BATTERY, and 
 by the WORKMEN employed by HENRY BREWSTER & Co. 
 
 1. GRAND MARCH by Mendelssohn, by Helmsmuller's Grand Band. 
 
 2. JONATHAN STURGES will call the meeting to order, read the 
 
 ^CALL TOR THE MEETING, and conduct to the Chair, HON. 
 
 'GEORGE OPDYKE, Mayor of the city. 
 
 3. DENNING DUER will read the list of Vice-Presidents and Sec- 
 
 retaries. 
 
 4. Hon. GEORGE OPDYKE, Chairman, will address the meeting. 
 
 5. DAVID DUDLEY FIELD will read the ADDRESS adopted by the 
 
 Convention of Committees. 
 
 6. JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., will read the RESOLUTIONS adopted 
 
 by the Convention of Committees. 
 
 7. Song on our Country and our Flag, by FRANCIS LIEBER ; sung 
 
 by Grand Chorus with band accompaniment. 
 
 8. CHARLES KING will address the meeting. 
 
 9. WILLIAM Ross WALLACE will read an Ode, composed for the 
 
 occasion "Keep Step to the Music of Union." 
 
 10. Music Star-Spangled Banner. 
 
 11. HIRAM WALBRIDGE will address the meeting. 
 
 12. Music Hail Columbia. 
 
 13. SENATOR SPINOLA will address the meetino- 
 
 O 
 
 14. MusicHail to the Chief.
 
 19 
 
 Mr. JONATHAN STURGES called the meeting to order, read the 
 call of the meeting, and conducted to the chair Hon. GEORGE 
 OPDYKE, Mayor of the city, amid the cheers of the people. 
 
 In the absence of Mr. DENNING DUER, JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, 
 Jr., read the list of Yice-Presidents and Secretaries, which was 
 adopted. 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HOX. GEORGE OPDYKE. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS We have assembled for a high and holy pur- 
 pose. We come to renew our vows at the altar of patriotism ; and at 
 what place so fitting as in the presence of a monument erected to the 
 memory of Washington ? [Cheers.] We come to reaffirm our earnest 
 devotion to our country ; to pledge our lives and all that we possess in 
 defence of the Constitution and Union which our fathers bequeathed to 
 us, and to declare our unalterable determination to defend them to the 
 last, not merely against the assaults of traitors, but if need be against 
 a world in arms. [Cheers.] Come what may, whether disaster or suc- 
 cess, we are determined to " fight on, and fight ever," until a glorious 
 and enduring triumph shall crown our efforts. [Cheers.] 
 
 We are here, too, to denounce treason and to disown political fellow- 
 ship with all who sympathize with it. We have no toleration for those 
 who, without provocation, have drenched our country in blood, in a 
 fiendish attempt to overthrow a Government at once the mildest and 
 most beneficent that human wisdom ever devised. History records no 
 blacker crime against society. In a contest with such a foe there can be 
 no middle or neutral ground. All who are not earnestly opposed to 
 these enemies of their country and of the human race, must be regarded 
 as participators in their guilt ; all who apologize for their crime must 
 share in the infamy that awaits 1 hem. IS or are there any grounds of 
 compromise with such an enemy. Unconditional submission to the 
 Constitution and laws they have contemned, is the only basis of recon- 
 ciliation that honor or safety will permit us to offer them. [Cheers.] 
 
 We are here to stimulate and encourage the President, and all others 
 charged with the duty of suppressing this infamous rebellion ; to declare 
 to the Administration our confidence in its honesty, ability and single- 
 ness of purpose ; to bid it be of good cheer, for the people, regardless of 
 all party affinities, have resolved that the Union must and shall be pre- 
 served, [loud cheers ;] and that to this end, and the speedy suppression 
 of the rebellion, they are prepared to stand as one man in support of the 
 Administration in every advancing step it may take in earnestness 
 of effort, and in the employment of every means justified by the usages 
 of war. [Cheers.] 
 
 But, above all, we are here to rekindle the half-slumbering patriotism 
 of our countrymen, and to urge them to respond with alacrity to the call 
 of the Government for additional volunteers. A bitter and relentless foe 
 is striking at its vitals, and appealing to the enemies of free government 
 everywhere to aid in the unholy work. Their efforts will fail utterly and 
 hopelessly. But to make that failure quick, sure, and overwhelming, let
 
 20 
 
 there be a general uprising and arming throughout the loyal States ; and 
 let this be followed by a prompt forward movement of the armies of the 
 Union, so strong and irresistible that the armed traitors will be quickly 
 driven to choose between flight and unconditional submission. [Enthu- 
 siastic cheering.] 
 
 D. D. FIELD, being called upon by the Chair, read the following 
 
 ADDRESS, t 
 ADOPTED AND RECOMMENDED BY THE CONVENTION OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 The war in which the United States are engaged is not a war 
 of conquest, but purely of defence. We are fighting for that 
 which we received from our fathers : for the Union, which was 
 freely entered into by all the parties to it ; for the Constitution, 
 which is older than this generation, which was made, in part, by 
 the rebel States, and which every rebel leader has oftentimes 
 sworn to support. We did not resist till our forbearance was 
 imputed to pusillanimity ; we did not strike till we had been 
 struck ; and when we took up arms, we sought only to retake that 
 which had been taken from us by force, or surrendered by an 
 imbecile or traitorous President and Cabinet. 
 
 The Rebellion had no cause or pretext which was even plausible. 
 Misgovernment by the Federal power was not even pretended, 
 nor any just apprehension of misgovernment, for, though a Presi- 
 dent had been chosen whose opinions were hostile to the extension 
 of Slavery, the other departments of the Government were so 
 constituted that no legislation hostile to the South could have 
 been perfected. The Rebels revolted, therefore, against a Gov- 
 ernment which themselves or their fathers had, of their free choice, 
 created for them, whose powers they had generally wielded, and 
 whose offices they had for the greater part filled. 
 
 What this rebellion was for is declared by the Constitution 
 which the rebels immediately adopted for themselves, and to 
 which they invited the adhesion of the loyal States. That instru- 
 ment may be regarded as their manifesto. It is for the most part 
 a copy of the Constitution of the United States, with these two 
 important additions the perpetual servitude of the African race, 
 and the inalienable right of each State to secede from the rest 
 at will. Slavery and secession are the two corner-stones of the
 
 21 
 
 rebel constitution, the differences between that and our own, and, 
 of course, the only causes and objects of the rebellion. 
 
 Whoever, therefore, either in this country, or in Europe, sym- 
 pathizes with the rebels, or abets them, must justify the taking up of 
 arms and filling the land with distress and slaughter, for the 
 establishment of the perpetual right of slavery, and the perpetual 
 right of secession. The bare statement of the proposition, so far 
 as slavery is concerned, should seem to be a sufficient argument 
 In this age of the world, under the influence of our Christian 
 civilization, it seems incredible that any set of men should dare 
 to proclaim perpetual human servitude as a fundamental article of 
 their social compact, or that any other man should be found 
 on the face of the world to justify or even to tolerate them. In 
 respect to the assumed right of secession, the argument is short 
 and conclusive. Our Constitution established a Government and 
 not a league ; that was its purpose ; the aim of its founders to 
 make it a Government indissoluble and immortal, was as clearly 
 expressed in the language of the instrument, and of contempora- 
 neous writings, as it was possible to express it. 
 
 That man must be most ignorant of American history and law, 
 who does not know that the idea of a league or partnership is 
 wholly foreign to our constitutional system. The union between 
 England and Scotland is as much a league or partnership, as the 
 union between New- York and Virginia, and when Englishmen 
 talk of the right of Virginia to self-government, let them ask 
 themselves if they think Scotland has a right to secede from Eng- 
 land at will. 
 
 So much for the legal right now for the political necessity. 
 The secession of Louisiana and Florida from Pennsylvania and 
 Ohio can no more be admitted, considered as a question of policy 
 alone, than could the secession of Wales from England, or Bur- 
 gundy from France : nay, more, it would be possible for France to 
 exisi as a powerful empire, without a foot of the old domain of the 
 Burgundian princes; and England might be powerful and re- 
 spected, though the Welsh in their mountains still maintained their 
 independence. But such is the shape of this continent, and the 
 net- work of waters which flow through the Delta of the Missis-
 
 22 
 
 sippi into the Gulf of Mexico, that one part of the great valley 
 cannot secede from the other. Providence has written its eternal 
 decree upon the rivers and mountains of our continent, that the 
 north-western and the south-western States shall be forever joined. 
 
 But if it were possible to be otherwise if several independent 
 communities, without any national tie, could exist side by side in 
 the great basin of our continent they would be rivals, and from 
 rivals would become enemies, warring with each other, seeking 
 foreign alliances, obstructing each other's prosperity, and assailing 
 each other's power. The great experiment of Republican Govern- 
 ment would have failed ; an experiment depending for its success 
 upon the possibility of uniting the independent action of separate 
 States in respect to the greater number of the functions of govern- 
 ment, with the action of a national government upon all matters 
 of common concern. 
 
 If, as we believe, the fate of Republican Government in America 
 is to determine whether a great country can be governed by any 
 other than the monarchical form, with its concomitants of privileged 
 classes, and standing armaments ; and, of course, whether this 
 country of ours is to continue to be the asylum for the poor and the 
 oppressed of all countries ; there can be no greater question presented 
 to any people than that now presented to us ; none in which the 
 millions of this continent, and of Europe, are more deeply con- 
 cerned. If such a sacrifice were necessary, the thirty millions who 
 now inhabit these States could do nothing so useful or sublime as 
 to give themselves and all that they have, that they might leave 
 this broad land under one free, indissoluble, republican govern- 
 ment, opening wide its arms to the people of all lands, and promis- 
 ing happy homes to hundreds of millions for scores of ages. 
 
 We are persuaded that there has never been a struggle between 
 authority and rebellion, whose issues involved more of good or ill 
 to the human race. We are fighting not for ourselves alone, but 
 for our fellow-men, and for the millions who are to come after us. 
 These are scenes in the great war of opinion, which began before 
 the century opened, and which will be ended only when it shall 
 be decided whether government is for the few or the many. 
 
 We do not war with monarchical governments, or monarchical
 
 23 
 
 principles. They may be the best for some countries. The Re- 
 publican form of government is the one we prefer for ourselves, 
 and for that, in its purity, and its strength, we are offering up our 
 substance, and pouring out our blood like water. We are contend- 
 ing for that scheme of government for which Washington and the 
 rest of the Fathers took up arms ; for the integrity of our country, 
 for our national existence, for the Christian civilization of our land, 
 for our commerce, our arts, our schools ; for all those earthly things 
 which we have been taught most to cherish and respect 
 
 Such being the magnitude of the stake in this contest, can it be 
 wondered at, that we feel that all that we have, and all that we can do, 
 should be given to our country in this its great hour of trial. If 
 there be a man among us who does not feel thus, he should 
 leave us. We cannot endure the thought of a traitor in the 
 midst of us. For ourselves, we are willing to make every 
 sacrifice necessary to secure the triumph of the Government. It 
 can have all the resources of twenty millions of people. All we 
 ask of it is, that it shall use them quickly, vigorously and wisely. 
 Let us have no disunited counsels, no uncertain policy, no insuf- 
 ficient armaments, no paltering with rebellion. The crisis is most 
 serious and imminent. The nation is not in a mood for trifling. 
 It believes that the surest means of suppressing the rebellion are 
 the best. It complains only of delays, vacillation, weakness. li; 
 wishes the strength of the nation to be collected, and when 
 collected, used, so that not a vestige of revolt remain. We know 
 that we have the men and the means ; we only demand of the 
 Government that it do what it is bound to do, use them with 
 singleness of purpose, with well-considered plan,, under the lead 
 of the wisest counsel and the most skillful command. 
 
 This rebellion is a matter between ourselves and the rebels. 
 No person other than an American has anything to do with it. If 
 another intrudes into it, we must regard and treat him as an 
 enemy. And if any foreign Government, forgetting its own 
 duties, attempts to interfere in our affairs, the attempt must be 
 repelled, as we are sure it will be repelled, with that firmness and 
 spirit which become the American people and their representa- 
 tives. If there be anything about which we are all agreed, it is
 
 24 
 
 the wisdom of our traditional policy, that we will not interfere in 
 the affairs of other nations, nor allow their interference in ours. 
 To the maintenance of this policy the nation is devoted, and the 
 Government can count on the unanimous support of our people. 
 
 Forasmuch, then, as the actual rebellion and the possibility of 
 foreign intervention make it necessary that the whole loyal people 
 of this country should be banded together as one man, for the 
 defence of all they hold most dear, we here pledge ourselves to 
 each other, to Congress, and to the President, that, with all our 
 resources, we will support the Government in the prosecution of 
 this war, with the utmost possible vigor, till the rebellion is utter- 
 ly overcome, and its leaders brought to merited punishment. 
 
 The Address was adopted by acclamation. 
 
 JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., next read the following 
 
 KESOLUTIONS, 
 ADOPTED AND RECOMMENDED BY THE CONVENTION OF COMMITTEES. 
 
 WHEREAS, at a meeting of the citizens of New- York, convened 
 on the 20th of April, 1861, it was resolved to support the Gov- 
 ernment in the prosecution of the war then opened by the rebels, 
 with all the means in our power ; and whereas, nothing has since 
 occurred to change our opinions, or our determination then ex- 
 pressed, but everything to confirm them; and whereas, after a 
 series of successes to the Federal arms, interrupted only by a few 
 temporary reverses, the casualties of war have reduced the effective 
 strength of the regiments in the field, so that recruits are 
 needed to fill them up ; and whereas, the occupation of the places 
 repossessed by. our army requires an additional force, and the 
 President has called for three hundred thousand men, and for these 
 reasons another meeting of citizens has been called, and is now 
 assembled, it is thereupon 
 
 Resolved, That we reaffirm all the resolutions of the meeting of April, 1861, 
 hereby declaring, that every event that has since occurred has served to' 
 strengthen the convictions, then held, of the wickedness of this rebellion, and the 
 duty of all loyal citizens to suppress it with the strong hand, and at all hazards. 
 
 Resolved, That this war is waged on the part of the loyal for the overthrow 
 only of the disloyal ; that we seek not to enforce any claims or to establish any 
 privileges beyond those given us by the Constitution of our fathers ; and our only
 
 25 
 
 aim and purpose have been, and are now, to maintain the supremacy of that 
 Constitution, over every foot of soil where it ever bore sway, with not a line in- 
 terpolated, or a line erased. 
 
 Resolved, That we are for the union of the States, the integrity of the 
 Country, and the maintenance of this Government, without any condition or 
 qualification whatever ; and we will stand by them and uphold them, under all 
 circumstances, and at every necessary sacrifice of life or treasure. 
 
 Resolved, That while we recognize, and will sedulously maintain, the rights 
 of each State under the Constitution, we abhor and repudiate the doctrine fatal 
 to national unity, and so prolific of treason in the army and navy, and among 
 the people that allegiance is due to the State, and not to the United States ; 
 holding it as a cardinal maxim, that to the United States, as a collective Govern- 
 ment, is due the primary allegiance of all our people ; and that any State or con- 
 federation of States, which attempts to divert it, by force or otherwise, is guilty 
 of the greatest of crimes against humanity and our National Union. 
 
 Resolved, That we urge upon the Government the exercise of its utmost 
 skill and vigor, in the prosecution of this war, unity of design, comprehensiveness 
 of plan, a uniform policy and the stringent use of all the means within its 
 reach, consistent with the usages of civilized warfare. 
 
 Resolved. That we acknowledge but two divisions of the people of the United 
 States in this crisis ; those who are loyal to its constitution and every inch of its 
 soil, and are ready to make every sacrifice for the integrity of the Union, and the 
 maintenance of civil liberty within it, and those who openly or covertly endeavor 
 to sever our country, or to yield to the insolent demand of its enemies ; that we 
 fraternize with the former, and detest the latter ; and that, forgetting all former 
 party names and distinctions, we call upon all patriotic citizens to rally for one 
 undivided country, one flag, one destiny. 
 
 Resolved, That the Government of the United States, and its people, with an 
 occasional exception among the reckless inhabitants where this rebellion was fos- 
 tered, have wisely and studiously avoided all interference with the concerns of 
 other nations, asking, and usually enjoying, a like non-interference with their 
 own, and that such is, and should continue to be, its policy ; that the intimations 
 of a contemplated departure from this sound rule of conduct on the part of some 
 of the nations of Europe, by an intervention in our present struggle, is as unjust 
 to them as it would be to us, and to the great principles for which we are con- 
 tending ; but we assure them, with a solemnity of conviction which admits of no 
 distrust or fear, and from a knowledge of, and a firm reliance upon the spirit and 
 fortitude of twenty millions of freemen, that any attempt thus to intervene, will 
 meet a resistance unparalleled in its force, unconquerable in its persistence, and 
 fatal to those whom it is intended to aid ; and that it will tend only to strengthen 
 and elevate the Republic. 
 
 Resolved, That the skill, bravery and endurance exhibited by our army and 
 navy, have elicited our admiration and gratitude ; that we behold in these quali- 
 ties the assurances of sure and speedy success to our arms, and of rout and dis- 
 comfiture to the rebels ; that we urge the Government to aid and strengthen 
 them by all the means in its power, and carefully to provide for sick, wounded 
 and disabled soldiers and their families ; to prosecute the war with increased 
 vigor and energy, until the rebellion is utterly crushed, the integrity of the Union 
 in all its borders restored, and every rebel reduced to submission, or driven from 
 the land ; and that to accomplish these ends, we pledge to our rulers, our faith, 
 our fortunes, and our lives. 
 
 4
 
 26 
 
 Resolved, That we approve of the administration of the President of the 
 United States, and of the measures recommended and sanctioned by him for the 
 prosecution of the war, the suppression of the rebellion, and the welfare of the 
 country ; that we sanction as wise and expedient the call for three hundred 
 thousand more troops, and earnestly exhort our countrymen to rally to the 
 standard of the Union, and bear it aloft until it shall float in peace and security, 
 and be everywhere respected and honored. 
 
 Resolved, That a general armament is required by every consideration of policy 
 and safety, and the Government should lose no time in filling up our armies 
 and putting the whole sea-coast iu a state of complete defence. 
 
 Resolved, That it be recommended to the Common Council of the city of 
 New- York to offer a bounty of twenty-five dollars to every resident of the city, 
 who shall within thirty days enlist into any regiment now in the field. 
 
 Which were unanimously adopted. 
 
 The next performance was the singing of " Our Country and 
 her Flag," composed by FRANCIS LIEBER. For this purpose 
 thousands of copies of the song were scattered among the crowd, 
 being thrown from the main stand. The effect of this song, by a 
 full chorus of manly voices, and with the accompaniment of the 
 band, was very striking. The air is that of a glorious old anthem. 
 
 A SONO 
 ON OUR COUNTRY AND HER FLAG. 
 
 BY FRANCIS LIBBER. 
 
 Sung at the Meeting of Loyal Citizens, Union- Square, New-York, July 15, 1862. 
 TUNE Gaudeamus igitur. 
 
 We do not hate our enemy 
 
 May God deal gently with us all. 
 We love our land ; we fight her foe ; 
 
 We hate his cause, and that must fall. 
 
 Our country is a goodly land ; 
 
 We'll keep her alway whole and hale ; 
 We'll love her, live for her or die ; 
 
 To fall for her is not to fail. 
 
 Our Flag! The Red shall mean the blood 
 
 We gladly pledge ; and let the White 
 Mean purity and solemn truth, 
 
 Unsullied justice, sacred right. 
 
 Its Blue, the sea we love to plow, 
 
 That laves the heaven-united land, 
 Between the Old and Older World, 
 
 From strand, o'er mount and stream, to strand.
 
 27 
 
 The Blue reflects the crowding stars. 
 
 Bright Union-emblem of the free ; 
 Come, all of ye, and let it wave 
 
 That floating piece of poetry. 
 
 Our fathers came and planted fields, 
 
 And manly Law, and schools and truth ; 
 
 They planted Self-Rule, which we'll guard, 
 By word and sword, in age. in youth. 
 
 Broad Freedom came along with them 
 
 On History's ever-widening wings. 
 Our blessing this, our task and toil ; 
 
 For " arduous are all noble things." 
 
 Let Emp'ror never rule this land, 
 
 Nor fitful Crowd, nor senseless Pride. 
 Our Master is our self-made Law ; 
 
 To him we bow, and none beside. 
 
 Then sing and shout for our free land, 
 
 For glorious FREKLAND'S victory ; 
 Pray that in turmoil and in peace 
 
 FREELAND our land may ever be ; 
 
 That faithful we be found, and strong, 
 
 When History builds as corals build, 
 Or when she rears her granite walls 
 
 Her moles with crimson mortar filled. 
 
 The Chairman introduced Hon. CHARLES KING, who was wel- 
 comed with enthusiastic applause. 
 
 SPEECH OF THE HON. CHAS. KING, LL. I). 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, You see before you a man for many years with- 
 drawn by the nature of his pursuits from all political affairs, but yet with 
 a heart that beats as warmly toward the interest, and welfare, and honor of 
 the country, as the youngest in this vast concourse. [Cheers.] I come 
 before you, therefore, to speak in behalf of a cause common to every 
 American heart. We are here to-day to co-operate in putting down the 
 most wicked, wanton, causeless rebellion that ever offended the justice of 
 God or stained the annals of man. [Applause.] We have been called 
 upon by those in authority to send forth new regiments to the field, and 
 recruits to the old regiments whom the fortune of war has decimated, 
 and we come together now to pledge ourselves, that so far as each one 
 of us is concerned, those men shall not be wanting, and those regiments 
 shall be filled up. Can there be a more sacred cause than this ? Can 
 anything appeal more strongly to our interests, our feelings, our honor, 
 our patriotism, than this?' Can we submit to the shame and degrada- 
 tion of permitting our sons and our brothers who have gone forth at 
 their country's call, to stand exposed and unaided, to be cut down and 
 decimated by the enemy, while we are calmly carrying on our daily avo-
 
 28 
 
 cations at home ? [Cries of " No, No."] Surely not ; it cannot be ! 
 [Cries of "Never! Never! 1 '] Let us resolve here, once for all, that we 
 will support our brothers in the field that we will put everything at 
 hazard to conquer the Rebellion and re-establish the Union. [Cheers.] 
 We have heretofore lacked in earnestness of purpose in the conduct of 
 the war. We have dealt too mildly with those whom but a little while 
 ago we regarded as our friends. They are no longer friends, but deadly 
 enemies. They make war in earnest. They omit no means of strength- 
 ening their hands and weakening ours. Ihey fight with no remem- 
 brance that we were once brothers. Why, then, should we remember 
 it ? They fight us like incarnate fiends ; let us, at least, meet them as our 
 deadliest foes. [Applause.] Let us now go forth and make the war as 
 fierce and bloody as it is possible for a civilized nation to make it. No 
 moderation is shown to us ; let us show none to them. We are far more 
 powerful in numbers, and better prepared than our enemies. We have 
 heretofore acted too much on the defensive ; let us now act on the offen- 
 sive. [Cheers.] Let us henceforth strike rapid and constant blows 
 blows that shall tell. Let us no longer hear that the Army of the Poto- 
 mac is " safe." Safe ! Great God ! The army should be triumphant. 
 [Loud applause.] We have no criticism to make. I only speak com- 
 mon-sense when I say that war is a fierce game ; that they only prevail 
 who wage it in earnest. War cannot be waged in silken gloves. When 
 we send forth our armies, it must be understood that they go to battle. 
 
 Gentlemen, I speak to you as a citizen of New- York, older than any one 
 that I look upon here, quite as much interested in everything that concerns 
 the city and the country as any of you. Indeed, I have done almost every- 
 thing that a man of my age can do to give success to the war. I have sent 
 sons and grandsons to it, and I am ready, if necessary, to go myself [Loud 
 cheers.] And I promise you that neither of those sons will ever dishonor 
 the name he bears or the education he received. [Cheers.] They are 
 false friends and pernicious counselors who, in so great a cause as this, 
 would interpose side issues, and would seek to advance mean and misera- 
 ble personal or party aims and ambitions, by sowing the seeds of discord 
 and jealousy among our public men, whether in civil or military life. Let 
 all such discussion all intermediate questions or discussion^ which of 
 necessity must be subordinate to the great and vital question of our Na- 
 tional existence, which is now in the debate of arms be postponed till 
 the battle is won. Then there will be a great nation calm in conscious 
 strength, to judge and to determine all political questions. Now, let there 
 be only a nation of soldiers, resolved upon trampling treason in the dust, 
 and eager and earnest for aggressive war. Aggressive, I repeat, in every 
 form that the laws of war permit. Now our armies in the field are made 
 the special guardians for the benefit of rebel women and children of the 
 property which the husbands and fathers have abandoned in order to join 
 the rebel army and upon many a bloody field our wounded and dying 
 have been obliged to put up with such wayside fare and nourishment as 
 the chance of battle left for them, while hard by, rebel houses, and rebel 
 gardens, and rebel granaries, abounding in comforts which might have 
 saved life, and certainly would have mitigated suffering, are sacredly 
 guarded by our troops for the benefit of the rebel families. This may be 
 magnanimous, but it is not war. I would have all this changed. [Cheers.]
 
 29 
 
 I am for the war in its fiercest form always and in all things, however, 
 having regard to our own character and superior civilization. [Applause.] 
 Our antagonists claim that they are the muster race, and, as such, entitled 
 to rule the land and give law to the baser sort, whom, as by one general 
 term of reproach, they stigmatize as Yankee. This claim of superiority, 
 indeed, was announced in a recent article of one of the leading newspa- 
 pers in Richmond, as among the determining causes of this rebellion. We 
 of the North, it was said, confident in our numbers and wealth, seemed 
 to forget that we were an inferior race, and to be disposed to throw off 
 the yoke of the chivalry, and set up for ourselves ; and thence the neces- 
 sity, it was argued, that the master race should assert its supremacy, and 
 bring us back to wonted submissiveness. The Yankee must be made to 
 take off his hat when in the presence of a Southern gentleman ! Perhaps 
 so ! But before that lesson is learned, a good many Southern heads will 
 fall. Why, in every element that constitutes true manhood in physical 
 power, in educated mind, in religious instruction, in habits of self-com- 
 mand, in the dignity of bread-winning industry, in the knowledge of his 
 own rights, and in respect for the rights of others in all that constitutes 
 a man and a citizen the Northern race is far, very far, superior to the 
 Southern race. [Cheers.] With this moral and physical superiority, how 
 can it be otherwise than that, admitting equal courage on both sides, (and 
 that is a generous concession to the South,) with our great preponder- 
 ance of numbers, we must, when once fairly aroused, effectually subdue 
 them ? [Cheers ] 
 
 We are to listen to no talk of compromise, of negotiation, and, least of 
 all, of foreign mediation. Compromise of what ? Our right to exist as a 
 nation ? for that is the whole question. Negotiation with whom ? Rebels 
 in arms, traitors that have struck at the bosom of our common mother ! 
 And who among us would listen for an instant to mediation on the part of 
 either France or England ? [Loud cheers, and cries of " No one !"] Under 
 what pretence of right shall either of those nations, or both together, ven- 
 ture to interfere in our domestic quarrel ? It is an offensive assumption 
 of European superiority which we will not brook. We are a people of 
 ourselves, and by ourselves competent to manage our own affairs, without 
 the aid or counsel of others owing allegiance to God but none to any 
 earthly powers and thoroughly resolved to submit to no dictation or 
 intervention from any such powers. 
 
 No, friends, this is no time for parley, for negotiation, for half-way 
 measures of any sort. The people are far ahead of the Government. 
 They are in earnest, and will not be paltered with ; they mean to put 
 down the rebellion, and to punish the traitors with the most condign 
 punishment. They have a policy, whoever else may lack one. They 
 mean war, in earnest, and they mean that war deals with men only as 
 friends and as enemies. [Applause.] It has no cognizance of political 
 questions, of social institutions ; it deals plainly and directly with men, 
 and the only question it asks of them, without regarding race or color, 
 is, " Are you for us or against us ?" If for us, come and help ; if against 
 us, we shall know how to deal with you. This is war, according to com- 
 mon-sense and universal usage. A general in the field is bound to suc- 
 ceed, and in order to that to use all lawful means conducive to success. 
 He may take the life none deny that of the enemy. Shall he, then.
 
 30 
 
 hesitate about taking his property whenever and wherever it can be 
 useful to his own force ? [Cheers.] 
 
 He may seize his crops, his cattle, and why not his slaves? What 
 right has a general in the field to expose our sons and our brothers to 
 the horrors of unequal war, when thousands stand ready to help him if 
 he will only say the word ? A general in the field knows nothing of 
 slavery that is a political and social question, with which it is none of 
 his business to deal. He has to do only with the means of successfully 
 prosecuting war, and wherever these means are to be found he must use them. 
 This is so plain, that but for the prejudice of color none would hesitate 
 about it ; and yet it is not conceivable that the existence, possibly, of this 
 great Continental Republic, the lives of our sons and brothers, should 
 depend upon a question of complexion. If the issue be between the pre- 
 servation of the Union and the preservation of slavery, who shall hesi- 
 tate ? It may, indeed, be who shall say that it is not ? within the in- 
 scrutable purposes of Providence that, whereas all this great disaster and 
 crime arises from slavery and the disappointed, mad ambition of slave- 
 holding leaders, the result of this dire conflict shall be the total extinc- 
 tion of the great evil which has thus culminated in the greater crime of 
 rebellion ? 
 
 But of that I am not here to speak. All I urge is, that in the war to 
 the death we use all the means which, according to all the usage of 
 civilized war, we are entitled to use ; and that while our adversaries stop 
 at no expedients to strengthen their hands, we shall not weaken ours by 
 halt-way, halting, mean and miserable hesitations. 
 
 See to it, you my friends ; let us all, individually and collectively, see 
 to it that henceforth the lightning's flash shall tell of assault, of battle, 
 of victory of the enemy overthrown and subdued of our old and 
 honored flag restored in all its amplitude to every contested point 
 throughout the land of treason vanquished, and of the Union reaffirmed 
 and consolidated. Men of New-York, this you can greatly help to do. 
 Fail not, then, as you value your peace on earth, your hopes of Heaven.' 
 [Prolonged applause.] 
 
 After music by the band, WM. Boss WALLACE spoke, \\iih 
 thrilling and dramatic effect, an ode prepared by him for the 
 occasion. The following is the 
 
 ODE 
 
 BY WILLIAM ROSS WALLACK. 
 
 Keep step with the music of Union, 
 
 The music our ancestors sung. 
 When States, like a jubilant chorus, 
 
 To beautiful sisterhood sprung ! 
 ! thus shall their great Constitution, 
 
 That guards all the honus of the land. 
 A mountain of freedom and justice. 
 
 For millions eternally stand. 
 
 Xorth and South, East and West, all unfurl* n 
 
 ONE Jlanner alotie o'er the sod, 
 OXK voice from America, swelling 
 
 In worship of Liberty's God '
 
 31 
 
 Keep step with the music of Union, 
 
 What grandeur its flag has unrolled 
 For the loyal, a star-lighted Heaven, 
 
 For traitors, a storm in each fold ! 
 The glorious shade of Mount Vernon 
 
 Still points to each patriot's grave, 
 Still cries " O'er the long mighty ages 
 
 That Eagle of Lexington wave." 
 
 North and South, East and West, fyc. 
 
 Keep step with the music of Union, * 
 
 The forests have sunk at the sound, 
 The pioneer's brows been with triumph 
 
 And Labor's broad opulence crowned ; 
 Oh ! yet must all giant rude forces 
 
 Of Nature be chained to our cars 
 All mountains, lakes, rivers and oceans 
 
 Crouch under the Stripes and the Stars. 
 
 North and South, East and West, fyc. 
 
 Keep step with the music of Union, 
 
 Thus still shall we nourish the light 
 Our fathers lit for the chained nations 
 
 That darkle in Tyranny's night ! 
 The blood of the whole world is with us, 
 
 O'er ocean by Tyranny hurled, 
 And they who would dare to insult us 
 
 Shall sink with the wrath of the world. 
 
 North and South, East and West, fyc. 
 
 Keep step-with the music of Union, 
 
 All traitors shall fall at our march, 
 But patriots bask in the blessing 
 
 Flashed down from yon heavenly arch ! 
 Then hurrah for the Past with its glory ! 
 
 For the strong, earnest Present, hurrah ! 
 And a cheer for the starry browed Future 
 
 With Freedom, and Virtue, and Law. 
 
 Nortli, and South, East and West all unfurling 
 
 ONE Banner alone o'er the sod, 
 ONE voice from America swelling 
 
 In worship of Liberty's God .' 
 
 SPEECH OF GEN. HIEAM WALBRIDGE. 
 
 Gen. WALBRIDGE was then introduced, by his Honor the Mayor ; 
 who observed, in presenting him, that he would present to them their 
 distinguished fellow-citizen, who as early as April, 1861, was in 
 favor of calling, at once, six hundred thousand men to suppress 
 the rebellion. Gen. WALBRIDGE said : 
 
 MR. MAYOR, FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS : 
 
 Fourteen months ago, from this very platform, the city of New- York, 
 in the presence of a quarter of a million of loyal citizens, declared that 
 she would not sit tamely by and behold a wicked, reckless, malignant
 
 32 
 
 minority consummate the overthrow and ruin of the only representative 
 constitutional Government on earth. When she fixed this determination, 
 and announced her will, eleven rebellious States had attempted to sever 
 their connection with the Federal Government ; had torn from the forts, 
 arsenals, magazines and harbors within their limits the banner of the con- 
 stitutional Union. This reckless, rampant treason, though long threat- 
 ened, took the civilized world by surprise ; and, as the conspirators by 
 thousands poured their murderous hail of shot and shell upon that thirsty, 
 half-famished garrison at Fort Sumter, with its seventy exhausted but 
 loyal men, they little realized that throughout the whole Christian world 
 they were calling silently into exercise forces wholly beyond human 
 control ; for that man must be an atheist, or have no soul, who does not 
 realize, that since that first event God himself has been manifest in the 
 moral and political phenomena which this great, loyal nation now pre- 
 sents, and statesmen, and philosophers, and generals, will begin to reason 
 right and act right, when they realize this great truth. The establishment 
 of free institutions on this continent toward ameliorating the condition of 
 the human race, was second to the inauguration of the Christian religion, 
 and their dismemberment and overthrow is reserved only to Jehovah 
 himself. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, when last we met here, on the occasion to which I 
 have referred, bold, rank, audacious treason pervaded almost every 
 department of the Federal service. Army, navy, embassadors to foreign 
 courts, collectors of customs, postmasters, the very defences at Wash- 
 ington, limited as they were, could not then be relied upon. The nation 
 trembled for the satety of the national capital ; the personal safety of 
 the President was endangered even in the Executive mansion. Consterna- 
 tion and despair briefly ruled the hour. How stands the matter now ? 
 The capital is secured ; the rebels are trembling for Charleston, Savannah, 
 and their entire coast, while we have New Orleans and Nashville. 
 Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, then on the verge of 
 rebellion, are secured; Virginia, then completely in the grasp of the 
 rebels, has become loyal in the greater portion of her territorial extent. 
 Over eight hundred thousand troops have been called into the field, 
 armed, equipped, and provided, equal to any army ever before called into 
 service ; a navy, like Pallas, from the brain of Jove, seems to have 
 sprung at once into complete existence ; three thousand miles of coast 
 have been blockaded, and a landing has been effected upon the soil of 
 that pestiferous State, which first instigated and finally produced this 
 wicked rebellion. I would that we could here have first made our 
 terrible visitation of the power and resources of the Federal Government 
 in quelling the treason, firmly believing, had that been done, the border 
 States would never have hesitated in their allegiance. Twenty millions 
 of people are on the one side, backed by the consciousness they are 
 contending for the integrity and maintenance of the Government from 
 which they have achieved greatness and commanded respect throughout 
 the world. Eight millions of rebels oppose them. The grounds of 
 the contest are clearly defined treason, revolt and anarchy are on 
 the one side ; liberty, security and prosperity on the other. Great 
 as is the disparity in wealth and numbers, the traitors thus far have 
 maintained the unequal contest. But the end is not yet. An additional
 
 300,000 troops have been called into requisition by our exigencies. This 
 patriotic action of the Government must be sustained, traitors at home 
 must be punished, spies and informers must be annihilated, the Union 
 must be preserved, and condign punishment afterward inflicted upon all 
 who have taken this period in our history to fatten upon the misfortunes 
 of the Republic. A broad and beneficent statesmanship must be adopted, 
 and the policy of the Government must be borne upon our victorious 
 standards as they advance into the rebel territory. That policy should 
 be broad, national and statesmanlike ; but it should be so rapid, so 
 powerful, so wise, and so energetic, that the national life will survive, and 
 the authority of the Constitution in the rebellious States be recognized, if 
 to accomplish it every existing institution, order, monopoly, or privilege, 
 should be swept before our advancing hosts. Rights should be recognized, 
 privileges discarded, and the authority of the United States floating again 
 over its former territorial limits, its flag everywhere emblazoned in 
 characters of living light " The Union, it must and shall be preserved." 
 It is to be seriously deplored that at this juncture our fears are appealed 
 to lest the proportions of this contest shall be largely augmented by 
 some efforts at intervention from foreign powers, which may result in 
 collision in our present domestic dissensions. From the first dawning of 
 our domestic dissensions the governing class in England have desired, 
 not their repression, but their increase, and have actively sympathized 
 with these internal traitors to dismember our Government. They thus 
 hope to render the people of North America as impotent to oppose their 
 political and commercial domination as similar domestic contentions 
 have already reduced the people of the South American Republics. 
 Hence at the very commencement of the rebellion the English ministry 
 made haste to recognize the rebels as belligerents, and to place them on 
 the same level as the Government against which they had rebelled. 
 Intervene to make peace ! Intervention will deluge the earth with blood. 
 This country cannot be dismembered but by subjugation, amid seas of 
 blood and oceans of flame. Never. England and France combined, 
 with what is left of the rebels, cannot subjugate and dismember the United 
 States. In such an atrocious attempt every lover of liberty and fair 
 dealing in Europe will be our friend ; every hater of British tyranny 
 will be our friend ; every hater of Napoleon will be our friend ; 
 the Pope would rejoice to see the end of a dynasty which seeks 
 his degradation ; Venice would find herself a part of Italy, and 
 Austria would find a compensation in exemption from future dangers on 
 the Rhine, and in a division with Russia of the " sick man's estate." 
 Intervene for humanity ! Transparent falsehood ! The United States 
 will neither be subjugated or dismembered while the loyal American 
 people remain true to their Revolutionary origin. But as becomes wise 
 and practical men, we should closely examine the means of assault and 
 the means of defence if this burden should be forced upon us ; and here 
 again we shall witness abundant opportunity for confidence and hope. It 
 is i'air to assume, should intervention ever come, the two Western powers 
 of France and England will act in unison, as they did in the Crimean 
 war, and as they have recently co-operated with Spain by intervening 
 with the internal affairs of Mexico. These two powers combined possess 
 a large army. If undisturbed, in from eight to nine months, by gigantic
 
 34 
 
 efforts and at vast cost, they might ferry across the Atlantic from 240,- 
 000 to 275,000 soldiers, with all their armaments and supplies. This 
 would, however, be doing far more than they were able to do in the 
 Crimean war, though largely aided by American steam transport ships. 
 At no time in the year can they in one voyage readily transport 100,000 
 soldiers, and the immense amount of necessary arms and supplies. Even 
 if able to shelter their soldiers till the last detachment arrives, and all 
 move together, some nine or ten mouths after hostilities should arise they 
 would stand in the presence of disciplined troops twice as numerous as 
 themselves in the presence of troops who have fought far more battles 
 against resolute troops than themselves a few thousand French troops 
 alone excepted. 
 
 The American troops regiment for regiment six months from to- 
 day, will be as well drilled, m better condition and practice, will have 
 seen more active service and as many battles, and will be better armed, 
 than the regiments to which they will stand opposed, and will be more 
 than twice as numerous. Their next means of assault consists in vessels 
 of war numerous and powerful and, in addition, the English have 
 constructed canals from the St. Lawrence into the great chain of Ameri- 
 can lakes, to enable them to convey gun-boats into these waters. We 
 have no such connection with the ocean. They can transport their gun- 
 boats among our commercial vessels, and in front of our interior cities, 
 along a lake coast of more than two thousand miles, unopposed. We 
 have nothing at this time absolutely nothing with which to oppose 
 them on these great inland seas. But, per contra, we have to-day more 
 armored vessels genuine iron-clad than both France and England. 
 That much good has come out of this evil rebellion. In a few weeks 
 not months we shall be able to teach the English, if they demand it of 
 us, a new version of the naval lessons of 1812. Six or eight of our 
 armored vessels can readily destroy the entire unarmored fleet of Eng- 
 land. We shall soon have afloat iron-clad vessels, armed with carefully 
 tested ordnance, carrying elongated projectiles with " punch points," of 
 four hundred and eighty pounds, fully competent first, to resist the con- 
 centrated fire of the Warrior, aided by the La Gloire, A apoleon's largest 
 iron-clad ship ; and second, by the use of shot alone to sink both of them, 
 should they come within its range. We now have on hand the tested 
 ordnance competent to speedily destroy any vessel yet armored by any 
 nation. Our iron-clads are the most numerous at this time, and cannot 
 be exceeded prior to January or February next. The English troops are 
 dispersed all over the world to guard isolated colonies Her available 
 troops cannot be massed to an amount of eighty thousand ; and one 
 hundred and fifty thousand, if she had them, would not be troublesome 
 to a powerful nation, possessing from 800,000 to 1,000,000 of troops 
 already called to the field ; and the French army, once shut on shipboard, 
 even if convoyed by the whole English and French fleet, could not in an 
 ordinarily fair fight escape destruction. A single conflict between an 
 English or a French iron-clad and one of our far more heavily armed 
 iron-clads will settle that question. The result will be so decisive as to 
 admit of no mistake, if there is any virtue in ordnance throwing projec- 
 tiles four times heavier than any approved gun with which any English 
 or French vessel is now armed. Let us examine our means of defence. 
 Of course, before going into battle, a soldier puts on his armor ; when a
 
 35 
 
 man leaves home he locks the doors of his house. So a nation going to 
 war with a naval enemy, will, at an early day, carefully lock the mouths of 
 all those valuable harbors, inlets, sounds, and rivers, which have narrow 
 entrances, and thus lessen the home duties of the fleet, as well as furnish 
 a place of refuge when disabled by storms, or pressed by superior force. 
 The mode of obstructing entrances to harbors, so as to effectually secure 
 them, and yet allow of a passage of a friendly ship with but little hind- 
 rance, is pointed out with great clearness by the Board of Engineers in a 
 report made to the Secretary of War in 1840. The obstruction can be 
 created in the entrance to a harbor like that of N T ew-York in probably 
 two or three days. The whole British navy could not force a passage 
 through the entrance, without first removing the obstruction ; and the ob- 
 struction could be removed by an enemy only after the silencing- of the 
 forts under the command of whose guns it is placed. Having taken steps 
 to carefully secure the most important entrance by temporary obstruc- 
 tions and by heavily armed forts, let us promptly provide an interior 
 water communication between our chief cities, parallel with our Atlantic 
 coast, and having numerous communications with it at protected points. 
 This has been frequently recommended by the Board of Engineers as a 
 work of vast military importance. In April last, the Military Committee 
 of Congress, in an able report, demonstrated how this object could be 
 speedily and cheaply accomplished, viz. : By enlarging the locks of three 
 short canals, of an aggregate length of only 78^ miles. A vessel enter- 
 ing the sound of North Carolina, from the Atlantic Ocean, can proceed 
 by way of the Dismal Swamp Canal (22 miles lon^) to Norfolk ; then 
 passing up the Chesapeake Bay, communicating with both Washington 
 and Baltimore, if desirable, it can sail into the Delaware River through a 
 canal only 13^ miles long; after communicating with the great city of 
 Philadelphia, it could sail directly into New- York harbor, by passing 
 through the Delaware and Raritan Canal, a distance of 43 miles, and 
 thence proceed up the East River, 140 miles, to New London, before going 
 to sea. Here is an inland communication between almost all of our lead- 
 ing ports and cities along the maritime front of the populous and power- 
 ful States of Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- 
 ware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina a distance of nearly 1,000 
 miles, and having many facile and easily protected outlets to the sea. 
 Suitable timber locks, capable of passing large war vessels, can be made 
 ready for use, in a case of pressing emergency, in from twenty to twenty- 
 five days. The Government has ample legal authority to make this great 
 improvement, if a military necessity. As it is, let it be done, and in such 
 a manner that we can easily concentrate large ships at any desirable har- 
 bor to resist any invasion, when the telegraph shall announce the dis- 
 asters or separations wrought on the enemy's fleet by storms or by our 
 returning squadrons. The engineers strongly recommend this double 
 coast line as a remarkable military advantage possessed by neither Eng- 
 land nor France. Our own sense tells us that if a ship or ships of war 
 or commerce should be blockaded in a harbor, and thus prevented from 
 going to sea, the evil would be lessened if the harbor was connected, by 
 a safe and unexposed interior channel, with all the harbors on the coast 
 for a thousand miles so also a blockade of one harbor could be broken 
 up, by quietly concentrating in it a superior force drawn from the other 
 harbors connected with it by the interior channel.
 
 36 
 
 Let us also earnestly request the Government to aid in opening the 
 communication for our iron gun-boats from the Mississippi to the Hudson, 
 the Delaware and St. Lawrence. Then in the event of war, our iron-clad 
 ships from the West, through the loyal States, could sail directly into 
 the lakes, proceed to the head of the St. Lawrence, and protect the 
 crossing of an army sufficiently powerful to command that river as low 
 down as Montreal, and thus prevent a single British soldier from pene- 
 trating the interior. This accomplished, what amount of opposition 
 could the unaided and defenseless Canadians make to our Western 
 troops ? The navigable waters of Canada secured, this inland fleet could 
 forthwith repair to the aid of our defences at the mouth of the Hudson. 
 A period of from ten to twenty days would place them at either point. 
 In thirty days, in despite of the utmost efforts of England, the United 
 States could control the upper St. Lawrence and the whole chain of 
 lakes, for they have no iron-clads competent to navigate those waters, 
 and to meet our superb Western iron-clad fleet, with its 11, 13 and 15 
 inch guns. Since the inauguration upon the waters of the Chesapeake, 
 of a new era in the art of naval warfare, we have placed our country at 
 the head of naval powers in effective strength, and the mechanical force 
 of the country, for the time being, should be called into requisition in 
 enlarging and strengthening the navy ; and the comprehensive policy 
 should be adopted of allowing the merchant marine to aid in its own 
 defence by its incorporation into a militia navy, under proper laws and 
 restrictions. We ought now to commence, and complete within six 
 months, a heavy fleet of iron-clads of superior speed, and at least twice 
 the capacity of the Monitor : and of the three millions of enrolled 
 militia in the loyal States, with one million in the field, we may confi- 
 dently anticipate bringing this infamous Rebellion to a triumphant close. 
 With such an army and navy, with the forts armed with the modern im- 
 proved ordnance of large calibre ; with the valuable inlets to harbors, 
 roadsteads and soundsj skillfully obstructed ; with an interior water com- 
 munication between the several ports and harbors on the Atlantic, so as 
 to make it safe and convenient to speedily pass a fleet from one to another 
 entirely beyond the observation of any enemy lying off a fort ; with a 
 navigable communication between New-York bay and the lakes, ami 
 between the lakes and St. Louis and New Orleans, that would allow of a 
 movement of the whole fleet from New Orleans to New- York, or from 
 New- York to New Orleans, by an inland route free from danger and ob- 
 servation, surely we can maintain our national unity and our national 
 honor. But I must draw these remarks to a close. New-York again to- 
 day, as at the beginning of the struggle, demonstrates that she is still 
 loyal to the Government and the Constitution. She feels the deepest 
 sympathy for the martyred dead, who have fallen in defence of constitu- 
 tional, well-regulated liberty. As the tidings of this great gathering are 
 borne throughout the loyal camps, it will animate the heart and nerve the 
 arm of our brave and intrepid soldiers. In behalf of that immense army 
 of privates, who have left home and kindred and friends, to meet the 
 traitors striking at the heart of the nation, and who never mean to 
 abandon this contest until the old flag again floats over every inch of our 
 original territorial limit, I ask you to send them the cheering words of 
 your hearty commendation.
 
 37 
 
 Gen. WALBRIDGE was cheered throughout most enthusiasti- 
 cally, and as he was concluding, said he had prepared some 
 resolutions, which he would read and if they met the approval 
 of this vast, intelligent and patriotic assemblage, he would request 
 the MAYOR to ask for their adoption. As Gen. WALBRIDGE read 
 each one, cheer after cheer welcomed them, and when the last 
 was concluded, the whole vast assemblage gave one unbroken 
 and hearty Yea. The MAYOR then formally offered them again, 
 when they were carried, amidst the most tumultuous and enthu- 
 siastic applause. 
 
 Resolved, That the territorial limits of the United States, as they existed before 
 this infamous rebellion began, and the Constitution which guarantees their ex- 
 istence, should forever remain one, entire, united and indivisible. 
 
 Resolved, That the division of the former, and the overthrow of the latter 1 
 would constitute a damning crime to all eternity. 
 
 Resolved, That as the blood of our slaughtered citizen soldiers, fallen in de- 
 fence of constitutional liberty, cries to Heaven for redress, we declare that, to 
 suppress this Rebellion and save the national life, the Government should call 
 into exercise every agency employed by the Rebels themselves to make the war 
 effective, conclusive and of short duration. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender to our unfortunate countrymen, now languishing by 
 captivity in Southern prisons, our earnest and cordial sympathy, and we beseech- 
 ingly implore the Government to effect their honorable exchange and release at 
 the earliest possible moment. 
 
 Resolved, That since integrity by public servants in the discharge of official 
 duty is the only guaranty for good government, we call upon Congress to give the 
 authority, and the Government to execute it, by hanging upon a gibbet higher 
 than ever Hainan hung, every official in any department of the public service, 
 who attempts at this juncture of our public affairs to fatten upon the misfortunes 
 of the Republic, either by defrauding the public Treasury, employing his public 
 position to advance private pecuniary objects, or who shall be found guilty of im- 
 posing upon our brave soldiers any base article either in the food or raiment 
 provided for them by the Government. 
 
 Resolved, That Congress should provide for opening the great line of interior 
 water communication along our Atlantic coast, capable of passing our naval 
 fleet and our commercial marine from the waters of the Roanoke and Chesapeake 
 Bay to the eastern terminus of Long Island, and should at once open the means 
 of internal communication, by which our gun-boats can pass from the Mississippi 
 through the loyal States, by the various canals and lakes, until they reach the 
 Atlantic sea-board, by the most cheap and expeditious routes that scientific and 
 practical knowledge may develop. 
 
 Resolved, That our commercial marine, now largely in advance of any other 
 nation, should be so organized as to aid in the means of its own defence, and that 
 it is the duty of Congress to provide for this by incorporating a portion of the 
 same into a " Militia of the Seas," and thus inaugurate a new element of Nation- 
 al strength and defence, commensurate with our growing importance as a great 
 leading maritime power.
 
 38 
 
 Resolved, That steadily pursuing the wise pob'cy of our fathers, we never mean 
 to interfere in the internal conflicts of foreign States, but here, beneath this out- 
 stretched sky, in the presence of Almighty God, and of one another, we pledge 
 our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, never to abandon this struggle 
 while there remains a traitor in the land ; and that any armed intervention by 
 any foreign power in our present domestic affliction, shall prove the signal for 
 the spirit of Liberty to commence its triumphant march through Europe. 
 
 On the part of the Chairman, Mr. JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS, Jr., 
 announced the following resolution, which was unanimously 
 adopted : 
 
 Resolved, That this meeting cordially unites in recommending to the Governor 
 and Legislature of this State, to take the earliest means of pledging the State to 
 the payment of an additional bounty to volunteers. 
 
 The Star-Spangled Banner was then sung by the chorus and 
 band, thousands of voices joining in the stirring refrain. 
 
 Mr. DUNN was next introduced, and after a few preliminary 
 and patriotic remarks, read a poem, from which the following is 
 an extract : 
 
 Only once in every lifetime comes the hour for man to prove 
 
 The depth, the truth, the earnestness of patriotic love : 
 
 Only once iu every lifetime comes the people thrilling jar 
 
 That purifies the nation in the crucible of war ; 
 
 Which vindicates the honor of the Truth and proves the might 
 
 Of the never-thwarted purpose which is founded in the right. 
 
 And God will safely guard the man and make him doubly strong, 
 
 Who battles in the cause of Right against the cause of VVrong. 
 
 To the camp-enshrined Potomac, to its blood-stained, throbbing strand, 
 
 Points the plain, unerring finger of God's invocating hand, 
 
 And I hear the thrilling voices of the martyrs, one by one, 
 
 Saying, " FREKMEN ! On to glory, while there's labor to be done .'" 
 
 And can I stand here idle while I hear my country's call ? 
 
 While I see the gloom of treason 'round the Union's temple fall ? 
 
 No ! I'll grasp the sword of duty, and move onward in the van. 
 
 To the deeds which bless THE AGES and uphold the RIGHTS OF MAN ! 
 
 SPEECH OF EX-SEXATOR SPIXOLA. 
 
 Ex-Senator SPINOLA, having been introduced to the meeting, on 
 coming forward was warmly received. He said : 
 
 I did not come here this day to mate a speech to you. No, I come 
 for a nobler purpose and a more important object. I come to ask you 
 to join with me. (Hear, and applause.) The hour has arrived when it 
 becomes the duty of every American citizen to buckle on his armor and 
 go forward to the fight. (Loud cheers.) I have now, since our last 
 glorious meeting in this place, witnessed the progress of this wretched 
 rebellion, and my only regret is that a sufficient force was not then at
 
 39 
 
 once raised to drive the fomenters of it out of the country, and forever to 
 keep it down. You are once more again gathered together in a great 
 mass meeting to frustrate its future progress, and I call upon you to do 
 your duty to your country in this the hour of her peril. (Applause, and 
 cries of " We shall do so.") There were those who, at the last great 
 mass meeting of New- York, were pretended friends to the Union, but 
 who, I regret to state, as matters have since turned out, were the vilest 
 snakes of treason. (Hear, and loud cheers.) Let our Northern States 
 fall into Southern hands let them sway the destinies of this mighty and 
 world-famed republic and if ever the day should arise when such a state 
 of things should happen, not even man, woman or child would receive 
 the slightest mercy at the hands of those Southern rebels. (Cries of 
 " That's true go on, Spinola.") Give them, I say, the upper hand, and 
 the people of the North will soon feel the effects of Southern steel. But 
 let them come on I ask them to do so ; and if we have the real princi- 
 ples of freedom at heart, we shall soon teach them what virtue is in 
 Northern arms. (Applause.) There is another great consideration in 
 which we are all deeply interested. Let the South be successful and the 
 North will not only have to pay the expenses of the rebellion, but to live 
 in thralldom under their bloody sceptre. (Hear, hear.) As I said at the 
 commencement of these remarks, I told you that I wished you to join 
 with me in endeavoring to crush this awful rebellion. (Cries of '' And 
 so we will.") I have already determined, as you all know, to bear my 
 humble part in this war, and in crushing the rebellion. I shall do so ; and 
 should I meet with or discover any poor Southern wretch peculating the 
 property of our gallant Northern troops, I will not go to the trouble of 
 gibbeting him, but he shall suffer at the point of the bayonet. (Applause.) 
 In connecting myself with the great Union army, I promise that the men 
 whom I may be appointed to command shall receive my best attention. 
 In the hour of danger and also of sickness I hope to stand by them, and 
 to see that their wants are well cared for. Their wounds shall be skill- 
 fully attended to. (Loud cheers.) I look upon these duties as incumbent 
 upon every commander to considerately carry out. Let us recollect those 
 great men who gave us this government, and if we do we cannot but re- 
 spect their memories. We are, the most of us, well acquainted with 
 what they passed through. This should stimulate us in fighting hard in 
 defence of the great Constitution which they formed on so permanent a 
 basis. We are a well equipped body of men ; our military reputation 
 cannot be excelled, and we are the best men in arms in the world. (Loud 
 cheering.) I am now raising a brigade to join the great army of the 
 North, and before long I hope that I shall be ready to head th:;t brigade 
 to the glorious battle-field. (Hear, hear.) After a few other remarks the 
 ex-senator concluded his address by calling on those present, who felt a 
 desire to join his brigade, at once to do so. He said : I promise them 
 every indulgence and encouragement, and so long as they fight under one 
 flag the glorious flag of the Union they shall be secured in these. 
 (Great applause.)
 
 40 
 
 MR. BANYARD'S ADDRESS. 
 Mr. BANVARD was next introduced to the meeting, and said : 
 
 PATRIOTIC FELLOW-CITIZENS, I want to let you know that I have 
 some knowledge of secession, and shall crave your indulgence for only a 
 short time. Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, happened to move up 
 with ten thousand men, but he was not long until he moved down again. 
 (Loud cheers and laughter.) I know him personally, and I have very 
 little to say in his favor, only that he soon discovered his mistake and 
 did not make a second attempt. (Loud cheers.) I know the spirit of 
 secession well, and have seen its workings. I have no hesitation what- 
 ever in declaring that its object is to uproot the principles of free govern- 
 ment in this country, which have been so securely established by the first 
 founders of that glorious, happy, and free Constitution. (Loud cheers ) 
 Would time permit I could enter more into detail, but shall content my- 
 self with these few remarks. 
 
 The proceedings were here closed, and the meeting adjourned.
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 STAND No. a. 
 
 Under charge of Committee of Arrangements, 
 PEOSPEE M. WETMOEE. SAMUEL SLOAN. 
 
 President. 
 
 PELATIAH PEErr, President of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 EOYAL PHELPS, 
 A. A. Low, 
 JOHN A. STEVENS, 
 JOHN C. GREEN, 
 EGBERT B. MINTCRN, 
 JOHN D. WOLFE, 
 JAMES W. OTIS, 
 HENRY J. RAYMOND, 
 T. H. FAILE, 
 JAMES G. KINO, 
 JOSEPH W. ALSOP, 
 MOSES TAYLOR, 
 BENJAMIN E. WINTHROP, 
 JAMES GALLATIN, 
 WILLIAM A. BOOTH, 
 SHEPHERD KNAPP, 
 E. A. WITTHAUS, 
 
 E. E. MORGAN, 
 EGBERT L. KENNEDY, 
 EICHARD W. WESTON, 
 MANTON MARBLE, 
 
 J. SMITH HOMANS, 
 W. W. DE FOREST, 
 WILSON G. HUNT. 
 SAMUEL D. BABCOCK, 
 HENRY F. VAIL, 
 H. W. T. MALI, 
 JACOB HERRICK, 
 CHARLES KING, 
 JOHN S. GILES, 
 M. MARBLE, 
 JOSIAH SUTHERLAND, 
 EDWIN J. BROWN, 
 
 F. SCHROEDLER, 
 
 W. H. LEONARD, 
 FREDERICK A. CQE, 
 
 JOHN JACOB ASTOR, Jr., 
 HENRY A. .HURLBUT, 
 FRANCIS W. SKIDDY, 
 WILLARD PARKER, 
 SAMUEL T. SKIDMORE, 
 WILLIAM C. OILMAN, 
 E. Y. HAUGHWOUT, 
 WILLIAM WATSON, 
 J). T. INGRAHAM, 
 JOHN RAYMOND, 
 PHILIP DATER, Jr., 
 SAMUEL P. WILLIAMS, 
 GEORGE BLISS, Jr., 
 U. A. MURDOCK, 
 JNO. L. HASBROUCK, 
 GEO. W. BRAINERD, 
 AUSTIN L. SANDS, 
 LEMUEL W. HOPKINS, 
 SAMUEL B. WHITE, 
 MOSES M. LAIRD, 
 GEORGE 0. TOTTEN, 
 NATHAN KINGSLEY, 
 CHESTER A. ARTHUR, 
 JOHN HEWETT, 
 WILLIAM B. TAYLOR, 
 JAMES EENWICK, Jr., 
 JAMES A. EOOSETELT, 
 BENJ. ARNOLD, 
 JACOB NEVINS, 
 WILLIAM J. CORWIN, 
 
 LUCIUS TUCKERMAN, 
 
 JOSEPH P. VARNUM, Jr., 
 WILLIAM B. HOFFMAN, 
 DAVID MILLER, 
 D. C. HAYES, 
 EUGENE KETELTAS,
 
 42 
 
 ALFRED COLVILL, 
 ABRAHAM M. COZZENS, 
 THEODORE L. MASON, 
 R. D HITCHCOCK, 
 JOHN H. SWIFT, 
 GEO. CLARK, 
 A. B. HAYS, 
 JAMES OLIVER, 
 ALBERT SPEYERS, 
 ANDREW MATHEWS, 
 ROBERT L. MC!NTYRE, 
 JOHN WARREN, 
 PAUL S. FORBES, 
 TIMOTHY G. CHURCHILL, 
 E. CAYLUS, 
 ROBERT S. HONE. 
 RICHARD D. LATHROP, 
 WILLIAM HALL, 
 
 DANIEL B. FEARING, 
 CHARLES A. BRISTED, 
 JUSTUS DILL, 
 JAMES B. TAYLOR, 
 GEORGE OSGOOD, 
 CHARLES E. BEEBE, 
 EDWARD MINTURN, 
 CHAS. L. TIFFANY, 
 GEORGE S. PARKER, 
 GEORGE ANTHON, 
 JAMES GERARD, 
 WILLIAM KELLOCK, 
 OSCAR COLES, 
 SAMUEL D. BRADFORD, 
 F. S. LATHROP, 
 JOSEPH LEE, 
 JAMES UDALL, 
 HAMILTON BRUCE. 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 EDWARD C. BOGERT, 
 J. SMITH HOMANS, Jr., 
 HENRY I. BARBEY, 
 GEORGE D. LYMAN, 
 IRVING GRINNELL, 
 WILLIAM E. DODGE, Jr., 
 WILLIAM H. GRENELLK, 
 WALKER BURNS, 
 J. HOWARD WILLIAMS, 
 ANDREW WARNER, 
 FRANK SHEPHERD, 
 Louis BELLONI, Jr., 
 JOHN H. DRAPER, 
 
 TEMPLE PRIME, 
 BLEECKER OOTHOUT. 
 GEO. WILSON, 
 EDWARD WILLETS, 
 FRANK OTIS, 
 WASHINGTON COSTER, 
 DAVID BISHOP, 
 ANDREW H. SANDS, 
 JOHN W. MINTURN, 
 HENRY KETELTAS, 
 JOSEPH P. NORRIS, Jr., 
 EDWARD S. RENWICK.
 
 PROGRAMME OF PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 STAND No. 
 
 SALUTES OF ARTILLERY by ANTHON LIGHT BATTERY and by 
 the WORKMEN employed by HENRY BREWSTER & Co. 
 
 1. Music Grand March. 
 
 2. PROSPER M. WETMORE will call the meeting to order, read the 
 CALL FOR THE MEETING, and conduct to the Chair PELATIAH 
 PERIT, President of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 3. A. C. RICHARDS will read the List of Vice-Presidents and 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 4. PELATIAH PERIT, Chairman, will address the Meeting. 
 
 5. CHARLES H. RUSSELL will read the ADDRESS adopted by 
 the Convention of Committees. 
 
 6. SAMUEL D. BABCOCK will read the RESOLUTIONS adopted by 
 the Convention of Committees. 
 
 7. Music Volunteer Chorus, by HENRY CAMP and FRIENDS, 
 
 Star-Spangled Banner. 
 
 8. Rev. FRANCIS VINTON will address the Meeting, 
 
 9. Music Volunteer Songs Grod Speed the Right, 
 
 10. CHARLES P. DALY will address the Meeting. 
 
 11. Music Hail Columbia. 
 
 12. DAVID S. CODDINGTON will address the Meeting
 
 44 
 
 Mr. PROSPER M. WETMORE called the meeting to order, read 
 the call for the meeting, and also the following letter from Mr. 
 PELATIAH PEJIIT, who had been designated by the Committee 
 of arrangements to preside over the stand. 
 
 LETTER OF P. PERIT. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, July 14th, 1862. 
 John A. Stevens, Jr., Esq., Secretary Chamber of Commerce, N. Y. : 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, I have been favored to-day with your telegraphic note of this 
 date informing me that I have been appointed to preside at the stand of the 
 Chamber of Commerce, at the public meeting to be held to-morrow. 
 
 Having been confined to my bed by sickness since my return from New-York, 
 1 am quite unable to proceed to the city, and shall thus be prevented from tak- 
 ing part in the great demonstration. 
 
 That the meeting will be large and enthusiastic, I cannot doubt, and I trust it 
 will be as powerful in its' influence for good as was that which followed the at- 
 tack on Sumter. 
 
 I shall be present with you in feeling though not in person. 
 
 Very truly, yours, 
 
 P. PERIT. 
 
 Mr. WETMORE nominated for Chairman Mr. A. A. Low, second 
 Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, who was unani- 
 mously elected. 
 
 Mr. A. C. EICHARDS read the list of Vice-Presidents and Sec- 
 retaries which had been prepared by the Committee, and which 
 was adopted with unanimity. 
 
 ADDRESS OF A. A. LOW, ESQ. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, I share with you in your regret that the much re- 
 spected gentleman, who was expected to preside over this meeting, is 
 prevented by illness from being present. The honor naturally belonged 
 to one who has, so often, by his cheering presence, imparted grace and 
 dignity to our public gatherings ; and I know with what pleasure he has 
 answered every expectation when the interests of this community have 
 been involved. 
 
 In the absence of Mr. PERIT, to whom I have just referred, and in the 
 absence of the first Vice-President of the Chamber of Commerce, it de- 
 volves upon me, in obedience to your vote, to announce the object of this 
 meeting. 
 
 Indeed, it needs no announcement. There is but one call that brings 
 together men of all parties, of all professions, and of every name. It is 
 the call of our country. The existing emergency is too well understood 
 to require any labored explanations. Your response to the summons 
 which has brought you here has been too hearty and enthusiastic to war- 
 rant a passionate appeal to your patriotism.
 
 45 
 
 In this great metropolis of the Union, in this Square, consecrated to 
 the Union, by the great pledges recorded here a year ago in April, it is 
 especially meet that, at this critical juncture, men of all parties should 
 assemble once more and unite in a fresh resolve to support the Constitu- 
 tion and the Union ; to sustain the Chief Executive of the nation ; to give 
 a new impulse to the popular mind ; to manifest by word and by deed 
 an unalterable determination to sustain the great cause for which 
 such sacrifices have been made for which so much blood has been 
 shed. 
 
 For more than a year one great burden has rested upon every loyal 
 heart. Your most anxious thoughts for yourselves and for your children 
 have centered upon our country, convulsed by civil war, and still doomed 
 to suffer. Your brightest hopes, your most glorious anticipations have all 
 been directed to the re-establishment of this great Republic, in its full and 
 magnificent proportions. For this, brave men have fought, and good 
 men have prayed. 
 
 Through all discouragements, and through all reverses, this has been 
 the undeviating purpose, the unfaltering trust of good and true men. To 
 see the people of the United States, from North to South and East to 
 West, bound together once more by a common interest and a common 
 love in our vast brotherhood, has been the paramount desire, the ardent 
 prayer of every true patriot. 
 
 Touch your throbbing hearts, and tell me if this be not so ; if, through 
 all the anxious and eventful scenes of our great national struggle, supe- 
 rior to every fear, one hope has not predominated all other hopes the 
 ever ardent aspiration that our country may survive its fiery trial may 
 soon issue forth triumphantly, "both purified and glorified!" That this 
 last experiment of man to found and sustain a Republican government, 
 whose standard is the symbol of civil and religious freedom, may become 
 an unquestioned success ; and that these United States, increasing in 
 number and growing in grandeur, may continue to be the asylum of the 
 oppressed, the admiration of all lovers of liberty, the fear of all the foes 
 of freedom throughout the world. 
 
 During the great crisis which has so tasked the energies of the whole 
 country, the city of New- York has poured forth in unmeasured flow 
 her money and her men, answering every requisition with an unstinted 
 hand. True to the inspirations of her extended commerce, her contribu- 
 tions to the finances of the country have been generous and bountiful. 
 The merchants of this city know too well the value of free and uninter- 
 rupted intercourse with every section of the Union, of open ports and 
 navigable rivers, to be indifferent to the issues of this great controversy, 
 did not a more worthy patriotism prompt to the largest sacrifices for the 
 attainment of the noblest ends. 
 
 Your presence here to-day, in answer to the call, so hastily promul- 
 gated, shows that you are alive to the importance of the crisis ; that no- 
 thing will be wanting on your part which may be asked of loyal and 
 intelligent men that is conducive to an honorable adjustment of our Na- 
 tional difficulties ; that you appreciate the magnitude of the effort still to 
 be made ; and that you are prepared for every sacrifice that duty en- 
 joins, that patriotism dictates. 
 
 The Committee of Arrangements have caused an Address to be pre-
 
 46 
 
 pared, which will now be read to you ; and a series of Resolutions will be 
 submitted for your consideration. 
 
 I shall presently have the honor of introducing several distinguished 
 citizens, who have been invited to enforce these resolutions by their elo- 
 quent words. 
 
 Mr. SAMUEL SLOAN read the Address adopted by the Con- 
 vention of Committees, which was deceived with great applause. 
 
 Mr. A. C. EICHARDS read the Resolutions adopted by the Con- 
 vention of Committees which were accepted with cheers. 
 
 JUDGE DALY'S ADDKESS. 
 
 The Chairman then introduced Hon. CHARLES P. DALY, First 
 Judge of the Common Pleas, who was received with applause. 
 He said : 
 
 When two parts of a great nation have divided, and are arrayed in 
 open war against each other, it is a waste of time to dwell upon the 
 causes that have produced it. Having thrown all other considerations 
 aside, and grappled together in mortal strife, nothing remains then but 
 to determine which of the two will be compelled to yield. [Cheers.] 
 There was a time when mediation and compromise were possible. It has 
 passed, and it is of no consequence now who are responsible for the 
 neglect or opposition by which that opportunity was lost. He that 
 supposes that the South would listen to any terms of settlement now, 
 except such as it is impossible for the North to grant, is a political 
 dreamer. Nothing can be done now except what is done by military 
 means. The South has taken its position, and it will not recede from it 
 unless it is compelled to. Whatever Union sentiment may have existed 
 there, it is crushed out, and there is nothing apparent there now but 
 sympathetic unanimity and a dogged determination to persist in the 
 course they have taken. Whatever doubt, hesitation or difference of 
 opinion may have prevailed at first, the sentiment is now universal that 
 they have gone so far that they cannot go back ; that they must now go 
 on, whatever may be the consequence or the sacrifice. Everything with 
 them, then, is reduced to a question of endurance, and the sooner we 
 wake up to the consciousness of this state of facts, the more fully will we 
 comprehend our own position and the obligations and duties that are 
 imposed upon us. [Cheers.] Leaving out of view the political dif- 
 ferences which may have incited and led to this war, what is it that the 
 South have determined with such great unanimity to do, and which the 
 North, with equal unanimity, have determined to resist ? Constituting 
 but little more than one third of the population of the whole country, 
 the inhabitants of the Southern States have determined to seize the 
 largest part of our territory, geographically ; to appropriate to themselves 
 nearly the whole of our sea-coast, and the mouths of nearly all our 
 principal rivers and construct out of it a foreign nation. Of the eighty-
 
 47 
 
 four rivers which, descending through a common territory, find their way 
 to the sea and serve as the great outlets of the industry and commerce 
 of the whole people, they modestly propose to take to themselves the pos- 
 session and control of seventy-two, including the largest and most impor- 
 tant ; leaving to us but the number of twelve, watering that comparatively 
 small strip of territory extending from the Hudson River to the northern 
 boundary of Maine. [Groans ] They propose to cut us off from those 
 elements of national existence determined by the curvature of mountain 
 forms and by the course of rivers, and leave us a territory so irregular 
 and so badly adjusted in respect to its dependent parts, as to make it 
 impossible for us to keep it together as a nation. Look at the political 
 boundaries of the nations upon the map of the globe, and not one will be 
 found with a territory so disjointed and fragmentary as the one that 
 would then be left us. If a foreign nation undertook to do this, we would 
 resist to the last drop of our blood ; and does it make any difference that 
 those who are seeking to accomplish it, have hitherto been a part of our- 
 selves, and proffer to us in the future nothing but vows of eternal hate ? 
 [Applause.] After eighty-six years of existence as one government and 
 one people, eight millions rise up and say to twenty millions, " We will 
 take the largest part of this country for ourselves, and you must accept 
 what we think proper to leave you ; we are the better born, the nobler race, 
 the aristocracy ; we do not choose to labor ourselves, we prefer to have a 
 servile class to labor for us, and therefore have no sympathy with the 
 trading spirit by which you have increased and multiplied, nor with the 
 mechanical, manufacturing and various industrial pursuits to which you 
 are devoted." [Groans.] They say to us, " There has never been such 
 a thing as the American nation ; it has been only a mere partnership of 
 sovereign states which any one might dissolve at its pleasure. We have 
 respectively dissolved it, and in the partition of the partnership effects we 
 have made our own adjustment, taken what has pleased us, and left to 
 you what we thought proper." To submit to this is to allow the weaker 
 to dictate to the stronger [cries of " Never "] to allow the eight millions 
 of the South to prescribe to the twenty millions of the North what shall 
 be there future position. The man who was born in a Northern State, or 
 who became a citizen by adoption, is as much a citizen of South Carolina 
 as those who were born or who dwell there. [Cheers.] And neither 
 their Southern doctrine of State rights, nor their rebellious attempt at 
 exclusiveness, can deprive him of it. To submit to the designs of the South, 
 is to consent to national annihilation. It is to consent, in a national point of 
 view, to take territorially an inferior and subordinate position ; to take a 
 territory so placed geographically, that its dismemberment, the breaking 
 of it up into several parts, must be the inevitable consequence. The 
 question, then, is not whether we shall conquer the South, but whether 
 the South shall conquer us. [Cheers.] It is whether the present 
 aristocracy of the Southern States, and their retainers, shall deprive the 
 intelligent and industrious masses of the North of a territory, the joint 
 possession of which they have equally inherited, and which is essential to 
 the unfettered exercise of their industry, and to their full development as 
 a nation. It is this which gives to this contest the character of a mortal 
 struggle, in which neither will yield unless compelled to do so by the 
 superior military prowess of the other. [Applause.] It is not like other
 
 48 
 
 civil wars a struggle between two classes of society, living together, 
 where the one seeks to get the mastery over the other and establish a 
 form of government ; but it is one part of a country enjoying in every 
 respect the same political privileges which insists upon breaking off 
 territorially, and which for that purpose has arrayed itself in open war 
 against the other. [Cheers.] The thing which most nearly resembles it is the 
 division of the once compact Republic of Colombia into the now insigni- 
 ficant States of Ecuador, New Grenada and Venezuela, with the fruitful 
 lesson which that furnishes in the miserable state of anarchy now 
 prevailing in these distracted and wretched countries. We have scarcely 
 yet risen in the North to the full consciousness of the magnitude of the 
 struggle in which we are engaged. We have not fully comprehended 
 the momentous consequences which are involved and the vital and 
 disastrous effects upon us if we fail to succeed. 
 
 In this struggle, which to us is for existence, we have a task upon us 
 equivalent to the conquering of a nation. [Cheers.] We have from the 
 beginning undervalued the capacity and power of resistance on the part of 
 the South, and have men now in Congress, who believe that the South is 
 to be conquered by the enactment of laws [laughter and cheers] Con- 
 gressional doctors ignorant enough to think that an armed rebellion of 
 eight millions of people can be put down by the passage of statutes. We 
 have not realized the extent of resources that is demanded of money, 
 of men, and of the material of war. As a peaceful people, suddenly roused 
 up, we have displayed extraordinary energy, and in so short a space of 
 time have put forth an extent of naval and military strength almost in- 
 credible. [Cheers.] But great as has been our effort, that of the South 
 has been greater. She has drafted the whole of her available population, 
 determined to overmatch us by the promptitude with which she has 
 brought troops into the field. She is said to have two hundred and 
 twenty thousand men now at Richmond, while we have not half that 
 number. She has made a last great effort ; and, should we pause here, 
 it will be, on her part, a successful one. We will be beaten, humiliated 
 and disgraced. All that we have hitherto done will have gone for noth- 
 ing, and we will retire from the contest with a contracted territory and a 
 gigantic load of debt, which of itself will be a reason for one part of 
 the country to shift it off upon the other by acts of dismemberment and 
 separation. To avert these calamities, a call is made by the Government 
 upon the country for three hundred thousand men ; and if that call is 
 promptly responded to, the suppression of the rebellion will be but a 
 question of time. [Cheers.] It will soon be seen whether our people 
 are, or are not, equal to the great emergency which now calls upon them 
 to act. If they fail in this crisis, then the South are, as they have claimed 
 to be, our masters. They will triumph in the consciousness that they have 
 chafed into submission those artisans, tradesmen and laborers of the North. 
 We are masters upon the water, but on the land the heart of this rebellion 
 has not yet been reached, and it will not be unless this levy is raised. If 
 this call is responded to, and three hundred thousand men rapidly put in 
 the field we shall be armed in a double sense : First, it will secure us 
 against foreign intervention [loud cheers] ; and, secondly, we shall ac- 
 complish what we undertook to do when we first rose to the defence of 
 our government and our flag. The season, being the time of harvest, is
 
 not a propitious one, and if, from that or any other cause, this force can- 
 not be raised by volunteering in time to meet the present pressing emer- 
 gencies of the government, I can see no good reason why a draft should 
 not at once be made. [Loud and general expression of approbation.] 
 Our enemies have resorted to it, and it is now the chief source of their 
 strength. The government of Europe which most nearly resembles our 
 own the republic of Switzerland was placed a few years ago in a situa- 
 tion exactly like ours. The southern cantons undertook to break off and 
 establish a confederate government by themselves. The northern can- 
 tons^ constituting, as we do, the majority of the population, raised an army 
 and crushed the rebellion. The plan which they resorted to, and which 
 proved eminently successful, was to draft the whole of the requisite force 
 in the very beginning. It brought into the army men of all ranks and 
 conditions, making it a high-toned, intelligent and patriotic body. While 
 our system of volunteering is enormously expensive, the measure adopted 
 by the republic of Switzerland was economical and brought together a 
 devoted, disinterested and patriotic body of men. It is at least fair and 
 just in its operation, as it casts the duty of defending the government 
 equally upon all classes [cheers] and if the necessity should exist I do 
 not see why we should hesitate to resort to it. The man who is not will- 
 ing to defend a free and liberal government like this, when the lot is cast 
 upon him, is unfit to live under it and enjoy its blessings. [Loud applause.] 
 Our national existence, then, depends upon our obtaining the three hun- 
 dred thousand men. To that every other consideration is subordinate. 
 Like Aaron's rod, it swallows up every other, and the whole energies of 
 the people and of the Government must be devoted to it. But the men 
 now called to come forth to the rescue of the nation, have a right to de- 
 mand that they shall be led by generals, and not by politicians in uniform ; 
 and we, men of all parties assembled here to-day in this mighty gather- 
 ing of the intelligence and patriotism of the masses of this great metropo- 
 lis, have a right to call upon our temporary rulers at Washington to 
 imitate the example which is here set them of unity, of public spirit and 
 patriotism, [cheers] ; to leave off the discussion of measures upon 
 which we are a divided people, and think only of the preservation of the 
 country in this pressing crisis. Let them bear in mind that they are not 
 as great men as they suppose themselves to be, and learn something of 
 that fine element of character humility. Let them remember that more 
 than two thirds of the men composing the army of the Union are opposed 
 to them politically, and, above all, let the civilians in Washington give up 
 directing and controlling the operations of generals in the field. [Loud 
 cheers.] The Archduke Charles was but little inferior in military genius 
 to Napoleon, and with the superior numbers at his command might have 
 been more than a match for his great adversary, had not his operations in 
 the field been controlled by the Aulic Council sitting at Vienna. To this 
 body every unemployed general and intrusive civilian, as at Washington, 
 had access, and, ignorant of the changes and vicissitudes which attend a 
 campaign, this Council baffled the best laid plans of the Archduke by 
 controlling his opinion and prescribing beforehand what the movement 
 of the armies should be ; and had not Wellington, in the war of the 
 Peninsula, openly disregarded the suggestions, and even orders, that came 
 to him from London, the British arms would never have triumphed over 
 
 7
 
 50 
 
 the generals of ' Napoleon. [Cheers.] No general under heaven can 
 accomplish anything if, in addition to the enemy in front, he has also to 
 fight against an army of detractors and advisers in his rear. [Prolonged 
 applause.] If he is incompetent, take the responsibility and remove him ; 
 but while he is in command let him command. We can raise the three 
 hundred thousand men ; but if the spirit of meddlesome interference at 
 Washington, controlling the operations of generals in the field, does not 
 meet the contempt it deserves in the indignant rebuke of our whole peo- 
 ple, then our energies will be wasted again, and in the fullness of national 
 calamity we will be left but to lament over the madness and folly of our 
 temporary rulers. [Loud applause.] 
 
 Three cheers were given for Judge DALY. 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. DAVID S. CODDINGTON. 
 
 Hon. D. S. CODDINGTON was the next speaker. He was greeted 
 with applause, and said : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, In this hour of alienation, tumult, and disaster, no 
 man, however humble, has a right to sit still when the nation has sprung 
 to its feet, and the Union lies bleeding upon its back. [Cheers.] 
 
 We have come here in the darkest hour of National existence to de- 
 clare before the world that the unity and nationality of America shall 
 Hot be dissolved, either in the swamps of the Chickahominy or the Coun- 
 cil Chambers of Paris or London. [Great applause.] We are all, under 
 moral martial law, now bound to obey every draft upon the brain, the 
 heart, the purse, and the life, to serve a Government, whose authority 
 has dropped upon us with the gentleness of a flower, and yet shielded us 
 with the strength of a giant. We may have our weaknesses, and these 
 weaknesses may serve to point an English sneer, or round a Southern 
 taunt ; but they never yet have succeeded in vitiating the grander points 
 of our National character, neither have they, for one moment, obstructed 
 the beneficent action of our hitherto unassailable institutions. [Cheers.] 
 
 If secession is right, then all order, all regulated society, is wrong. If 
 secession cannot be put down without war, then war is the highest duty 
 and best business of the American citizen more profitable than mer- 
 chandise, more beautiful than poetry, and, for the time being, as sacred 
 as the ministry itself. True, we may fail sometimes ; so do all business 
 and sciences until experience teaches them. By degrees we shall learn 
 the art of blood, and mayhap the foe will find the Yankee shop-boy an 
 efficient chronic portable slaughter-house. So far we have fought half 
 tiger and half brother. No half man accomplishes much. We must be 
 all tiger now, that we may be all brothers by and by. [Laughter and 
 applause.] 
 
 If fevers and blunders have wasted the strength and tampered with the 
 glory of our armies, the beautiful enthusiasm of this day's proceedings 
 illustrates how heartily and abundantly we try to redeem our errors and 
 relieve our heroes. Was it not a sublime spectacle to see the President 
 of the United States pouring the balm of his sympathizing Presidential
 
 51 
 
 presence into the serried ranks of the wearied army of the Potomac 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN confronting GEO. B. MCCLELLAN ? [Loud cheers for 
 McClellan.] The embodied representative of the National authority 
 shaking hands with the genius of American safety the great rail-splitter 
 reproaching the railers against the noble army and its gifted chieftain. 
 
 When ABRAHAM LINCOLN was nominated, I laughed at the convention ; 
 when he was elected, I trembled for the country ; but since he has been 
 inaugurated, I have learned to love and honor thesaan who has so faith- 
 fully wielded the National resources. [Great applause.] When the 
 South struck at the President, they fired at a man in the stocks, cooped 
 up in judicial decisions, bound down by legislative restrictions, warned 
 away from all philanthropic mischief by the wholesome hostility of an 
 adverse popular vote. They found him in quiet, helpless, party paralysis, 
 and only left him an aroused, wounded, angry National giant, with all 
 the resources of all parties at his command. 
 
 The South sneered at our poor, under-fed, over-worked soldiers, who 
 fled from Bull Run ; but now the world laughs at a whole community 
 who ran away from a shadow. Our soldiers left a few arms and knap- 
 sacks on the field, while they threw away long years of happiness and 
 prosperity. Daily are we taunted with their superiority in arms and 
 birth. They claim WASHINGTON, as if their deeds had made him. Out of 
 the 200,000 troops who fought in the War of the Revolution, the South 
 did not furnish 20,000. But for the North, WASHINGTON would have 
 gone down to posterity with a halter around his neck. It was Northern 
 hands that moulded his Virginia clay into an immortal statue. [Sensation.] 
 
 Compared with our solid successes, what have the South achieved in 
 this war ? Two or three land checks and one steam fright. [Laughter.] 
 The ghost of the Merrimac will haunt the nation for centuries. By di- 
 verting the base of operations from the James River, it has cost us $100,- 
 000,000. That sum would have built us 300 Monitors, which would 
 have blockaded all intervention. 
 
 The march of events now means the march of armies. The progress 
 of our institutions depends at last upon the speed of our bullets ; when 
 they rain the Union is safe, when they slacken the Union reels. War is 
 a cruel alternative, but not more so than a peace which removes from 
 danger without relieving us of disgrace, disorder, and disintegration. 
 We want not lamentation over this war, but enlistments in the war. Let 
 us shed no tears but volunteers. [Great laughter.] We cannot succeed 
 in this gigantic war until all classes are worked up to the thrusting point. 
 
 There must be a fighting man from every family and every calling ; a 
 fighting lawyer, a fighting doctor, a fighting priest, ay, and a fighting 
 dandy. Now is the time for white kids to redeem themselves. Now is 
 the time for all that army of fashionable loungers who have been growl- 
 ing all their lives for lack of opportunity. Now is the time for them to 
 rise, strike and be immortal. [" Good, good."] While the South have 
 sent a thousand men to battle, we have sent a hundred. While they 
 have mounted science to lead on their armies to victory, we have too 
 often skipped experience and thrust politics on horseback to save the 
 country. Twenty-three millions of people are tired of being told that 
 they are outwitted because they are outnumbered. [Cheers.] If we fall 
 now we will be the oddest ruin on record. Rome was four hundred years
 
 52 
 
 dying of her own corruptions. We, instead of being enervated by luxury 
 or discomfited by invasion, go down with all our strength, and all our 
 wealth, and all our wits about us. [Applause.] Destroyed by a remark, 
 our great light blown out by the passionate breath of partisan oratory. 
 [Great applause.] I, for one, can never believe in such a death. The 
 ablest sword of the age is hanging by our side. The heaviest purse on 
 the Continent is in our pocket; the noblest cause for which man can draw 
 his brother's blood, calls him to the battle-field, and if we wait patiently 
 and act vigorously the greatest victory of modern times is in our grasp 
 the victory of the Republic over itself, the victory of democrat virtues 
 over aristocrat vices, the victory of law, order, and Government over dis- 
 union, distraction, conflagration, and damnation. [Long applause.] 
 
 On conclusion of the honorable gentleman's remarks, three 
 cheers were proposed for Mr. CODDIXGTON, which were vociferously- 
 responded to. 
 
 The Chairman, A. A. Low, Esq., said : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, We have here the Rev. Dr. FRANCIS VINTON. He 
 did not intend to speak ; but if there be a man from whom we have a 
 right to expect a word, it is he. He belongs to a family, (as many of 
 you know,) who have not only given their voice and their service, but 
 their blood, to the country. He himself, though now a clergyman of 
 one of our principal churches old Trinity is a West Pointer, and has 
 served in the United States Army through one war. His nephew com- 
 mands the 43d New- York Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac. A 
 brother is the distinguished Deputy Quartermaster-General of the Army 
 in this city ; and another brother, father of the Colonel of the 43d, died 
 while in command of the trenches before Vera Cruz. [Cheers and cries, 
 " Let us hear him."] I will ask the Rev. Doctor to say a few words to 
 us. [Cheers.] 
 
 Dr. Vinton then came forward and spoke, substantially, as 
 follows : 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. DE. FRANCIS VINTOX. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, I could not, after listening to such a call as that 
 which I have just heard, remain silent and decline to lift my voice to 
 speak to you. This war was not begun by us. When Major Ander- 
 son was summoned to surrender Fort Sumter to the rebels, he refused, 
 but added, in an unofficial way, that in three days he would be starved 
 out, and compelled to evacuate the fort. When his reply, official and 
 unofficial, was telegraphed to Montgomery, the lightning flashed across 
 the wires this response from the Confederate Government, " Open fire at
 
 53 
 
 once." Those rebel guns inaugurated the war against the Flag and the 
 Constitution and the Union of the United States. 
 
 We have been, ever since, waging a defensive war a war to defend, 
 to protect and to maintain the Union and Constitution of our country, 
 and thus to preserve our life as a nation. 
 
 At this particular crisis, the war has become a question of honor or 
 dishonor, of liberty or slavery, of death or of life, to you and your 
 children. 
 
 I waive all debate as to foregone points of policy or of party, of mis- 
 take, of fraud, and whatever things soever have irritated and divided the 
 Free States, and I say that a crisis is upon us, when every patriot, 
 whether he be father or mother, son or daughter, must lay the offering 
 of his dearest possession upon the altar, in obedience to the command of 
 God and of the State. Let our Isaac be ever so closely knit to our 
 hearts and our hopes, we must be the faithful Abraham to give him up 
 in sacrifice. [Cheers.] 
 
 I have served our country in her army for ten years, and I speak to 
 you as a military man. And I tell you that we have not lost an equal 
 battle in this whole war ; even at Bull Kun, we beat the army opposed 
 to us. Beauregard, in his official report of that battle, says to Davis, 
 that he had reluctantly given orders to retreat that when he saw the 
 columns approaching in his rear, he did not know whether they belonged 
 to Patterson or to Johnson ; but when he found that they were reinforce- 
 ments, and not opponents, then he began to hope for victory. 
 
 In every action since Bull Run (except, perhaps, Ball's Bluff) the 
 loyal army of the United States has conquered the rebels, in fair fight 
 and often against odds, causing them to evacuate and " skedaddle " after 
 their first elan and onslaught. In proof of this, look at Bowling Green 
 and Corinth, and the previous battles which delivered Missouri ; look at 
 the evacuation of Columbus, of Manassas, of Yorktown, of Norfolk, and 
 the defeat at Williamsburg, to say nothing of what our army and navy 
 combined, have accomplished at Port Royal, and Fort Donelson and 
 New Orleans. 
 
 But what chiefly demonstrates the superiority of the Union forces over 
 the rebels, are the late series of victories of McClellan [cheers] in his 
 march from the Pamunkey to the James River, in the last week of June 
 and the first two days of July. 
 
 McClellan conquered the rebels in seven successive battles on seven 
 successive days ; wherever he encountered the rebels he overthrew them, 
 and is nearer Richmond now than ever he was before. [Cheers.] With 
 the strong right arm of the country supporting him on James River 
 the navy I say he is nearer to Richmond than ever. Though in the 
 change of front to the new base of operations on James River, our army 
 lost ten thousand men, yet the enemy lost (as they confess) thirty thou- 
 sand ; while we succeeded, in that manoeuvre, in concentrating the power 
 of our forces, and the rebels were defeated in their attempt to prevent it. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, there are some among us who echo the rebels' boast, 
 and misname McClellan' s change of front, a retreat, and his casualties, a 
 defeat. Nothing, in a military point of view, is more false than this 
 aspect of the late battles before Richmond. What are the facts of the 
 case ? The James River is the natural avenue to Richmond ; McClellan
 
 54 
 
 could not advance on that route while Norfolk was in possession of the 
 rebels, and while the iron-clad Merrimac blockaded the mouth of the 
 James River. When Norfolk was taken and the Merrimac was destroyed, 
 and our gun-boats had reached City Point, it was the true policy of 
 McClellan to join the gun-boats, and unite our naval and military forces. 
 
 McClellan, as early as Friday, in the third week of June, gave orders 
 to remove the stores from the White House and the York River, round 
 to the James. And it was done effectually, and without interruption or 
 loss, by the following Tuesday. On Tuesday he moved his army ; it was 
 attacked, and the attack was repulsed ; fresh hordes of the fugitives of 
 Beauregard with the veterans of Johnson and Lee repeated the assaults 
 on Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday and Sunday, 
 and each onslaught was repelled : on Monday, the advance of our army 
 reached the James River, driving before them three thousand head of 
 cattle and dragging their siege guns through the swamps of the Chicka- 
 hominy, without the loss of a hoof or the abandonment of a gun. The 
 dead and the wounded were necessarily left behind, and several field- 
 pieces (twenty-five in number) were disabled and captured. Prisoners 
 were taken and provisions in baggage wagons were captured. This was 
 all our damage, though it was fearful and saddening. 
 
 On Monday the rebels renewed the fight on the rear-guard, and were 
 again repulsed with loss of whole brigades of rebel prisoners and of 
 twenty- six of their guns. On Tuesday the reserve of the enemy marched 
 from Richmond, fresh and untired, with the expectation of getting into 
 the rear of our exhausted troops ; but they were met and held until our 
 gun-boats, the Galena and the Monitor, opened a terrific fire, which sent 
 the frightened rebels hurly skurly back to Richmond. Thus- ended the 
 foiled attempts to outgeneral McClellan. [Cheers.] Thus terminated 
 the rebel efforts to beat our brave soldiers of the Army of the Potomac. 
 [Cheers.] It is worth noticing, that the correspondent of the New-York 
 Tribune relates that he was on board of the Galena when McClellan 
 arrived on board from a skiff, and posted the gun-boat by his own direc- 
 tions to her commander ; that then he went aboard of the Monitor, and 
 pointed out the proper position for that champion to take. [Cheers.] 
 It was a spectacle like that of Perry passing from the Lawrence to the 
 Niagara, and plucking victory from a competent foe by the force of 
 mind and valor. It was the shots from these, his naval coadjutors, which 
 gave the finishing blow to the rebels in their last assault, and sent them 
 back to their rebel capital. [Cheers for McClellan.] 
 
 Now, fellow-citizens, does all this wear the aspect of McClellan's 
 defeat, or of McClellan's victories ? The rebels were foiled, and the 
 Union Army was successful. And I claim the series of victories, costly 
 as they were, to McClellan and his army, and so will history record her 
 judgment. Why, let me put the case in a familiar way ; suppose that 
 you were going over the ferry to Brooklyn, where two or three rowdies 
 encountered you, and swore that you should not go ; they attack you, 
 and you knock them down, one after another, and go on your way, and 
 reach the other side as you intended. Who conquered ? W'ho got the 
 victory ? Will you say that you were defeated, because your clothes 
 were torn and your nose bloody, or even if your arm were broken and 
 your purse gone ?
 
 55 
 
 These are the casualties of the occasion. You were not the conquered, 
 but the victors. This is a plain and homely, but true illustration, of 
 the seven days' battle of McClellan. The enemy assailed him three to 
 one, and he drove them off. [Cheers.] Fellow-citizens, I knew most of 
 the leaders of this rebellion at West Point and in the army. And among 
 them are men, whom, before the rebellion, 1 have known as gentlemen ; 
 but the Bible says, that " Rebellion is as witchcraft ; " Samuel uttered this 
 divine condemnation to Saul, and when Saul became a rebel, his very 
 nature was, as by witchcraft, changed, and so now again, has this rebel- 
 lion changed those whom I once recognized as friends and gentlemen. 
 They have become our foes, and, in their attempts to destroy the Consti- 
 tution and Union and Government of the United States, they would be 
 our murderers, like Saul against David. They would kill us or make us 
 vassals. Shall they do this, or shall every traitor to the Constitution be 
 made to feel the authority and power of the Government of the United 
 States 3 The Army of the Potomac must be recruited and reinforced. 
 The President has called for 300,000 loyal soldiers. Shall we go to the 
 army or stay at home ? Who will not offer himself as a champion or a 
 martyr for his country, in this crisis of constitutional liberty ? Who 
 will not enlist when victory or death are the issues ? Who will not go 
 to the altar, like Isaac, to be priest or sacrifice, as God may appoint, and 
 win an imperishable name on the muster-roll of a nation's heroes ? Let 
 the example of Mr. Seward's son be an example to us. The Secretary of 
 State, in his letter just now read, tells you that he has offered his young- 
 est son to the service of his country, as a private in one of the military 
 organizations of New York. [Prolonged and enthusiastic applause.] 
 
 SPEECH OP PETER COOPER. 
 
 In response to a call from the Meeting, PETER COOPER came 
 forward and said : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, I can assure you that nothing could give me greater 
 pleasure than to be able to say a word, if possible, that would awake the 
 slumbering energies of the nation to the magnitude of the war in which 
 we are engaged. [Cheers.] We are contending with an enemy not 
 only determined on our destruction as a nation, but an enemy that is 
 determined to build on our ruins a government with all its power devoted 
 to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting to all the 
 best feelings of humanity. An institution that enables thousands to sell 
 their own children into hopeless bondage. [A voice " That's so 1 I have 
 seen it."] Shall it succeed ? [Cries of " No ! No ! "] You say no, and I 
 unite with you and say no, also. We cannot allow it to succeed. We 
 should spend our lives, our property and leave the land a desolation 
 before such an institution should triumph over the free people of this 
 country. [Applause.] 
 
 I know, my friends, that will be the feeling when the people wake up 
 to the importance of the present occasion ; and I believe the time has 
 now come that we begin to see that thousands, nay millions, are sighing 
 to help us, but are afraid because they say we are fighting to restore an 
 institution that will keep them in perpetual bondage.
 
 56 
 
 I trust the day has come when -we shall unbind the heavy burdens and 
 let the captives go free when we shall meet these men who are ready to 
 unite and aid us, and give us the help we need. [Cheers.] A help that 
 will take from the rebels the power on which they depend for digging 
 their trenches, plowing their fields, raising their crops, and leaving 
 them leisure to play upon us the game of war. Shall it be so any 
 longer ? I trust it shall not. Let us unite and do what we can to con- 
 vince the people of the South, that their best interests call for the freedom 
 of their slaves, and not only of their slaves, but the freedom of the 
 white people of the South from the terrible thralldom, the terrible 
 dependence they are in, when they allow themselves to rely on a coerced 
 and uncompensated labor. [Cheers.] Let u unite in an effort to sustain 
 the Government by every means in our power, and get the army built 
 up in the shortest possible time, with the best men and arms that can be 
 found. [Enthusiastic applause.] 
 
 The proceedings at this stand were then closed.
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 STAND No. 3. 
 
 Under charge of Committee of Arrangements, 
 PETER MITCHELL, CHARLES GOULD. 
 
 President. 
 
 HAMILTON FISH, President of Union Defence Committee. 
 
 William B. Astor, 
 Moses H. Grinnell, 
 William C. Bryant, 
 Luther Bradish, 
 James Lenox, 
 Joseph Sampson, 
 Charles H. Marshall, 
 George Bancroft, 
 Robert Ray, 
 Samuel B. Ruggles, 
 Peter Cooper, 
 C. R. Robert, 
 Henry W. Bellows, 
 Merritt Trimble, 
 James W. Beekman, 
 Alexander T. Stewart, 
 Richard M. Blatchford, 
 Thomas Tileston, 
 George T. Adee, 
 John Cotton Smith, 
 Frederic Depeyster, 
 Cyrus Curtiss, 
 William Aymar, 
 Henry L. Pierson, 
 F. S. Winston, 
 Adrian Iselin, 
 George T. Strong, 
 James L. Morris. 
 Benj. D. Silliman. 
 Frederick G. Foster, 
 AVilliam A. Darling, 
 Charles A. Heckscher, 
 Japhet Bishop, 
 Hugo Wesendonck, 
 A. C. Richards. 
 Charles B. Hoffman, 
 
 Vice-Presidents. 
 
 Lorillard Spencer, 
 George S. Robbing, 
 James Punnett, 
 William Post, 
 A. L. Robertson, 
 William Barton, 
 Richard Warren, 
 Otis D. Swan, 
 EHas Wade, Jr., 
 O. D. F. Grant, 
 Theodore Polhemus, 
 Anthony S. Hope, 
 William Allen Butler, 
 Edward A. Bibby, 
 Jacob Hayes, 
 William F. Cary, 
 James Renwick, 
 Samuel M. Fox, 
 J. Butler Wright, 
 Frederick Sheldon, 
 Caleb Barstow, 
 Frederick Prime, 
 J. B. Giraud Foster, 
 James B. Murray, 
 Alexander Hamilton, 
 Wm. P. Esterbrook, 
 Alexander S. Leonard, 
 John Trenor. 
 William Black, 
 Edmund Schermerhorn, 
 David S. Coddington, 
 George Donalson, 
 Franklin H. Delano, 
 Jonathan Thome, 
 John Sedgwick, 
 Robert J. Livingston,
 
 58 
 
 Philetns H. Holt, Henry Drisler. 
 
 Samuel T. Bridgham, Wickham Hoffman, 
 
 Thomas M. Adriance, Albert II. Gallatin, 
 
 P. Remsen Strong, Horace Green, 
 
 Isaac Green Pearson, Howard Potter, 
 
 Adam Norrie, Lorenzo Draper, 
 
 John Ward, James A. Briggs, 
 
 William C. Rhinelander, James M. Cross. 
 
 Israel Corse, Henry A. Smythe, 
 
 'Jeorge W. Blunt, Thomas Addis Emmet. 
 
 Francis B. Nicol, Herman R. LeRoy. 
 
 Daniel H. Turner, C. E. Detmold. 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 Frank Moore, Henry R. Benkard, 
 
 John H. White, Charles C. Xott, 
 
 Sheppard Gandy, Charles Xeilson, 
 
 George W. Ogston, J. Winthrop Chanler, 
 
 Samuel Blatchford, William J. Emmet, 
 
 James F. Ruggles, Henry A. Oakley, 
 
 Frank W. Ballard, Charles Goodhne, 
 
 John Nesbitt, George B. Waldron, 
 
 Robert Cutting, Elliot F. Shepard, 
 
 \Villiam S. Chamberlain, Robert Benson, Jr., 
 
 William Bibby Nathaniel Prime, 
 
 Oliver King. William Rhinelander. 
 Samuel Curtis,
 
 PROGRAMME OF PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 STAND No. 3. 
 
 SALUTES OF ARTILLERY BY ANTHON LIGHT BATTERY and by 
 the WORKMEN employed by HENRY BREWSTER & Co. 
 
 1. Music Grand March by 
 
 2. PETER MITCHELL will call the meeting to order, read the call 
 
 of the meeting, and conduct HAMILTON FISH to the chair. 
 
 3. "W. E. DODGE will read the list of Vice-Presidents and Sec- 
 
 retaries. 
 
 4. HAMILTON FISH, Chairman, will address the meeting. 
 
 5. CHARLES GOULD will read the ADDRESS adopted by the Con- 
 
 vention of Committees. 
 
 6. PETER MITCHELL will read the KESOLUTIONS adopted by the 
 
 Convention of Committees. 
 
 7. Music. 
 
 8. ETHAN ALLEN will deliver an Address. 
 
 9. Music. 
 
 10. R D. HITCHCOCK will deliver an address. 
 
 11. Music. 
 
 12. JOHN A. KING. 
 
 13. Music.
 
 60 
 
 In the absence of HAMILTON FISH, who had been designated to 
 preside over this stand, CHAKLES GOULD, of the Committee of 
 Arrangements, was called to the Chair. 
 
 Mr. GEORGE W. BLUNT read the Address. The Resolutions 
 were read by Alderman MITCHELL, and adopted unanimously. 
 
 Weigand's band having given the " Star-Spangled Banner," the 
 first speaker introduced was Mr. ETHAN ALLEN, Assistant U. S. 
 District Attorney, who spoke as follows : 
 
 MR. ETHAN ALLEN'S SPEECH. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS OF NEW- YORK, Once more the tocsin sounds to 
 arms, and freemen rally to the call. It is now nearly a century ago that 
 mass meetings of our fathers were held in this city, to devise ways and 
 means for the defence of that very flag, which to-day is given to the 
 winds of Heaven, beaming defiance from every star. Fired then with the 
 same spirit of freedom that kindles on this spot to-day, for the time 
 throwing aside the habiliments of peace, our fathers armed themselves 
 for vengeance and for war. The history of that war, go read it in the 
 hearts of the American people; the trials and struggles of that war, 
 mark them in the tear-drop which the very allusion calls to every eye ; 
 the blessings of that war, count them in the gorgeous temples of trade 
 that rise everywhere around you; the wisdom of that war, and the 
 promised perpetuity of its triumphs, behold the one in our unexampled 
 national prosperity, and the other in the impulses that like an electric 
 flash bind heart to heart throughout this vast assemblage in the firm re- 
 solve, that, cost what it may, rebellion shall go down. [Loud applause.] 
 
 Again the American people are assembled in mass meetings through- 
 out the nation, while the States once more rock in the throes of a revo- 
 lution. Once more the cry to arms reverberates throughout the land ; 
 but this time we war against domestic foes. Treason has raised its black 
 flag near the tomb of Washington, and the Union of our States hangs 
 her fate upon the bayonet and the sword. Accursed be the hand that 
 would not use the bayonet blighted be the arm that would not wield 
 the sword in such a cause ! Everything that the American citizen holds 
 dear hangs upon the issue of this contest. Our national honor and 
 reputation demand that rebellion shall not triumph on our soil. In the 
 name of our heroic dead, in the name of our numberless victories upon 
 the battle-field, in the name of our thousand peaceful triumphs, in the 
 name of our unexampled national prosperity, our Union must and shall 
 be preserved. [Enthusiastic cheers.] 
 
 Our peaceful triumphs ! These are really the important victories 
 which we should be jealous to guard. They are worth fighting for ; 
 they are worth dying for. They are fostered and multiplied under the 
 protection of the " Union ;" otherwise the term " Union " were but empty 
 sound. Let others recount their marshal glories ; they shall be eclipsed
 
 61 
 
 by the charity and the grace of the triumphs which have been achieved 
 in peace. " Peace hath her victories, not less renowned than War," and 
 the hard-earned fruits of these victories rebellion shall not take from us. 
 [Cries of " No," " No," " Never."] Our peaceful triumphs ! Who shall 
 enumerate their value to the millions yet unborn ? What nation, in so 
 short a time, has won so many ? On the land and on the sea, in the 
 realms of science and in the world of art, we everywhere have gathered 
 our honors, and have won our garlands. Upon the altars of the States 
 they yet lie, fresh from the gathering, while their happy influences fill 
 the land. 
 
 Of the importance and value of our thousand peaceful triumphs, time 
 will permit me to mention only one, which is yet fresh in the memory of 
 us all. It is now two years ago, when up the waters of the Potomac, 
 toward the Capital, sailed the representatives of an empire till then shut 
 out from intercourse with all Christian nations. In the eastern seas 
 there lay an empire of islands, which hitherto had enjoyed no recog- 
 nition in the Christian world, other than its name upon the map. No 
 history, so far as we know, illumined it no ancient time-mark told of its 
 advance, step by step, in the march of improvement. There it had 
 rested for thousands of years, wrapped in the mysteries of its own ex- 
 clusiveness, " gloomy, dark, peculiar." It had been supposed to possess 
 great power, and vague rumors had attributed to it, ingenious arts to us 
 unknown. Against nearly all the world, for thousands of yeais, Japan 
 had obstinately shut her doors. The wealth of the Christian world could 
 not tempt her cupidity, the wonders of the Christian world could not 
 excite her curiosity. There she lay, sullen and alone, the phenomenon 
 of nations. England and France and the other powerful Governments of 
 Europe had at various times tried to conquer this oriental exclusiveness, 
 but the Portuguese only partially succeeded, while all the rest signally 
 failed. At length, we, bearing at our masthead the glorious old 
 stars and stripes, approach the mysterious portals, and seek an entrance. 
 Not with cannon and implements of death do we demand admission, but 
 appreciating the saying of Euripides, that 
 
 " Resistless eloquence shall open 
 The gates that steel exclude," 
 
 we peacefully appeal to that sense of right, which is the " touch of nature 
 that makes the whole world kin," and behold, the interdiction is re- 
 moved, the doors of the mysterious empire fly open, and a new garland 
 is woven, to crown the monument of our commercial conquests. [Loud 
 applause.] 
 
 Who shall set limit to the gain that may follow this one victory of 
 peace, if our Government be perpetuated so as to gather it for the gene- 
 rations? Who shall say, in an unbroken, undivided Union, that the 
 opening of the ports of Japan shall not accomplish for the present era all 
 that the Reformation, the art of printing, steam and the telegraph have 
 done within the last three hundred years? New avenues of wealth are 
 thrown open, new fields are to be occupied, arts new to us, doubtless, 
 are to be studied and to be Americanized, and science, perhaps, from 
 that arcana of nations, has revelations to make to us, equal to anything 
 which we have ever learned before. Reciprocity bids us to extend what-
 
 62 
 
 ever is valuable in our system of Government over this new convert to 
 our national policy. Fifty millions of people there are to be enlightened ; 
 the printing-press is to catch the daily thought and stamp it upon the 
 page; the magnetic wire must yet vibrate along her highways, and 
 Niphon must be made to tremble to her centre, at each heart-beat of our 
 ocean steamers, as they sweep through her waters or thunder round her 
 island homes. [Cries of " Good," and applause.] All hail ! all hail ! to 
 these children of the morning. All hail ! all hail ! to the great Republic 
 of the West, that ushers them into life. From every age that has passed 
 there comes a song of praise for the treaty that has been consummated. 
 The buried masters of three thousand years start again to life, and march 
 in solemn and in grand procession, before the eyes of these new-found 
 empires. Homer with his songs, Greece with her arts, Rome with her 
 legions, and America with her heroes, all come to them with the novelty 
 and freshness of the newly-born. Wipe off the mould which time has 
 gathered upon their tombs, and let them all come forth and answer, at 
 the summons of new-born rations, that call them again to life; wrapped 
 in the winding-sheet of eighteen centuries, the fishermen of Galilee tell 
 to these strangers the story of the resurrection ; clutching in their hands 
 their dripping blades, the warriors recount their conquests ; and joined at 
 last in harmonious brotherhood, Copernicus, with bony fingers pointing 
 upAvard, tells to Confucius his story of the stars. [Loud and enthu- 
 siastic cheering.] 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have spoken of but one of our many peaceful triumphs. 
 In this I may have been guilty of a digression from the subject which 
 calls us together ; but my aim has been to hold up our commercial con- 
 quests, gained while a law-abiding, united people, as eminently worthy of 
 all the sacrifice of blood and treasure that we are called upon to make, 
 in order to secure their legitimate fruits. It is really our numerous vic- 
 tories of peace, such as that of which I have spoken, that make us, as a 
 nation, the wonder of the world. And let it be remembered that it was 
 freedom, not slavery, that won these triumphs; it is freedom that must 
 defend them. I appeal to you, shall all these peaceful honors of 
 our people, shall all these hopes of the future, shall all these promised 
 fruits from the struggles of the past, be swept away by the dissolution of 
 the Union and the destruction of the Government? Forbid it, Almighty 
 God ! Kather perish, rather a thousand times perish, the cause of the 
 rebellion, and over the ruins of Slavery let peace once more resume her 
 sway, and let the cannon's lips grow cold. [Vociferous cheering.] Delenda 
 est Carthago, said the old Roman patriot, when gloom settled upon his 
 state ; the rebellion must be crushed, with the same determination say 
 we all to-day. [Applause.] The cannon that opened the fire upon Fort 
 Sumter reverberated from the Penobscot to the Rocky Mountains, and 
 has called the northern lion from his lair. Down with party, sect and 
 class, and up with a sentiment of unanimity when our country calls to 
 arms. Massachusetts, glorious old Massachusetts, first at the cradle of 
 liberty in 1776, she will be the last at the grave, if fate intends that 
 grave shall ever be. Again the " bones of her sons lie mingling and 
 bleaching with the soil of every State from Maine to Georgia, and there 
 they will lie forever." From her new-made graves she sends forth a 
 constant prayer to Heaven, and let traitors tremble lest that prayer be
 
 63 
 
 answered. New-York must not be behind J;he Old Bay State. In the 
 spirit world, Warren calls to Hamilton and Hamilton calls back to 
 Warren, that hand in hand their mortal children go on together, to fame, 
 to victory, or to the grave. The hosts of the Union are already mar- 
 shaled in the field ; but a call is made for more, and that call must not 
 be in vain. [Cries of " No, no."] When the ranks are full, let us catch 
 inspiration from the past, and under its influence go forth to conflict. 
 Go call the rolls on Bemis Heights, on the plains of Monmouth, or at 
 Yorktown, where the sheeted dead may rise as witness, and there pro- 
 pose to your legions the dissolution of this Union, and there receive their 
 answer. Mad with frenzy, burning with indignation at the thought, all 
 ablaze for vengeance upon the traitors, such will be the fury and im- 
 petuosity of the onset, that all opposition shall be swept before them, as 
 the pigmy yields to the avalanche that comes tumbling, rumbling, thun- 
 dering from its Alpine home. [Loud cheering.] Let us gather at the 
 tomb of Washington, and invoke his spirit to direct us in the combat. 
 Rising again incarnate from the tomb, in one hand holding the same old 
 flag, blackened and begrimed by the smoke of a seven years' war, with 
 the other hand he points us to the foe. Up and at them. Let patriotic 
 fires thrill our very souls, while immortal spirits direct oar way. One 
 blow, deep, effectual and forever one crushing blow upon rebellion, in 
 the name of God, Washington and the Republic. 
 
 Three enthusiastic cheers were proposed and given with a will 
 to Mr. ALLEN, as he concluded and took his seat. 
 
 " Hail Columbia," by the Band. 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. DR. HITCHCOCK. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. HITCHCOCK next took his place on the stand. 
 He was rather heated when he rose, and took the opportunity of 
 turning the same to advantage in his remarks, which were to the 
 following effect : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, This sun is hot, but remember that it is not so hot 
 as that sun which flames upon our brethren from a Virginia sky. Nor is 
 that sun, that Virginia sun, half so hot as the fire of the artillery and 
 musketry which blazes around those heroes who are now fighting for our 
 cause, with this motto for their guide, " A glorious victory, or death." 
 Nor is that fire of battle so hot as the fire of the hate of those who are 
 now in rebellion against the Government of our country, who are shed- 
 ding the life-blood of our brethren, against whom they are drawn up in 
 battle array. My fellow-citizens of the great city of New- York, this 
 meeting reminds me of the immense gathering which took place in this 
 great commercial metropolis the first great gathering of April, 1861. 
 The month is an eventful one in our American history. It has its lights 
 and its shadows, it is full of mingled opposites at one time light, and 
 at another time dark. It was in this month of April that we had our
 
 64 
 
 Concord and our Lexington.. It was also in this month of April that we 
 had the attack upon and fall of Sumter. It was in this month of April 
 that our brave soldiers were beset and brutally murdered in Baltimore. 
 This meeting takes place in July, and July is also notable in our history 
 as the month in which the Declaration of Independence was signed. 
 April is a spring month, July is a harvest month. Fifteen months ago 
 in April, during the spring we planted the seed of loyalty to the Ame- 
 rican Union, and it shall bring forth a glorious harvest throughout this 
 promising land. Let us with heart and voice, word and deed, reassure 
 our brethren in the field and give the word of cheer to our armies. I call 
 this meeting one of reaffirmation. We are to day to reaffirm what we 
 resolved upon fifteen months ago. What we planted in stormy spring is 
 to be taken care of during this generous summer. What we did then 
 was the result of instinct ; now it has become a deep-rooted conviction. 
 It was passion which then guided us ; now it is principle. It may be 
 that on the occasion of our former meeting our huzzas were louder ; but 
 now I can see it in your faces, our resolutions are deeper, and when we 
 now strike we shall strike as doth the lightning once and for all. W~e 
 to day reaffirm our resolution to preserve the integrity of our land, our 
 power, our interests, and our continent. In our uttered determinations 
 then we were wiser than we knew of. We merely said it then ; we un- 
 derstand it now. This continent must and shall remain united, one and 
 inseparable, and must be so until the end of time. [Applause.] This 
 is a struggle between a rebellious confederacy and our Government ; and 
 what for \ Not for the vague abstraction it purports to be, but for a re- 
 mote but still more important issue the domination of this continent. 
 They or we will have to rule this vast land from the St. Croix to the Rio 
 Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And I say unto you, men 
 of the city of New-York, shall it be we, the men of the Christian North, 
 or shall it be sons of ihe sunny South, as they delight to call themselves, 
 who are, and have proved themselves, robbers by land, and if they 
 had a fleet upon the sea, would also be pirates. [Applause.] This 
 is the issue, and it must be determined sooner or later. Citizens 
 of New-York, are you men enough to say you will take the issue on 
 your own shoulders, or leave it for your posterity ? Can you look 
 upon your babes now resting in their cradles, and bequeath to them 
 the settlement of this great question ? Will you leave it for the next 
 generation to settle this question ? [Loud cries of " No, no."] It 
 must be determined now or never. It can be more easily settled now 
 than by any conjunction in the future. We contend for the supremacy of 
 our Government, and we will do so if we have to make a Thermopylae of 
 it, and defend the gate till all have fallen; or else we shall have to sub- 
 mit to a military despotism which would march over the bleeding corpses 
 of our comrades to rule us with a rod of iron. I stand here to defend 
 the glorious republican idea which has gained to us the laurels that crown 
 the brow of our glorious goddess Liberty. We must defend the old 
 republic, for if we fail the republicans of the Old World will lose heart 
 forever. We must vindicate our republican existence, and not only vin- 
 dicate it in its geographical integrity, but in its political glory not only 
 for ourselves, but for all mankind. ["Bravo," and applause.] The Ame- 
 rican people have learned something during the past fifteen months. I
 
 65 
 
 have been in the country among the farm-houses where families are more 
 scattered, and where one taken from the originally compact family circle 
 is missed, not only by those who form that circle, but by their neighbors. 
 The war in those cases has been brought home to the hearts of many. 
 I have seen women stand at the doors of their houses eagerly and anxiously 
 waiting for the return of their wounded husbands, brothers, sons, or still 
 more anxiously trying to learn some tidings of one who fell at Fair Oaks, 
 Games' Mills, at White Oak Swamp, or elsewhere. Men die in the great 
 city, and they are scarcely missed, except in their more immediate circle ; 
 but in the country the case is far different. These are matters of deep 
 thought, and the people are thinking deeper than ever. They are think- 
 ing very fast. The new call is also a matter of thought, and although I 
 cannot doubt that the quota of New- York will be filled, and quickly, too, 
 I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that it is not responded to with that 
 marked alacrity as that which characterized the former call. There must 
 be a reason for this, and the Government should know it. It is not the 
 fear of the adversary they have to encounter ; but it is the fear that the 
 Administration will not themselves carry the war through in a proper 
 manner. The men of America have pluck, and do not fear to die for 
 their country. They will enlist, but there is a condition which they de- 
 mand. That condition is, [with great energy,] fight, fight, fight. We 
 have had play long enough, and now must have fight. Fight and with 
 the right hand and not with the left, and only the little finger of that 
 hand at the best. We must have fight with the right hand. [A voice, 
 " With both hands."] Wait till I get through. Yes, [clenching both 
 fists and stretching them out with convulsive energy,] fight ; fight with 
 both hands. And that is not all. I say let all the colors fight. All. 
 From the one extreme of the Caucasian white to the other extreme of 
 the Caucasian black let them all fight, and let all the people that make 
 up the different and beautiful shades between these extremes fight. Let 
 all the people fight. Elijah saw in the heavens the chariots of fire of the 
 Lord of Hosts. Then let the rebels have their five hundred thousand 
 men ; we have the chariots and horses of fire, and they are round about 
 us. We have the spirits of those heroes of old who have gone to their 
 rest. We have also the spirits of those sages and heroes who have stood 
 up for us in foreign lands, or who have pined in foreign dungeons for 
 contending for our rights. And all good angels are looking down upon 
 us. And these will guide us on to victory. I say unto you, men of New- 
 York, we must win, and, in the end, despite all seeming adversities, the 
 right must triumph. [Enthusiastic cheering.] 
 
 9
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 STAND No. 4. 
 
 Under charge of Committee of Arrangements, 
 JAMES W. WHITE, ROBERT H. McCURDY. 
 
 President. 
 
 FRANCIS LIBBER. 
 
 Vice-Presideiits. 
 
 WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, 
 
 STEWART BROWN, 
 
 MORRIS KETCHUM, 
 
 C. V. S. ROOSEVELT, 
 
 WILLIAM E. DODGE, 
 
 CYRUS W. FIELD, 
 
 WILLIAM M. EYARTS, 
 
 HENRY E. PIERREPONT, 
 
 GEORGE GRISWOLD, Jr., 
 
 WM. H. ASPINWALL, 
 
 GULIAN C. VERPLANOK, 
 
 PETEK LORILLARD, 
 
 JAMES BENKARD, 
 
 FRANCIS VINTON, 
 
 FRANCIS HALL, 
 
 JACOB A. WESTERVELT, 
 
 HERMAN RASTER, 
 THOMAS W. CLERKE, 
 JAMES B. NICHOLSON, 
 MARSHALL 0. ROBERTS, 
 WOLCOTT GIBBS, 
 EDGAR KETCHUM, 
 ROBERT L. STUART, 
 ALEXANDER H. STEVENS, 
 ELIJAH FISHER, 
 FREDERICK KAPF, 
 BENJ. WELCH, Jr., 
 JAMES W. FARR, 
 CHARLES B. SPICER, 
 DON ALONZO CUSHMAN, 
 HENRY F. SPALDING, 
 SIMEON BALDWIN, 
 GEORGE L. SCHUYLER, 
 RICHARD HECKSCHER, 
 JAMES KEARNEY WARREN, 
 WILLIAM ASTOR, 
 
 J. N. A. GRISWOLD, 
 PIERRE V. DUFLON, 
 ALPHEUS FOBES, 
 DAVID R. JAQUES, 
 JOHN EWEN, 
 EDWARD H. LUDLOW, 
 ROBERT LsRoy, 
 ELLIOT C. COWDIN, 
 ADAM W. SPIES, 
 GEORGE F. WOODWARD, 
 SAMUEL S. SANDS, 
 GEORGE A. ROBBINS, 
 FRANCIS G. SHAW, 
 ROBERT G. REMSEN, 
 STEPHEN H. TYNG, 
 VALENTINE MOTT, 
 HENRY D. SEDGWICK, 
 DAVID GOLDEN MURRAY, 
 MOSES S. BEACH, 
 GEORGE FOLSOM, 
 CAMBRIDGE LIVINGSTON, 
 JOHN L. ASPINWALL, 
 ROBERT EMMET, 
 JOHN D. JONES, 
 C. S. FRANKLIN, 
 HENRY FORD, 
 J. C. PETERS, 
 BENJAMIN FLOYD, 
 CHARLES POMROY, 
 JOHN MEEKS, 
 PARKE GODWIN. 
 JOHN B. WICKERSHAM. 
 JOHN STEVENSON, 
 I. M. SINGER, 
 CHARLES B. CLINCH, 
 JOSEPH FOULKE,
 
 67 
 
 CLARKSON N. POTTER, RICHARD STORKS WILLIS, 
 
 JOSEPH BRIDGHAM, HAMILTON BRUCE, 
 
 HENRY B. SMITH, HENRY KERR, 
 
 ISAAC FERRIS, EDWARD CARNEY, 
 
 A. E. SILLIMAN, ISAAC H. BAILEY, 
 
 MAUNSELL B. FIELD, AUGUSTUS WEISSMAN, 
 
 DAVID Dows, H. B. STANTON, 
 
 ISAAC BELL, STEPHEN PHILBIN, 
 
 GEORGE S. COE, JOHN R. LAWRENCE, 
 
 C. L. MONELL, RICHARD M. HOE, 
 
 HENRY K. BOGERT, WARREN WARD, 
 
 HENRY C. MURPHY, CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS. 
 WILLIAM HEGEMAN, 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 ROBERT B. MINTURN, Jr., SAMUEL WILLIAMS, 
 
 CHARLES E. STRONG, MATURIN DELAFIELD, 
 
 RICHARD A. McCuRDY, BENJAMIN W. STRONG, 
 
 RICHARD L. SUYDAM, THEODORE BRONSON, 
 
 GEORGE BRUCE, Jr., WILLIAM B CROCKER, 
 
 DAVID BISHOP, EDWARD C. MORRIS, 
 
 W. H. L. BARNES, HENRY S. FEARING, 
 
 A. M. PALMER, DAVID LYDIG, 
 
 WILLIAM BOND, BYAM K. STEVENS, Jr., 
 
 NATHANIEL COLES, JAMES LENOX KENNEDY, 
 
 JOHN H. ALMY, A. C. KINGSLAND, Jr., 
 
 CEPHAS BRAINARD, GEORGE B. SATTERLEE, 
 
 PIERRE HUMBERT, GEORGE GRISWOLD HAVEN.
 
 PKOGEAMME OF PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 STAND NO. 4, 
 
 SALUTES OF ARTILLERY "by the "ANTHON LIGHT BATTERY," 
 and by the WORKMEN employed by HENRY BREWSTER 
 &Co. 
 
 1. GRAND MARCH, by Grafula's Grand Band. 
 
 2. JAMES W. WHITE will call the meeting to order, read the 
 
 Call of the Meeting, and conduct to the Chair, FRANCIS 
 LIBBER. 
 
 3. EGBERT H. McCuRDY will read the list of Yice-Presidents 
 
 and Secretaries. 
 
 4. The Chairman, FRANCIS LIBBER, will address the meeting. 
 
 5. WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES will read the ADDRESS adopted by 
 
 the Convention of Committees. 
 
 6. MORRIS KETCHUM will read the KESOLUTIONS adopted by the 
 
 Convention of Committees. 
 
 7. Music. 
 
 8. L. B. CHITTENDEN will address the meeting. 
 
 9. Music. 
 
 10. WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER will address the meeting. 
 
 11. Music. 
 
 12. W. J. A. FULLER. 
 
 13. Music. 
 
 14. R A. WITTHAUS.
 
 69 
 
 The meeting was called to order by Judge JAMES W. WHITE, 
 who read the call for the meeting, and nominated for Chairman 
 Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER, who was elected with applause. 
 
 R H. McCuEDY read the list of Vice-Presidents and Secreta- 
 ries, which was adopted. 
 
 DE. LIBBER'S REMARKS. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, You have conferred on me the honor of presiding 
 here on this important day. This is a war meeting. In the midst of a 
 vast contest, in which many thousands of our brethren have already been 
 slain, in which almost boundless treasures have been sacrificed, and in 
 which reverses have not failed to break in upon the list of our victories, 
 the President, first called upon by the governors of loyal States, has in 
 turn, called upon us to furnish new bands of fellow-citizens, to send more 
 brothers, more sons, so that this odious and shameless insurrection may 
 at length be quelled. Resolutions will be read to you for your acceptance, 
 expressing our undiminished loyalty, our firm adhesion to the principles 
 for which we have already struggled so long, and which in this enormous 
 war we prize with patriotic fervor, as the highest civil virtues in trying 
 periods fortitude, perseverance and tenacity to the last. 
 
 And why all this? Why this call upon the people of our city to 
 take a renewed oath on the altar of our country, that we will be faithful 
 and true to her, and see this war triumphantly ended, and as thoroughly 
 carried on, until it be ended, as the ample means of a great nation will 
 admit of. 
 
 Fellow- citizens, near the beginning of this century, there was a pa- 
 triotic German youth and noble poet, who sang and fought for the inde- 
 pendence of his country, and ultimately sealed with his death on the field 
 what he had nobly sung. It happened that he found a sealing-ring, on 
 which was engraved an arrow, with the motto, THROUGH. This aimple 
 arrow, and that brief word, inspired the youthful patriot with a poem, 
 which he inscribed THROUGH, calling on his country not to waver, but to 
 rally round the standard of his country's independence, and to fight 
 through to a successful end what had so nobly been begun. Is this not 
 a befitting motto for us to adopt in this grave time of our war ? Perhaps 
 all of us have near friends or children or brothers that have fought 
 many that have bled in that long Week's Battle ; and ought not our war- 
 cry to be Through ? Ought not our policy to be Through, through, through ? 
 [Great applause.] Let us call to our sceptered servants, Through, and 
 through at once ! Let us call to our girded servants, Through ! Let 
 us call, when foreigners may show a desire to interfere with our own 
 affairs, already sufficiently distressing Hands off; we will not listen to 
 any one until we are through! [Applause.] We ought to make it the 
 watchword among ourselves, and call on one another, Through ! We 
 ought to call on all the young, fit to bear arms, Through, through ! ! 
 
 Why ? Because the most sacred and dearest interests of man in his 
 career on this earth are involved in this struggle our material prosperity, 
 our moral welfare, our honor, our national existence. He that shapes 
 the history of men wills us to be a nation, and modern civilization re- 
 quires countries. God has given us a noble country, may be the noblest 
 on earth, which we will not, and cannot, allow ourselves to be robbed of.
 
 70 
 
 We will not prove false to our trust. Shall we allow ignorance and ar- 
 rogance and barbarism to cut up the great map of our heaven-united 
 land into miserable clippings, leaving nothing but a litter of worthless 
 pieces ? [No, no ! never !] Our country, our proud country, from sea 
 to sea, with her majestic rivers, or rather, with her unique river system, 
 and the glorious help of the canals, with her teeming mountains, and her 
 fertile fields our country, with all her food and fuel and substance for 
 shelter and clothing our country, my friends, is the primary condition 
 of our social and political existence, and, indeed, of our own American 
 liberty. With all due regard for our peculiar system of States, the State 
 lines are, after all, but pencil marks on the great map. They have been 
 changed, and will be changed again. They are not those deep grooves 
 that history furrows, as she deeply cuts the border lines of nationalities. 
 Not so with our country. The lines that mark her must never be changed 
 at least, never contracted. [Applause.] 
 
 Why ? Because a country that allows foreign governments to inter- 
 fere with her domestic and national affairs that permits foreign jealousy 
 to dictate in her councils is disgraced and ruined ; is a cripple among the 
 nations a vassal and not a freeman. Germany can furnish you with 
 some warning commentaries, ever since the times of Louis the Fourteenth. 
 Even a crowned head of Germany, a noble prince of a petty principality, 
 told his countrymen, recently, that in modern times genuine patriotism, 
 void of narrow provincialism, cannot prosper in a confined petty State, 
 still less in a mere city-State. And is there no danger of foreign inter- 
 ference ? There is ; even were it only for these two reasons, that Eng- 
 land and France suffer greatly from our civil war, ajid because those two 
 powers, which have always been unfriendly to the formation of a new 
 united power, with the only exception of Italy in our own times, do not 
 relish the growth of United American power. It has been openly ac- 
 knowledged. 
 
 Why ? Because we are already in the midst of a gigantic war, ex- 
 clusively waged, on our part, for a great and noble idea. Such wars 
 cannot be stopped at will ; as little as the tide can be bid to retire by a 
 mop, as little as the Reformation could be calmed and stopped by the 
 agreement of some ecclesiastics. Can we adopt peace founded upon the 
 rending of this country ? Where will you rend it ? how will you keep 
 peace ? Do you believe that we would have peace for a single twelve- 
 month after a division, the mere thought of which makes us shudder ? 
 We speak the same language, inhabit one undivided country, have the 
 same literature, the same form of thoughts, the same mould of feelings, 
 the same institutions, except that one deplorable one ; we would daily 
 and hourly influence one another, and what with their unpunished- pride 
 and selfishness, their maddened and contused ambition, and their en- 
 thronement of gigantic error, we would not have rest, except by a total 
 and unpardonable submission to them, and not even then. There is a 
 law that pervades all history, because it pervades each house, that in 
 the same degree as nature has destined people to live in the bonds of 
 afi'ection and good-will, so will their quarrels be bitter, and their mutual 
 irritation be grievous, when they once separate in acrimony and hostility. 
 Brothers quarrel bitterest, when they quarrel at all. We had better 
 fight it out. Complete victory alone can lead to a reconcilement, and
 
 revised views and amended feelings ; and therefore I say, Through, 
 through ! [Great applause.] 
 
 When I say that we ought to shout this same through, in the loudest 
 accents to our people fit to enlist, I must not be understood to have har- 
 bored any fear that there is not a sufficient degree of patriotism in the 
 breasts of our people. Far from it. Never has a people shown itself 
 more patriotic, more patient and forbearing, more ready. 
 
 It happens that this very morning I received a letter from a distin- 
 guished lawyer and legislator a true Union man in St. Louis, Missouri, 
 and in that letter there is a passing passage which, (if you will permit rne 
 to read it,) you will perceive chimes in with the theme which occupies our 
 attention now. He says : 
 
 "That among those best informed no apprehension is felt for the new 
 call for volunteers. Governor Gamble has received more than fifty letters, 
 some before, some since the call, from men in all parts of this State, 
 (Missouri,) asking authority to recruit companies, regiments, and in one 
 case, a brigade the last from an officer just recovered from a wound, 
 who is confident of raising it. In Illinois I hear of the same spirit ; the 
 only thing which may for a while check rapid enlistments, being the 
 abundant harvest now being gathered." [Cheers.] 
 
 So far my Missouri friend. But there is another thing that may 
 temporarily interfere, or at least somewhat retard the desired enlistment. 
 The call for recruits is comparatively a small one. The President, you 
 know, calls for three hundred thousand men. This is, in fact, a large 
 number of men, but, comparatively speaking, considering the population 
 of the North, it is a small number. Only about fifty thousand are re- 
 quired from this State. Now who doubts if there had been a necessity 
 for the President to call for the services of every one who can shoulder a 
 musket, that the people would rush en masse, in response to the call ? 
 But when a limited number is required and called for, many of the fifty 
 thousand who are wanted, are disposed to say, " I need not volun- 
 teer ; my services will not be required, for my neighbor will go." For 
 that reason I am inclined to believe that we ought to resort to the 
 draftino- law. I know that does not sound well to the ears of the 
 Americans, because drafting has been made use of by despotic govern- 
 ments, and has been resorted to in the South, by what I have not the 
 least doubt is a despotic government. But drafting is not necessarily a 
 despotic measure. The advantage of it would be, that it would make 
 recruiting and enlisting more regular. If the Government should adopt 
 such a measure, I think it would work well. Drafting, too, would touch 
 the wealthy idlers, at least so far as to make them contribute a round 
 sum for a substitute, if they should insist upon thrusting away the sword 
 which their country offers them, and decline the honor to fight for their 
 imperiled country. At any rate, as men are wanted speedily, the adop- 
 tion of this system would give us the men immediately, while the small 
 number called for, and the approaching harvest, may have a tendency to 
 prevent the rush of young men which would otherwise take place. 
 
 Fellow-citizens, I have spoken a longer time than is appropriate for 
 the initiatory remarks of a presiding officer ; but who can help it, in times 
 like these, on themes like ours ? 
 
 The declaration and resolutions will now be read to you. 
 
 Dr. LIEBER sat down amid prolonged applause.
 
 72 
 
 The ADDRESS was then read by W. J. A. FULLER, and the 
 RESOLUTIONS by FRANCIS KETCHOI, and they were adopted 
 with unanimity and cheers. 
 
 SPEECH OF L. E. CHITTENDEX. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, I have taken myself out of the changeless routine 
 of the Treasury Department, in Washington, and have come here hoping 
 to find myself among a live people. [A voice, " You will."] Yes, I 
 hope there is a people here alive to the necessities of the present 
 moment. Fellow-citizens, the voice of sixteen months of war, tells us in 
 tones that must be heeded, that the time for talking has passed ; that 
 the time has come, when it is the duty of every citizen of a loyal 
 State, to offer his services to the Government in whatever capacity they 
 may be most available. If I had not offered mine before I came here, I 
 would not appear before you to-day. [Applause.] I am so full of this 
 subject, that I do not like to trust myself to talk about it. I come from a 
 city, and that city the capital of this nation, in which we were cut off 
 for a week from communication with you, by traitors where barricaded 
 corridors, forts, and earthworks, spoke eloquently of attacks impending 
 from an armed enemy. This was a long year ago, and yet, after all the 
 preparation, after all the expense which that year has witnessed, it is 
 not eight weeks since loyal men were alarmed for the safety of that very 
 city ! We who live in close proximity to the enemy, nay, with the 
 minions of that enemy by hundreds among us, appreciate the dangers by 
 which we are surrounded. Men of New-York, I wish for one short hour 
 you could be made to realize the necessity which this moment presses on 
 you. Do you consider this Government worth preserving ? [Cries of 
 Yes ! Yes!] Is this free Republic, planted by your ancestors, nourished 
 by their blood, left to you as their richest legacy, worth preserving ! Do 
 you feel, that you, your wives, your children, have an interest in it which 
 ought to be dearer than their lives ? [Loud cries of " Yes."] Yes, you do. 
 Then let me tell you, that perhaps the day may be approaching, it may 
 be near, when every one of you who can shoulder a musket or draw a 
 sabre, will be obliged to do it if this nation is to live. 
 
 Gentlemen, the South went into this war with a purpose. [A voice, 
 "That's so."] They have never debated questions about which our 
 Congress and our Government have wasted so much time. These rebels 
 declared at first, " We propose to overthrow your Government, to utterly 
 destroy it." They began by confiscating every dollar of debts owed by 
 Southern men to the North. They followed it up by imprisoning every 
 man within their reach who was in sympathy with the Union and the 
 Government which we inherited from Washington and the Fathers of the 
 Republic ; not only that, but they said to us in effect, " We propose to 
 fight you, to take your property, to destroy your lives. To accomplish 
 this, we will use every means within our grasp ; we will use Indian savages 
 as our allies ; we will tear open the graves of your dead, and make mer- 
 chandise of the bones from which the worms have not yet stripped 
 the uncorrupted flesh ; we will go into battle with the ' no quarter ' cry of 
 the red-handed barbarian upon our lips, and the black flag of the pirate 
 waving over our heads." Such ideas as these fired the Southern heart 
 sixteen months ago when they fired the first gun at Fort Suvuter, and the
 
 73 
 
 history of the times tells how well they have carried them into prac ice 
 What have we been doing all this time ! We have been treating these 
 gentlemen with the most distinguished consideration. [A voice, "That's 
 so."] We could not confiscate their property ! Oh, no ! Nothing but 
 a life interest in it ! All the rest we are bound under the Constitution 
 to protect. But, gentlemen, it is no pleasure to me, it cannot be to any 
 one, to dwell upon the policy which we have pursued since the rebellion 
 broke out. Out of it stands patent and undisguised, this great, this import- 
 ant, this, to many a household, solemn fact that the soil of rebel States has 
 been crimsoned with the blood of a hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 brave and loyal men, and still rebellion is as defiant as ever. Has 
 not this gone far enough? [Loud cries of "Yes, yes!"] Has not 
 the time come to declare war, and a vigorous war against the South ! 
 War with all its consequences to persons and to property ? [" Yes, yes !" 
 and tremendous cheers.] Yes, and would to Heaven the voice with 
 which you speak it, might reach the Congress and the Cabinet which 
 just now need encouragement like that! 
 
 At this moment a procession of sailors with bands and banners 
 passed by. It was composed of ship-carpenters from the Navy 
 Yard, and the enthusiasm increased when three rousing cheers 
 were given for the Navy. The scene was a splendid one as they 
 marched round the Square. 
 
 Mr. CHITTENDEN continued : 
 
 This is no time for fault-finding or complaint. I care not, I do not ask, who 
 has been responsible for the policy upon which the war has been conducted. 
 We have tried it it has failed, and is it not high time to change it ? [Loud 
 cries of " Yes !"] Let us have no more protection of the persons or the 
 property of disloyal men. I have met officers of our army from the 
 valley of the Shenandoah who drew a picture of the vigorous manner in 
 which the property of rebels there was guarded. These men were in the 
 Southern army all of them. Their women derided and abused Union 
 soldiers. Sick men lay in miserable hovels and died there, while splendid 
 residences of rebel owners stood close by. A soldier could not take so 
 much as a chicken without being punished for it. By and by Stonewall 
 Jackson sweeps up the valley with an overwhelming force, and our retreat- 
 ing troops are shot down from the windows of the very houses they 
 have saved from destruction. [A voice, "Destroy the inhabitants."] 
 Gentlemen, I assert that it is time to proclaim to every Winchester in 
 the so-called Southern Confederacy, that there shall not be left one article 
 above ground in such a town, that fire can consume ! [Great enthusiasm.] 
 Let our policy be every piece of property belonging to a rebel that will do a 
 Union man good, take it ; if it won't do him any good, burn it. [Tremen- 
 dous cheers and cries of " That's the talk."] Gentlemen, we have been 
 fighting the rebels and Providence, too. That is an unequal warfare. 
 The slavery question lies at the bottom of the whole. That was the 
 cause of this rebellion, we all know. [Cheers, and cries of " That's so."] 
 I believe it is one of the eternal decrees of Providence, that with this 
 war slavery in this republic shall die. [Loud cheering.] When the 
 
 10
 
 74 
 
 North accepts this truth, and goes into the war understanding it, and pre- 
 pared to carry it out, then disaster and disgrace will cease to attend our 
 arms. Then, and not till then, shall we be successful. 
 
 I have no special admiration for the negro, as all know who know me. 
 But the negro is a great fact in this contest, and we cannot get rid of 
 him if we would. Now, I would treat him in this connection as I would 
 treat any other person or thing. Is he of use to the enemy ? Take him 
 away ! Can he be made use of to our men ? Let them use him ! Why 
 all this idle sensitiveness on account of the negro ? He can dig a ditch ; 
 he can build an earthwork; he can do a thousand things which wear out 
 the lives of your soldiers, better than they. Let him do them ! My 
 doctrine is to put this whole subject under the control of the commanders 
 of our armies. They understand it better than you or I. Do not hamper 
 them with restrictions or conditions. Only let this fact be thundered into 
 the ears of every disloyal man North or South. There is no law, there 
 is no officer, civil or military, which will aid a rebel to recapture his 
 slave. [Cries of good, and cheers.] The armies of the Union are not 
 slave hunters, [Cheers,] and the slave of a rebel master who has per- 
 formed one act in the service of the Government, and in putting down 
 this rebellion, is from that moment a free man, and the strong arm 
 of the nation shall crush the traitor who seeks again to enslave him. 
 [Cheers.] 
 
 We are told now that another element is to enter into this war. 
 Rumors are rife of foreign intervention. [Cries of " Let them come."] So 
 say I. It is by no grace or favor of European monarchies, and of 
 England especially, that this nation lives. We expect England to strike 
 us just when and where we are weakest. She would not be true to 
 herself or her history if she did not. I do not undervalue the importance 
 of foreign intervention. I do not know but some such event is needed to 
 rouse the North, and make her put forth her strength. Let England and 
 France now attack us, and the North would be electrified. That English 
 or French regiment is not raised, nor ever will be, that can reach a point 
 twenty miles inland in any Northern State. There is not a stone by the 
 roadside that would not blush for itself, if it had not behind it a true 
 man and a trusty rifle in such an event. [Loud cheering.] 
 
 Mr Chittenden complimented our generals, but insisted that there was 
 a defect somewhere in the management of this war. We were thirty 
 millions of people against four, and yet upon every important battle- 
 field the forces of the rebels had outnumbered ours in the last battles 
 before Richmond, two to one. The North must go into the field with 
 the same energy and numbers as the South. General Pope had announced 
 the true theory of war. Adopt the policy his orders inaugurate. We 
 have had too much of that style of war which is always looking for 
 lines of defence and ways of retreat. Let us look only at what line of 
 defence the rebels have, that we may march upon it. Let us observe 
 their line of retreat for there lies our way. Subsist our armies on the 
 enemy. Pay our troops from the gold of the enemy. Have done with 
 permanent stores, with supply trains and baggage transportation. The 
 views of such men as Pope must now control our armies ; then will the 
 war be carried on in earnest, and then will it be successful. 
 
 He concluded amid applause.
 
 75 
 
 SPEECH OF WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLEE. 
 
 Mr. WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER was next introduced by the Chair- 
 man. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, This is a meeting for business. We are not here, 
 on a gala day, to hear ourselves talk, hut to act in a great crisis. 
 [Cheers.] We have heard, from the speaker who preceded me, what 
 we have heard before, once and again, that the capital is in danger. 
 The appeal now made to us by the Government is not a new one. We 
 have responded to it before. If I am asked how we have responded, I 
 point to the gallant Seventh, I point to the seventy-two regiments which 
 have been organized and equipped in the Empire City since the out- 
 break of the rebellion. [Cheers.] I point to Wall-street and its banks. 
 I point to every citizen of every class and country, from the private in 
 the Sixty-ninth [loud cheers] to the men of largest wealth and influence, 
 and I say that to every summons of duty New- York has given a prompt 
 and a noble response. More than twelve months ago, around this very 
 Square, at the same hour as on this day, we met for a like purpose. Not 
 far from the spot where I am now speaking to you, a man stood up and 
 spoke these words, " This rebellion must be put down. It may take 
 seventy thousand men. What then? We have them. It may take 
 seven hundred thousand men. What then ? We have them." These 
 were the words of Colonel Baker. [Cheers.] 
 
 He fell at Ball's Bluff, the victim, if not ot military treason, of military 
 incompetency. He is gone we are here. The seventy thousand men 
 are gone. Six hundred thousand men have been given, but the rebellion 
 is not put down. The question for us to-day is, not whose fault is it. 
 The simple question is, shall it be put down ? [Cries of " Yes !"] We 
 are not here to criticise or to blame, but to ask ourselves what is our in- 
 dividual duty. What is your duty what is mine ? What will you do ? 
 [Cries of " All we can."] What will I do ? I reply, every man of us, 
 who can go in person, should go at once. If a man cannot go himself 
 let him get his neighbor to go. If he can neither go himself nor send 
 his neighbor, let him give what he can in aiding others to go. Let every 
 man give ; the rich from their abundance, the poor from their toil. This 
 is our part. We may have our views and our preferences, but this is not 
 the time for them. This rebellion will never be subdued unless we re- 
 spond as we ought to, to this new call to duty. Will you do it ? [" Yes !"] 
 
 As for the Government, the policy it needs is summed up in the single 
 
 W0 rd fight. [" That's it."] I would say this to Abraham Lincoln, and 
 
 to every general and every man in the field. Fight with every weapon 
 and use every means of success. As our armies advance, every man, who 
 is a friend, should be welcomed, whatever his condition or color. [Cheers.] 
 If he can dig, give him a pick. If he can fight, give him a musket. 
 Take aid wherever we can get it. I read yesterday that James Buchanan 
 had given $100 as a contribution to the sick and wounded Pennsylvania 
 volunteers ! Even hie money I would take. [Laughter and cheers.] It 
 may help to smooth the pillow or stanch the wound of some brave fellow 
 who has fallen in the effort to redress the wrongs his treachery inflicted. 
 Let the Government pursue this plain policy, and let every man sustain 
 it by all the means in his power, and with God's blessing on our arms we 
 are as certain to succeed as to-day's sun is sure to set. [Loud applause.]
 
 THE YOUNG MEN'S MEETING. 
 
 STAND No. 5. 
 
 This stand was under the auspices of Committees of the Mer- 
 cantile Library Association, and the Young Men's Christian As- 
 sociation. 
 
 These bodies not being represented in the Convention of Com- 
 mittees, but at a late hour expressing a desire to participate in 
 the great loyal demonstration, were invited to do so. The pro- 
 ceedings on this stand were conducted by the young men without 
 interference from the General Committee of Management. 
 
 BENJ. R MANIERRE called the meeting to order and introduced, 
 as presiding officer, Major-General JOHN C. FREMONT, who came 
 forward amid great applause, and called upon the Rev. JOSEPH 
 T. DURYEA to commence the exercises with prayer. 
 
 THE PRAYER. 
 
 O God our Heavenly Father, the God of our fathers, and our God. We look 
 up to Thee at the beginning of this meeting for Thy presence. We acknowledge 
 Thee to be the Lord. We acknowledge Thee to be the God of the whole earth. 
 Our nation is dependent upon Thee, and from Thee we receive our national 
 existence. Secure us in these our times of peril, and unite all the hearts of this 
 great people with the sentiments of purpose, and of ardor, and zeal. Concentrate 
 all the powers and resources of this country to our salvation from the enemy 
 which threatens our national existence. God, fill the hearts of the young with 
 the power of the spirit of self-sacrifice, and let not one of us withhold our gifts 
 and our powers, and influence, or our children, from this cause, which may give 
 to us Liberty, and benefit the race of mankind. We pray that Thou wilt bless 
 the President of the United States, and all who have authority under him, giving 
 them wisdom, giving them courage, singleness of purpose, and innocence of heart. 
 May the foreign nations of the earth understand, that our single aim is to re- 
 move the enemy before us, and reunite all parts of the land under the control of 
 one Government. We pray that thou wilt bless the army on the field, the 
 officers who are now present, and those who in our hospitals, are on the bed of 
 sickness. Give courage to them, and accept us all for Jesus Christ's sake, 
 Amen!
 
 77 
 
 Mr. FRANK W. BALLARD read the list of Vice-Presidents, as 
 follows : 
 
 Vice-presidents. 
 
 Hon. BENJ F. MANIERRE, 
 FREDERICK C. WAGNER, 
 SAMUEL W. STEBBINS, 
 A. D. F. RANDOLPH, 
 FRANK W. BALLARD, 
 ERASMUS STERLING, 
 A. J. H. DUGANNE, 
 GEORGE T. HOPE, 
 E. DELAFIELD SMITH, 
 VINCENT COLYER, 
 STEWART L. WOODFOBD, 
 CEPHAS BRAINERD, 
 CHARLES OSGOOD, 
 JOHN CRERAR, 
 GEORGE C. WOOD, 
 WM. H. WICKHAM. 
 JAMES WHITE, 
 CHARLES F. ALLEN, 
 HARVEY H. WOODS, 
 WILLIAM A. MARTEN, 
 Rev. A. H. BURLINGHAM, 
 HENRY J. ARMSTRONG, 
 WILLARD HARVEY, 
 JOHN K. MYERS, 
 HENRY B. HYDE, 
 PHILIP FRANKENHEIMER, 
 TREADWELL KETCHUM, 
 RICHARD S. STORRS, 
 Capt. CHARLES C. NOTT, 
 JOHN M. LETTS, 
 CHARLES S. MESSINGER, 
 Rev. JOSEPH T. DURYEA, 
 THADDEUS B. WAKEMAN, 
 J. EVARTS TRACY, 
 AUSTIN LEAKE, 
 MARK HOYT, 
 
 Mr. HOWARD then read 
 
 S. HASTINGS GRANT, 
 D. S. RIDDLE, 
 CHARLES NORDHOFF, 
 JAMES L. HASTIE, 
 WM. W. HAGUE, 
 Lieut. B. T. MARTEN, 
 A. K. MACMILLAN, 
 R. M. STREBEIGH, 
 RICHARD VALLANT, 
 
 ROBT. McBuRNEY, 
 
 FREDERICK W. DOWNER, 
 W. S. MATHEWS, 
 DAVID DRAKE, 
 VERANUS MORSE, M. D., 
 CHARLES H. SWORDS, 
 DANL. W. BERDAN, 
 THADDEUS V. TABER, 
 
 E. C. JOHNSON, 
 DEXTER A. HAWKINS, 
 GEORGE H. MATHEWS, 
 CHARLES T. RODGERS, 
 WILLIAM M. FRANKLIN, 
 Col. JAMES FAIRMAN, 
 JAMES W. NEWTON, 
 CALEB B. KNEVALS, 
 Rev. CHAUNCEY MURRAY, 
 GEORGE W. CLARKE, 
 JAMES C. HOLDEN, 
 STEPHEN H. TYNG, Jr., 
 Capt. CHARLES A. MOORE, 
 JOSEPH W. LESTER, 
 HENRY BEENY, 
 Col. JAMES McKAYE, 
 EDWARD COLGATE, 
 LEONARD D. WHITE, 
 FREDERICK OLMSTEAD, 
 Rev. H. B. RIDGWAY, 
 Col. JAMES W. SAVAGE, 
 EPES E. ELLERY, 
 HENRY WILSON, 
 Rev. T. RALSTON SMITH, 
 AUSTIN ABBOTT, 
 Lieut. THOMAS L. THORNELL, 
 Capt. A. V. MEEKS, 
 D. WILLIS JAMES, 
 W. B. ROBERTS, 
 ROBERT COLBY, 
 SAMUEL S. CONSTANT, 
 CHARLES A. STETSON, Jr., 
 ALEX. PROUDFOOT, 
 
 D. H. GlLDERSLEEVE, 
 
 WILLIAM HAGUE, 
 the following list of Secretaries 
 
 Secretaries. 
 
 CHARLES NETTLETON, 
 EDWARD P. MORRIS, 
 JAMES WARD SMYTHE, 
 
 E. P. TIBBALS, 
 JAMES S. STEARNS, 
 EDWARD A. MANN, 
 CHARLES E. WILBUR, 
 J. HOWARD, 
 
 JNO. HENRY HALL, 
 OETER M. MYERS, 
 0. V. COFFIN, 
 WILLIAM D. JONES, 
 MANTON MARBLE, 
 HIRAM CALKINS, 
 FRANCIS A. HALL. 
 T. G. SHEARMAN, 
 JAMES McGEE.
 
 78 
 
 GEN. FREMONT'S SPEECH. 
 Gen. FREMONT then rose, amid deafening applause. He said : 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that this great assemblage has been called to con- 
 sider the situation of the country, with the object of adopting such measures as 
 will enable you to respond most immediately and most effectively to the Presi- 
 dent's call for troops. But at the same time it is expected that this occasion 
 will be used for such an expression of your feelings and opinions as will satisfy 
 the country, that the enthusiasm which characterized your meeting held here last 
 year, as now, has become a settled resolve, and that it is not in the ideas or pos- 
 sibilities of the day that you should consent to a dismemberment of your national 
 territory. [Loud cheers, and cries of " Never."] The people have realized that 
 a decisive struggle, which would tax their utmost energies, is now to come, and 
 that upon the issue of this struggle depends the life of the nation. [Immense ap- 
 plause.] The South has resolved itself into a great army, to the support of 
 which all its industrial energies and resources are directed. You, too, will find 
 it necessary to call into immediate activity your immense resources to meet the 
 emergency. [Cheers.] For a brief time now war must be the business of the 
 nation. [Cheers.] You must show your soldiers that they have not only your 
 admiration and gratitude for the services they have rendered to you, but that 
 they can rely upon your cordial and prompt support, and that they, too, have 
 their great reserves in the masses of the people. [Cheers.] By this expression 
 the Executive will feel assured of an intelligent, harmonious and effective co- 
 operation, and foreign Governments will recognize that we intend to maintain 
 our historic place in the family of nations, at the head of the great democratic 
 idea, [cheers,] and that for the sake of liberty we are resolved to maintain this 
 Union. [Loud cheers.] The men chosen to address you to-day, are among 
 those in whom you are accustomed to place confidence, and whose opinions on 
 these subjects more or less reflect your own. [Immense applause.] I will now 
 introduce to you other speakers. 
 
 Dr. RUFUS W. CLARK was then introduced. 
 
 SPEECH OF REV. RUFUS W. CLARK, D. D. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS, I shall take my text on this occasion 
 from one of the books of Daniel not Daniel the prophet, but Daniel Webster. 
 [Laughter.] For he has somewhere said or written this noble sentiment, ' Liberty 
 and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." [Cheers.] The Union is 
 represented by the vast concourse gathered around me, embracing men of all 
 political parties and creeds. Liberty is represented in the person of General 
 Fremont, who presides on this occasion. [Tremendous cheers ] And the pledge 
 that they shall be one and inseparable floats over our heads in the star-spangled 
 banner. 
 
 I remember that very early in the struggle, somewhere down South, they had 
 a funeral, and they took the old flag, and with mock solemnity, buried it ; and 
 they supposed that was the last of the American flag. But, gentlemen, I believe in 
 the doctrine of the resurrection, [applause] ; and I believe that the sacred emblem 
 of our national rights and honor, even from that soil, cursed with rebellion to-day, 
 will rise again, and proudly float over that and every other defiant State, and 
 represent in the future as it has in the past a united, prosperous and happy 
 people. 
 
 The incident reminds me of an ignorant politician, who was sent by his neigh- 
 bors to an adjoining county to ascertain what a tax was for, that had been levied. 
 He was told that it was to promote the navy and prevent an insurrection. On 
 returning home he was asked if he had ascertained what the tax was for. " Oh, 
 yes," said he, " it is to promote knavery and prevent the resurrection" [Great
 
 laughter.] I have no doubt but that the taxes at the South will promote knavery, 
 but they will not prevent the resurrection of that flag around which we rally to- 
 day, and to the maintenance of which we renewedly consecrate our lives, our 
 fortunes, and our sacred honor. [Cheers.] 
 
 But, fellow-citizens, the hour is solemn. We meet at a momentous crisis in 
 our national history. The republic is in danger. This colossal and iniquitous 
 rebellion must be met ; it must be grappled with and crushed now. I am not 
 here to appeal to your passions. I do not stand before this mighty gathering of 
 American citizens simply to make a speech. I am here to kindle anew the fire 
 of your patriotism ; to awaken, if possible, an increased energy and devotion to 
 the cause so dear to our hearts ; the cause that embraces the interests of civili- 
 zation, human liberty, and the progress of society in the arts, education, and re- 
 ligion. 1 am here to urge you to rally to the call of our noble President, and to 
 joiu the hoFts already in the field, who are doing their utmost to roll back the 
 tide of rebellion, and preserve the precious institutions bequeathed to us by our 
 fathers. [Applause.] 
 
 In this struggle, we aim, first, at the security of our national existence. We 
 desire to live among the nations of the earth, and God helping us, we will main- 
 tain the Republic against all the opposition, domestic or foreign, that may be 
 brought to bear against us. [Immense applause.] Not a few persons in Europe, 
 especially in England, have blamed us for this. We have been censured for de- 
 siring to exist, and for not quietly acquiescing in the dismemberment of our nation. 
 The people of England have declared that our republican institutions were a 
 failure. [A voice in the crowd, " They lie."] Yes, those who say it do lie ; and 
 they will have to lie quietly until we can attend to their sneers and threats. I 
 had supposed, until recently, that England was distinguished for her civilization, 
 her intense humanity, and devotion to the doctrine of human rights. I had sup- 
 posed that her statesmen and leaders of public opinion were in favor of cultivat- 
 ing peaceful relations with the other powers of the earth ; and, surely, we have 
 done nothing to provoke her enmity. Rather, we have done all in our power to 
 maintain a cordial and generous friendship. We have bestowed upon her authors 
 and eminent men, who have visited our shores, every mark of attention. Some 
 years ago, when her Irish citizens were starving, we ladened our ships of war 
 with provisions for their relief, and gladly gave of our abundance to the needy. 
 When a lost British ship, in the Arctic regions, was found by an American cap- 
 tain, she was brought to one of our ports, carefully and thoroughly refitted, 
 and returned to the Queen as an expression of our good-will and respect for her 
 administration. And how recently these streets were thronged by our enthusi- 
 astic citizens, to do honor to the young Prince of Wales, the representative of 
 the British throne. No demonstration could have been more marked or sincere ; 
 none could have sprung from purer feelings, a loftier sentiment than that which 
 greeted the son of the Queen. And now, in the hour of our embarrassment and 
 peril, what return do we receive from that people ? Where are their sympathies, 
 as expressed through thair public press ? Should the child of royalty again visit 
 us and pass through our streets, I apprehend that we should allow him to go on 
 his way in silence, and no more waste our attentions upon a government incapa- 
 ble of appreciating an act of pure and generous national friendship. And we 
 shall ask neither of England or of any other nation on the globe, the privilege of 
 existing ; and when the pernicious traitors at home are annihilated, I believe that 
 we shall have leisure and ability to see that we are not interfered with by the 
 nations of Europe. [Immense cheers.] 
 
 Fellow-citizens, we are here also to maintain our Government. What is Gov- 
 ernment ? It is the sentiments of the whole community embodied in laws, which 
 certain officers are selected to execute. The Government is created to protect 
 property, regulate the intercourse and relations of citizens, and defend human 
 life. Without a Government, there can be no such thing as property that is, 
 the right of possession. In a savage state, no man can hold land, houses or mer- 
 chandise, for there is no centralized authority to enforce his claims; or protect
 
 so 
 
 his rights. And the man who rebels against a just, good Government, does all 
 in his power to weaken your hold upon your property, and reduce society to a con- 
 dition of barbarism. He dethrones order and law, and inaugurates insecurity 
 and anarchy. 
 
 Government also exists to protect human liberty and life. The man, there- 
 fore, who strikes a blow at the Government, labors to destroy that protection. 
 He is the foe of society. Rebellion is national suicide, and no punishment can 
 be too great for those who have plotted the destruction of such a Government as 
 ours, and who seek the destruction of a Republic that has given happiness and 
 prosperity to so many millions of freemen. [Cheers.] 
 
 Gentlemen, we are here also to preserve and perpetuate the American Union. 
 Now this Union was not created by a compact of the States. The idea of State 
 sovereignty is a delusion. Before we achieved our independence, which was the 
 beginning of our national life, the colonies derived all their powers from the 
 British crown. They were under that crown until the moment that they passed 
 under the authority of the Federal Government. They did not cede their au- 
 thority to the Federal Government, for they had none to cede. Independence 
 was declared and achieved by the people of the whole country, and not by indi- 
 vidual States. The United States Constitution was framed and adopted by the 
 people, and the right of secession is nowhere recognized. It is neither tolerated 
 in the instrument itself, nor in the terms upon which the Constitution was 
 adopted and ratified by the people of the several States. The authorities on 
 this point are clear and incontrovertible. We are struggling also to maintain 
 the principle of human liberty. 
 
 Do you ask where do we get that principle ? I reply, not from the Declara- 
 tion of American Independence, but from the human soul, where the Almighty 
 planted it. That declaration simply expressed what has ever existed in the breast 
 of man ; and if you will consult the writings of Hamilton. Jefferson, Jay, Wash- 
 ington, and other of the early American heroes, you will find that the great 
 struggle then was, not simply for the freedom of this nation, but for the great doc- 
 trine of human rights. They fought for the liberty of man, endowed by his 
 Creator with certain inalienable rights. We also fight to-day for liberty, and in 
 proportion as we smite the cause of the Rebellion, as well as the Rebellion itself, 
 the Almighty will help us, and crown our arms with victory. [Great applause.] 
 
 And I deem it very appropriate, that the noble General who is with us to-day, 
 who first placed the American flag upon the summit of the Rocky Mountains, 
 and who gave freedom to California, should be the first to sound the bugle notes 
 of emancipation at the head of the army. [Immense cheering.] And although 
 the Government did not at that time sustain him, still those bugle notes have, 
 ever since, been rolling over the plains, and reverberating through the hills and 
 valleys, all over the country. And when those notes are gathered up and set to 
 music, and our armies march to that music, then will they move on to honor and 
 to victory. Let us then, one and all, respond to the call of our President, and let 
 us inscribe in letters of gold upon our banners, the sentiment with which I began, 
 " Liberty and Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." [Prolonged cheers.] 
 
 SPEECH OF HON. E. DELAFIELD SMITH. 
 
 General FREMONT, the chairman, then introduced the Hon. E. 
 DELAFIELD SMITH, the United States District Attorney, who was 
 received with great enthusiasm, and spoke as follows : 
 
 MEN OF NEW- YORK, This is, in truth, a colo?sal demonstration. The eye 
 can hardly reach the boundaries of these compact thousands. It would be in 
 vain for the voice to attempt it. The people have come in their might. They
 
 81 
 
 have come in their majesty. Th*y have " come as the winds come when forests 
 are rended.'' They have ** come as the wares come when naries are strandvd." 
 We are here to-day, not to speak and acclaim, but to act and incite to action. 
 [Appliose.] We know that this monster rebellion cannot be spoken down ; it 
 most be fought down ! [Cheers.] 
 
 We are assembled to animate each other to renewed efforts and nobler sacri- 
 fices in behalf of our imperiled country. There is hardly one of us who has not, 
 at this hour, some endeared relative on the bloody fie:ds of Virginia. The voices 
 of our armed and suffering brethren literally cry to us from the ground. To-day 
 we hear them. To-day let us h ed them. [Applause.] The call for fresh troops 
 comes to us from a loved and trusted President from faithful and heroic Generals. 
 [Loud cheers.] This day determines that it shall be answered. [Renewed 
 cheers.] Let each act as though specially commissioned to obtain recruits for a 
 sacred service. [Applause.] 
 
 Fremont- is here. You have heard his voice. He has told us to uphold our 
 Government and sustain our Generals in the field. Whatever officer uiay go to 
 battle with the President's commission, will be made strong by a loyal people's 
 prayers and confidence. [Loud cheering.] 
 
 The army and navy, the President, the Cabinet and the Congress, have done all 
 that can now be effected by them. The issue tod.iy is with the people. Do you 
 ask activity on the part of the President ? Recall his personal labor and super- 
 vision in the council and the field. Do you seek a poiicy ? Look to his solemn 
 conference with the loyalists of the border State?. [Cheers.] Do you demand 
 legislation? Witness the matured laws that Congress has spread upon the 
 statute-book. A jurist from the bench of our highest tribunal once declared 
 a maxim which shocked the country aud the world. It is ours, with our 
 representatives, to respond : A RKBKL ' HAS xo RIGHTS WHICH A WHITE MAX is 
 BOCXD TO RESPECT !" [Loud and long continued cheering, with waving of hats 
 and handkerchiefs.] 
 
 A traitor cannot own a loyalist of any race. Xor can " service be due " to 
 national conspirators, except at the call of public justice. [Laughter and 
 applause] 
 
 The limits of civilized warfare must and will be observed ; but those limits are 
 broad as the boundaries of the ocean, and they lie far beyond the lives and the 
 treasure of traitors in arms. [Cheers.] In this mortal combat between the ene- 
 mies and the friends of republican liberty, wherein treason scruples at nothing, 
 patriots must neglect no means that God and nature have placed in their hand?. 
 [Loud cheers.] These institutions were reared on the ruins of British pride. 
 Their foundations must be reconstructed on the crumbled pretensions of southern 
 oligarchs. [Renewed cheers.] We mast, and we will, repel force by force. Tney 
 who press an iron heel upon the heart of our noble nation, must perish by the 
 sword of her avensjin? sons. God grant the time may be near when every rebel 
 leader may say his prayers, and bite the dust, or hang as high as Hainan. If we 
 are wise, and true, and brave, the American Union, like the snn in the heavens. 
 shall be clouded but for a nieht. Still shall it move onward, and every obstacle 
 in its pathway be withered and crushed. [Renewed and continued cheering.] 
 
 Victory, indeed, cannot be won except by arms. Our institutions were the 
 gift of the wounded and dead of the armies of Washington. Shakspeare said, 
 and we re-utter in a higher sense, 
 
 " Things bought with blood must be by blood maintained." 
 
 Look to our armies and rally the people to swell their wasted ranks. Go. you 
 who can. And spare neither men nor money to enable others to march to battle. 
 [Cheers 1 
 
 Let loyal men permit no question to distract or divide them. Care not what 
 a mans theories may be, so that his heart feels and his hand works for the I men. 
 Kverv citizen. North or South, who prays for the success of our arms, and who 
 labors for the vindication of our Constitution, whatever may b 
 
 11
 
 82 
 
 opinions, is a patriot. [Cheers.] They who condemn any class of our fellow- 
 citizens because of differences on collateral issues those who declare that a 
 loyal abolitionist is on a level with an armed secessionist are wrong in head, or 
 at heart unsound. [Applause.] 
 
 Let assertions like this be at an end. Let all loyal men and all loyal journals 
 abandon arguments which bear the dull and counterfeit ring of traitor philosophy. 
 [Loud applause.] 
 
 For the rest for those who not alone seem, but are, disloyal let the people arise 
 in their might, and silence them all, whether they speak in the street to the few, or 
 seek, through the public press, to poison the many. Law, in many things, cannot 
 go so far, nor accomplish so much, as determined public opinion. [Cheers.] 
 While men like Andy Johnson, of Tennessee, with herculean strength, strike, in 
 their districts, at the hydra of rebellion, shall not we, in New-York, war upon 
 the spirit of secession in every form ? [Applause, and cries of " We will."] 
 The old flag must be the paramount object of all. It will be loved by the faith- 
 ful. By the fa'se, it must be feared. [Vociferous cheering.] 
 
 They talk of a distinction between fidelity to the Government and devotion to 
 the Administration. In the day of national danger or disaster, the two senti- 
 ments are inseparable. Distrust him who professes the one only to disclaim the 
 other. [Applause.] When the tempest howls, no prayer breathed for the ship 
 forgets the pilot at ner helm. [Applause and cheers.] 
 
 Loyalty knows no conditions. Stand by the Government ! Scrutinize its 
 action ; but do it like earnest patriots not like covert traitors. Stand by the 
 Administration ! In times like these, party spirit should be lulled. That spirit 
 was hushed in the era of the Revolution in the days of Madison and Monroe 
 and when the hero of New Orleans crushed the rising form of nullification. 
 Our fathers stood by Jackson as their sires sustained Washington. It is our 
 privilege to uphold the arm of a President, great and pure, who will share their 
 glory on the page of history. ]Loud cheering.] 
 
 1 must trespass no longer. [Cries of " Go on, go on."] No, fellow-citizens ; 
 I will bid you farewell. Our illustrious Secretary of State has this day given to 
 the army the only son not already in the public service. Let us emulate his 
 spirit of sacrifice, and think nothing too dear to offer on the altar of our country. 
 
 Mr. SMITH spoke with a clear, loud voice, and retired in the 
 midst of most enthusiastic cheering. 
 
 SPEECH OF JOSEPH HOXIE, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. JOSEPH HOXIE was next introduced, was warmly received, 
 and spoke as follows : 
 
 They say this is the young men's stand, intended more especially for the young 
 men, and should any one say, " Why, Hoxie has the impudence to claim the 
 honor of belonging to that patriotic part of our fellow-citizens, the young men," 
 I should simply say, " Why, my friends, I have belonged to the Young Men's 
 Committee for more than forty years." [Laughter and applause.] And now, 
 before addressing you, very briefly, I propose that we all unite in singing the 
 " Star-Spangled Banner," and I want about five acres of this audience to join 
 in the chorus. [Great cheering.] 
 
 The " Star-Spangled Banner " was then sung by a glee club on 
 the platform, thousands upon thousands of voices in the immense 
 crowd joining in the chorus with a most thrilling effect.
 
 83 
 
 Mr. HOXIE then resumed, as follows : 
 
 The reverend gentlemen who preceded me took for his text those undying 
 words of the lamented Webster, written, I am sure, in letters that are never to 
 be erased from the heart of every true American. In the very brief remarks I 
 have to make to you my text shall be my country. I did not expect, my fellow- 
 citizens, ever to be called upon to address an assemblage such as this and upon 
 such an occasion as this. Who of us ever imagined, when last we met at, this 
 place, that at this time we should be called on, as we are, by that noble patriot at 
 the head of the Government for 300,000 freemen more to crush out this accursed 
 rebellion ; but so it is, and we have met here to-day to respond with all our 
 hearts to that patriotic call of our Chief Magistrate. [Applause.] And all we 
 have upon earth are ready to be sacrificed upon the altar of -our country. 
 [Cries of" Good," " good."] This Union must be preserved, and it shall be pre- 
 served. [Great cheering.] And it is not worth while for us now, my fellow- 
 citizens, to undertake to criticise the conduct of those who may have command- 
 ed our armies in the field, and of those who have directed the legislation in the 
 Congress of the United States, or of the chosen councillors of the President of 
 the United States the heads of the various departments. It is in vain for us 
 to say that this man has done wrong ; that this man should be removed or that 
 man appointed. No, my fellow-citizens, we come here not to ask any such con- 
 temptible question as this. We have come here to ask this question : What can 
 we do, what shall we do, in this exigency of the country, to preserve the integri- 
 ty of the Union and the Constitution of the United States ? [Great applause.] 
 That is the question we are called upon to answer. If some of our generals 
 have made a mistake, what of it ? Let him, and let him only, throw stones at 
 them who never made a mistake himself. [Cries of " Good," " good."] No, 
 gentlemen, we all confide in the patriotism, the integrity, the honesty of that 
 glorious statesman at the head of the Government [great applause] confide in 
 those whom he has chosen to enable him to carry on the Government. Don't 
 say, as I have heard a gentleman say within the last forty-eight hours, that these 
 300,000 men will never be raised until Stanton is removed. Voices, " They 
 will."] We do not come here to respond to any such sentiments as that. We 
 come here to tender all we have to the President of the United States and 
 to those associated with him in administering the affairs of this Government. 
 Never before in my life a somewhat advanced one have I felt the weight of 
 the responsibility that should attach to every good citizen as I feel it to-day. 
 But I am not alone in this, as these thousands and tens of thousands before me 
 bear willing witness. The time for talking, as was well said by my predecessor, 
 has passed ; the time for decisive action has arrived. Now, what can we what 
 shall we do what ought we to do to save our bleeding country ? [Voices, 
 "Fight."] Our glorious flag was stained with the blood of my father, and oh 
 how unworthy I should be of every throb of blood that courses in my veins, if I 
 were not willing to sacrifice everything I have upon the earth sooner than to 
 see it trail in the dust. [Great cheering.] Hear you not, my friends, wafted 
 upon every Southern breeze, the groans of the wounded and the dyin from the 
 field of battle of our brothers, our sons and our friends ? Shall they cry to you in 
 vain ? [Loud cries of " No, no."] Hear you not the wails of the widow and 
 the orphan, demanding of you and me that if we cannot restore to them their 
 loved and their lost ones, that we shall swear this day to avenge their fate. We 
 have come here to pledge ourselves before God and our country that so long as 
 we have an arm to raise or a voice to speak they shall both be used in defence 
 of this glorious Union. [Great applause.] What would you think, fellow-citi- 
 zens if when a fire was devouring your residence, the fireman of an engine com- 
 panv, instead of putting on the hose to the engine and playing away upon the 
 fire "should sit down and begin to criticise the conduct of those who constructed 
 the'buildino- or those who perhaps set it on fire, and while they were settling the 
 question ofwho was to blame the building should be utterly given to the flames
 
 84 
 
 aud destroyed. What would you think of a fire company that would do that ? But 
 what would you think, when the flames are wrapping in destruction the nation's 
 house, this temple of liberty raised by our fathers and cemented by their blood, 
 when its pillars are tottering to their base, of the mean, craven wretches who 
 should begin to quarrel as to who had set it on fire? In God's name let us all 
 unite and put out the flames. It is the temple of our liberty, the nation's house 
 that is on fire, and we call upon every man to do all he can, however little that 
 may be, to avert the danger and to do it now to stay this conflagration, and 
 save and transmit to your children, and children's children, this glorious inherit- 
 ance which we received from our fathers. 
 
 Here a large delegation, with banners flying, preceded by a 
 band of music, from the ship-carpenter's department of the United 
 States ISTavy, made its appearance, bringing a fresh accession of 
 members to the already dense throng in front of the platform. 
 " God Speed the Eight " was then given by the Glee Club, with a 
 heartiness and spirit that added greatly to the interest and enthu- 
 siasm of the meeting. 
 
 SPEECH OF CHARLES GOULD, ESQ. 
 
 Mr. GOULD came forward and said : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, What is to be the effect of this stupendous gathering of 
 freemen ? Let us have one single practical result, which will do us and do our 
 common country good, and we shall not have met in vain. Let us resolve to 
 have this war ended, and ended in the right way ; and we shall hear, in less than 
 three months, the magnificent shout of victory swelling from the North to the 
 South, from tl e Atlantic to the Pacific. We want volunteers, and we want to 
 send them in such a way, and under such orders, as will terminate the war. [A 
 Voice '' Why don't you go yourself?"] I have sent two of my children, and I 
 hope you will all send yours, or go yourselves. 
 
 It make> no difference who fights for us, but it makes a great difference who 
 fights against us. If we can get away the supporters, the laborers from the 
 Southern army, we can conquer them at once. Take away their laborers from 
 the fields, and the ditches and embankments. [Great cheering.] Let liberty 
 be by our Government proclaimed to the slaves, and every slave in the South 
 will know the fact. 'I he masters will be compelled to leave the armies of the 
 rebellion and hasten home to protect their property and guard their families ; and 
 our army, then tru'y the army of freedom, with hardly the loss of a man, will 
 sweep from Mason and Dixon's line to the Gulf, and the victory for freedom be 
 won and won, forever. 
 
 Do you ask how this is to be done ? The way is simple and easy. Enforce 
 and carry out the proclamation of my friend and your friend here at my side, 
 (Major General Fremont,) and the work is done. [Great cheering.] 
 
 SPEECH OF COL. JAS. FAIRMAX. 
 Col. JAS. FAIRMAX was the next speaker. He said : 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZEXS, I will confess that it is under no ordinary degree of em- 
 barrassment that I meet you on the present occasion. I have frequently mingled 
 my counsel with yours in the blessed peace of the past, when you and I exulted 
 in being citizens of the Empire City, of the Empire State ; contemplating this 
 great city as the apex of a pyramid of civilization and power, whose broad firm 
 base was our continent country.
 
 85 
 
 Who dreamed then and how brief the interval that we would be so soon 
 assembled, as at this hour, to gaze with ill-suppressed alarm in each other's faces, 
 to gravely counsel in the desperate necessity of calling from the peaceful channels 
 of industry, nearly a million of men to combat, upon our own soil, the enemies of 
 our laws, liberty, civilization and national existence. Enemies not martialed 
 under a foreign banner, familiar to history, suggesting old feuds and rival sys- 
 tems, with alien languages, institutions and origin ; but men, who but yesterday 
 joined with us in the maintenance and defence, and glorying in the proud -sig- 
 nificance of that flag, under which, as a united people, we have attained a pro- 
 gress in wealth and power unprecedented in human history, and which is now 
 torn from the staff by Americans, with the red hand of rebellion, in the land of 
 Washington ! Indeed, it is not discreditable to the sagacity of any man to 
 admit that the present aspect of our country amazes and appalls him ; for it 
 would seem that, equally, the motives which govern the best and worst of men, 
 plead against the, not only criminal, but wanton attempt at the destruction of 
 a government which fosters the welfare of its humblest inhabitant, and to whose 
 career the patriots of every clime were wont to look Avith trembling hope as the 
 auroral light of that day that would usher in the realization of man's highest 
 earthly destiny. 
 
 The defence of liberty and laws, even to the shedding of a deluge of human 
 blood, if need be, is the first of rights, though the last of expedients. I therefore 
 feel no need of apology, while claiming to be opposed to the destruction of 
 human life in every instinct of my nature, that I wear a uniform that is signifi- 
 cant of sanguinary strife, at a time like the present. For discussion and 
 diplomacy are at an end, and we are left to choose whether we will fight at 
 Richmond or at New- York and Philadelphia. It has come to this, either the 
 Mississippi and the James or the Delaware and the North rivers must bear the 
 crimson tinge which tells to wailing hearts the tale of fraternal strife. 
 
 I will speak to you in the spirit of the instruction given by Napoleon to his 
 marshals, when he said, " Send what you please to the bulletins, but tell me the 
 truth." Therefore, while it may not be a welcome announcement, fidelity to my 
 country demands it should be made, that you have held the enemy, heretofore, in 
 unmerited contempt as to their fighting powers. You forget that they are 
 Anglo-Saxons, like yourselves, having every natural element of power that you 
 possess, and in addition, some appliances to awaken their energies, which, I 
 regret to say, are neglected in our own army. And I would here allude to some 
 of the elements which impart to this contest its fearful animus, presenting diffi- 
 culties, which, did we not know that this rebellion lifts its red hand in sacri- 
 legious defiance against the great whitet hrone of the universe, would well-nigh 
 lead us to despond. The leaders of the South, with a sagacity we would do well 
 to imitate, address the patriotism and passions of their men. There is not an 
 article published in a northern paper, no matter how obscure, which is suscep- 
 tible of being tortured into an ungenerous or barbarous significance, but it is 
 immediately seized, promulgated and enforced with a fiendish ingenuity of com- 
 ment, which fans to a savage fury the too susceptible natures of men reared 
 amid 'an atmosphere which fosters prejudice and arrogance, to the destruction of 
 every feelino- of nationality. And to more certainly effect their purpose, the 
 exercise takes the form of a catechism, where the speaker recites some alleged 
 violence to women or children, or something of the kind, by the Union forces, 
 such as the hell-born lie which they fulminated about Butler's proclamation in 
 New Orleans ; and then demanding, " Fathers of the South, will you bear this 
 without a bloody retribution?" Of course there is a thundering "Never!" 
 And the various relations of life are thus appealed to, by exciting interrogatories 
 with the peculiar vehemence of southern elocution, till every element of the 
 human heart ioins in the cry for vengeance in the blood of the Union Army 
 The relio-ion of the south, also, is directed to furnish motives to robbery and 
 murder f and where it cannot be so directed it is suppressed, and the same iron 
 hand that would shut the ear of humanity against the wail of the bondman j
 
 86 
 
 would seek to stifle the breath of prayer, if it could uot be impressed into asking 
 the benedictions of the God of justice upon the most flagrant inhumanity and 
 crime that stains the page of human history. And while this demoniacal indus 
 try is exerted to poison the mind by the press, the same assiduity is seen in 
 efforts to prevent the communication of intelligence calculated to shake the con- 
 fidence of the blinded rebels as to their ultimate success. Prisoners brought into 
 our lines within the last two weeks, deny that New Orleans, Memphis, or 
 Nashville are held by Union troops, and tenaciously assert that a Union gun- 
 boat cannot pass the guns of Lovell on the Mississippi ! And no matter how 
 well a man may know the facts, he dare not, as he values his life, hint that the 
 lies framed for the deception of the masses, are other than the truth they .claim. 
 
 The palpable, physical elements of this contest, on the part of the enemy, are 
 truly stupendous. The entire population of the South, in a military sense, are 
 impressed into the service ; every kind of property in the rebel States which can 
 be used for any military purpose, is seized ; and the sole hope of replevin, is 
 predicated upon the permanence of the Confederate government. The entire 
 currency of these States is dependent for its redemption upon the success of 
 the rebellion ; while they now hold ample territory with abundant natural 
 resource^ for an empire, and awaiting only the ever precarious caprices of 
 European diplomacy for foreign recognition with ths practical sympathy 
 annexed. 
 
 My past, I trust, preserves me from suspicion of disloyalty while I thus speak 
 of the power of the rebels ; and I believe it is best to be frank, even if it should 
 savor of compliment, as the first [thing toward a successful contest is to squarely 
 face the enemy. Then let me add, what is the fruit of ample opportunities of 
 knowledge, as my conviction, that until the power of this rebellion is crushed 
 with a gauntlet hand, you cannot call the ground upon which you now stand 
 either free or independent ; for, chimerical as it may seem to you, still the scheme 
 is entertained with a lively hope by the rebels, of invading the cities of New- 
 York and Philadelphia, to repay with their plunder the losses incurred by the 
 desolation of Virginia ; and while you repose in a security, based upon the vast 
 population and resources of these cities, you must remember, that military suc- 
 cess depends in some cases entirely upon organization. Ridgeley, in his account 
 of Buena Vista, says, there were Mexicans enough to bind every American and 
 carry him into Mexico, but they lacked organization ; and to those familiar with 
 military operations it does not look like phantasy altogether, (in the absence of 
 energetic action on the part of the North.) when we hear the apparently wild men- 
 ace of the rebels dictating peace before the walls of Philadelphia and New-York. 
 Thus I have glanced briefly at the elements, strength, and purposes of the rebel 
 conspiracy. I have purposely refrained from the discussion of the agencies which 
 contributed to bring this scourge upon us as a people. I feel, however, constrain- 
 ed to state one fact, elicited from a variety of sources namely, that the course of 
 some of the public men of the North, in the past, has inspired the rebels with 
 the conviction that they have allies in the North, whose overt co-operation 
 is only prevented by fears of mob violence, and who, at the sight of the three 
 barred flag would break the union of that North which now brings pallor to the 
 cheek of treason. And at different times, while urging intelligent rebels by the 
 terrors of the national arm, and pleading with fraternal earnestness in view of 
 the traditions of the glorious old Flag, to induce them to abandon the heresy 
 and crime of secession, I have been met with the speeches, resolutions, and 
 platforms of Northern political leaders, giving promises to justify every claim of 
 the rebels even to bloody isolation, as a remedy for the alleged wrongs of the 
 South ; and this blighting stultification paralyzes even now, in a great measure, 
 all attempts to convince the rebels that the North and nation are verily in earnest. 
 
 These are some of the facts in view of which we must act. If any man 
 doubted that we are fighting practically an aroused nation, the march from 
 Fortress Monroe to Richmond, presenting seventy miles of desolated homesteads 
 and abandoned plantations, is calculated to correct and convince him. And under
 
 87 
 
 the views and information to which the mass of the rebels are limited, they, 
 doubtless, earnestly believe, that the war in which they are engaged' is as 
 righteous, justifiable, and hopeful as that of the Revolution of '76. 
 
 In view of these facts, then, it is not simply an expedient, subject to our 
 discretion, which way to use to put down the rebellion ; for it is patent to the 
 humblest understanding, that an earnest purpose to put down rebellion will be 
 indicated by using every instrumentality calculated to compass that end. If 
 this be so, then, how are we to understand a discussion of three weeks' duration, 
 as to whether it would not be better to prohibit by law, the use of loyal men of a 
 particular shade in quelling this rebellion. The arguments adverse to the 
 employment of blacks being silenced by the Battle of New Orleans, and more 
 emphatically so, by the operations in Hayti in the attempt to re-enslave that 
 people when the negroes, under the leadership of a man born a slave, hurled 
 the disciplined troops of two of the most warlike nations of Europe, quivering 
 from their shores ; when only by a meanly contrived strategem of the great 
 Napoleon, and by it getting the person of L'Overture in his power, could France 
 temporarily subdue the little island of Hayti. I am not advocating either the 
 social or . political rights of any race, adversely. I prefer to speak on one 
 subject at a time, and I speak of the muscles of a black man as I would of the 
 muscles of a horse, for a definite purpose ; and, in my opinion, nothing can 
 transcend the beetle-heeded stupidity of those men, who cannot discuss the 
 digging of trenches and shooting of rifles without merging, by an affinity of 
 ideas known only to themselves, into the most occult questions of ethnology, as 
 to essential equalities of races, etc. How absurd it would seem if we stood in 
 " Fives Court," London, about a century ago, while Cribb and Moleneaux were 
 contending for the championship of England, and would there suggest the 
 essential difference of the white and black races as a settlement of the question 
 contested by the two giants. It will be remembered that on that occasion the 
 black was beaten by foul play a thing of which the negro seems to have always 
 had his share. I would suggest to these philosophers that we do not stick to 
 purity of races in the army now. A mule compared to a horse would be consid- 
 ered a rather illegitimate style of an animal, yet nothing but mules could pull 
 long enough and fast enough to suit our recent march to the James River, not- 
 withstanding the inferiority of the race. But, seriously, I would here make a 
 remark which I will not allow my shoulder-straps to suppress ; shoulder-straps 
 or no shoulder-straps, I say that 1 have seen men suffering the privations insepa- 
 rable from the line of duty during the recent campaign on the Isthmus, doing a 
 hard day's duty in the field, followed by a hard tour of duty in digging trenches, 
 and human nature has sunk beneath the load, and I have seen them rolled in 
 their blanket and laid down in their final rest superinduced, doubtless, by a tax 
 upon their energies which might have been divided with the slave, who must, 
 inevitably, share the benefit of the triumph. I leave the transcendental philoso- 
 phers to defend that policy which sacrifices a white man to save a black one, 
 while at the same time, contending for the superiority of the former. Let every 
 man who claims to be a patriot banish his theories of the past, and suspend his 
 schemes for the future, wherever they would interfere with present usefulness. 
 We are now at war with the rebels, we are now at war with the rebels , therefore, 
 all words and acts indicating any other treatment of the rebellion than by the 
 sword, is treason or imbecility. When war begins, diplomacy is exhausted. 
 That man is simply a knave who speaks of conciliation while the red tide of 
 blood dyes the banks of the James and the Chickahominy. The two policies of 
 combatin"- and conciliation cannot be at the same time pursued by the Govern- 
 ment. And it is a still bolder treason and fraud to suppose that they can be both 
 applied by a general in the field. It would seem in the past, as if some of our 
 generals thought Civil War, meant a war conducted without giving offence to 
 the enemy And some have secured the applause of the enemy by olive branch 
 campaigns and conciliatory conflicts! Let the line be drawn at once and let 
 those who still chirp conciliation seek the purlieus of putrid politics, and let not
 
 the " tainted rebel stain the soldier." I here utter an apothegm, and recommend 
 to rigid application ; whenever a general has become popular with the enemy, 
 it is time that we were done with him. The American Nation mean to conquer 
 treason, and will view as enemies those who stand between them and the foes of 
 our flag. We cannot conquer without being deeply in earnest ; for our enemy 
 is determined, numerous, and brave, and your superior numbers and resources 
 will not save you unless you bring them to bear. 
 
 Xo man will think ligutly of this contest, who stood, as I did, at Fair Oaks, 
 and saw the enemy for six hours pour their masses into the very jaws of death ; 
 for I saw them march boldly into the open field, as near as the outskirts of this 
 assemblage, where every discharge of our cannon marked a deep gulf in the 
 advancing mass, who still advanced, literally over heaps of the dead, till that 
 bloody arena was so covered with prostrate confederates, till at nightfall, it was 
 like a ghastly bivouac, terribly significant of the desperate energy of the rebellion. 
 
 Yet we will triumph ! I feel assured in saying this, from the evidence of my 
 senses, of the indomitable valor of the individual soldier in the Union ranks. 
 And I will confess to some surprise at the bravery and efficiency of mere boys 
 on the battle-field. I saw young Americans in the Union ranks, so light aud 
 frail, as to preclude their acceptance as soldiers, having been mustered as drum- 
 ers, shoulder rifles and rush into the fight, loading and firing with a rapidity and 
 tact, that brought many a brown uniform to the dust. And when, after a con- 
 flict of over six hours' duration, in various duties and parts of the field, I found 
 myself surrounded by nine members of my command, whose devotion found 
 expression in voluntarily remaining by my side, two of the nine were drummer- 
 boys, their faces begrimed with powder, but lit up with an inspiration that 
 showed they felt the majesty of their mission. How can such an army be finally 
 conquered ? is there not a sublimity in that comparatively little band of Spartans 
 making a Thermopyte of Harrison's Bar, and holding their clinched hands in 
 defiance at the rebel hosts around them. Shall these men cry in vain for a suffi- 
 cient number to join their decimated ranks, to give them a proximate equality 
 of numbers for the last grand contest, where all the hopes of our hearts are at 
 stake? Is not this blood too precious to shed in contests where nothing is de- 
 termined, except to show the world that our country is a nation of soldiers ? 
 
 Then promptly furnish the three hundred thousand bayonets that will end this 
 contest with the lasting triumph of Liberty and Union. And my word for it, 
 that if this be promptly done the cadence of three hundred thousand marching 
 on the rebel capital will shake with their earthquake tread the centre of the 
 rebellion, and there will be no more battles in the sense of Pittsburg Landing, 
 Fort Donelson, Fair Oaks, and the contests of the last two weeks. Then what 
 we -\vant is, that you, your lathers, brothers, friends, join in every movement cal- 
 culated to haste the consummation by a rapid reinforcement of the army on the 
 James River. Let no man or boy who can bear a rifle mistake or neglect his 
 duty in this hour of our country's peril. In this great contest there is not a 
 man in this broad land so humble as to be removed from the consequences of 
 the issue. 
 
 I have sometimes, while pacing outside of my tent under the beautiful star- 
 lio-ht of a Virginia sky, the quiet and darkness inspiring a reflective mood, tried 
 to 3 grasp the momentous interests involved in this struggle. I have looked in 
 imagination into the dark gulf of disintegration and ruin upon the verge of 
 which our country seemed to stand upon a trembling base, and contemplated the 
 possibility of the splendid temple of our Liberties and Nationality broken into as 
 many conflicting fragments as there are States and Territories, with rival 
 interests, institutions, policies and prejudices, prescriptive passports, postage 
 and commercial laws, contiguous territory and consequent necessities for ponder- 
 ous military establishments, with the perpetual danger and tendency of a combi- 
 nation of a portion against the remainder, and the temptation to foreign invasion, 
 till, with rapid pace and throbbing brow, I have wondered if these reflections 
 are a secret, or how men can be so dead in the midst of a storm so portentous.
 
 Then let us be admonished, and know that national existence, liberty, order, law, 
 the organization of human society upon a civilized basis, and the vast charge 
 given us by our fathers for posterity, signified in the star-spangled emblem of the 
 brotherhood of freemen all tremble in precarious existence, so long as there is 
 upon the continent a pole on end with the three-barred ensign of treason and 
 murder upon it. And let us not only bring to a bloody grave this monster of 
 our day, but let us bring our children, like young Hannibals, to the altar of our 
 country, and from their infant lips extort the obligation that will doom the man 
 whose temerity leads him to the remotest sympathy with the foul instigators of 
 this hideous drama. 
 
 The whites of the South plead, by the circumstances to which I have hurriedly 
 alluded, for deliverance ; for a large portion of the passion and patriotism now 
 swelling the rebellion would, by the power of a free press and an honest pulpit, 
 be converted to the cause of the Union. But you must remember that the iron 
 arm which now grasps the throat of press and pulpit in the rebel States, must be 
 broken with the sword before you can inaugurate these remedial measures. A 
 free press and an honest pulpit cannot precede your arms, but can only come on 
 the heel of rifled cannon and Federal bayonets. 
 
 Then let us show how we prize our liberties by alacrity in their defence ; let 
 us not be stingy of blood where it will bring such large revenue of blessings to 
 our country and the human race. And doing our duty in this dark hour, we 
 will sustain that flag whose folds are radiant with glorious memories of the past, 
 with all its proud significance intensified by the struggle, and see our country 
 rise from this bloody baptism into a new life and majesty as truly the land of the 
 FREE and the home of the BRAVE. We will triumph the moment we deserve to. 
 Then let us vindicate on the field our sincerity when we say, 
 
 " Forever float that standard sheet, 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us ? 
 With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 And freedom's banner floating o'er us." 
 
 SPEECH OF COLONEL SIMON H. MIX. 
 
 Colonel SIMON H. Mix, of the Second New- York cavalry, 
 Burnside's expedition, came forward, and was greeted with 
 cheers. He spoke as follows : 
 
 My fellow-citizens, it is the duty of a soldier at all times to fight. [A voice, 
 " We know that."] It is sometimes the duty of a soldier to speak. 1 cons-ider 
 this as one of those occasions ; for inasmuch as I am incapacitated from doing 
 the former, through the politeness of an invitation extended to me by your com- 
 mittee, I shall try my hand at the latter. It seems to me, my fellow-citizens, but 
 a day since I left the city of New-York to go to the battle-field. Almost the 
 last day I spent in this city was on the occasion of a great monster meeting in 
 this Square, held about eighteen months ago. I then resolved to go to the in- 
 terior of the State, from whence I came, and appeal to the Union men there and 
 raise a cavalry regiment, and I did not appeal in vain. My friends, I wish to say 
 here distinctly that I am not here for the purpose of criticising any of the acts 
 of my superiors. With the man who is placed over me will 1 serve and fight at 
 all times. [Vociferous cheering.] I have served under Gen. McClellan. [Here 
 three cheers were given for Gen. McClellan.] I have served under Gen. Banks 
 
 [cheers] I have served under the great and glorious JJurnside. [Great 
 
 cheering.] In this connection I wish to say a word. Experience is the best 
 teacher" and when any man comes to you and tells you if the ne.-rroes of the 
 South are employed in the army the soldiers that we have there will not fight, 
 do you tell that man he is a fool, and that he does not know what he id talking 
 
 12
 
 90 
 
 about. [Great cheering.] In the South they have what we term farmers by 
 day and soldiers by night ; rebel bandits, who prowl around and shoot down our 
 soldiers upon the outposts. Only yesterday, when I came from Newbern. I 
 brought several soldiers of my ivgiment who had suffered in that way. I would 
 take tbe negroes of the South and put muskets in tht-ir hands, for nowhere in 
 the swamps of North Carolina can you find a path where a dog can go that the 
 negro does not understand. Thtre are gentlemen here who will bear me witness 
 when I state this fact, that in all our expeditions in North Carolina we have de- 
 pended upon the negroes for our guides ; for without them we could not have 
 moved with any safety The information we have received from them has always 
 been reliable and always correct. I have never known an instance to the con- 
 trary. [Applause.] My friends, you all no doubt wonder how it is that the 
 South has arrayed in front of the Federal army at Richmond two hundred thou- 
 sand men. But it can be easily explained. Every man in the South 
 who can carry a shot-gun, had, of necessity to become a soldier. There 
 are two classes in the South the representative men, who number fifteen 
 or twenty in a county, and the poor whites, if you throw out of the 
 account the blacks ; but so far as my observation extends, the blacks are 
 a much superior class in intellect to the poor degraded whites of the South. 
 What is done with these poor whites ? They are dragged ruthlessly from their 
 homes, and compelled to go into the army. When I first reached Newbern. the 
 duty was assigned to me to advance into the country thirty miles on each side, 
 over ground that our troops had not before then occupied. Wherever I went I 
 found houses deserted, and the mothers, wives and children weeping for those 
 who had been taken from their homes and curried to the army. 
 
 I hold in my hand a scrap of paper, from The Raleigh. Standard, which 
 contains the following : 
 
 HEAD-QUARTERS N. C. MILITIA, ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE, ) 
 RALEIGH, Dec. 2lst, 1861. )" 
 
 SPECIAL ORDER No. 77. Lieut. Sanford Earnest, of the 71st Regiment N. C. Militia, 
 having declared his preference for the Government of the United States, and having de- 
 clined to march under the flag of the Confederate States, is hereby dismissed, being un- 
 worthy of a commission in the Militia of the State and will hereafter do duty as a 
 private. 
 
 The Colonel will have this order read before the Regiment, and printed in the news- 
 papers of his county. 
 
 By order of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 
 J. G. MARTIN, Adjutant-General. 
 
 That is the way they are treated. [Cries of ' Shame, shame !"] 
 
 The Colonel proceeded to give some further incidents connected 
 with his experiences while in North Carolina, which were listened 
 to with great interest, but brought his speech abruptly to a close 
 the rain, which came up so suddenly, having already began to 
 fall, and causing the hasty dispersion of a large portion of the im- 
 mense throng.
 
 91 
 
 At this juncture a rain-storm set in and rendered an adjourn- 
 ment absolutely necessary ; but previous to separating, FRANK 
 W. BALLARD moved, and CEPHAS BRAINERD seconded, the fol- 
 lowing resolutions, which -were adopted : 
 
 Resolved, That the young men of New- York, alive to the exigencies of the 
 crisis now upon the country, and, as ever, devoted to the preservation of the pure 
 democratic principle, are bound by every interest to press forward into the 
 ranks, and, in the most earnest, speedy, and effectual manner, put an end forever 
 to the accursed idea of Secession and Disunion. To us life is valueless without 
 Liberty, Liberty useless without Union, and Union merely nominal if the idea of 
 Secession is not finally and forever put to sleep, beyond an awakening this side 
 of Hell. 
 
 Resolved, That, while we have no sympathy with any class of demagogues who 
 place conditions upon their professions of loyalty to the Union, we are sensible 
 that our army is waging this war with fettered hands, and we beseech this 
 Government to overstep the constructive bounds which prevent the employment 
 of every, EVERY, EVERY means of suppressing this infernal rebellion. 
 
 The Committee of Arrangements and the public were indebted 
 to Major WILLARD of the Anthon Battery of Light Artillery, 
 and to Messrs. BREWSTER & Co. and the workmen of their manu- 
 factory, for the salutes which were fired at stated periods during 
 the proceedings. 
 
 Their thanks are also due to the gentlemen who kindly volun- 
 teered their services as a Chorus, and who added so much to the 
 interest of the proceedings. 
 
 They were Messrs. Henry Camp, Sigismund Lasar, F. G. Taylor, 
 Charles Loomis, Henry Molten, Geo. 1ST. Seymour, Joseph B. 
 Mather, John J. Ennis, E. G. Bartlett, Geo. E. Aiken, Jonathan 
 Aiken, Charles Aiken, Henry J. Wright, and Messrs. Anderson 
 and Deyo.
 
 INVITATION TO DISTINGUISHED CITIZENS TO ADDRESS THE 
 MEETING OF LOYAL CITIZENS. 
 
 NEW YORK, July Ilth, 1862. 
 
 SIR, At a Convention of Committees, severally appointed by the Common 
 Council of this city, by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New- York, by 
 the Union Defence Committee, and by bodies of Loyal Citizens of this city, it 
 was resolved to hold, on Tuesday, the 1 5th instant, a Mass Meeting of all parties 
 who are in favor of supporting the Government in the prosecution of the war 
 and suppressing the rebellion, and to express, without reference to any party 
 question whatever, their undiminished confidence in the justice of the cause, and 
 their inflexible determination to sustain it ; and to that end to proffer to the 
 Government their aid to the extent of all their resources. 
 
 In accordance with this purpose, the undersigned were appointed by the Con- 
 vention a Committee to invite distinguished citizens, of all parties, to address the 
 meeting upon its object, and in the spirit in which it is convened. 
 
 In performance of this duty, it affords us much pleasure to request that you 
 will address the meeting on that occasion. Be pleased to give us your accept- 
 ance of this invitation, by note, addressed to the Secretary of this Committee, at 
 the Chamber of Commerce, as soon as convenient. 
 
 JAMES W. WHITE, ") 
 
 GEO. OPDYKE, 
 
 SAMUEL SLOAN, . n 
 
 PROSPER M. WETMORE, \ Mect C ttee ' 
 
 DENNING DUER, 
 
 CHARLES GOULD, 
 
 CHAS. GOULD, Secretary.
 
 GENTLEMEN INVITED TO ADDRESS THE MEETING, 
 
 Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 
 HON. SALMON P. CHASE, 
 Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, 
 Hon. GIDEON WELLES, 
 Hon. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, 
 Hon. EDWARD BATES, 
 Hon. CALEB B. SMITH, 
 Hon. HANNIBAL HAMLIN, 
 Gov. EDWIN D. MORGAN, 
 Gov. JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 Gov. ISRAEL WASHBURN, Jr., 
 Gov. N. S. BERRY, 
 Gov. FREDERICK HOLBROOK, 
 Gov. WILLIAM A. BUCKINGHAM, 
 Gov. CHARLES S. OLDEN, 
 Gov. A. G. CURTIN, 
 Gov. A. W. BRADFORD, 
 Gov. F. H. PEIRPONT, 
 Gov. AUSTIN BLAIR, 
 Gov. ANDREW JOHNSON, 
 Gov. H. R. GAMBLE, 
 Gov. O. P. MORTON, 
 Gov. DAVID TODD, 
 Gov. ALEXANDER RAMSEY, 
 Gov. RICHARD TATES. 
 Gov. EDWARD SALOMON, 
 Gov. WILLIAM SPRAGUE. 
 Hon. LOT M. MORRILL, 
 Hon. WILLIAM P. FESSENDEN, 
 Hon. JOHN P. HALE, 
 Hon. PRESTON KING, 
 Hon. IRA HARRIS, 
 Hon. JOHN SHERMAN, 
 Hon. BENJ. F. WADE, 
 Hon. DAVID WILMOT, 
 Hon. H. B. ANTHONY, 
 Hon. SOLOMON FOOT, 
 Hon. JACOB COLLAMER, 
 Hon. CHARLES SUMNER, 
 Hon. HENRY WILSON, 
 Hon. ZACHARIAH CHANDLER, 
 Hon. J. W. GRIMES, 
 Hon. LYMAN TRUMBULL, 
 Hon. HENRY M. RICE, 
 Hon. M. S. WILKINSON, 
 Hon. J. B. HENDERSON, 
 Hon. JOSEPH A. WRIGHT, 
 Hon. MOSES F. ODELL, 
 Hon. WILLIAM WALL, 
 Hon. ALFRED ELY, 
 Hon. DANIEL S. DICKINSON, 
 Hon. EDWARD HAIGHT, 
 Hon. FREDERICK A. CONKLING, 
 
 Hon. SCHOYLER COLFAX, 
 
 Hon. OWEN LOVEJOY, 
 
 Hon. JOHN F. POTTER, 
 
 Hon. ELIJAH WARD, 
 
 Hon. ROSCOE CONKLINO, 
 
 Hon. GALUSHA A. GROW, 
 
 Hon. FRANCIS P. BLAIR, Jr., 
 
 Hon. HENRY L. DAWES, 
 
 Hon. ELISHA B. WASHBURNE, 
 
 Hon. LYMAN TREMAINE, 
 
 Hon. RICHARD B. CONNOLLY, 
 
 Hon. GEORGE BANCROFT, 
 
 Hon. HORACE BINNEY, 
 
 Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, 
 
 Hon. JOHN A. KING, 
 
 Hon. JOSEPH HOLT. 
 
 Hon. CARL SHULZ, 
 
 Gen. HIRAM WALBRIDGE, 
 
 JOHN W FORNEY, Esq., 
 
 WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, Esq., 
 
 Maj. Gen'l JOHN C. FREMONT, U. S. A. 
 
 DAVID DUDLEY FIELD, Esq., 
 
 Com. ANDREW H. FOOTE, 
 
 RICHARD BUSTEED, Esq., 
 
 WILLIAM M. EVARTS, Esq., 
 
 JAMES T. BRADY, Esq., 
 
 FRANCIS B. CUTTING, Esq., 
 
 CHARLES KING, Esq., 
 
 Rev. Dr. H. W. BELLOWS, 
 
 Rev. Dr. R. W. HITCHCOCK, 
 
 Rev. Dr. VINTON, 
 
 Rev. W. G. BROWNLOW, 
 
 Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER, 
 
 Kev. J. P. THOMPSON, 
 
 Major Gen'l JOHN E. WOOL, 
 
 Brig. Gen'l FRANZ SIGEL, 
 
 Brig. Gen'l SHIELDS, 
 
 Brig. Gen. S. VAN VLIET, 
 
 General LEWIS WALLACE, 
 
 Col. FRANCIS B. SPINOLA, 
 
 Judge CHAS. P. DALY, 
 
 Prof. A. D. BACHE, 
 
 Lieut. Genl WINFIELD SCOTT, 
 
 Major Gen'l JOHN A. Dix, 
 
 Major Genl JAMES S. WADSWORTH, 
 
 Brig. Gen'l JOHN COCHRANE, 
 
 Brig. Genl O. M. MITCHELL, 
 
 Judge EDWARDS PIERREPONT, 
 
 FREDERICK KAPP, Esq., 
 
 ORESTES A. BROWNSON, Esq., 
 
 L. E. CHITTKNDEN. Esq., 
 
 I). S. CODDINTON, Esq., 
 
 JAMES A. BRIGGS, Esq., 
 
 OEORGE GIBBS. Esq. 
 
 Hon. W. H. WALLACE,
 
 REPLIES OF DISTINGUISHED CITIZENS, 
 
 LETTER FROM WILLIAM H. SEWARD, SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 
 WASHINGTON, \4tk July, 1862. 
 
 To James W. White, George Opdyke, and others, Esquires, 
 Select Committee, fyc. : 
 
 GENTLEMEN, Your note, inviting me to attend a meeting of loyal citizens of 
 New- York, to be held to-morrow evening, has been received. 
 
 The objects of the meeting are of vital importance. They involve nothing less 
 than a choice between an early peace, with the deliverance of the nation from all 
 surrounding dangers, or a protracted war, with hazards of ultimate national dis- 
 solution. 
 
 Public duties forbid my leaving the Capital at this moment ; but I have given 
 to the only male member of my family, not already in the public service, per- 
 mission to enroll himself as a private in the ranks of the volunteers, which it is 
 your purpose to send into the field. 
 
 I have the honor to be, gentlemen, 
 
 Your very obedient servant, 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 
 
 LETTER OF E. D. MORGAN, GOVERNOR OF STATE OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 STATE OF NEW- YORK, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 ALBANY, July 14th, 1862. j 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 I have received your invitation to be present and address the mass meeting of 
 the citizens of New-York, on Union Square, to-morrow afternoon, for the pur- 
 pose of expressing their undiminished confidence in the justice of our cause, and 
 to proffer to the Government their aid, to the extent of their resources. 
 
 I feel that this gathering will be worthy the occasion which calls it forth, worthy 
 the great city whose potential voice has more than once given encouragement to 
 the Government and country in the dark hours of this struggle a meeting that 
 will be remembered in after-time, as an index of the mighty spirit that moved 
 the people of 1862, to declare anew that the Union " must and shall be pre- 
 served." 
 
 The preliminary work of enlistment, just now, seems to demand my presence 
 here, and I shall, therefore, be unable to meet with you to-morrow. But my 
 interest will be in no degree abated because of my absence, for I feel that the 
 action of New- York at this time is a matter of the deepest importance. Let the 
 great metropolis of the country again emphatically declare its purpose to uphold 
 the cause of the Union to the last, by giving of its men and means, if necessary, 
 " to the extent of its resources," and it will arouse the whole country. Already 
 meetings are appointed for the same evening as your own. This capital and 
 other cities will have their masses in council at the same hour that you are col- 
 lected together. Here, as in New- York and elsewhere, matters of mere political 
 policy are, as they should be, forgotten, and partisan clamor hushed, in view of 
 the country's peril. Let us, for the present at least, only remember that we are
 
 95 
 
 fellow-members of a commonwealth. Let us show that in the hour of danger we 
 can rise superior to the prejudices of the past, and together prepare to defend, 
 successfully, the ' ; palladium of our political safety and happiness." 
 
 A period has come when none can hesitate, none can be idle. In the prov- 
 idence of God, it would seem that before the evil cloud shall pass, all must be 
 brought to sacrifice something for the country's cause ; either to render personal 
 service in the field, furnish material aid, or assume the care of families of volun- 
 teers. So much is duty. Let it be done, and done quickly. In perilous times, 
 delay is treason. The necessities of our situation are inevitable. The questions 
 presented are terribly practical. Men are the want of the hour. Our State will 
 respond to the call of the President ; but to assure this, the families of volunteers 
 must be provided for. While fihting for fireside rights, their own firesides, in 
 their absence, must not be permitted to be darkened by want. If the response 
 to the requisition is promptly made, we may expect increased vigor in putting 
 down the rebellion and vindicating the national power, and that blows quick and 
 heavy shall be made to fall upon the staggering forces of the insurgents. All the 
 powers possessed by the leaders of the rebellion are being used by them with 
 passionate zeal. Let us, then, ask that they be met with at least equal earnestness 
 by the National Government. Longer lenity to rebels is rank injustice to loyal 
 men. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 E. D. MORGAN. 
 
 To JAMES W. WHITE, Esq. Hon. GEO. OPDYKE, Hon. SAMUEL SLOAN, PROSPER 
 M. WETMORE, Esq., DENNING DUER, Esq., CHARLES GOULD, Esq., Committee. 
 
 LETTER OF F. H. PEIRPOINT, GOV. OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, WHEELING, VA.. ( 
 July 16//t, 1802. f 
 
 James W. White, George Opdyke, Samuel Sloan, and others, N. Y. : 
 
 GENTLEMEN, Your favor requesting me to address a meeting of the citizens of 
 New-York, composed of all persons, without distinction of party, who are in 
 favor of prosecuting the war and suppressing the rebellion, is received. The delay 
 of the mail in bringing your request in time, if no other cause, prevents my being 
 with you. I would like to be there. The heart of every true patriot will re- 
 spond to the object of the meeting with a joyful Amen. 
 
 New-York now occupies a position second to no other city in the world. She 
 controls the finances and commerce of the continent. Your city is one of the 
 triumphs of American freedom. Put down the rebellion, establish free schools, 
 a free press and free speech in the Southern States, and New-York's present is 
 only the beginning of her future greatness. It is right that auch movement 
 should commence there. 
 
 You say the object of the meeting is " to express, without reference to any 
 party question whatever, your undiminished confidence in the justice of the cause, 
 and your inflexible determination to sustain it ; and, to that end, to proffer to 
 the Government your aid, to the extent of all your resources." 
 
 Gentlemen these words have the ring of the pure metal. They will gladden 
 the throbbino- heart of the nation. What patriot will stop at this hour of his 
 country's peril to cavil about party ? Be sure that we have a country to govern, 
 before we beoin the contest who shall govern it. The cup of our political sins 
 will not be drained, until we can look beyond party to our country, and our coun- 
 
 %?" months before the breaking out of the rebellion, all that portion of our 
 country outside of the rebel States was the most prosperous and happy people on 
 the face of the earth. But the icbels, like Hainan, borne down by the weight of
 
 96 
 
 their own impotency, envious of their more prosperous neighbors, conceived the 
 scheme of taking from us, by inaugurating this rebellion . the glorious inheritance 
 of our fathers, purchased by their blood freely spilled upon an hundred battle- 
 fields. We owe it to ourselves, to posterity, to the sacred memory of our fathers, 
 to mete to them Hainan's fate. To do this, we should be as economical as 
 possible of the lives of the loyal soldiers, and provide bountifully for those going 
 to the field and for those they leave behind. 
 
 Say to them when they go, " Use all the means God and nature and circum- 
 stances have put in your power to suppress the rebellion and punish traitors." 
 Rebels' property, in the rebel sense of the word, of whatever kind, sensible or in- 
 sensible, should be made to contribute to the suppression of the rebellion in any 
 manner that it can be made available. 
 
 This war has been inaugurated and prosecuted by the rebels without reference 
 to the rights of Union men. It is not for them to claim constitutional guaranties. 
 They have no rights under the Constitution, save the infliction of the penalty of 
 their crimes. They have grown insolent by their dominion over their own slaves, 
 until they have adopted as their political axiom, " that Slavery is the normal 
 condition of the working classes." Upon that principle they are attempting to 
 build their empire. This is in derogation of English liberty and American 
 liberty, and of all that has raised the Anglo-Saxon race to its present greatness 
 in this country and in Europe. It is an attempt to degrade every free laboring 
 man in the nation ; not only the native born, but the German and Irishman, who 
 seek an asylum in this land of the free, are denounced as only fit for slaves. 
 
 Mr Jefferson has given us advice intended, doubtless, for occasions like the 
 present. He says : " A strict observance of the written law is, doubtless, one of 
 the highest duties of a good citizen ; but not the highest. The law of necessity 
 of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obliga- 
 tion. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to 
 lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them 
 with us ; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." Here is a chart made 
 for the occasion by one who comprehended our institutions and the enormities of 
 rebellion. 
 
 Gentlemen, this is the last contest our free institutions will have, if we put 
 forth the strength of the nation, and punish rebellion as it deserves. But re- 
 member, there is but one time left to put down the usurpers that is the present. 
 We cannot fold our arms this year, and fight the next. We must fight now, or 
 all is lost. The contest is gigantic the result, the freedom or enslavement of the 
 nation. It is the removal of the last fetter thrown around the thirteen old colo- 
 nies. Redeemed and disenthralled, America will rise with new strength, and in 
 sublime proportions, the beauty of the whole earth. 
 
 This is the most gigantic rebellion the world ever saw. There is the most 
 gigantic stake being played for. The question is : Shall Saver y or Freedom be 
 imtversal ? There is no concealing it. This is the issue. The rebels have pre- 
 sented and forced it upon the nation. We have accepted, and it is to be tried 
 at the point of the bayonet and the muzzle of the cannon ; and were it not for 
 the traitors in our midst, the verdict for freedom would be rendered in three 
 mouths. Every device that the devil can invent and put into the heads of trai- 
 tors, seems to be brought forward to keep men out of the field, and to paralyze 
 the arms of those already there. These traitors are tolerated in high and low 
 places. It is the grasp of their hand now upon the body politic that partially 
 paralyzes our strength. They are endeavoring to enlarge their grasp. This is 
 our danger. But there were traitors in the camp of Moses, in the social family 
 of Jesus Christ ; in the army of the Revolution, and it would be wonderful if we 
 had them not now in this our country's struggle. They have ever received their 
 reward, and they will, doubtless, in the present instance. 
 
 Gentlemen, everything depends on prompt, resolute and determined action, 
 under the blessing of God. 
 
 1 am. yours. &c., F. II. PEIRPOINT.
 
 97 
 
 LETTER OF ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR., GOVERNOR OF MAINE. 
 
 ING, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMEN 
 AUGUSTA, July 12th, 1862. 
 
 STATE OF MAINE, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 
 Charles Gould, Esq. : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have received your invitation to take part in a meeting of the 
 faithful citizens of New- York, to be held on the 15th instant. While on that 
 day 1 can serve the cause, in the interest of which the meeting is called, only by 
 attending to the duties which crowd upon me here, my heart and hopes will be 
 with the good and earnest men who will come together at that time in the vast 
 metropolis, to speak to the American people of the demands and necessities of the 
 hour. The country is in danger, but it can and must be saved. -Let the people 
 but perceive the greatness and imminence of the peril, and they will rise to the 
 height of every sacrifice that is required of them. Never before were they so 
 appealed to by all that is strongest and noblest in manly hearts. The necessity 
 is upon them to fight for their homes, for honor, and for life. Let the coward 
 blanch if he must ; let the faint-hearted fail in the hour of his country's agony, 
 and let the miscreant traitor consent that this fair heritage all the gains of all 
 the ages the hope of future generations, of the millions yet to be liberty, civil- 
 ization, " the thousand years of peace " all, all, shall be cast away and lost, 
 utterly and forever the true and patriotic men will unite in one earnest, resolute, 
 devoted, and successful effort to crush out a revolt so causeless and wicked as to 
 whiten by the contrast all previous crimes in the history of nations. 
 
 The struggle must be short, sharp and decisive. ; for in a war like this, tempo- 
 rizing is waste, and timidity is cruelty. Every lawful expedient and means which 
 the Government can lay hold of, to put down this rebellion, must be used ; and 
 every man in the country, without respect to race or complexion, who can aid in 
 this work, must be employed for the sake of every other man. 
 
 Tour meeting is called, primarily, to arouse the country to the duties of the 
 crisis; and so certain is it to accomplish this end, that it may assure the Admin- 
 istration at Washington, that if this Government is to be broken up, it will not 
 be by reason of any neglect or fault of the people. 
 
 I have the honor to be, very truly, 
 
 Tour obedient servant, 
 
 ISRAEL WASHBURN, JR. 
 
 LETTER OF CHARLES S. OLDEN, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSET. 
 
 SEY, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMEN 
 TRENTON, July lth, 1862. 
 
 STATE OF NEW JERSEY, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 I have duly received your invitation to attend a meeting of the citizens of 
 New- York, to be held on the loth inst. My official duties are so pressing and 
 incessant that I am compelled to decline it. 
 
 At such a time as this it is the plain duty of every citizen to devote his time, 
 his money, and his influence to the support of the Government ; if it is not now 
 sustained, our property, our lives, and our liberties are at the mercy of treason- 
 able and dissolute factions. 
 
 The influence of your city upon the public sentiment of the country is justly 
 great. The patriotic action of the proposed meeting of your citizens, while it 
 will be highly appreciated by the Government, will produce the most favorable 
 effect among the people, by cheering the patriotic, encouraging the timid, and 
 
 awing the disloyal. 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 CHARLES S. OLDEN. 
 
 Messrs. JAMES W. WHITE, GEO. OPDTKE, and others Sslect Committee.
 
 98 
 
 LETTER OF A. W. BRADFORD, GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND. 
 
 STATE OP MARYLAND, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 ANNAPOLIS, July 14th, 1862. f 
 
 Hon. James W. White, George Opdyke, and others, Committee, fyc. 
 
 GENTLEMEN,- I am honored with your invitation, just received, to attend and 
 address a mass meeting, to-morrow evening, in your city, of " all parties who are 
 in favor of supporting the Government in the prosecution of the war," <fcc. 
 
 My own engagements at present, connected chiefly with objects similar to 
 those contemplated by your Convention, and particularly in promoting by all 
 possible means a prompt response to the late call for volunteers, will, much to 
 my regret, compel me to forego the pleasure of attending your meeting. 
 
 With my most cordial wishes for your complete success, and the speedy ac- 
 complishment of the object we have in common at heart, 
 
 I am, with great respect, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. W. BRADFORD. 
 
 LETTER OF RICHARD YATES, GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS. 
 
 STATE OF ILLINOIS, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 SPRINGFIELD, July 22d, 1862. j 
 
 Charles Gould, Esq., Sec'y, SfC , New-York City : 
 
 SIR, Your invitation to attend the Union mass meeting in your city, on the 
 15th inst., did not reach me until that day. 
 
 It would have afforded me much pleasure to have met the patriotic citizens of 
 the Empire State on that occasion, and interchange with them views upon the 
 conduct of the war, and the best means to be employed in bringing it to a speedy 
 and successful issue. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, <tc., 
 
 RICHARD YATES, 
 
 Got: of Illinois. 
 
 LETTER OF WILLIAM A. BUCKINGHAM, GOVERNOR OF 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 STATE OF CONNECTICUT, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 NORWICH, July 14^, 1862. j 
 
 Charles Gould, Esq., fyc. : 
 
 SIR, Your favor of the llth inst. is at hand, inviting me to attend, on the 
 15th inst., a meeting of all parties who are in favor of supporting the Govern- 
 ment and suppressing the rebellion. 
 
 While public duties will detain me in this State, I beg leave to assure you of 
 my cordial approval of the object of the meeting, and my undiminished" confi- 
 dence that the citizens of this Commonwealth will ever be found co-operating 
 with those of other States, in support of the Government, and that, under God, 
 they will be successful in rescuing it from the power of the rebels, restore peace, 
 and secure a higher degree of civil liberty than we have hitherto enjoyed. 
 
 I am. very respectfully, your obedient sen-ant, 
 
 WM. A. BUCKINGHAM.
 
 99 
 
 LETTER OF A. G. CURTIN, GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ) 
 
 HARRISBURG, PA., July 15th 1862. J 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 My duties here will prevent me from being present at your meeting in New- 
 York to-morrow, at which I should have been glad, if circumstances had per- 
 mitted me, to assist. 
 
 Pennsylvania has shown by her conduct how heartily she sympathizes with her 
 sister loyal States. Our people regard this rebellion as a vile treason, devoid of 
 all excuse or palliation, the hideous offspring of the malignity and spite which 
 bad men in inferior and semi-barbarous societies entertain against communities 
 which have surpassed them in all the elements of comfort, welfare and civiliza- 
 tion. I think the popular mind is fixed in the belief, that the one great present 
 need is a due appreciation by our Government of the fact, that we are at war, 
 and that it is its duty to use all the means for success which are recognized by 
 the established laws of war, and especially to use freely for military purposes 
 every man on the"! soil of the rebellious States who is willing to serve us. It 
 is silly to waste our resources in the mere parade of war ; we can arrive at no 
 good result if that course be longer pursued. 
 
 Repeating the expression of my regret at being unable to assist at your 
 patriotic assemblage, 
 
 I am, gentlemen, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. G. CURTIN. 
 
 LETTER OF PRESTON KING, SENATOR FROM NEW-YORK. 
 
 WASHINGTON, July llth, 1862. 
 Messrs. James White, Geo. Opdyke, and others : 
 
 GENTLEMEN, Your invitation to me to address a mass meeting of all parties 
 who are in favor of supporting the Government, in the prosecution of the war 
 and suppressing the rebellion, to be held in the city of New- York, on Tuesday, 
 the 15th instant, is received. My whole heart is in the cause your meeting is 
 called to promote, and I wish I could be there, but public engagements here, that 
 I cannot put aside, prevent my attendance. I thank you for the invitation. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 PRESTON KING. 
 
 LETTER OF LOT M. MORRILL, SENATOR FROM MAINE. 
 
 SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON, July \th 1862. 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 Bv your favor of the llth instant, I am informed that, " at a Convention of 
 Commitees severally appointed by the Common Council of this city ; by the 
 Chamber of Commerce of the State of New-York ; by the Union Defence Com- 
 mittee and by bodies of loyal citizens of this city, it was resolved to hold, on 
 Tuesday the 15th instant, a mass meeting of all parties who are in Favor of sup- 
 portin- the Government in the prosecution of the war, and suppressing the re- 
 bellion and to express, without reference to any party question whatever, their 
 undiminished confidence in the justice of the cause, and their inflexible determi-' 
 nation to sustain it, and to that end to proffer to the government the.r aid to the 
 extent of all their resources;" and am invited to be present "to address the 
 meeting upon its objects, and in the spirit in which it is convened.
 
 100 
 
 While official duties here compel me to decline the invitation, I cannot for- 
 bear Ihe expression, in a brief note, of my unqualified commendation of the spirit 
 and purpose of such a resolution, emanating from such a source. In this hour of 
 peril, the country will hail it with exultation ; its lofty purpose and sentiment of 
 patriotic devotion, will reanimate every loyal heart throughout the land. Assailed 
 by a malignant domestic enemy, and menaced by " the malcontent and desperate " 
 everywhere, the Government requires from all its friends, what you generously 
 tender unconditional and unwavering support, " in the prosecution of the war and 
 suppressing the rebellion." As no government was ever so beneficent, so liberal, 
 so just, so none ever had such claims for support. Self-preservation, the dictates 
 of prudence, the promptings of humanity, alike demand that the war should be 
 conducted with terrible energy with that overmastering vigor which comes from 
 the united efforts of a great people intent upon the vindication of the right. In 
 this great national trial, reliance, under Providence, is upon the people. They 
 need not only to be steadfast in their confidence of the justice of the cause, but 
 united in its maintenance. May a generous enthusiasm for country animate all 
 hearts, and the inspiration of a common purpose enable a firm and united people, 
 with the pride of American citizens, to assert that, in spite of foes, domestic or 
 foreign, " the great Republic " still lives, and shall survive as the rich legacy of 
 the past and the hope of the future. 
 
 Very respecefully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 LOT M. MORRILL. 
 
 Hon. JAMES W. WHITE, and others, Committee. 
 
 LETTER OF CHARLES SUMNER, SENATOR FROM MASSACHU- 
 SETTS. 
 
 SENATE CHAMBER, WASHINGTON, July 14th, 1862, 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 I welcome and honor your patriotic efforts to arouse the country to a 
 generous, determined, irresistible unity in support of our Government"; but 
 the Senate is still in session, and my present post of duty is here. A senator cannot 
 leave his post more than a soldier. But, absent or present, the cause in which 
 the people are to assemble has my God speed earnest, devoted, affectionate, 
 from the heart. What I can do, let me do. There is no work which 1 will not 
 undertake, there ia nothing which I will not renounce, if so I may serve my 
 country. There must be unity of hands and of hearts, too, that the republic 
 may be lifted to the sublime idea of a true commonwealth, which, we are told, 
 " ousht to be as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth and stature of 
 an honest man, as big and compact in virtue as in body." Oh. sir, if my feeble 
 voice could reach my fellow-countrymen in their workshops, in the streets, in the 
 fields, and wherever they meet together ; if for one moment I could take to my 
 lips the silver trumpet whose tones should sound and reverberate throughout the 
 land, I would summon all, forgetting prejudice and turning away from error, to 
 help unite, quicken and invigorate our common country most beloved now that 
 it is most imperiled to a compactness and bigness of virtue in just proportion 
 to its extended dominion, so that it should be as one huge Christian personage, 
 one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, instinct with all the singleness 
 of unity. Thus inspired, the gates of hell cannot prevail against us. To this 
 end the cries of faction must be silenced, and the wickedness of sedition, whether 
 "in print or in public speech, must be suppressed. These are the Northern 
 allies of the rebellion. An aroused and indignant people, with iron heel, ought 
 to tread them out forever, as men tread out the serpent, so that it can neither 
 hiss nor sting. With such a concord God will be pleased, and he will fight for us ;
 
 101 
 
 he will give quickness to our armies, so that the hosts of the rebellion will be 
 broken and scattered as by the thunderbolt ; and he will give to our beneficent 
 Government that blessed inspiration, better than any newly raised levies, by 
 which the rebellion shall be struck in its single vulnerable part, by which that 
 colossal abomination which was its orignal mainspring and is its present motive 
 power shall be overthrown ; and by which the cause of the Union shall be linked 
 with that Divine justice whose weapons are of celestial temper. God bless our 
 country ! and God bless all who now serve it with singleness of heart ! 
 
 I have the honor to be, dear sir, 
 Your faithful servant, 
 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 LETTER OF M. F. ODELL, REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW- YORK. 
 
 WASHINGTON, July I4tk, 1862. 
 Charles Gould, Secretary, and otheis. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, I am in receipt of your invitation to attend and address a mass 
 meeting to be held to-morrow, the loth inst., in New- York city. 
 
 It would be my pleasure to attend, but my duties here will prevent. You 
 propose a gathering of men of all parties. Never, in my judgment, since the 
 first rebel gun was fired, have there been reasons so strong as at this hour when 
 all loyal and patriotic men should combine their energies to crush out, and put 
 down forever, the foes of the Union. Whatever may have been our differences 
 of opinion in relation to measures or policy, it must be evident to all good men, 
 that this country can be saved and the Union maintained, by sustaining the gov- 
 ernment in its efforts to put down this rebellion. I have no doubt as to the 
 results of this conflict. Our cause is just and right, and I believe there is a de- 
 termination deep down in the hearts of the people to crush out this monster ; 
 hence I have confidence that men and means will be forthcoming as they are 
 needed. I believe further, that it will be done with no compromises, until the 
 last rebel shall ground his arms. 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 
 M. F. ODELL. 
 
 LETTER OF EDWARD HAIGHT, REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
 NEW-YORK. 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY, July 14th, 1862. 
 Charles Gould, Esq., Sec'y of Select Committee, a'fid otliers: 
 
 GENTLEMEN, I am just in receipt of your invitation to attend a meeting of 
 loyal citizens, on Tuesday next, and only regret that my duties here will prevent 
 my being present in person. I most heartily, however, accord with the emphatic 
 language of the call, and have no doubt, as to the hearty and cheerful response 
 of the people to stop the life-blood' of the nation, now rapidly flowing away. 
 
 The destiny and restoration of the Union is certain, and the opportunity to 
 assist in its consummation, will be one, (if taken advantage of.) that will redound 
 to the honor and credit of the participant for ages yet to come. 
 
 To preserve the Constitution and the Union, in their unity and integrity, to 
 vindicate in every part of this Republic, one and indivisible, its supreme law, 
 should be the paramount object of every loyal citizen. 
 
 Pledging untiring exertions to accomplish that end, 
 
 I am, gentlemen, very truly, yours, 
 
 EDWARD HAIGHT, 
 
 M. C. 9th Cong. Dist., N. Y.
 
 102 
 
 LETTER OP ALFEED ELY, REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW-YORK. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ) 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., July Uth, 1862. J 
 Charles Gould, Esq. : 
 
 SIR, I duly received the letter addressed to me on the llth instant, by a Com- 
 mittee of which you are Secretary, and which was constituted by the Common 
 Council of New- York city, by the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New- 
 York, by the Union Defence Committee, and by bodies of loyal citizens of New- 
 York city, inviting me to address, to-morrow, amass meeting in your city, of all 
 parties who are in favor of supporting the Government in the prosecution of the 
 war, and suppressing the rebellion. 
 
 I regret that my public duties will not allow me to accept this invitation. 
 Congress is just upon the eve of an adjournment, and the transaction of the im- 
 portant business still before it, requires that a quorum of its members should 
 remain here. 
 
 It would give me the greatest pleasure to be present to witness such an out- 
 pouring of the citizens of the commercial metropolis of the nation as I anticipate 
 from their well-tried and unshaken loyalty, to testify " their undiminished confi- 
 dence in the justice of the cause'' in which we are engaged, and " their inflexible 
 determination to sustain it." Such expressions as this mass meeting is designed 
 to give, accompanied by the " proffer to the Government," by the people of the 
 city of New- York, of " their aid to the extent of all their resources," will be of 
 incalculable benefit to the country at home and abroad. It will silence faction 
 among ourselves, and demonstrate to European powers that our front to the 
 enemy is still solid and unbroken. 
 
 Begging you to accept for yourself and the Committee, and for their several 
 constituencies, the assurances of my respect, I remain, sir, truly yours, 
 
 ALFRED ELY. 
 
 LETTER OF ROSCOE CONKLING, REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
 NEW-YORK. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ) 
 WASHINGTON, July 14th, 1862. ( 
 
 GENTLEMEN, The duties resting upon a Representative in the closing hours 
 of the present session, require me to be constantly in my seat. AVere I at liberty 
 to accept the invitation with which you have honored me, it would give me great 
 pleasure to address a mass meeting of your citizens on Tuesday next. 
 
 Although debarred the privilege of participating in your proceedings, I shall 
 regard them with an interest not likely ever again to attach to any similar occa- 
 sion. 
 
 The exigencies and demands of the hour give to public action at this moment 
 an importance which cannot now be realized. A great future is enshrouded in a 
 little period immediately before us. The fate of our country depends upon the 
 alacrity of its citizens. Your great metropolis has the leading part in the sacri- 
 fices, and the duties which await us. 
 
 The imperial position of our State never shown so conspicuously ; her resources 
 and munificence have never been so indispensable to the whole nation, as since 
 the outbreak of the present rebellion. The position New-York shall now as- 
 sume will exert a commanding influence upon the final issue of our national diffi- 
 culties, and the action of the meeting on Tuesday, will do much to awaken feel- 
 ing throughout the State. 
 
 Let the city speak in emphatic tones in favor of sparing nothing that stands in 
 the way of crushing treason at home, and repelling insolence from abroad. The 
 meeting is timely, and I wish it complete success. 
 
 I have the honor to be, your obedient sen-ant, 
 
 ROSCOE CONKLING. 
 
 Hon. JAMES W. WHITE, and others, Committee.
 
 103 
 
 LETTER OF SCHUYLER COLFAX, REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
 
 INDIANA. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ) 
 WASHINGTON CITY, July Utlt, 1862. j 
 MY DEAR SIR : 
 
 I thank you for the honor conferred on me by the Committee of which you are 
 Secretary, inviting me to address the meeting of the loyal citizens of my native city 
 to-morrow, and assure you of my regret that public duties will prevent my attend- 
 ing. I doubt not that the Empire City will speak on that occasion in a manner 
 and with an emphasis that will be heard and heeded throughout the entire Re- 
 public, as well as beyond the Atlantic ; and that will prove that our country, 
 doubly dear to us now, not only by the sacrifices of those who founded it, but by 
 the more recent sacrifices of the brave soldiers who have defended it against 
 traitors, is dearer to us all in its hour of trial than in its brightest era of peace 
 and prosperity. 
 
 I cannot give you my opinion of the duty of this eventful hour in briefer terms 
 than the following resolution, which I had the honor to offer at a largely attended 
 Congressional caucus last Saturday evening, and which was adopted with grati- 
 fying unanimity : 
 
 " Resolved, That we hold it to be the duty of all loyal men to stand by the 
 Union in this hour of its trial to unite their hearts and hands in earnest and 
 patriotic efforts for its maintenance against those who are in arms against it to 
 sustain, with determined resolution, our patriotic President and his administra- 
 tion in their most energetic efforts for the prosecution of the war and the preser- 
 vation of the Union against enemies at home and abroad to punish traitors and 
 treason with fitting severity and to so crush the present wicked and causeless 
 rebellion that no flag of disunion shall ever again be raised over any portion of 
 the Republic. That, to this end, we invite the co-operation of all men who love 
 their country in the endeavor to rekindle throughout all the States such a patriotic 
 fire as shall utterly consume all who strike at the Union of our Fathers, and all 
 who sympathize with their treason or palliate their guilt." 
 
 Very truly, yours,' 
 
 SCHUYLER COLFAX. 
 
 CHAS. GOULD, Esq., Secretary, fyc., fyc. 
 
 LETTER FROM COMMODORE ANDREW H. FOOTE. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, July l\th, 1862. 
 MY DEAR SIR : 
 
 Your kind letter, as a member of the committee on invitations and speakers at 
 the mass meeting to be held in New- York, on Tuesday next, for the purpose of 
 inciting a deeper interest in the public mind toward the prompt supply of men 
 and means for crushing this atrocious rebellion, has been received. 
 
 I deeply regret that an imperative sense of duty to the Government, as well ae 
 to myself, prevents my complying with your invitation to be present and address 
 the citizens of the great metropolis on such a momentous occasion. Still suffer- 
 ing from the effects of my wound received at Fort Donelson, although rapidly 
 improving in health, my physicians have enjoined upon me the necessity of 
 repose of mind and body for the present, as essential in enabling me to return at 
 an early day to active service in the war. 
 
 We owe it to our honor as a nation, to our children and posterity, to transmit 
 to them, if needs be with our blood and treasure, the preservation of the most 
 free and beneficent government ever established upon the earth. Shall the 
 North, with her twenty millions and untold resources, pusillanimously yield to 
 six millions of miserable rebels in arms ? No ! death itself would be preferable
 
 104 
 
 to men who have any claim to manhood. Let every citizen, then, rush to the 
 field, or furnish a substitute, to enable the heroic and accomplished leader of the 
 Army of the Potomac, who is now awaiting reinforcements only, to strike the 
 final blow in crushing forever this atrocious rebellion. 
 
 Let the ladies of New- York continue to give their support to this glorious 
 cause. They are all potent in persuasive influence ; but in instances where this 
 fails, let them decline spurn the attentions of all young men who remain at 
 home when they might be in the fight vindicating the honor of our flag, until 
 these young men shall present themselves as having done their part on the 
 battle-field toward transmitting the rich legacy of such a Government as the indo- 
 mitable courage of the fathers of our republic have bequeathed to their children. 
 
 Let the North but appreciate the crisis, and trusting in the God of battles, we 
 will hurl defiance at our enemies, internal and external. 
 
 I am, respectfully, and very truly, yours, 
 
 ANDREW H. FOOTE. 
 
 CHAS. GOULD, Esq., New- York. 
 
 LETTER OF GEN. LEWIS WALLACE. 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y., July Vith, 1862. 
 Chas. Gould, Esq., Secretary, etc. 
 
 DEAR SIR, -The note from the Select Committee inviting me to address the 
 meeting in your city on the 15th instant, has just reached me. 
 I regret it did not come in time to enable me to comply. 
 The army needs recruitment badly, and I am greatly pleased at the manner it 
 is taken hold of in New- York. 
 
 Be kind enough to inform the committee why their favor was not sooner an- 
 swered. Very respectfully, sir, 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 LEWIS WALLACE. 
 
 LETTER OF A. D. BACHE, SUPERINTENDENT OF UNITED 
 STATES COAST SURVEY. 
 
 COAST SURVEY OFFICE, ) 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., July 14th, 1862. f 
 GENTLEMEN- : 
 
 I thank you cordially for the opportunity you give me of being present at the 
 meeting of " loyal citizens," on Tuesday, the 15th instant. Every one of your 
 watchwords touch the very depths of my heart. No party, but the whole 
 country. A union of all for the support of the Government in an energetic 
 prosecution of the war for the suppression of the rebellion. Undiminished 
 confidence in the justice of the cause. Inflexible determination to sustain it. 
 Aid to the Government to the extent of all resources of mind, body and estate. 
 How must such words stir the souls of all loyal citizens ! How much I regret 
 that I may not, consistently with pressing duties, enjoy the enthusiasm of this 
 mass meeting. 
 
 The corps to which I belong is dispersed among the army and navy expe- 
 ditions in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana, lending 
 the aid of their minute local knowledge freely to the army and navy expeditions. 
 After this service they will be ready to continue maps of the coast and to con- 
 tribute personal information which will be useful in case of intervention, as that 
 already contributed has been against rebellion. All these men would be de- 
 lighted to be counted as particles in the mass meeting of loyal citizens. All unite 
 with me in three times three cheers for the watchwords of your committee. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 A. D. BACHE. 
 
 JAMES W. WHITE, GEORGE OPDVKE, SAMUEL SLOAN. PROSPER M. WETMORE, 
 DEXNTNU DUER. CHARLES GOITLD. Select Committee.
 
 105 
 
 LETTER FROM REV. II. W. BELLOWS, PRESIDENT OF SAN- 
 ITARY COMMISSION. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., July 12th, 1862. 
 /. W. White, Geo. Opdyke. fa 
 
 GENTLEMEN-, I regret that my previous engagements, which carry me to 
 another section of our troubled country, will not permit me to accept your invi- 
 tation to address the people of Xew-York at the mass meeting of loyal citizens 
 on the 15th instant. I should rejoice to participate in that important meeting. 
 The masses are tlie great constituents of those who are waging this defence of 
 democratic institutions against the assaults of the proudest aristocracy in the 
 world. It is not slavery, but the aristocratic spirit of feudalism, which simply 
 finds its accidental expression in negro slavery, which is now making its last and 
 most bloody struggle (in modern history) in this civil war. We are fighting the 
 poor man's, the working-man's, the foreign emigrant's, the mechanic's, ihe clerk's 
 battle. Their last battle for political and social equality. Feudalism on the other 
 side of the water, in all her various shapes French, English, and Austrian hates 
 our prospect of success, and loves every rebel who strikes us with bullet or bayonet, 
 as if he were in her own employ. But, if we have the aristocrats of the whole 
 world against us. we have the people of the whole world with us ! We are fight- 
 ing against thrones and principalities and powers fighting for equal rights, the 
 poor man's liberties, the dignity of labor, and the principle of self-government. 
 We are fighting for the gospel of Christ, in its political expression, against the 
 religions of caste and the hierarchies of birth and blood. When the people know 
 this, every man will drop his quill, his last, his spade, his hammer his hod, his 
 ledger, his comfort, his party prejudices, his home and his fortune, to enlist! 
 That is the thing to do, and to do at once. It is the only practical proof of 
 patriotism that ought to be accepted from an able-bodied man, between twenty 
 and forty, at this crisis of liberty and democratic existence. 
 
 Yours, with utmost sympathy, 
 
 H. W. BELLOWS. 
 
 LETTER OF EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 BOSTON, 14th July, 1862. 
 Charles Gould, Esq. : 
 
 DEAR SIR, I received, a moment since, a copy of your circular of the llth, 
 inviting me to attend a mass meeting of loyal citizens, of all parties, in New-York, 
 to-morrow. It would give me great pleasure, if it were in my power, to take part 
 in a meeting, called in the great Metropolis of the Union, for the patriotic pur- 
 poses indicated in the circular ; but my official duty as a member of the Board 
 of Overseers of Harvard College, requires me to be at Cambridge on Commence- 
 ment day, the 1 6th. 
 
 New-York needa no voice from abroad to cheer her in the path of duty, at this 
 momentous crisis. 
 
 I remain, dear sir very respectfully, yours, 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 LETTER OF JOHN A KING. 
 
 JAMAICA, L. I., Jidij 14th, 1862. 
 
 Charles Goidd, Esq., Secretary of Committee of Loyal Citizens: 
 
 DEAR SIR, I beg to acknowledge and thank you for the invitation to address 
 
 the meetinf of loyal citizens, to-morrow afternoon, in the city of New- York. Con- 
 curring fully in the patriotic object and purposes of the meeting, I hope to be 
 present on the occasion, but must ask to be excused from taking an active part 
 in the proceedings of the meeting. 
 
 With great respect, your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN A. KING. 
 
 14
 
 106 
 
 LETTER OF LYMAN TREMAIN. 
 
 ALBANY, July 1M, 1862. 
 GENT. : 
 
 I am in receipt of your invitation to address the mass meeting to be held on 
 the 15th instant. 
 
 Tt gives me great pleasure to learn that such a meeting is called. I trust it 
 will be worthy of the great city where it will be held, worthy of the occasion, and 
 of the noble cause in whose service it will be convened. 
 
 I regret to say that an engagement to address a similar meeting in this city, 
 the same evening, will put it beyond my power to attend. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 LYMAN TREMAIN. 
 CHAS. GOULD, Esq , Sec. tyc. 
 
 LETTER OF WM. M. EVARTS. 
 
 WINDSOR, VT., July I5tk, 1862. 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 The invitation of your committee to address the great meeting, to be held to- 
 day, in the city of New-York, reached me too late for this answer, even, to be in 
 time for the occasion. 
 
 The enthusiastic rally at Union Square, on the twentieth of April of last year, 
 demonstrated the wisdom and courage of our people in instantly meeting the 
 war, which had been opened against the Government by the armed rebellion, 
 with all the strength and energy which thorough and united purpose and abun- 
 dant material resources could supply. From that moment the people have 
 taken no step backward, and there has been more occasion for solicitude that 
 they would run over the Government than that they would not keep up 
 with its movements and demands. I have no fears now, that the response of the 
 people to the new call for troops, will be either sluggish or inadequate. 
 
 Whether in the past, the Government has fully understood the stern simplicity 
 of this contest to which only two issues, the destruction of its enemy or of itself, 
 were ever possible ; whether it has recognized its true enemy the rebel aristo- 
 cracy and appreciated the depth and force of the passions and interests which 
 have stimulated their hatred and support their hostilities ; whether it has wisely 
 and effectively employed the immense power which the devotion of the people 
 has laid at its feet ; these are questions unsuited to the situation of our affairs. 
 " Forgetting the things that are behind." we " must press forward," and be satisfied 
 with knowing and insisting that, in the future, the sentiments and action of the 
 Government will be, and shall be, clear, decisive and concentrated ; seeking, what 
 thus seeking it is sure to accomplish, the rapid and complete reduction, by 
 military power, of the revolted territory and population to allegiance to their and 
 our Constitution. 
 
 I know that there are loyal, intelligent and earnest lovers of their country, 
 who conceive that they have no part or heart in this war, if it be not so directed 
 that the social institution of slavery shall not survive it, and others who imagine 
 that they will not help put down the rebellion if slavery is to fall with it. But 
 these opinions govern no considerable number of the loyal population ; and, indeed, 
 if those who profess the one or the other of them, were put to the test, 1 am 
 persuaded that the Flag and the Constitution would lose few of them as 
 defenders. 
 
 And now it is proclaimed, as with a trumpet, throughout the land, to rebels 
 and to loyal men alike, that the burden and the heat of the war are upon us ; 
 that our manhood and our birthright are in the issue ; and that the suu which
 
 107 
 
 sets upon this day of our trial, will look upon us a proud, a happy, a free, a pow- 
 erful nation, or a rent, distracted, crushed, despised people. 
 
 How foolish and feeble a conception of the fates that this war carries, have 
 they, who regard it as a contest involving, only, tlie extent of territory and of 
 population which our Government shall maintain dominion over. A mutilated 
 territory and a dismembered people are results sufficiently intolerable to our 
 pride and our interests. But the disastrous event of this war stops at no 
 such measure of calamity. The Federal Constitution itself will have been rent 
 in twain, and the fabric of our National liberties will have passed away as a 
 scroll. The noble heritage which the wisdom and courage of heroic ancestors 
 gained for us will have been wrested from our feeble and faithless hands. For 
 this, our self-abasement, there will be "no cure, no after-health, no pardon." 
 
 I believe that the people understand this momentous issue, and that their 
 hearts thrill with the intensity of the emotions its contemplation begets. Have 
 we, by Divine favor, the power to avert this ruin and maintain the life of the 
 Nation ? This power can be none other than military and financial resources, 
 and the wisdom and courage to apply them. 
 
 The mass of the population supporting the Government, and counting as the 
 supply of its military and financial strength, numbers about twenty-three mil- 
 lions, of which something like a million are slaves. The mass of the population 
 arrayed in revolt is over eight millions, of which three millions are slaves. We 
 thus stand four to one of the free population of the country, for the Govern- 
 ment. Are these five millions of free whites, mounted on the shoulders of three 
 million black slaves, able to predominate over our twenty millions of free whites, 
 in battle and in war, as they have done in politics and in peace ? If they are, 
 they had better be dismounted. 
 
 But the question carries its own answer. If, on our part, the battles are still 
 political, and the war peaceful, this treason will overthrow our Government. If 
 we are to save the lives, the property, the feelings and the pride of the rebels, 
 and waste only the lives, the courage and the strength of the loyal people, we 
 are the allies of the rebels, not their enemies, and undermine, from within, the 
 citadel, which they assault from without. 
 
 If, on the other hand, we will dismiss politics and peace from our minds and 
 from our hearts ; if our advancing armies shall treat the population in revolt, 
 whether black or white, slave or free, as war groups them as rebel or as loyal, as 
 hostile or as submissive ; if the Government will execute the simple policy, " par- 
 cere subjectis, debellare superbos," root out the haughty aristocracy that urges on 
 the rebellion, and spare the abject followers it has cheated and forced into its 
 support, " the hand of the Government will be in the neck of its enemies." We 
 shall see this treason crouch and cower under the thunderbolts of war, and the 
 leaders of the revolt strangled in the cruel rage with which the terrified and suf- 
 fering masses will seek for victims, to save themselves and make peace with the 
 Government. 
 
 Thus far the weakness of our sentiments has been the strength of the rebel- 
 lion. The battles of the Peninsula so glorious to our soldiery have made 
 any further feebleness of purpose, or random aim, impossible, but at the cost of 
 the nation's life. The Government and the people are now thoroughly aroused, 
 thoroughly informed. Our rulers will lead, and we shall follow, fast and far. 
 Everything is full of courage and strength, and the tide of WAR will never ebb 
 till we are, atiin, one people, with one Constitution and one destiny. 
 
 I canno't be at your meeting, but in the earnest and patriotic activity which 
 will there receive new impulse, I shall give every aid of time, of money, and of 
 labor which shall be in my power. 
 
 I am, with great respect to yourself and the Committee, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WM. M. EVABTS. 
 
 To CHAS. GOULD, Esq., Secretary, $c.
 
 108 
 
 LETTER OF JAMES T. BRADY. 
 
 NEW-YORK, July 15th, 1862. 
 Hon. George Opkyke: 
 
 DEAR SIR. I regret that I will not be able to address my fellow-citizens at the 
 Union Meeting called for this afternoon, being troubled with an affection of the 
 throat, which prevents my making such an eifort as would be required to speak 
 before a large assemblage, in the open air. 
 
 I am sorry that some of our countrymen are so prone to despond or complain, 
 because we do not triumph in every encounter with our opponents, and that the 
 appreciation of great victories in the past, is lost in mourning over the discom- 
 fitures of the hour. 
 
 It is quite likely that errors have been committed in the conduct of the present 
 war. By whom, when, and how, will all be certainly made known hereafter. We 
 have no time now for lamentations or complaints. The whole of our thoughts and 
 efforts should be applied in vigorously devoting the power of the present, so as to 
 secure prosperity in the future. We are engaged in a war with men who display a 
 fierce resolution to overcome us by force of arms. If we do not defeat them, they 
 will defeat us. Our course is, therefore, very plain. We should cheerfully and ener- 
 getically sustain the Government in putting down the rebellion, and restoring our 
 national authority. For this purpose more men are required. They must and 
 will be furnished. No fear of consequences, such as might offend our political 
 opinions, should for one moment obstruct this exhibition of loyalty. We did not 
 invite nor begin the war. We sought to prevent a calamity so dire It is the 
 work of ambitious and bad leaders at the South, whose defeat and disgrace will 
 surely come. When we succeed, as we ultimately shall, then, and not before, 
 will be the time to decide upon all the grave political questions which may arise 
 out of the conflict now progressing, or the cause which produced it. The su- 
 premacy of our laws is indispensable to ensure a full and free discussion of those 
 questions at the South. It is quite obvious that we must have more troops, not 
 only to meet the present exigencies, but also to provide for those which may 
 hereafter arise. It is well to prepare for foreign intervention, although I see 
 little cause for apprehending such an occurrence. France is not in a condition 
 to neglect her own affairs, and attend to ours. England has not for many years 
 shown much eagerness to engage in hostilities with a formidable power. I am 
 loth to believe that any large number of the English people will be found as ma- 
 lignant, false, or vacillating as the London Times. Jf intervention by a foreign 
 government is ever to happen, I wish it would occur now, while our people have 
 their military spirit aroused. Such a wicked assault upon us would call into the 
 field every man on our soil who was capable of bearing arms. And it is not 
 likely that if France, for the first time, appeared as our enemy, in a foul alliance 
 with Britain, the continent would look on with entire indifference, and furnish us 
 no aid against ancient enemies. Let us have an army under whose protection we 
 can safely and decently announce, that while we seek no quarrel with any nation, 
 neither will we avoid one, when to do so would, in the slightest degree, impair our 
 strength, prosperity, or honor. 
 
 For my own part, I have confidence in the intelligence, patriotism and judg- 
 ment of the President and his cabinet, although in saying this I do not mean to 
 assert that the course adopted by him or them has, in every instance, been the 
 wisest or best for the occasion. I have confidence in General McCIellan. I 
 know that, however foes or slanderers may assail him, he has, and will have, to 
 sustain him in every event, the gratitude, admiration, and love of the masses. 
 Time will confirm this statement, if there be now one reason to discredit it. 
 
 I have no doubt, whatever, that we are to win the fight in which we are engaged. 
 It may be protracted : it may involve unparalleled outlay of treasure, loss of life, 
 and suffering. But, dreadful as these consequences are, we must encounter them 
 all to preserve the republic, keep unsullied the honor of our flag, and prevent the 
 coming of a time when it may truly be said that there is no such power on earth 
 as " The United States of America/'
 
 109 
 
 We are solving the great problem whether a free government, founded on th 
 free action of the people, can be permanently maintained. In the solution of that 
 question, it is not alone the American people, or this generation, that is interested. 
 It deeply concerns the whole world. It is to affect the happiness of races and 
 generations to come. That is one reason why the natives of so many lands nobly 
 unite with the American, in the struggle for our success. Let all who feel a 
 desire that we should triumph, forget everything else in the enthusiastic en- 
 deavor to make that triumph certain. 
 
 Tours, truly, 
 
 JAMES T. BEADY. 
 
 LETTER OF EIOHARD BUSTEED, ESQ. 
 
 NEW-YOKK, July 12th, 1862, [ 
 237 BROADWAY, j 
 
 Hon. James W. White, Geo. Opdyke, Samuel Sloan, Prosper M. Wetmore, Denning 
 Duer, Charles Gould, Select Committee, fyc. : 
 
 GENTLEMEN, I regret it is not in my power to accept your invitation to ad- 
 dress the mass meeting to be held in this city on the 15th inst. Circumstances 
 wholly beyond my control, will prevent me the pleasure I would derive from 
 being present to swell the chorus of patriotism which on that day will arise from 
 the great heart of loyal New- York, in support of the Government, and in unmis- 
 takable rebuke of treason and traitors at home, and maligners and meddlers 
 abroad. 
 
 Be assured, gentlemen, of my entire sympathy in the movement. I regard it 
 as a step in the right direction, and rejoice that there is among our people, an 
 "inflexible determination to sustain" the Government, without reference to 
 mere political views, and looking only to the re-establishment of its power over 
 every acre of its soil, and every one of its subjects. 
 
 The time is when party must be lost sight of in the higher claims of duty and 
 fealty to country. Who falters now in these, let him henceforward be distrusted, 
 let his name be a byword and a scorn, let him live in shame and die in dishonor. 
 Let it be understood and declared that, 
 
 " Freedom's soil has only place 
 For a free and fearless race ; 
 None for traitors false and base." 
 
 In this terrible struggle for life, we must not fail. Our shortcoming would 
 justly be accounted treason to the race, and impiety to God. We cannot fail 
 but by being false to the commonest instincts of honor and pride. Let no true 
 man carp now. No real patriot will retard the success of our cause either by 
 personal supineness, or by indulging in criticisms upon the Government, which 
 have the effect of antagonisms. Let it be left to our enemies to cavil, while we 
 bear proudly aloft, and hold up to the wistful gaze of the world, the standard of 
 Constitutional Freedom, symbolized .by an unimpaired American nationality. 
 
 With great respect, 
 
 Your fellow-citizen, 
 
 RICHARD BUSTEED.
 
 110 
 
 LETTER OF REV. J. P. THOMPSON. 
 
 No. 32 WEST THIRTY-SIXTH STREKT, ) 
 July Uth, 4 P. M., 1862. [ 
 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 The invitation of the Select Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, to ad" 
 dress the mass meeting at Union Square, to-morrow, has just come to hand- 
 Most gladly would I contribute in any way to the object of that meeting the 
 support of the Government in suppressing the rebellion an object to which I 
 am ready to devote time, means, labor, children, whatever I possess or can in- 
 fluence for so great a cause. All that is dear to us for ourselves and our chil- 
 dren, all that is dear to us as friends of freedom and of humanity, all that is dear 
 to us as Christians, seeking to establish and to perfect upon this western conti- 
 nent a civilization founded upon public virtue and equity, the fear of God and 
 the rights of man ; all of value from the past, of good in the present, of hope for 
 the future demands that this atrocious rebellion be subdued, and its more 
 atrocious cause be utterly exterminated. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 JOS. P. THOMPSON. 
 
 CHAS. GOULD, Esq. 
 
 LETTER OF GEORGE GIBBS, OF WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY, July 13th, 1862. 
 SIR: 
 
 I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation to address the 
 mass meeting of loyal citizens in Union Square, New-York, on 15th inst. I re- 
 gret that official business prevents my accepting the call. Let me assure you, 
 however, that though no one may officially represent the Territory of Washington 
 at the contemplated meeting, I can answer for the truth and fidelity of her people 
 to the Union, without question and without qualification. 
 
 I am sir, very truly, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 GEORGE GIBBS. 
 CHARLES GOULD, Esq., Secretary.
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 [From the New-York World, July 16th.] 
 
 The grand demonstration at Union Square, yesterday afternoon, was a 
 gathering in every way worthy of the great cause that had called it forth. An 
 hour previous to the time named for the meeting:, the Park was crowded with 
 men and women anxious to secure eligible positions, where they could sit in 
 the shade and listen to the music for the Union. 
 
 From the hotels and housetops, and from the churches, the stars and stripes 
 were displayed with the utmost profusion. The windows looking from the 
 residences upon all sides of the Square were thrown up, and the balconies front- 
 ing them filled with ladies and children, whose presence served greatly to add 
 to the animation of the scene below. Broadway and the other thoroughfares 
 leading to the Square were thronged with the multitudes who had closed their 
 stores and workshops to attend the meeting. Every class and trade were repre- 
 sented. The wealthy millionaire, who had left the luxuries of a well-filled table 
 and dashed up in a splendid equipage, had come prepared to counsel with the 
 hard-fisted laborer who had left mattock and spade, crow-bar and barrow, to de- 
 vise means for maintaining the Union ; and the voices of both were unanimous 
 that " it must and shall be preserved." 
 
 The stands were ranged in numerical order, beginning with No. 1, at the 
 monument, passing round the Square in a north-westerly direction, and terminat- 
 ing with No. 5. They were substantial structures, and beautifully draped witli 
 bunting, the stars and stripes being conspicuous over all. Around these the crowd 
 began to assemble at half-past three o'clock ; and from that moment the num- 
 bers increased until the hour of adjournment. The utmost enthusiasm prevailed 
 upon all sides. Bands of music were playing at intervals, and Anthon's Light 
 Battery boomed forth a welcome to the coming thousands who were marshaling 
 from town and country in a common cause. As the gathering grew more dense, 
 the cars on the Fourth Avenue Railroad ceased running it being impossible for 
 them to get through. The Broadway stages ran off their line also, the entire 
 space occupied by the Square being given up unreservedly to the purposes of the 
 meeting. Prominent in the assemblage were the veterans of the war of 1812, in 
 uniform, their swords buckled on as if ready for another contest, and their voices 
 urging the young men everywhere to enlist. 
 
 At four o'clock the workingmen from the lower wards came up en masse, and 
 shortly afterward the ''jackets of blue " from the Navy Yard made their appear- 
 ance ; also the ship-carpenters at work on the Union gun-boats, the workmen 
 from ' Singer's sewing-machine manufactory, and those employed by Henry 
 Brewster & Co. ; these latter assisting to work the Anthon Battery. 
 
 The New England Soldiers' Relief Association had two huge wagons, one 
 drawn by eight horses and the other by four horses, covered with flags, both 
 laden with patriotic hearts, anxious with the rest to help on the great cause of 
 crushing the rebellion. 
 
 It was a mass meeting in every sense of the word. The presence of 100,000 
 men stamped it as earnest, and likely to be productive of untold results. It was 
 a mass meetin" 1 in point of numbers, of wealth, of class, of respectability, arid, 
 above all of loyalty and devotion to the grand old Union. Even the boys in the
 
 112 
 
 street paraded in uniform, waving the American flag, and cheering the patriotic 
 utterances of their elders. Looking from the several stands, the eye encountered 
 a sea of faces not commonly met at great gatherings. There was an almost utter 
 absence of levity and disorder. Every countenance said plainly that its owner 
 had come there with an earnest purpose ; that the time for trifling had passed ; 
 that the great crisis was at hand ; and, by the help of God and their own right 
 arms, that they meant to meet the issue as became American freemen, worthy to 
 preserve the liberties transmitted them by their fathers. 
 
 \From the Evening Post, July 16/t.J 
 
 If the great meeting of April, 1861, was more numerous and enthusiastic than 
 that of yesterday, it was because the nation then felt the first glow of its 
 patriotic ardor. But, with the exception of that grand outbreak, no meeting 
 ever held in the city has surpassed the one of yesterday in grandeur and life. A 
 sea of men and women filled the vast spaces around Union Square, so that 
 streets, sidewalks, balconies and windows were filled, while the proceedings were 
 marked throughout by the utmost animation. In the eloquent speeches of 
 General Walbridge, Judge Daly, Dr. Hitchcock, Mr. Coddington, Delafield Smith, 
 and others, there was a noble utterance of the grand pervading sentiment of the 
 occasion. 
 
 We have given elsewhere such reports of the speeches and doings as our 
 space admits, and we design in this column merely to record impressions 
 produced upon us by a careful observation of the masses assembled. The war 
 impulse is apparently as vigorous and determined as it ever was ; the devotion of 
 the people to the Union is as strong ; but this patriotic zeal is tempered by a 
 greater thoughtfulness. A year ago we were ready to rush into battle without 
 preparation, and despising the enemy like a troop of headlong boys, who love 
 excitement and are reckless of consequences. But at this time, though we are 
 no less determined to fight, we desire to do so with a distinct object and a care- 
 ful estimate of the means. We have learned from experience that our enemy, 
 being of our own blood, is no despicable opponent ; we know his desperation ; 
 and we feel that he is only to be overcome by the most strenuous and persistent 
 efforts. We cannot play with him any longer, and if we fight him we must 
 fight him in grim and deadly earnest. We must not stand on trifles if we 
 mean to put down the rebellion speedily and forever. 
 
 The single result of this great assemblage has been to express the necessity of 
 a more active and stringent prosecution of hostilities. No other opinion was 
 uttered ; no other sentiment tolerated. A drunken fellow near Fremont's stand 
 began to mutter something about " abolitionists," but he was instantly silenced 
 by the cry that the war must go on at all hazards, and by every means in our 
 power. No one tries to revive those old partisan cries who is not in the interest 
 of secession, while loyal men and women everywhere will echo the resolve of 
 this gigantic congregation, to urge " upon the Government the exercise of its 
 utmost skill and vigor in the prosecution of this war, unity of design, compre- 
 hensiveness of plan, a uniform policy and a stringent use of all the means within 
 its reach, consistent with the usages of civilized warfare." 
 
 [From the Commercial Advertiser, July 16.] 
 
 The gathering of the loyal people of this city at Union Square, yesterday after- 
 noon, exceeded the expectations of the most sanguine. In numbers, character
 
 113 
 
 and exalted patriotism, it has had no parallel on this continent. The sight of 
 the congregated thousands was calculated to make a New-Yorker feel proud of his 
 citizenship. The unanimity of sentiment was marvelous. One loyal pulse beat 
 through the whole mass. One foolish man, apparently of foreign birth, paraded 
 the crowd with a white pocket-kerchief attached to a walking cane, and could 
 not conceal his mortification that he was met everywhere by a smile of contempt. 
 At length, however, somebody gave him a hint that he had made a fool of him- 
 self long enough, and he was glad of an excuse to " skedaddle." We have said 
 that the unanimity of the multitudinous gathering was marvelous, and we may 
 add that the universal sentiment was that the Federal Government should be 
 supported in the extremest measures that might be deemed necessary for speedily 
 as well as effectually putting down the infamous revolt of the Southern States. 
 
 One naturally connects the meeting of yesterday with the great Union meet- 
 ing held in the same place when first the news was received that the rebels of 
 Charleston had commenced war against the United States by their attack upon 
 Fort Sumter and its feeble garrison. In some respects there was a similarity 
 between the two meetings, but in other respects a material difference. That of 
 yesterday was much the larger, as we affirm on personal observation. This was 
 scarcely to be anticipated, considering what liberal contributions the Empire 
 City has made to the Federal army. The fact, however, is suggestive. In the 
 former meeting a universal excitement had suddenly seized upon the community, 
 and every man who loved his country felt all the maddening anguish of the insult 
 offered to its flag, without any realization of the sacrifice that would have to be 
 made before that insult could be properly resented and punished. Yesterday 
 loyal men came together, after having not only counted the cost of vindicating 
 the country's honor, but having themselves in their persons, their property or 
 their families, actually borne a share of such sacrifice. And yet were the people 
 yesterday even more determined and enthusiastic in their patriotism and de- 
 votion to the Union than were those in April last. 
 
 Nor can we withhold our testimony respecting another important feature of 
 yesterday's meeting. That vast multitude most unmistakably declared them- 
 s^lves in favor of increased vigor in the prosecution of the war, and of greater 
 severity of treatment to those in arms against the Federal Government. And 
 the speakers were manifestly of the same mind. All felt and said that lenity was 
 thrown away upon the vindictive men who have sought, for their own aggran- 
 dizement, the severance of this glorious Union. 'Men heretofore proverbial for 
 their conservatism public men who have in days past counseled the exhaustion 
 of all conciliatory measures that could be employed without sacrifice of dignity 
 and right on the part of the Federal Government merchants whose commercial 
 connection with the South has not unnaturally rendered them averse to extreme 
 measures against the rebels, prominent politicians, whose party sympathies and 
 party hopes have been bound up with the South all yesterday agreed and em- 
 phatically declared that the Government must no longer hesitate to employ every 
 power, the use of which is authorized by the laws of warfare, to put a speedy 
 and perpetual end to the rebellion ; and the more emphatically this purpose was 
 declared the more enthusiastic was the applause. 
 
 Another gratifying feature of the meeting was that every allusion to the ne- 
 cessity of further enlistments in the Federal army met with a no less enthusiastic 
 response, while the living mass that filled the Square told plainly that this city 
 has the material for more than its proportion of the additional forces called for. 
 No one who saw the meeting of last night and heard the yearnings and the out- 
 bursts of its patriotism can for a moment entertain any apprehension that volun- 
 teers will be lackinf to bear the banner of the Union victoriously to the ex- 
 tremest point of its Southern territory. We should have rejoiced greatly could 
 the President of the United States have^een and heard what transpired in Union 
 Park Square yesterday. He would have received a vivid and indelible impres- 
 sion of" this truth, that if he will but strike the rebellion heavily, promptly, de- 
 cisively, a popular' support will go with him that will be irresistible. 
 
 15
 
 114 
 
 [From the New-York Times, July 16th.] 
 
 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE METROPOLIS. The great popular demonstration in this 
 city, yesterday, was of a spirit and character sufficiently decided and enthusiastic. 
 It, with the April demonstration of last year, forms the second of the two largest 
 and most influential meetings ever held in New- York. It proclaimed, in unmistak- 
 able language and in clear voice, the purpose of the people in regard to the war and 
 in support of the Union and the Government. From every stand and by every 
 speaker there was but one tone ; and every man present seemed inspired by the 
 spirit of the hour. It was that the war begun by traitors must be pushed on till 
 treason is extirpated from the whole land ; that the Union which, during the year 
 has cost so much blood and treasure, must be battled for while any blood or trea- 
 sure is left in the country ; and that, to this end, the legitimate directors of the 
 war must be upheld in every effort for its successful prosecution, and impelled 
 onward by the people to greater efforts and the most decisive measures. Though 
 during the year thousands of the bravest and best of the sons of New- York have 
 given their lives for the sacred cause, there were yet thousands more ready to 
 meet the ordeal of battle for its support ; and though tens of thousands were 
 now on the battle-field in Virginia, there would be no lack of men willing to 
 follow them there or anywhere else. They were in favor of the strongest 
 measures on the part of the Government ; the most determined vigor on the 
 part of commanders ; the most unflinching prosecution of the war. The 
 most energetic words were applauded with most vehemence ; the most courage- 
 ous expressions met with the warmest response in the people's hearts. There 
 was no talk of discouragement, not the shadow of a thought of doubt of ulti- 
 mate triumphant success. Recent disasters were acknowledged and felt to be 
 but temporary and accidental ; and the long roll of victories that glorify the 
 year gave faith that the triumphs of our arms in the future would be none the 
 less prouder and decisive. 
 
 There could not have been greater unanimity displayed on the part of all 
 classes and parties in New-York. Men of every political antecedent and of 
 every soc al grade agreed and fraternized, as they have done in the past? 
 There was no thought of any sort of compromise not a man who dared to 
 propose to turn the back toward the enemy. All felt that whatever stood in the 
 nation's pathway must be broken through, and that nothing in the South nor in 
 the North was so sacred as the Unity of the Republic. On this point the 
 voice of the people, as expressed yesterday, was unmistakable. 
 
 The meeting of April, last year, was held the day after our troops had been 
 assaulted in Baltimore, and the first blood had been shed in the war. It gave 
 an impetus to volunteering and to the National cause throughout the whole 
 country ; it gave strength and vigor to the Administration, consolidated the 
 sentiment of the city, and was the first unmistakable evidence of a united 
 North. The North has remained united throughout the year, and its unity is 
 still unbroken ; and to this fact, next to the courage of our army, is owing the 
 triumphs of the past over the rebellion. This meeting gives a further expression 
 to the same purpose of the North ; and if it does as much to stimulate the 
 the country and aid the Government, it will be a success. 
 
 New-York now has had its day of talk. The next work in hand is fighting. 
 The people have spoken ; now let them buckle on the armor. There ia 
 spirit enough, courage enough, faith enough ; let there be no backwardness 
 in volunteering. Three hundred thousand troops aj:e needed needed at once. 
 Our gallant army, which marched to the field a year ago, has already done more 
 than half the work of crushing the rebellion, and restoring the Union. The 
 men required to aid in finishing the other half of the labor must hasten to do 
 it, and put the capstone of restoration on the National temple. If the masses 
 of the Metropolis act up promptly to the spirit they evinced yesterday, our 
 quota of troops will be in the field before the close of the week.
 
 115 
 
 [From the New-York Herald, July 16.] 
 
 THE CRISIS. THE VOICE OF NEW- YORK. No SACRIFICE TOO GREAT FOR THE 
 UNION. The city of New- York, en masse, has risen and spoken again for the 
 Union. Yesterday, in Union Square, we had a re-enactment of the sublime spec- 
 tacle of April, 1861, and a reaffirmation of the same patriotic spirit and deter- 
 mination of our loyal citizens" everything for the Union. 
 
 Our great day of April, -a year ago, was the response of New- York city to the 
 President's primary call for seventy-five thousand men to maintain " the integrity 
 of the Union," violently assailed by a rebellious conspiracy in the bombardment 
 of Fort Sumter ; and that indignant uprising of New-York rallied the loyal 
 North, like the call of a trumpet, to the support of the President. This second 
 grand council of our citizens, after fifteen months of war by land and sea, and 
 after the contribution by our city and State to our army and navy of not less 
 than one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, is in answer to another call of 
 the President for reinforcements to our army to the extent of three hundred 
 thousand men. Anticipating, too, from the difiusion of this imposing demon- 
 stration, such an awakening of our loyal States and people as will meet all the 
 demands of this crisis, we devote a large portion of our available space to-day to 
 the productions of this grand assemblage, in order to spread them broadcast over 
 the land, and to the encouragement of the friends of our great cause and the 
 terror of its enemies at home and abroad. 
 
 The address of this meeting and the accompanying resolutions speak authori- 
 tatively the voice of our loyal citizens. They stand upon the solid platform of 
 President Lincoln " The integrity of the Union " its supremacy, and our 
 Federal Constitution. They expose the disorganizing and anarchical elements 
 of this Southern rebellion with peculiar force its absurd and hypocritical pre- 
 tences, and its demoralizing and destructive tendencies. The address in ques- 
 tion, after fully establishing the legal supremacy of the Union and its political 
 necessities, condenses the argument into the simple impressive facts that we are 
 fighting " for the integrity of our country, for our national existence, for the 
 Christian civilization of our land, for our commerce, our arts, our schools ; for all 
 those earthly things which we have been taught most to cherish and respect." 
 
 The war, then, on our part, is to be prosecuted to the extent of our men, 
 means and resources, for the suppression of this rebellion ; and against any 
 hostile foreign intervention whatever, the Government can count on the unani- 
 mous support of our loyal States and people. Such is the spirit of the address 
 adopted by the city of New-York at this mass meeting, and the accompanying 
 resolutions are equally emphatic in defining our position. The city of New- 
 York looks to no alternative but the suppression of this rebellion. She stands 
 by our gallant armies in the field ; she is prepared for any sacrifice to reinforce 
 and strengthen them ; she approves the wise, just and consistent Union war 
 policy of President Lincoln ; she urges the Government to " lose no time in fill- 
 ing up our armies and putting the whole sea-coast in a state of complete de- 
 fence," and she knows no such word as fail. 
 
 Each of the numerous speakers on the occasion, though differing from the rest 
 more or less, supports this paramount idea of the vigorous prosecution of the 
 ;war. We submit our copious reports to the careful attention of our readers ; 
 and for their more complete information in regard to the late and the present 
 position of General McClellan's army, in this connection, we give them a very 
 interesting illustrative map of the field of war around the city of Eichmond. 
 New- York city has spoken, and while the country is responding to her cheering 
 voice let us proceed to action. Let us set an example in action by a prompt 
 contribution of twenty thousand /resh soldiers to our armies in Virginia. That 
 number we ought to be able to draw from this grand mass meeting in Union 
 Square.
 
 116 
 
 [From the New-York Tribune, July 16.] 
 
 NEW- YORK is CONSTANT. A year ago last April, our city held what was 
 probably the largest public meeting ever convened in America, to emphasize her 
 determination to stand firmly and fully by the Federal Government, in the strug- 
 gle just forced upon it by the slaveholding traitors, in devoting her last dollar 
 and musket to the maintenance of the Union, and the support of its fairly chosen 
 and rightful authorities. That meeting was unequaled in numbers, in unanimity 
 and in dauntless resolution. 
 
 Nearly fifteen mouths have since passed, and again our city has mustered her 
 tens of thousands to attest anew her devotion to the country and her cause. If the 
 first flush of enthusiasm has passed away, it has been succeeded by a graver, and 
 sterner, more inflexible resolution. At the former meeting, the hope was still 
 cherished that the traitor chiefs would be left to their own devices, and that the 
 Southern masses would compel their assent to a speedy and bloodless reunion. 
 That hope has been dissipated. Though the original and determined secessionists 
 were less than one hundred thousand in number, they have managed to bully or 
 awe the great body of the southern whites into subserviency to their treason. 
 Only from the despised, oppressed, calumniated human chattels of these rebels, 
 has the Union cause any hope of defenders in the States given over to the 
 machinations of traitors. 
 
 The meeting of yesterday was a fresh exhibition of the earnestness and 
 unanimity wherewith the Union is cherished in the hearts and hopes of our 
 citizens. But it was more than this it was an entreaty, an exhortation to the 
 Government to employ every influence, every instrument, every energy, in put- 
 ting down the slaveholders' rebellion. 
 
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 ..9 
 
 REC'D LD- 
 
 WEEKS FROM 
 
 -.* 
 
 *81 
 
 1970 
 
 Form L9-32m-8,'57(.C8680s4)444
 
 PAMPHLET BINDER 
 
 Syracuse, N. Y. ^ 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 
 * n-jiji,., 
 
 ^^^^^^' /u ' 6578 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001370930 8