The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-23 00:00:00

for the nation in a state of war, and not for the
nation in a future state of peace, that the Govern-
ment is acting, and of course that we are voting.
(Applause.) There is no question befall e you of
changing the object of the war from tt e mainte-
nance of the Union to that of abol sh"ng slavery.
Slavery is the mainspring of the rebellion. The
Government necessarily strikes it in the very
centre as well as upon every inch of its soil. (Cheers,
and cries of "It's dying out.") In my poor judge
ment the mainspring is already broken, and let the
war end when it will and as it may the fear that
that mainspring will recover its elasticity may give
us at present no uneasiness. (Cheers.) Before
the war slavery had the patronage and countenance
of the United States against the whole world. Its
inherent error, guilt, and danger are now as fully
revealed to the people of the United States as they
have heretofore been to the outside world. Before
the calamitous war in which slavery has plunged
the country shall end it will be even more hateful
to the American people than it already is to
the rest of mankind, while their condemnation of it
will remain unchanged. (Applause.) The Opposi-
tion will not succeed in misleading you, I am sure,
by telling you that you have a question of imme-
diate peace or war involved in the present issue.
War, and not peace, you have. Already, God
knows, that it is severe and painful enough. If I
could think of taxes in the face of national death,
I should say that our taxes are heavy enough. If
I could think of personal interests, affections, or
sympathies in the face of an insolent public enemy
in arms, I should say that men enough have been
maimed and slain. But when weshall have said all
these things the actual situation of the country will
still be before us unchanged. It is a state of civil
war and not of peace. (Cheers.) Persons ask nee
on every hand, "Is the war to last for ever ? '
" How long is the war to last?" I answer, the
war will not last for ever, but it must continue until
we give up the_conflict or the enemy give up the
conflict. (Cries of " That's the talk," and cheers.)
Are you prepared to give up the conflict ? (Cries
of No, never !) You say, No, never. Why ? Be%
cause in that case you give up the national life.
(Cheers.) In any and every event the nation must
live ; if you were to give up the national life you
enter in the state of national death. What that
state is, God be thanked, we do not certainly know.
He has mercifully withheld that terrible knowledge
from our keenest search and speculation. Bat we
do know that national death usually consists of
stages. The first is domestic civil war—a civil war
brought home to our own cities, to our own altars,
to our own firesides. We know by the experience
of other countries that, with occasional respites re-
sulting from exhaustion, this aggravated form of
civil war continues until a military despot is wel-
comed to arrest the effusion of blood, to restore tran-
quility and quiet, with the loss of civil, and if need
be, religious liberty. (Cheers.) This is the ter-
rible condition into which you rush to escape
from present civil war. Every one of the sup.
porters of the Administration knows this as well
as I do, and sees it as clearly. In view of calm►
mities so far transcending those we are now suffer-
ing, of course the Government will not abandon the
conflict until the majority of the people decide that
it shall be abandoned. (Applause, and cries of
" That will never be.") Oa the other hand, the enemy
will abandon their rebellion just as soon as they
shall have the undoubted assurance that it cannot
prevail. (Cheers.) They will do so for two reasons
—first, no faction can indefinitely continue a strege
gle that is hopeless ; secondly, because they give
up no national life, but they, as well as we, save
their own national existence by their defeat and
overthrow (cries of " Taat's so,"), and a better na-
tional existence than in their maddest hours of de-
lusion they have ever conceived as the result of their
unlawful enterprise. (Cheers.) Suppose, then, that
the people, as we all agree they will, support the
Administration by their suffrage to-morrow. The
rebels then have the assurance of the American
people, made upon a full rehearsing of the merits of
the controversy, upon appeal and full examination
of results thus far obtained, with the relative forces
of the parties yet remaining in reserve, that the
conflict is not to be abandoned on our part. (Tre-
mendous cheers.) In all our athletic games, three
times success in five trials gives the victory—two
decisions following each other is Equal to three in
five. You have already abundant evidences of the
exhaustion of the rebels, but not evidence of their
consciousness of that Exhaustion. Those evidences
will appear immediately on the announcement of
the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. (Cabers.) You
would have had those evidences earlier if you had
rendered this verdict sooner. You will have them
all the sooner after the verdict in proportion to the
unanimity and determination with which it is
spoken. (Loud cheers,) The messengers who came
hither from the rebel regions will be different from
those who are now lingering and loitering on the
Canada shores, to aid the execution of the plot con-
ceived against you at Chicago. (Cheers.) The mes-
sengers who came will come, not as those last men-
tioned, with commissions addressed to the pusil-
lanimous and factious minority of the North, but
they will come addressed to Abraham Lincoln, the
honoured father of the American nation. (Great ape
plause, and " Three cheers for ' Old Abe.") Their message
will not be conceived in the insolent words, " Your war for
the Union has failed ; desist from arms, and give us, through
negotiation, separate independence." But it will be " Father
Abraham, we have sinned before God and against our
brethren. We repent our error; we disavow and offer up
the traitors who have led us into crime. Extend your pro-
tection over us, and give us once more peace and communion
with you at our altars sad our firesides." (Prolonged and
vehement cheers.) This is the way in which I think the
war is to end. I know that in that way it will end soon. I
know it because few civil wars in which .a
strong Govern-
ment and people defend themselves with unanimity last so
long as four years ; and it is certain that we are three years
and a half nearer the end of this conflict, if so maintained
than we were when we began. (Cheers ) Now, let us take
the other view. Suppose we seek peace under the Council
of Chicago—whether according to the naked and detestable
text of the resolutions, or as evasively interpreted and
glossed by the candidate who stands upon that platform.
(Laughter, and cries of " It's too shaky. He can't stand on
it.") It is to beck peace by conciliating the rebels, and sub-
stituting diplomacy or the arts of statesmanship for the
vigour of war. (A Voice—" Little Mac for Grant 1" and
laughter.) Adopt that policy, and distraction instantly
seizes the North—courage and new resolution inspire the
South ; your soldiers betrayed at home, either fall in despair
in their trenches, or what would be worse, recoil before the
enemy advancing upon Washington and Cincinnati. Those
persons are mistaken who say that Davis would not nego-
tiate and that he would not grant us an armistice. He
would grant us both at once, and grant them, too, with a
view to an ultimate convention. He can afford to be
very accommodating to a cowardly antagonist, He can
afford to temporise as long as you please. But like any
other belligerent, he will grant you armistice and negotiation
for his own advantage, not for yours; and he will negotiate
not for Union, but for dissolution. I do not argue this
point. Any candid, thoughtful man, of whatever party,
must admit that this view of what the rebels will do is pos-
sible. Most persons will concede that it is eminently pro-
bable. Then I say in regard to the Chicago proposition
with the King in " Hamlet" : ,
" Let's further think of this;
Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means,
May fit us to our shape : if this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance,
'Twere better not essayed; therefore this project
Should have a back, or second, that might hold,
If this should blast in proof."
Alas! since this Chicago plan must fail, it has no back or
second. (Cheers and laughter.) When negotiation and all
the arts of statesmanship are exhausted, the navy would be
scattered, withdrawn from the blockade, and the armies
dispersed in their homes, the treasury empty, the national
credit sunk, Franco and Great Britain will have recognised
the rebels, and even our steadfast friend, the Emperor of
Russia—(cheers)—together with the Sultan of Turkey, the
Pasha of Egypt, and the Emperor of China, will have given
over with pain and mortification the friendly nation that
in a pusillanimous hour delivered itself to self-destruction.
(Cheers.) Fellow-citizens, you are all free and independent
as I am, and you may and must decide the question for
yourselves. I cannot decide it for you, nor shall you des
tide it for me. lam not going to surrender to the rebels,
(Cheers.) No 1 though they extend the desolation of civil
war over the whole land—though they come backed in their
unholy quarrel by 0 of many foreign States. lam not
going to surrender now. Therefore I want no armistice,
no cessation of hostilities, no negotiation with rebels in
arms. (Cheers.) However it may be with others, " I looked
ishow ou I
la should
havea have
cceptpearotpeormseed
before I leaped." If I could have been ready to surrender
s
surrenderwitbt
waaittinthgefobeginning.
n_l
certainly after Bull Run, I would leave availed myself of the
first gleam of victory to secure terms
possible. I should have negotiated after the
rtle
capture
humiliating as
r of New
Orleans, after Murfreesborough, after
Norfolk, after
hAvn. tietam, after Vicksburg, after Gettysburg—ol
gone under the pressure of national affliction:v.7d madeae