East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1861-08-15
ADDRESS OF HON. JOSEPH HOLT OF
KENTUCKY

Hon. JosEPu HoLT well known as Post
master General and afterwards Secretary Of
War, during Mr. Buchanan's Administration,
on the 18th of July addressed the citizens of
Louisville, Kentucky, ON the state of the Union.
The following is portion of his speech
Could any one, an entire stranger to our
history, now look down upon the South aud see
there hundred or hundred and fifty thousand
men marching in hostile array, threatening the
capture Of the capital, and the dsmemberment
of the territory Of the Republic, and could he
look again and see that this army is marshalled
and directed by officers recently occupying dis
tnguished places in the civil and military ser.
vice Of the country, and further that the States
from which this army has been drawn, appear
70 be one vast, seething cauldron of ferocious
passions, he would very naturally conclude hat
the Government Of the United States had COM
mitted some great crime against its people, and
that this uprising was in resistance to wrongs
and outrages which had been borne until their
endurance was no longer possible. And yet, no
conclusion could be further from the truth than
this. The Government of the United States
has been faithful to its constitutional obliga-
tions. For eighty years it has maintained the
national honor at home aud abroad, and by its
prowess, its wisdom and its justice, has given to
the title Of an American citizen an elevation
among the nations Of the earth which the citl-
zen of no Republic has enjoyed since Rome
was mistress Of the world. Under its admin.
istration, its national domain has stretched
away to the Pacific and that constellation
which announced our birth as people has ex-
panded from thirteen to thrtyfour stars, all,
tly. rhaI md
dimmed in their orbs Of light and grandeur
The rights of no State have been invaded; no
mans property has been despoled, no mans
liberty abridged, no mans life oppressively
jeopardized by the action of this Government.
Under its benign influences, the rills of public
and private property have swelled into rivulets
and from rivulets into rivers ever brimming in
their fullness aud everywhere, and at all peri
DDS Of its history its ministrations have fallen
as gently on the people of the Uuited States as
do the dcws of summers night on the flowers
aud grass Of the gardens and fields.
Whence, then, this revolutionary outbreak
Whence the secret spring of this gigantic con-
spiracy, which, like some huge boa, had coiled
itself around the limbs aud body Of the Repub-
lic, before single hand was lifted to resist it
Strange, and indeed, startling as the announce
ment must appear when it falls upon the ears
Of the next generation, the national tragedy in
whose shadow we stand tonight, has come upon
as because, in November last, John @. Breck-
inridge was not elected President of the United
States, and Abraham Lincoln was This was
the whole story, and would pray TO know on
what was John G.. Breckenridge fed that he
has grown 80 great, that Republic founded by
Washington, and cemented by the best blood
chat ever coursed in human veins, is to be over
thrown because, forsooth, he cannot be its Pres
ident? Had he been chosen, we we'll know
that ne should not have heard of this REBEL.
ion, for the lever with which il is being moved
would have been wanting to the hands Of the
conspirators. Even after his defeat could it
have been guaranteed, beyond all peradventure,
that Jefferson Davis, or some other kindred
spirit, would be the successor of Mr. Lincoln,
I presume we hazard nothing in assuming that
this atroeious movement against the Govern
ment would not have been set on foot. So
much for the principle involved in it. This
great crime then, with which We are graphing
sprang from that sin by which the angels
en,"-an unmastered and profigate ambition
-an ambition that would rather reign in
hell than serve In heaven, that would rather
rule supremely over shattered fragment Of
tho Republic than run the chances of sharing
with others the honors of the whole.
il oaunot be necessary that should declare
70 you, for you know them we'll, who they are,
whose parricidal swords are now unsheathed
against the Republic of the United States
Their names are Inscribed upon scroll Of in
fanny that can never perish. The most dis
tlnguished- of them were educated by the char
ity OF the Government on which they are now
making war. For long years they were fed