The Portland daily press., 1862-11-06

t0ber 30, 1862.
Mr.. Chairman and Gentlemen.
meet and greet you as liberty-loving, law
abiding, Government-sustaining and treason
hating men. tApplause.) / do not appear a.
mong you as politician of the schools. / am
not either pervert or convert The mere po-
lltical opinions of any man are not now of the
slightest consequence. tAppausel The ma
tion is in the midst of terrible struggle for its
life, and how best and quickest to save it, is
the all-absorbing question of the hour.
Everything must be subordinate to this, be-
cause everything else is less than this War,
terrible, ruthless and unprovoked, is being
made upor a people who love peace, and de.
sire to pursue it. Such war. having its origin in
peculation, treason, and fraud, must be allow
ed but one end-absolute, unconditional subn-
CATION of the traitors who have made it and
who are continuing it against us. Twenty
millions Of freemen are audaciously challenged
by the foe to yield up their liberty, their prop
erty and their government. This is the sole
issue. To this shall address myself Its gray
ity demands that it be considered plainly, de-
liberateiy truthfully.
The issue is one of individual as well as ma
tional concern. 1t affects the we'll being of all
as much as the well being of each. Its con-
sideration cannot be avoided or postponed
We are hand to hand in a conflict with a haugh-
ty, wicked and INSCRIPTIONS enemy; an enc
my that dislkes us and our principles, tastes
and habits; an enemy that tauntngly boasts
OF himself of his superiority in all that goes TO
make up a wise, intellectual and honorable
manhood; that plumes himself on his chivalry,
aristocracy and cotton, and consigns us to the
inferior condition of Yankee mudslls and
greasy mechanics.
1t is well to understand what the conflict is.
which is now being waged by US upon these
seli-adulatory MISUNDERSTANDING and lib
erty-stealing warriors. 1t is war between
darkness and light-between slave-pens and
school-houses (cheers)-between labor and ca
pital-between democracy and aristocracy-
tcheers )-between the rights of man and the
illegally gotten and iraudulently held privileg-
es of the few-between violence and law-be-
tween slavery and libery-between falsehood
and truth. Now, God defend the right!
This war is not prosecuted to determine who
shall administer the government, but to decide
If there shall be any government left to adj
minister; not shall the empire be divided in
twain, but shall the nation exist; not to settle
the question OF what laws shall prevail in the
territories, but whether there shall be any do
main, State or territorial.
1t is not war to ascertain who shall exer-
else the elective franchise, but whether there
shall be any elections held. Its objects are to
establish the individuality of a constitutional
selection OF the ruler Of the American people
Ito overthrow and prevent adherence to all
forms Of governmental law, and establish a
nation upon the bases of perjury, treason and
fraud.
The people of the States are not called upon
to choose between the different modes of COL
lecting revenue or laying imports, or TO decide
whether protective or prohibiting tariff will
best serve the national interests, or national
bank be a benefit or bane.
The question which confronts this people to-
day is existence or death. The Union. with
all its attendant blessings and powers, its his
tory from experience, its achievements and
hopes, or disunion with long train of neces-
sary calamites that attend upon such meas
ure. The question, sir, is not so much wbeth-
er slavery shall continue to exist in South Ca
rolina, but whether freedom shall be the rule
in Massachusetts, and the navigation of the
Mississippi shall be unobstructed. (Cheers)
The question is whether you will have a
Governor, Senator and Representative OF your
own selection. These are the general charac-
teristics OF the shareholders war, The details
are to be found In current history, and need
not here be entered into or dwclt upon.
II am right in my diagnosis, if these at
tempts to destroy this government of the peo-
pie be the result of unllallowed ambition. fren-
zied hate, or wicked and designed cause of
the love oI power and pride of lle it cannot
and 1t will not succeed. 1t will not succeed
because it ought not. Its want of holy pur-
pose, high thought, pure motives, is the leaven
OF its weakness. And neither of its own pow
er, nor of any aid derived from peaceful or
armed Intervention, can it succeed. The logic
of truth
"Gives mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before"
Men change, but principles are eternal.
Truth and falsehood are so well defined, and
the characteristics of each so plainly traced
as to be beyond the power of casuistry to con-
found or obliterate. What was false when the
Athenians gathered in the Acropos, is false
in Faneuil Hall to-day. Time wears no chang
es on the azure front of truth. The weakness
of man may surround it with the dust of false
obseryances, may bury it from sight beneath a
heavy mould of desire, but like the undisclosed
fires, burning deep in the earth, ever and anon
II bursts forth to sight for the guidance of all
who honestly seek to worship by its light
Magma est reritds. "The eternal years of God
are ners, exclaims poet of our native land
Inc happiness and prosperity of the race de-
pend upon the fulflment of the demands oil
truth. Its requirements cannot be avoided
without incurrlng individual social and nation
al rum. NO private enterprise and no system
OF government can be permanently secured
that rests upon unexact immoral foundations
The distinction between justice and its con-
trary must be observed in forming the social
condition and in enaeting laws for it: the prob
lens of Euclid may be disregarded. but those
of humanity must be solved by the PRINCIPLES
OF actual justice, or woe to the State and the
political rnathematcians. The history of our