The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-11-26
The Object of the War.

Henry Ward Beecher, iii his speech at the
Academy of Music, in New York, since his re-
turn from England thus states what he told En-
glishmen respecting the object Of the war:
1t was also constantly alleged that the North
did not go to war for emanci patton, but simply
for Union. To that responded, True, true.
The peculiar structure Of our nation forblds one
State to NEEDLE, and the national Government
u lle with the strictly internal municipal af
fairs Of any other State. And |, who have been
ranked, if not among abolitonisls, yet among
ant-Slavery men all my life, held myself to be
a competent witness to those men who have
fought the ant-slavery battle for twenty-five
years and bore witness that it never was our
intention to interfere by violence in the internal
affairs of slave States. Our hope of emaucipa-
ton was based upon the perpetual use of moral
influences, the acton CT great commercial laws,
the nstu e.of political economy, and above all,
the non extension Of slavery. We held that if
the slave States might cease to be made, if they
that wer5 already created were compelled to
stand and hear the evil as well as the good of
their own s. stem, it would be q question only OF
lime when they would emancipate, but we never
proposed to put the hand OF Government into
those States and violate those institutions, and we
did not when the war broke out and therefore,
when it was alleged that we did not go to war for
the purpose of emancipation, | said amen we
did not. We went to war for the maintenance
of nationality. (Applause.) But then il was
nationality which had been regenerated and
brought back to its original ideas of liberty. 1t
was Union tina; carried with it from this time
forth the idea of freedom 4; aud we Lad no doubt
that Union was to be the indirect instrument of
emancipation. [Applause.l And when we went
for the Union and for the nation, it was not as
mere idol, but az intelligent perception that the
spirit of liberty was so strong that if we had only
time for it's influence Union would bring liberty
in its train. But when the immense moral sup
port which they derived from England swelled
this war into monstrous proportions, this nation
was lifted out of its peace powers into higher
sphere-the war powers the North came to this
conclusion that whereas we begun war for the
Union, the way to carry it on and ind it was to
destroy slavery to its very roots. Great ap-
plause We were conscentiouay constitutional
in the beginning, believing that in time Of peace
we had no power TO NEEDLE with this institution J;
and We are Just as Institutional now when the
war gives Us the power to destroy rebellion where
rebellion lives in its slave institutions. APP
plause AMI said that there had a change
passed over the spirit of this people more won
derful than had Iassed over any people on the
globe, and that the heart of the North was set
and fixed upon this. This war; though begun
merely for the Union, has been carried to that ex-
tent when we are obliged, for the safety OF the
Union, to destroy slavery, and slavery shall be de-
stroyed. Loud and enthusiastic applause.