The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1864-09-09
From the Philadelphia Age.
Ratification Meeting in Burlington.
SPEECH OF SENATOR WALL.

hC hbuOuhSOhChb VI IhS
at Chicago was received in the city of Bur-
lpgton with unbouuded enthusiasm. An
impromptu gathering of the Democrats of
this city, with torches and some of the
transparencies that were borne in the
struggle of 1860, assembled last evening,
and forming in procession marched
through the principal streets of the city,
greeted with great cheering and enthusi-
asm at every point, and fually hal ed in
front of the residence of Elk Senator Wall,
who was called out and addressed the
meeting from his steps. He spoke for
about an hour; congratulating them upon
the happy unanimity that had character
lied the nominations at Chicago, and the
high toned, pacific resolutions that form
ed, the platform of the party.
He said that the announceme Mt of the
harmony aud decision that had character.
lied the proceedings at Chicago had struck
terror into the breast Of the common ene-
my, and that the fingers of heavenly re-
tribution were already tracing upon the
walls of the White House, the "Mene,
meme tehel upharsin," which proclaimed
that the tyrant "was weighed in the bal
ances and found wanting, and that soon
his kingdom would be taken and given to
another He drew a striking contrast
between the joy of the present and gloom
of the past; that the sober second thought
of the people, never wrong and always eff
cent," was at last coming to the rescue
Of an imperiled Constitution and the out
ragged lawssof the nation, and that day Of
retribution and compensation would yet
teach the usurpers the full meaning of Ma
zoppa's words;
Tho patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.
He spoke at considerable length con-
corning the delusions that this war had
given birth to, and exposed their fallacy
and emptiness and made manifest that
The whole object of the war had been most
shamefully prostituted to carry out the
crazy distractions of set of moon struck
fanatics, who had originated the struggle
in order to show the irrepressible conflict
that existed between free and slave labor.
They had made war in SO doing upon the
Constitutional rights of the people, had
broken down the barriers erected in the
Constitution against Executive usurpation,
had trampied under the iron heel of a
military despotism, the absolute guaran.
teed rights of the people in the amend
ments to the Constitution, had absorbed
the reserved rights of the people and the
States, and were striving to erect at Wash
ington grand consolidated despotism, ut
terly unknown to the Constitution and
laws.
The great issues to be decided in the
Ginning canvass were, whether civil lib
erty should have any longer an abiding
place on this continent, and whether our
Constitution, with all its beautiful system
Of checks and balances, and all its limita.
tions of power, should any longer exist
He denied that any system of coercion by
arms, in republic founded on the con.
sent of the governed, would ever succeed
that it was secuted by the men who made
the Government as a most dangerous fall
lacy. That the Governments and absolu.
tisms of the old world were built upon the
sword. The sword aud the sword only could
hold them together. Not so this Govern.
ment of ours, which was the only Govern.
mcnt in the world founded upon tho con-
sent of the governed. 1t was founded on
the basis of a free, honest and upright
public opinion. If it cannot rest on that,
the whole fabric must fall. -
He was glad the Chicago Convention
had unfurled the white banner of peace.
That in an armistice and Convention of
States, as he told them two years ago, lay
the only avenue through which we could
pass out of the sulphurous smoke of the
battle field, wet with brothers blood, into
the cool and blessed shadows of peace
When yoa want to end quarrel of ma.
tions, you have got only to let the belli
gerents see each others human nature,
and to that end to develope a human ma
ture large enough to be seen, and to take
in something broader than selfish interests
and vindicitive passions. Let the white
banner Of peace, then, be, unfurled !; let
the gentle dove of peace brood over this
nation with healing on her wings, aud
drive away the red eyed vulture Of war,
screaming harsh defiance, and fleshing his
bloody talons in the breast of the unburied
carcasses of men once children in the same
national family, and whose sires had gone
through the revolution shoulder to shout
der together, and whose blood once ming.
led in common cause on common battle
fields. ''i' 80" ~. .''5
lie closed with an earnest appeal to i'm.
itate the unity, harmony, and patriotism,
that characterized their Convention, and
the nation may yet again wake up to
new life and more joyous hopes.
This certainly was one Of the most en-
thuyiastic meetings that has over been