American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-12-07

bygones shall be bygones-if bygones are
bygones-our country shall live in peace
hereafter" [Cheers.l Are we not able
to offer them that? Are we not strong
enough ? Do we not stand with Union
enough to be able to offer that to the
leaders and to all
There might have been some complaint,
I think, among proud and chivralrous
people, that they would not desert their
leaders in answer to the amnesty procla-
nation of President Lincoln but now, as
we come to them and say, "come back
and YOU shall find the laws the same save
and except as they are altered by the
legislative wisdom of the land" Are we
not in condition not taking counsel of
our fears or weaknesses, but from our
strength and magnanimity, again to make
the offer, and the last time to call on them,
and then shall we not have exhausted all
the resources of craftsmanship in the eff
fort to restore peace to the country? And
shall we hinder this And if they do not
come back, who shall complain?
| ask not for the Rebel to come back
after he has fought as long as he can and
then chooses to come back, but state
some time-perhaps the Sth of January,
1865, for the association will be as good
as any-and when that time shall have
come, every man who shall scout the prof
fered amnesty of a great and powerful
nation, speaking in love, in Kindness, in
charity, in hope of peace and quiet for
ever, then l say to him who then scouts
the profIered love and kindness: 'let us
meet him with sharp, quick, decisive
war, which shall bring the matter to an
end and to the extinguishment Of such
men wherever they may be" " And how
is that to be done
Blood and treasure have been poured
out without stint and without measure
until taking advantage Of the depletion
of treasure bad men have banded togeth-
er by speculating in that which should be
the circulating medium, and have raised
upon every poor man the price ofthe Goals
upon his hearth and the bread upon his
table. Let some measure be taken to stop
that, and better measure than any other
is to let it be understood that hereafter
we pay no more bounties from the taxes
Of the North, but taking counsel from
the old Roman method of carrying on
war, to say to our young men. " Look on
the fair fields of the sunny South, and
unless they take our amnesty, let us go
down South and you shall have wheteyer
you get in a fair fight" and we will open
land offices wherever our armies march,
and distribute their landsand divide them
among the soldiers, to be theirs and their
heirs forever.
This is harsh measure, everybody
will say but is it not quite as just as that
we should tax ourselves anew and anew,
and raise the price of the necessaries of
life for the purpose Of paying bountlcs
for the support of the soldiers to fight
these men whom we have three times off
cred and called to be our friends, in 1862
and in June 1863, again in December in
1864, again by the 8th Of January, 1865;
and when that clock strikes the last knell
of that departing day, then all hope of
return to those who have not then made
progress to that return shall be cut off
forever, and they will have to go to Mex
leo, or the West Indies, or some place
which | will not name, because | know
not any land bad enough to be cursed by
them; at all events they shallnever come
here again.
| look with some interest to what | be-
lieve to be the present results of this
election, and | believe first that we have
settled the war by determining that the
people are strong enough to carry on the
war, and | never expect to see in arms or
in council greater victory than the one
We have just achieved, and | think we are
now strong enough to make them and Of
fer such one that the most squeamish of
our friends will go with us when they
find that we have exhausted all the re-
sources of craftsmanship, and that we
are now ready to make peace, and are
therefore prepared to make war to the
l'hit; therefore, l say, l look upon this
victory as one which has decided the war,
decided it not in a military point of view,
but in that overpowering civil point Of
view which decides the fate of nations
everywhere. To this it may be answer
ed. and | desire for moment to that an
swer to call your attention, so that every
man may work out in his own mind the