Year: 1864




restoration of Peace, Liberty and the Union.


Why is it that with an army of military
power, an expenditure of treasure and a
sacrifice Of human lie, scarcely eonalled in
any war of ancient or modern times, the
rebellion has not been suppressed, and peace
restored to our unhappy country! Why is
it, that call after call is made for the Young
men of our land by hundreds of thousands,
to peril health and life in the camp and in
the battle field? Why is it that our national
debt is rolling up its immense masses by a
thousand millions per annum. and taxation
bids fair to absorb all the profits of industry
And why the prospect now before u.s. of
indefinite war and boodshed, increasing debt
and increasing taxation, final exhaustion of
both men and money, nation clothed in
mourning, agtated with internal throes, and
sinking at last under military despotism?


These are solemn inquiries. The answers
involve awful responsibilities, and though
truly and boldly, should not be lightly given
In devotion to truth next akin to worship of
Deity, and devotion to country never surpas
sed, shall attempt to answer them


The cause of the i'll success of the Union
armies hitherto, may be summed up under
the following heads: viz:


l. The perfidity of the Administration.
including Congress, towards the Union men
in the border and seeded States, and the
Conservative men of the North All these
entered into the support of the war with
enthusiasm, because they were assured that
it was war against rebels for the Cousttu-
ton of the United States not a war against
States, for the subversion of their State
rights and local institutions. BY perfdiously
giving in the latter direction in the face of
the Constitution, as well AS the plghted faith
of the President and Of Congress, they have
quenched whatever of true Loyalty was left
in the seeded States, aienated the loyal
men in the border States, dsgusted and
measurably discouraged the conservative men
of the free States, dividing the North, uniting
the South and doubling the relative strength
Of the rebellion. The country is now suffer
ing the God ordained punishment of perfdity
by protracted war with its attendant scenes
of desolation, suffering bloodshed and mourn
ing.


2. lnrompetency Of those in authority,
especially the President Of the United States,
who as many of his original friends now
admit, has neither the judgment, decision or
courage which the crisis of the country
requires in its chief magistrates; yet, endowe
with vanity and obslinacv, which at the
same time make him the victim of hattery
and blind him to the lessons of experience
he is totally unaware that instead of being
the idol Of the nation, be is supported bv
intelligent men Of bis own party merely as
| a choice of evils.


Tho e IL It, l. e
liberty, by the general suspension Of the writ
of habeas corpus thus exposing every citizen,
loyal as well as dsloyal, with cause or with
out cause, to arbitrary arrest aud indefinite
imprisonment. This act and the outrages
upon personal liberty and the press which
have followed, would have produced revo'
luton among any people less devoted to
peace and order and less hopeful of the future
than are the people of the United States.


4. Military jealousy and revolutionary
conspiI acies, which, operating on the mind
of weak and timid President, have defeated
the best laid military plans, driven some of
our abest Generals from active service, en-
trusted our armies to incompetent hands,
exposed the North to repeated nvasions and
sacrificed hecatombs Of human lives in sickly
camps, boolless victories aud inglorous de,
feats.


s. The denunciations Of subservient and
ferocious press slgmatizng as Copperheads,
sympathsers or traitors, all those who refuse
to endorse every measure of the Adminstra
tion adopted under pretext of suppressng
the rebellion, though in many instances cal
cula aed if not designed to give it strength,
and proract the war.


6. The organization in connection with the
Administration of a formidable conspiracy
in the North called Union Leagues against
. the Union and the Constitution, for the pre-
servaton Of which the people rushed to arms,
the members of which are bound by solemn
oaths not to disclose the revolutionary plans
and to aid and protect each other in carrying
them into effect.


7. The diversion of portions of the army
from the suppression of the rebellion and
employing them in the suppression of the
freedom Of elections in loyal States not to
prevent the election of traitors, but to secure
the election of partizans and instruments of
the Administration and the Union Leagues,
and employing other portions in enabling
minorties to prescribe institutions and laws
to majorties in States wholly or partially
redeemed from the rebellion, all evincing a
determination of the party in power if need
be, to carry the elections by conspiracy. and
force and re elect their own men a, the point
of the bayonet.


8. The gloomy prospect of the future
arises not only from the mad policy of the
Administration in relation to the rebellion,
but from their arrangements to carry the
, election Of President and perpeuate their
policy and their power by military force in
its direct application in the loyal States, and
its direct application in the seeded States,
or should they fail thus to carry a majority
between Lincoln and Fremont, to make sure
of the result in the House of Represen tatives,