Year: 1863

,
i is our privilege, with the blessing of God I,
to be considerate, brave, and wise. If
there be anything of the great inheritance
under existing circum stances, to save, may
we not in an humble, earnest way contrib
ute to that salvation If we cannot do
all for which our hearts yearn, may we
not at least approach its consumma,ion in
that spirit Of devoted loyalty to the Con.
stitution and the Union which we feel p
Let the disregard of others for what the
Revolutionary fathers achieved, and for
the compact which they made, subdued as
they were in all things but sense of hon
or and right by the sufferings of seven
years wal, now stand before us, Let the
people realize what this constant ringing
in their cars Of the charge that "the Con.
stitutioD is covenant with Death and
League with hell" has brought about
And then let them see and feel what we
had in eighty years of unexampled pros
perity and happiness under that Constitu-
tion. Let them look back upon those
eighty years of civil liberty. Ofthe reign
of constitutional law; eighty years of
security 10 our homes, of living in our
castles. humble though they may have
been, with no power to invade them by
night or by day, except under the we'll
defined aud exhibited authority of law
a written, published law. enacted by them
selves for the punishment of crime and
for their own protection,-eighty years of
the great experiment which astonished the
world. II the people will do this, can
not, l will not believe, that we are so
smitten by judicial blindness that the
great mass of our population, North and
South, will not some day resolve that we
come together again under the old Consti-
tuition with the old flag. will not believe
that this experiment of mans capacity for
self-governmont, which was so successfully
illustrated until all the Revolutionary men
had passed to their fual reward, is 10 prove
humiliating failure. Whatever others
may do, we will never abandon the hope
that the Union is to be restored What
ever others may do, we will cling to it 'as
the mariner clings to the last plank when
night and the tempest close around him.
No matter what may have been done,
North or South, to produce it, this tern.
Bile ordeal of blood which has been visited
upon US, ought to be sufficient to bring US
all back to consciousness of responsible
ties and duties. The emotions of all good
men are those of sorrow and shame and
sadness, now, over the condition of their
country, when they retire at night, and
when they open their eyes upon the dawn
ing dag, struggle against them though
they may. Why should they attempt to
disguise il p! Solicitude which hinges up.
on apprehension OF personal danger or
personal loss, and that alone, is contempt
iblc.


Triding men may indulge in triaing
words and thoughts, while the foundations
laid by the fathers are crumbeling be-
meath their feet; but the artifcers who
laid those foundations found no time for
tralng while engaged in their grand seri
GUS work nor can you. They could lift
up their souls in prayer; but they had no
heard for Ievity and mirth. My friends,
you have had, most of you have had, great
sorrow, overwhelmingly personal sorrows,it
may be ; but none like these which come
yelling up, day oy day, from the great
fountain of national disaster, red with the
best and bravest blood OF the couRtry,
North and South-red with the blood of
those in both sections of the Union whose
fathers fought the common battle Of inde-
pendence. Nor have these sorrows brought
with them any compensation, whether Of
national pride or of victorious arms. For
is it not vain 10 appeal to you to raise q
shout of joy because the men from the
land of Washington, Marion, and Sump-
ter are barring their breasts to the steel of
the men from the land of Warren, Stark
and Stockton; or because, if this war is
to continue to be waged, one or the other
must 60 to the Walnut be consigned
to humiliating subjugation! This fearful,
frutless, fatal civil war has exhibited our
amazing resources and vast military pow.
er. 1t has shown that united, even in
car, ,ying out, in its widest Interpretation,
the NJ onroe doctrine, on this continent, we
could with such protection as the broad
European powers affords, have stood
against the world in arms. l speak Of
the war as fruitless for it is clear that
prosecuted upon the basis of the proclama-
tions of September 22d and September
Gath, 1862, prosecuted as l must under
stand those proclamasions, to say nothing
Of the kindred blood which has flowed


upon the theory of emancipation, devesta,
tion, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruit,
less in everything except the harvest OIL
woe which it is ripening for what was
once the peerless republic. Now, fellow
citizens after having said thus much it il
right that you should ask me, what would
you do in this fearful extremity | reply
from tho beginning of this struggle to the
present moment, my hope has been in mora


power. There it reposes still. When, il
the spring of 1861, had occasion to ad


dress my fellow.citizens of this city, from
the balcony of the hotel before us, thel


said had not believed and did not ther


believe aggression by arms was either


suitable or possible remedy for existin


evils. All that has occurred since theu


has but strenothe ned and cOnfrmed m