Year: 1865

boundless gratitude to the Father of us all.
and to our unconquerable armies and navy,
there is also ground for boundless rejoicing
and eXultation. We exult in no unhallowed
or merclless spirit Before him who sit
teth on the circle Of eternity we bow our
| heads in adoring thankfullness, for these
, proofs that he still rules among the chill
dren of men, and that we are still the peo-
pie of his care but before the world we
| exult and shout aloud for .joy--joy with a
thousand tongues and a thousand songs
that this rebellion with all its crimes, with
all its fetid and pustulous baseness, is at
length being trodden downtown to the
hell from which it came. We accept this
as evidence that the demon of all evil seen
in the apocalyptic vision in chains, has not
yet broken his fetters and the ruined fort
resses and devastated cities of the rebel
lion, its palaces and homes in ashes, it's
people exhausted and impoverished, we hail
these as the footprints of Him who dwelleth
among the seraphim, and who hath said ::
Vengeance is niue, and will repay Woe
to that people who, under the promptings
of christian humanity, shall presumptu-
Ously throw themselves between that ven
geance and it's victims. ......


Victory is often attended with dangers
for the victors, quite as great as those that
marked the battle, though Of a totally diff
erent character The crisis which the Am
erican people are now approaching cannot
fail to perceive these dangers as belonging
to those all-absorbing questions which must
arise on the overthrow and dispersion of
the rebel armies. The triumph which is
being achieved by the Republic is not one
of mere material forces, but it is the tri-
umph of truth, of Justice, of honor, of 10y


atty, of freedom, and of civilization itself,
and the very airs which kiss our flag are
luminous with the moral glories which are
inseparable from these victories. From
every church and praying household, aye,
and from every devOut heart III the land, a
continual prayer should go up that the
fruits of this prolonged and sanguinary
conflict may not be suffered to perish, and
that nothing may be done to abate the NOR
al grandeur of the sacrifices which have
been made, or to fling contempt upon the
memories of those martyred armies which
have so nobly died that liberty might live.
But if the work is to pause while treason
is only scotched, not killed if the knife is



root of that cancer of slavery which has
been eating into the national vitals, then
in vain shall we have expended thousands
of millions of treasure and III vain will the
country have offered on the red altars of
war the bravest of its sons. 1t is the duty
Of the Government not by words, for they
are already found III our Constitution and
laws, but it is its duty by stern and impla-
cable action to stamp upon this monstrous
crime against our national life, and upon
the parricides who have committed it, the
brand OF an undylng infamy-an infamy so
black and loathsome that the generation to
which we belong shall shrink from it with
horror and those which are to follow us
will recall it with shudder Let us be-
ware lest under the impulses of mis-
called magnanimity, we impiously assume
to be wiser than God in claiming that crime
can be repressed without punishment.


Let it then be our fond and solemn trust
that the Government will maintain to the
end the position which it has occupied from
the beginning-that this is, in very deed, a
war upon crime and criminals--criminals
with whom we cannot fraternize, with
whom we can make no compromises, with
out IN the judgment of mankind, and at
the bar Of history, becoming criminals our
selves without giving an absolute re-
spectabllty and new growth to the SEN
timent of treason in the South and turn
ing loose Ill these distracted States a band
OF unwhipped malefactors, with their hands
filled with the seeds of another rebellion,
to be by them scattered and planted at
their will. As for the masses, the ignorant
deluded masses, who have blindly followed
the standard Of this revolt, let there be full
and free pardon, if you will, on their sin
cere return to their allegiance though it
does seem to me that it would be but de-
cent to allow these thrice guilty rebels
little time in which to wash the blood of
our brothers from their hands before we
hasten to offer them our own. But as for
the original conspirators and leaders who,
through long years, in the Capitol in the
Cabinet, and in all the army too, deliberately
prepared this rebellion who, WITHOUT the
pretence of wrong or provocation, traitor
ously set it on foot ; who have pressed it
forward with all the maiignity of fends
and with all the cowardly, revolving cru
city of savages who, through perjury, and
rapine and arson, and butchery, have made
our once happy country one great house of
of mourning, and from whose skirts, in the
sight of the Eternal, there is now dripping
the blood of near a half million of our
people for these miscreants, the lscariots
of the human race, may God i'll His eternal
Justice forbid that there should ever be
shown mercy or forbearance.


You must well remember that while Sum
ter was beseiged, and daily threatened
with bombardment, rebel commissioners
went up from the city-the political
Sodom from which all our sorrows have
come--to Washington. They were sent to
announce to the Government of the United
States the terms on which it could have
peace with the slave aristocracy of the
South, and they went with all the hauteur
and insolence of the Roman ambassadors
of old, who claimed to carry the destinies
of nations in the folds of their robes 1t
was long and weary time before your ex-
cellent President was able to organize a
commission responsive to this. Great was
his embarrassment in finding the right men,
and when found, great was his embarrass-
ment still in getting them into the right
places. At length, however, he succeeded
IN an, it,,4i II g.,