Year: 1866

take pleasure in meeting you here to


day TO consult upon the condition Of tht


country and the state of the Union. st


This is an old right guaranteed to us, ]


believe, by the Constitution which we love


And although for some years past, that


good old Constitution has been rolled ur


as it were and practically laid aside, am


happy to hear it stated by the patriotic


head of the Government, that it is now


again "unfurled, and that we may again


under its folds, appeal to its powers, and


reverence its provisions, as an unquestioned


right, with none to molest us or make us
afraid"


| know that you love the Constitution
and the Union under it, and through evil
and good report have done everything in
your power to uphold and support both


Self-interest alone impels you to it. You
love yonr country, good government and
good laws You have property, homes and
families to be protected-children TO be
educated-all your real and substantial
interests are here at home. Good laws and
a wise rule bring happiness and prosperity;
bad laws and wicked rule, misery and ruin.
1t is indeed truth, attested by all history,
that 'whcn the wicked rule the people
mourn" In short VIC are all in the same
boat, and must sink or swim together. The
great body Of the people, irrespective of
party, have substantially the same interests.
Render the iadieiduol happy in his person,
his home, and his property, and as certain
as the sun yields light and heat will the
nation be happy and the country prosperous.


This is answer enough to those who pro-
fess to be the peculiar friends of the Con
stitution and the Union, and the only ones
who should be trusted with the government
of the country; but ''by their fruits shall
We know them. .


Now, although the interests of the mass
of the people are the same, we may honestly
differ in regard to the best means of pro-
noting these interests. And this question
can be settled, not by vituperation, not by
calling hard names, or questioning ones mo-
tives, but by candid argument and discus
sion. And am glad to see growing dis
position in the people to examine into their
home Interests, instead OF allowing them
selves to be diverted by Utopian theories
under the lead of such men as Stevens,
Sumner Il Co.
the question: of the first and most vital i'm
portaDce-the restoration OF the Union,
For, until there come real peace, recoucilia-
tion and harmony, the people will not, and
Of course the country cannot be prosperous
and happy. On that question President
Johnson has adopted apoley. plain, straight
forward, magnanimous and practicable. =
Honestly believing that upon the success of
that policy, depends the good of the coun-
try an the stability of the Union, the Dem
ocratic party have endorsed, aud arc giving
it their cordial and earnest support. need
not and will not dctain you by going into
the details of that policy. 1t has been be
fore the country for more than year. and
long ere this peace, harmony, and Union
would have been fully restored under that
policy. had it not been for the efforts of
Radical Congress, to prerent the restoration
Of tie Union, unless shackled with condi-
tion, upon condition, and Amendments unon
with views off Ie pe;ua M their
sectional party in power. Yet stEange as it
may appear, this very party claim to be the
Union party. should like to know, indeed
how many conditions it takes to make an
Union party.


The President holds that secession did
not take the states out of the Union, neither
did they by successful war fight their way
out. That they are still in the Union, sub
ject to its burdens, and as States, entitled
to its privileges. This was the view taken
and held by nine-tenths of the Northern
people at the beginning of the war. We
denounced the dogma of secession, and de-
MED that one State could, without the con-
sent of the others, voluntarily leave the
Union. The people might rebel and resist
the law, and when that resistance was over
come, the iadicaiual might be punished,
but the State, in its corporate capacity,
could not.


The Radical doctrine is practical secession
and disunion, and nothing else, however
much they may claim to the contrary. 1t
really makes secession success and the war
q failure. 1t is foul SANDER upon the
soldiers who volunteered to fight down the
and preserve the Union, to say
that il is not preserved, and therefore that
they did not succeed Those brave men de-
termined to save the Union. They fought
out the war upon many bloody field to
q successful issue. They PIT down ,every
armed enemy of the Union, saw him ac-
anew his allegiance, and quietly
submit to the laws. The hcresy of seces.
sion settled and abandoned forever-slave-
ry abolished and rendered secure by con-
amendment.


He como home fully satisfied that he had
accomplished his work aud done it we'll. -
Feeling, in the magnamity of his brave
heart, that he could now trust those whom
he had SO lately met in deadly conflict, and
be 'fenemies in war, in peace friends
That the object of the war was accom-
plished, the rights Of the states preser-
we'd, and the Union maintained intact with
mot star erased.


But alas! No, Brave Soldier, you are
laboring under sad delution. You have
fought bravely but in vain. Stevens, Sum-
ner q Co., declare solemnly in the Capitol
you fought to preserve, that the Union is
not now, and never may be restored.


The Southern people cannot now be trus-
ted and ought not to be, till this genera
ton pass away, and may be never. Those
States are now out of the Union and may
never be in. If this were so, the war would
indeed have proved failure.


These same disunionists have taken pleas
ure in charging, that At Chicago in 1864,
the Democratic party, while yet the armies
deiant pronounced the war "a failure -
This charge, as you all know, was false. -
All that was said was entirely true; and that


was, that the war, as conducted up to that
time, "had failed to restore the Union. =


But now, when every armed foe has surren-
dered, and there is not hostile baynnet in


all the land, we have this Radical disunion


party, not only declaring that the war has


failed to restore the Union" but that after


more than year g arduous labor by this


Radical Congress, in the exercise of enlight-


cned craftsmanship under the lead Of Ste


vens & Co., the Union is still unrestored. =


Any thing for party, but nothing for your


country. ~ 'A