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 i6^ THE NATION'S BLESSING 
 
 IN 
 
 TRI^L: 
 
 A SER]\TON PKEACITKO IN THE 
 
 Soutli JJresbyterian Church of Brooklyn, 
 
 BY THE PASTOR 
 
 REV. SAMUEL T. SPEAR, D. D 
 
 NOVEMBER 27rH, 1802. 
 
 K^ 
 
 BROOKLYN : 
 
 \VM A\' ROSE, BOOKSELLER AND PRINTER, 
 ATLANTIC STREET. 
 
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 THE NATION'S BLESSING IN T 
 
 " O, COME, LET US SliCG UNTO THE LoRD : LET US MAKE A JOYFUL 
 NOISE TO THE RoCK OF OUE SALVATION. LeT US COME BEFORE HIS 
 PRESENCE WITH THANKSGIVING, AND MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE UNTO HIM 
 
 WITH PSALMS." — Ps. 95 : : 1 — 2. 
 
 In many respects the present is a dark and gloom v hour. 
 As a people, we are in the midst of a terrible civil war, waged 
 between those who but yesterday were members of the sauio po- 
 litical family. In the number of combatants, in the territory 
 over which it extends, in the skill and energy applied to its 
 prosecution, in the loss of human life, in the causes which have 
 produced it, and in the questions which hang upon it for their 
 solution, this war is one of the most extraordinary military strug- 
 gles, to be found in the history of man. At such a time, it would 
 seem specially appropriate to come before God with fasting, hu- 
 miliation, and prayer, that a gracious Providence might inter- 
 pose and arrest the deadly contest: and yet the appointment by 
 which we are convened, has recommended us to observe this day 
 in thanksgiving and praise. If we have had trials .and sorrows, 
 we have also had mercies. The common mercies of Providence 
 we have all enjoyed. Trusting that we shall not forget to thank 
 God for our daily comforts, our family blessings, our spiritual 
 privileges, and heavenly hopes, I propose to inquire whether we 
 may not as citizens, patriots, philanthropists, and Christians, see 
 the good hand of the Lord in the very trials, which constitute 
 our national affliction. I ask you to reflect, — 
 
 First, upon the political and moral character of our cause. 
 — The Government has drawn the sword to defend the life of the 
 nation against the most atrocious rebellion the world ever saw. 
 It is contending with anarchists and traitors. Its foes are trai- 
 tors. Treason, on their part, and devotion to the Constitution 
 and the Government erected under it, on ours, form the political 
 
2 THE nation's BLESSmG IN TEIAL. 
 
 and moral contrasts of this great struggle. Traitors claim the 
 right to dismember this nation at their pleasure, to secede from 
 it, and erect another within its territorial limits. To repel and 
 utterly blast this attempt to introduce the infamous doctrines of 
 free love and divorce into the code of nations, is the righteous 
 object for which the Government has taken up arms in its own 
 defense. Tliere is hence a great political and moral principle 
 at stake in this contest : and to crj peace, without any regard to 
 this principle, is either a weakness of feeling, or the very next 
 thing to treason itself. To surrender to an armed rebellion with- 
 out an effort to crush it, would be a delinquency, alike condemn- 
 ed by the laws of God and the reason of man. Peace on such 
 terms is not desirable. I do not rejoice in the necessity of fight- 
 ing: but the necessity being upon us, then I do bless God, that 
 we can appeal to our own consciences, to the moral sense of man- 
 kind, and to the Searcher of all hearts, in respect to the equity of 
 the principle for which we contend. I believe in the righteous- 
 ness of our cause, and also in the duty of doing our utmost to 
 maintain it, as truly as I believe in the existence of God. Morally 
 considered, we are not at liberty to be indifferent. We are bound 
 before God as well as man, to be heartily loyal. Complicity with 
 treason in such a struggle, is sin. 
 
 Special force is given to these thoughts when we remember, 
 that the Government of these United States is not despotic and 
 oppressive, but built on the broad foundation of Human Rights. 
 I know that the institution of slavery exists within its bosom, that 
 it did so exist when the Union was formed, and that the Fathers 
 who adopted the Constitution, did incidentally recognize it as a 
 local institution of the States, providing for the rendition of fugi- 
 tive slaves, and also granting an increased representation to the 
 Slave States in the lower House of Congress on account of their 
 slave population. I know also that the Southern people, especi- 
 ally within the last thirty years, pleading what they call their 
 constitutional rights on this subject, have become exceedingly 
 extravagant and unreasonable in their claims upon the general 
 Government, and that for the most part they have succeeded in 
 these claims, largely controlling the national administration, and 
 making or unmaking compromises very much at their own dis- 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. S 
 
 cretion. Looking at a very large class of facts as they lie in our 
 past history, one might almost suppose that this Government was 
 created to be the guardian-angel of the extension and perpetuity 
 of slavery. That it has been sadly perverted to these ends, is an 
 unquestionable fact. 
 
 And yet the Revolutionary Fathers had in view no such result, 
 and meant no such thing. The slavery then existing tliey de- 
 plored and condemned as a social, political, and moral evil, which, 
 as they believed, would soon pass away, and leave liberty regu- 
 lated by just and equal laws, as the blessing and inheritance*' of 
 all the people. Such inen as Madison, John Jay, Dr. Franklin, 
 Jefferson, John Adams, Washington, indeed most of the public 
 men of the Eevolutionary age, very freely expressed their hatred 
 of slavery, and advocated its early abolition. It is true, that 
 yielding to the necessities of the hour, and desiring to secure the 
 co-operation of all the States in the formation of the Union, they 
 made compromises with this institution; and it is just as' true, 
 that they honestly supposed, that in a few years the system would 
 disappear by a process of natural decay. Hence Madison was 
 not willing to have the word slave inserted in the Constitution, to 
 disgrace that noble charter of human liberty with the chattel-doc- 
 trine of property in man. The ordinance of 1787, prohibiting 
 slavery in the North Western Territory, gave expression to the 
 same idea and the same feeling. The spirit and purpose of our 
 ancestors are among the most obvious facts of history. One great 
 object of their labors, as they expressly said, was to "secure the 
 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"— that liberty 
 which recognizes as a fundamental idea, the fact "that all men 
 are created equal," "endowed by their Creator with certain ina- 
 lienable rights," among which "are life, liberty, and tlie pursuit 
 of happiness." 
 
 "The true and real life of a nation is the political idea^'' or 
 ideas " upon which it is based. The ideas of our governmenr are 
 Liberty 2in6. Z7n% :"— Liberty, as the gift of God to the indivi- 
 dual man, subject in civil society to those legal directions and re- 
 straints which are necessary to guard it against injury and abuse: 
 —Unity, cementing and binding together all the people as one 
 grand organism of social and political life. To realize these ideas 
 
4 THE nation's blessing IN TEIAL. 
 
 in a practical form, the Constitution creates a nation by the 
 self-directed action of the people, whose legally expressed will is 
 the supreme law of the land. It provides the several depart- 
 ments of Government, making them directly or indirectly de- 
 pendent upon the people, thus giving free scope to the principle 
 of popular representation. It invests the national will with the 
 prerogatives of sovereignty, so limiting and qualifying what are 
 called State Eights as to preserve the nationality of the whole 
 people, considered as one, and but one political society existing 
 under a common Government. Too much cannot be said in 
 praise of this Constitution. It has fewer faults and more ex- 
 cellences than any other instrument of the kind ever made by 
 man. The Union under it has been prolific of countless benefits. 
 The modern pretense of Southern politicians, that it has proved a 
 system of aggression upon Southern rights, is utterly false. True, 
 the Free States liave advanced much more rapidly than the Slave 
 States, outgrowing them in popuhition and wealth: but this is 
 the natural and necessary consequence of the difference between 
 the two forms of society. All the New England States put togeth- 
 er, are but a trifle larger than the single State of Virginia : the lat- 
 ter was first in the time of settlement: her climate is most invit- 
 ing, and lier natural elements of wealth, almost boundless : her 
 position too is central: yet on account of her free institutions, 
 New England has left Virginia very far in the rear, wedded to her 
 system of slavery and its curses, proving by the laws of political 
 economy, that while righteousness exalteth a nation, sin is always 
 a reproach to any people. 
 
 If then we must fight for our Constitution, I thank God that we 
 are fighting on the side of liberty. This great nation infamously 
 attacked by a most wanton treason, is striving not only to pre- 
 serve its flag and its unity, but also to preserve the interests of 
 liberty and justice. We are solving not only for ourselves, but 
 also for the world, through all coming time, the problem of rep- 
 resentative self government And whether we consider the prin- 
 ciple of nationality, or the qualities of that nationality providen- 
 tially committed to our keeping, we should be an ignoble peo- 
 ple, unworthy of our inheritance, and unfaithful to duty, if we 
 consented to the demands of this outrageous treason. Those who 
 
THE nation's BliESSma IN TRIAL. 5 
 
 want peace upon any terms, and even pray God to give ns peace 
 without reference to the principles involved in a just peace, or 
 who would be willing to settle this controversy by a miserable 
 compromise, that would simply transfer the difficulty to a future 
 age, seem to me very deficient in their views of the crisis. I 
 want no such peace, and no such compromise. I am satisfied with 
 the Constitution as it is. It is the charter of liberty, and not of 
 despotism: as the bond of Union, it is the central orb of our po- 
 litical system; and I go for maintaining it at whatever cost. If 
 this orb ot day sink into darkness, especially to give place to a 
 most unrighteous despotism, I know not where, or when freedom 
 can ever again safely build her altars. As it seems to me, the 
 last hope of free institutions would perish from the world, if we 
 fail in this struggle. I dread war, but I dread this more. 
 
 I NAME, SECONDLY, OUR NATIONAL PRESERVATION AND SUCCESS 
 
 THUS FAR IN THIS CONTEST. — We Still have a country and a Govern- 
 ment. We are not yet dead. I very much doubt whether there 
 is a monarchy in Europe, that could survive such a rebellion for 
 three months. 
 
 In the commencement, all the advantages were on the side 
 of the insurgents. For years they had been preparing for this 
 struggle, while the Northern people dreaming of no such crisis, 
 were folding their arms in quiet security. Look carefully at the 
 facts: — see the late President as imbecile as a little child, sur- 
 rounded by a Cabinet, at least half of whom were fraitors and 
 perjured viilians, plotting to destroy the very Government they 
 were sworn to support : — look into the National Congress swarm- 
 ing with traitors, belching out the angry fires of treason, without 
 fear or restraint — : see how traitors had plundered the national 
 treasury, scattered the navy to the four quarters of the globe, 
 organized and even drilled many of their regiments, and distrib- 
 uted the public arms in the Southern States : — witness the Gen- 
 erals and under-officers of Government marching by scores into 
 the ranks of treason: — see the almost total want of an army to 
 be at once called into the public service: — see the wide extent 
 of this foul conspiracy, reaching all through the Slave States, and 
 patronized by the officers of State Government: — study well too 
 the strange attitude of the Northern mind, just passing out of a 
 
6 THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 
 
 severe political strife with all the heart-burnings incident to such 
 a contest, the vanquished charging the fault upon the victors, a 
 portion of the secular press actually shouting in triumph over 
 the secession of States, not a few people sympathizing with this 
 wickedness, patriots and honest men standing aghast, for the 
 moment paralyzed, hoping and fearing, looking around for com- 
 promises, not at all perceiving the tremendous magnitude of the 
 scene before them, and having no great leader like a Webster, a 
 Jackson, or a Clay, with grasp of thought and words of fire to 
 move the public heart: — I say, look at these facts as they rolled 
 along in rapid succession; aud really it would seem as if all were 
 lost, and the knell of our nationality sounding. Tell me what 
 Government on earth but this, under like disadvantages, could 
 have escaped a total wreck. It is a marvel of Providence that 
 we were saved at all. 
 
 And how were we saved at this critical moment? IS^ot by 
 the Peace Congress that met in Washington: not by the speeches 
 of our representatives and senators in Congress: not by the me- 
 •diation of the Border States: but by the wonderful providence 
 of God, in some respects holding back the rebels and delaying 
 their plans, and in others, so guiding our President in the early 
 stages of his administration that when the moment came for him 
 to sound the note of alarm, twenty millions of people, receiving 
 into their bosoms one of those sudden and mighty regenerations 
 of public feeling that does the work of centuries in a day, awoke 
 from their lethargy, and sprang to the rescue, as if by the call 
 of God. The people burning with a righteous indignation, felt 
 the providential inspiration of the hour, and under God saved 
 the country. God's providence so ordered events, that loyal and 
 patriotic hearts were moved in season. He taught us at the mo- 
 ment, as he has been since teaching us, that the work before us 
 demands the very best qualities of the man, and the truest steel 
 of the genuine patriot. Let God be praised that the country 
 and the Constitution were not lost in tlie very outset of the 
 struggle. We were just saved from a violent revolution. The 
 South calculating upon a divided North, expected great aid from 
 this source; and at one time it seemed more than possible that 
 we might have civil war on Northern soil. 
 
THE ]SrATIO]!T's BLESSING IN TEIAL. Y 
 
 Delivering us from this our earliest and greatest clanger, 
 Providence lias smiled upon our efforts to a far greater extent 
 than perhaps we appreciate. If we complain that Tnore has not 
 been done, it may be well to see what has been done. "We cer- 
 tainly have retained Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, 
 and Western Virginia, all of which would have been swept into 
 this whirlpool of secession but for the presence and activity of 
 the Federal forces, thereby greatly increasing the difficulties of 
 our position. We have maintained along a sea-coast of several 
 thousand miles, a very effective blockade, as proven by its con- 
 sequences upon the manufacturing interests of Europe. We have 
 made vast military preparations for the public defense by both 
 land and sea. We have paid the entire expenditure without 
 borrowing a single dollar from any foreign country. It is true, 
 that the rebels have also increased their forces; yet in doing this 
 they have about exhausted their fighting population ; they can- 
 not bring many more men into the field, having already done 
 their very hest; whereas the loyal States, having for a time j^Zay- 
 ed the game of war in the hope of avoiding its greatest severity, 
 are now prepared to sweep down upon them with fleets and ar- 
 mies that must be irresistible, No nation of ancient or modern 
 times ever presented such a tremendous array of force, as that 
 which is now at the disposal of the Government. Nothing but 
 the most astounding inactivity and mismanagement, can prevent 
 its success. We now understand the foe. We now see what we 
 have to do, and are amply prepared to do it. 
 
 Moreover, in respect to the question of actual victories, the 
 advantage has been decidedly on the side of the Government. 
 True, we failed at Bull Run, and before Richmond, and recently 
 in the neighborhood of Washington ; but we did not fail at Hat- 
 teras Inlet, at Port Royal, at Roanoke Island, at Newbern, at 
 Fort Macon, at Fort Pulaski, at Fort Henry, at Fort Donehon, 
 at Somerset, at Sliiloli, at Corinth, at Pea Ridge, at Memphis, at 
 New Madrid, at Island No. Ten, at Norfolk, at New Orleans, and 
 more recently in Maryland. We have gained more victories 
 than we have lost, three to one. We have captured and paroled 
 more prisoners of war than the rebels. We have taken from 
 them a large number of important positions, which they had 
 
S THE nation's blessing ET TEIAL. 
 
 gained, not by fighting, but by treason ; and no position of any 
 consequence, once recovered from them, is now in their hands. 
 They now occupy very much less territory than they did in the 
 outset. AVhile they have not been able to carry the war into 
 the loyal States, we have possession of very Important points in 
 every disloyal State. The Mississippi River, with the exception 
 of a single point, is in our hands ; and soon the whole of it will 
 be. The rebels can show no such record of facts. Richmond, 
 Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, and Yicksburgh, are their only 
 remaining strongholds; and these we shall capture in due season. 
 Our great lack hitherto has not been a want of men or means, 
 but a want of energy in using them; and while I am not dispos- 
 ed to be either a croaker or a fault-finder, I am more than will- 
 ing that the Government should be instructed by its own failures. 
 The President has doubtless by this time learnt, what we have 
 all equally learnt, that a war--po\icj is the only policy that can 
 save the nation. 
 
 Looking at these facts, I suggest that as patriots and Chris- 
 tians, we have ample occasion to thank God for the favors of his 
 good providence thus far, and take courage for the future. 
 Though not at the end of the war, we have gained much. We 
 are not by any means, as some seem to think, where we were a 
 year ago. Believing our cause to be just, we have appealed to 
 the God of providence; we have besought him to make our cause 
 his care; we have prayed for the President, for his Cabinet, for 
 the National Congress, for the Generals and the soldiers; and I 
 submit that what has been done through these agencies, even if 
 not all that could have been done, is quite sufiicient to make us 
 a grateful people. If there are dark sides to the past and the 
 present, there are also bright sides; and while we may not over- 
 look the former, we should be very careful not to forget the latter. 
 
 I MENTION, THIRDLY, THE GENERAL CHASTISEMENT OF THIS WAR 
 AS WELL AS THE DISCIPLINE OF OUR DEFEATS AND DELAYS. — Some- 
 times, as with the individual, so with the nation, the very best 
 lessons of life are taught, and the highest virtues cultivated, in 
 the midst of the severest adversity. Prosperity often generates 
 vices which nothing but adversity can cure. When God's judg- 
 ments are abroad in the land, the people have a signal opportu- 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TEIAL. 9 
 
 nitj to learn righteousness. The immutable problems of morality 
 and right then make their appearance, and often enter as facts into 
 the bosom of history. 
 
 The Pulpit and the Religious Press have descanted at large 
 upon the sins of the American people, as sustaining a moral con- 
 nection with the evils which we now suffer. This is just and 
 proper. It is not mere cant to say, that this war is the rod of 
 God for the punishment and correction of a guilty people. We 
 have sinned in various ways, and for all our sins deserve the di- 
 vine displeasure; and yet I cannot conceal from myself, or with- 
 out the grossest hypocrisy attempt to conceal from you, the fact 
 that the sin of human bondage is palpably and unmistakably the 
 great evil, which as a cause, underlies this war. How any one 
 can fail to see this, is to me a marvel. A man can say, that 
 slavery has nothing to do with this war ; and so he can say that 
 the sun does not shine when millions of eyes attest the fact. For 
 what was it that the South threatened to secede in the event of 
 Mr. Lincoln's election? Slavery. For what did they make the 
 same threat at the time the Missouri Compromise was adopted? 
 Slavery. What has been the subject of their persistent agitation 
 for the last forty years? Slavery. What has been the great point 
 of conflict between the North and the South during the whole 
 history of the Government? Slavery, For what have compro- 
 mises been made? Slavery. To what did Mr. Crittenden's pro- 
 posed compromise refer? Slavery. What was the subject which 
 the Peace Congrees met to consider and adjust? Slavery. What 
 was the. matter of constant debate in both Houses of Congress 
 during the winter of 1860 and '61? Slavery. What was the 
 ground upon which the State Conventions based their acts of se- 
 cession? Slavery. What is the main point of difference between 
 the Constitution of tlie United States and that of the so-called 
 Confederate States? Slavery. What was the reason with which 
 the Southern heart was fired, and the people precipitated into 
 this rebellion? Slaver3^ Who are the aiders and abettors of 
 this rebellion? Slaveholders. Who started it? Slaveholders. 
 Whence came it? From tlie land of Slavery. It is astonishing, 
 that any one, with such a cloud of facts before him, all pointing 
 in one dii'ection, can fail to see the cause^ the great and overruling 
 
10 THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 
 
 cause, of this wicked rebellion. Southern politicians, leaders, and 
 conspirators, with slavery as the basis of action, were determined 
 to rule the nation, or break up the Union , and when the election 
 of Mr. Lincoln indicated that they could not, as hitherto, rule, 
 then they resorted to secession. Neither the Abolitionists, nor 
 the Republican Party, nor any body else but themselves, can be 
 justly held responsible for this work of death. It is their work, 
 self-prompted, and without any sufficient occasion, except in the 
 desire to perpetuate and extend the institution of slavery. 
 
 Mr. Stephens, the Yice President of the Confederate States, 
 alluding to slavery, expressly says: — "This was the immediate 
 cause of the late rupture and the present revolution." Speaking 
 to Southern men and slaveholders, he had no hesitation in stating 
 the true cause of the rupture. He knew what it was; and he 
 knew that they knew it. 
 
 The liichinond Examiner^ in a recent article discussing the 
 idea of a forced conscription of slaves for purposes of labor, holds 
 the following language: "As the war originated and is carried 
 on in great part for the defense of the slaveholder in his property, 
 rights, and the perpetuation of the institution, he ought to be 
 first and foremost in aiding, by every means in his power, the 
 triumph and success of our arms. The slaveholder ought to re- 
 member, that fur every negro he thus furnishes, he puts a soldier 
 in the ranks," The Southern people understand such logic. 
 Well did the Neio York Ohserve7\ quoting the above confession, 
 add the following withering comment: — "In the annals of hu- 
 man crime, dark and bloody as they are, we note no avowal 
 more unblushing and barbarous, none that so utterly ignores 
 the character and obligations of Christian civilization and com- 
 mon humanity, none that so stamps a war with all the attributes 
 of sin and shame to be borne in ages of history by those who 
 begun and carried it on for such a purpose." 
 
 We do not then mis-state the facts of the case, or misrepresent 
 the men, when we trace this war to slavery. Slavery began the 
 war, and slavery is now pursuing it. It is the slaveholders' re- 
 bellion, plotted by conspirators ambitious for control, and using 
 this institution as the means of gaining their end. But for slave- 
 ry there would have been no rebellion. The fault is not in the 
 
11 
 
 North, but in the South. The discussions of the subject by North- 
 ern men, their earnest and manly protest against the extension 
 of slavery, their unwillingness to have the policy of slavery rule 
 the land, even the severe denunciations used by the most extreme 
 Abolitionists, — these and the like facts are in no just and proper 
 sense the cause of this war. The real cause lies in the men who 
 began it, in the purposes and motives which draw their life from 
 the institution of slavery. And now all the people, North and 
 South, are suffering the dire calamities of war on account of this 
 evih Long ago we ought to have met the question like states- 
 men, freemen, and Christians; but we did not, deeming it better 
 to patch up momentary compromises, whichj as the sequel has 
 sadly proved, did not cure the evil, or avert the real danger. 
 This has been our mistake and our folly; since the passage of the 
 ordinance of 1787, the nation seems to have forgotten that slave- 
 ry is a great moral wrong; it has bargained and bartered over 
 this evil; and for this we are now feeling tlie chastening rod of 
 God. I would not pray for war as a means of grace; yet when 
 it comes, I think it well to trace its moral connections, to repent 
 of the sin which has occasioned it, to be instructed by it, to listen 
 to the voice of God in it, to remember that justice and judgment 
 are the habitation of his throne, and gratefully accept the bless- 
 ing which, through such a tremendous affliction, he designs to 
 convey. We ought thoroughly to wash our hands from all com- 
 plicity with this evil, and do what we can to remove it from the 
 land. If slavery be the evil for which God is chastening us, 
 then his Providence points us to freedom as the moral remedy. 
 We shall be wise to look in the direction of the evil. There the 
 finger of Providence points; and we may be sure that we can 
 make no false issue with Providence. 
 
 So also our defeats and delays, while seeming to be disasters, 
 were perhaps necessary as a suitable moral discipline The pub- 
 lic mind, twelve months ago, was not in a right posture to turn 
 victory to the ends of righteousness. The nation had not suffered 
 enough, or thought enough upon the momentous questions of this 
 age, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before God. We 
 have been slowly learning, as I trust we shall continue to learn, 
 that if we wish to preserve our nationality and transmit to our 
 
12 THE nation's blessing IN TEIAL. 
 
 children a solid and enduring peace, we must rid ourselves of 
 that which is the great cause of our present troubles. "Peace," 
 says Napoleon, writing from Germany to his brother Joseph who 
 was anxious for peace, "is a word that means nothing. It is the 
 conditions of peace that are all." If duly humbled and penitent, 
 we at length make peace on the right conditions, the historian in 
 after- ages, when writing up the events of this hour, free from the 
 passions and excitements of the existing struggle, will point to a 
 people chastened and disciplined by the God of providence, that 
 purity and justice might become the laws of their national life. 
 I am anxious for peace, but I am more anxious in respect to the 
 principles involved in that peace. I want the Constitution as it 
 is, in the letter and spirit of its true meaning, to be the basis of 
 peace. Nothing is clearer than that we can have no safe and 
 honorable peace that ^ do not ourselves dictate : there is some- 
 where an Austerlitz between us and the peace we are seeking; 
 and hoping that we shall find it in due season, I accept the chas- 
 tisement and discipline, the taxation and disappointment of our 
 delays, not as pure and unmixed evils, but as providentially con- 
 nected wjth our highest future good. I am not a prophet ; yet if I 
 were to make a guess into the future, T should be inclined to take 
 this view. At any rate, it is to me a bow of promise, and hence 
 of cheerful hope. I think I see God behind this scene, "setting 
 in array the forces of thought and principle," and preparing a na- 
 tion for his own glory. I think I see a providential and moral 
 strategy behind "all the outward equipage and muniments of 
 visible war," that in final results will be more beneficent than 
 the mere victory of arms. Providence will win in this terrible 
 contest, and posterity rejoice. 
 
 I NAME, FOURTHLY, THE PRESENT PROSPECT THAT PrOVIDENCE 
 MEANS TO ELIMINATE THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY FROM OUR POLITI- 
 CAL SYSTEM. — I have recently taken some pains to inform myself 
 in respect to the history of the Slave-Power in this country ; and 
 I declare to you, that the investigation has greatly increased ray 
 desire that this Power might come to an end. 
 
 By the Slave-Power I mean mainly the social and political 
 influence of the large slaveholders, especially those of the Cal- 
 houn school, now numbering perhaps not more than one hun- 
 
THE nation's blessing- IN TEIAL. 13 
 
 dred thousand persons in a population of more than thirty mil- 
 lions. This Power once comparatively insignificant, is actuated 
 by a class of ideas and interests, that not only unify its purposes, 
 but instinctively inspire it with the claim of ascendency. It is a 
 solid and compact power. Yielding to the economic necessities 
 which arise from the exhaustion of the soil by slave-culture, it 
 wants territory for expansion. Moved by the habits of feeling 
 which are inherent in its very nature, it wants Slave-States added 
 to the Union, as the means of maintaining its political control. 
 Like all oligarchies, it is anxious to secure governmental power. 
 Its history in this country has been one of constant aggression 
 and advancement, especially within the last thirty years. It 
 forms the landed aristocracy of the South, rules in the politics 
 and social ideas of the Southern people, and for a long period, 
 strange as it may seem, has held almost an absolute mastery over 
 the Federal Government. By reason of the staples which it pro- 
 duces, and the market it furnishes for Northern trade, it has 
 identified with itself the selfish interests of commerce. Through 
 the medium of the inter-State slave trade, the statistics of which 
 are shocking to the feelings of humanity, it has firmly united the 
 Border Slave States and the Cotton States in a common policy. 
 Slavery would 'not be profitable in the former but for the domes- 
 tic slave trade. For years Virginia has pursued the infamous 
 business of raising slaves to supply the more Southern market. 
 Though this has been to her a great source of revenue, every 
 right-minded man must look upon the whole thing with the most 
 perfect disgust and abhorrence. 
 
 To please and conciliate the slave interest, pa'rticularl}^ in 
 South Carolina and Georgia, the former of which States has been 
 a hot-bed of treason during nearly the whole history of the Gov- 
 ernment, the framers of the Constitution reluctantly gave their 
 consent to the continuance of the foreign slave trade for a period 
 of twenty years, — a trade now declared to be piracy punishable 
 with death. It doubtless seemed to them wise as a compromise 
 to settle the vexed question, and bring these States into the 
 Union : — yet, alas ! the bitter experience of this country has ful- 
 ly shown, that all efibrts to satisfy the spirit of slavery by con- 
 cessions, pnly increase and intensify its demands. No student of 
 
14 THE NATIOK'^S BLESSmG IN TRIAL. 
 
 our political history can fail to see this truth. It would have 
 been far better, if the Fathers fresh from the Kevolution, and 
 breathing the warm inspirations of freedom, had stood firmly to 
 its principles, even if the formation of the Union had been de- 
 layed for a time. 
 
 The territorial expansion of slavery under the lead of the 
 Slave-Power, since the adoption of the Constitution, is a most 
 alarming fact. Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, Mississip- 
 pi in 1817, and Alabama in 1819, came into the Union as Slave 
 States, being formed out of our original territory, thus enlarging 
 the domain ot slavery, and increasing the political strength of the 
 Slave-Power. In 18.03, the Government purchased of France the 
 territory of Louisiana, paying for it $15,000,000; and in 1819, it 
 bought Florida of Spain, paying $5,000,000. Out of this terri- 
 tory Slave States were formed and admitted in the Union: — Lou- 
 isiana, in 1812: — Arkansas, in 1836: — and Florida, in 1845. 
 
 During the Congress of 1819 and '20, occurred the memora- 
 ble contest in respect to Missouri, another Slave State, formed 
 out of the Louisiana purchase. At this time, the Free States be- 
 came thoroughly alarmed at the dangerous progress of slavery; 
 yet the Slave-Power, true to its instincts, insisted that Missouri 
 should come in as a Slave State, threatening to dissolve the Union 
 if its demands were not granted ; and after a severe struggle, free- 
 dom yielded, and slavery triumphed. Thus we have eight Slave 
 States added, four out of original territory, and four out of ac- 
 quired, swelling the tide of this strange Power. 
 
 But this is not enough. Mexico, of which Texas was a part, 
 having achieved her independence, abolished slavery in 1829. 
 Almost immediately the Slave-Power cast its eager eye upon 
 Texas as a territorial prize too valuable to be lost. The first 
 plan was to purchase Texas of Mexico; and when this failed, 
 came the effort to get possession of the country, first, by emigra- 
 tion, and then by revolution. Citizens of the United States 
 wrested Texas from Mexico, and devoted it to the extension of 
 slavery. This point being gained, the next thing was to annex 
 Texas to this country; and this was surreptitiously accomplished 
 by a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress in 1845, with a 
 stipulation for dividing it, if necessary, into five States. Here 
 
THE, nation's blessing IN TEIAL. 15 
 
 is another State that may be divided into several others, added 
 to the Slave-Power. 
 
 But again this is not enough. Soon we are involved in the 
 Mexican war, resulting in another large acquisition of territory. 
 The Slave-Power meant to have California and New Mexico; 
 but being disappointed by the unexpected rush of free emigra- 
 tion into the former, it resisted the admission of California as a 
 Free State; and this led to the celebrated compromises of 1850, 
 then proclaimed to be a final settlement of the question of 
 slavery. 
 
 The question, however, did not stay settled. In 1854 it was 
 opened again by the repeal of the Missouri-compromise for the 
 express purpose of providing for the introduction of slavery into 
 Kansas ; and following this we have the tremendous struggle of the 
 slave-interest to force a slave-constitution upon an unwilling peo- 
 ple, actually compelling them to take up arms in their own de- 
 fense. Every possible effort was made to keep Kansas as a Free 
 State, out of the Union. You are all familiar with the history. 
 
 About this time, this most extraordinary and dangerous Pow- 
 er makes the discovery, that slave-property like any other prop- 
 erty, has a right, under the Constitution, to go into the Federal 
 territories and there be protected by national law ; and in the 
 famous Dred Scott case, it gained from the Supreme Court an 
 extra-judicial declaration of this doctrine, contrary to all the an- 
 tecedents of our political history. Carrying this new doctrine 
 into the politics of the South, the prominent leaders of this Pow- 
 er, at the last Presidential election, repudiated Mr. Douglas with 
 his political friends at the North, and nominated a man who has 
 since proved himself a traitor, because Mr. Douglas would not 
 adopt this extreme Southern view in respect to the rights of sla- 
 very. When the nation had declared its will in the election of 
 Mr. Lincoln, these same men began the work of secession, and 
 precipitated the country into all the the calamities and horrors 
 of war. 
 
 Under the general law, that one's moral instinpts will rule 
 his practice, or his practice modify and change his instincts, these 
 men now startle the moral sense of the world with the bold pro- 
 position, that slavery is essentially a beneficent system, the nor- 
 
16 THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 
 
 mal state of negro-life, that for which God made the black man, 
 divine in its sanctions, and that the special mission of the South 
 is to preserve this institution and extend it as far as possible. 
 Politicians, and to a very large extent Southern Christians, have 
 adopted this view. This doctrine was boldly asserted by Mr. 
 Stephens in his speech at Atlanta. The RicTimond Enquirer 
 goes even farther than this. " Hitherto the defense of slavery," 
 says the Enquirer^ "has encountered great difficulties, because its 
 apologists (for they were merely apologists) stopped half way. 
 They confined the defense of slavery to n^^ro-slavery alone, aban- 
 doning the principle of slavery, and admitting that every other 
 form of slavery was wrong. Now, the line of defense is chang- 
 ed: the South maintains that slavery is just, natural, and neces- 
 sary, and that it does not depend on the diflPerence of complex- 
 ions.^^ This is admirably consistent, for if negro-slavery is right, 
 then all slavery is right. The question of color has nothing to 
 do with the character of the institution. The South are making 
 rapid progress in the wrong direction, claiming that cainial in- 
 vested in the ruling class, should own labor, and hence govern it 
 by an absolute authority. This is the political and social Para- 
 dise, towards which the Southern people are marching. 
 
 Though the population of the slave States is, and for a long 
 time has been, much less than that of the Free States, a major- 
 ity of the Presidents, of Cabinet Ministers, of the members of 
 the Supreme Court, of Army and Navy appointments, have been 
 Southern men, most of them known to be publicly committed to 
 the interests of slavery. Southern men, in number out of all 
 proportion to the population of the Slave States as compared 
 with that of the Free, havfe filled the places of honor, enjoyed 
 the patronage of the Government, and fixed its policy. North- 
 ern men have been compelled to make their obeisance to the 
 Slave-Power, and swear upon its altars, in order to avoid being 
 proscribed by Southern politicians. Let a Northern man be 
 even suspected of not being true to the slave-interest, and he at 
 once lost cnste with the Sout' 
 
 Such are some of the facts, — not all of them, but merely 
 some of them, — marking the career of the Slave-Power in this 
 country, which truthful history submits to the inspection of a 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 17 
 
 candid world. Let me add, that they are just such facts as nat- 
 urally and necessarily spring from the tendencies and influences 
 of slave-society, when attempting to run the race with that 
 order of civilization which prevails in free society. The two 
 systems are essentially antagonistical. They never were harmon- 
 ized, and they never can be. The effort to do it in this country, 
 has proved a failure. Between them there is, always has been, 
 and always will be, an "irrepressible conflict." You may 
 proclaim a truce to this conflict by a compromise; but the quar- 
 rel will break out again, and keep breaking out till one or the 
 other system reigns with undisputed ascendency. It is not so 
 much in the men who are parties to it, as it is in the principles 
 and difi'erent ends by which they are actuated. No political 
 bonds, without incessant strife, can hold together such conflicting 
 elements. Long before modern Abolitionists were known, this 
 conflict was going on ; and it will continue till either freedom or 
 slavery dies. It made its appearance in the Federal Conven- 
 tion that drafted the Constitution ; and ever since that day 
 nothing has sufficed to heal the difficulty. We have had as good 
 compromisers as the world ever saw ; and every one of them has 
 failed of success. Where nature makes a discord, no human 
 power can make a harmony. 
 
 It is no just answer to this sketch of the progress and de- 
 mands of the Slave- Power, to say that the Free States have also 
 increased in number and population. This growth of freedom 
 in the removal of slavery from the ISTorthern States, and in the 
 addition of new Free States, is simply carrying out the princi- 
 ples upon which this Government was founded. Freedom is the 
 natural and proper destiny of the American people, to which 
 they stand committed before God and man ; and all progress in 
 this direction is in exact accordance with the very genius of .our 
 social and political life. It is not so with slavery. Slavery is a 
 social and political disease, hostile to the first principles of Re- 
 publican democracy ; and hence its growth is just so much added 
 to the original difficulty. 
 
 Now, in view of the facts thus presented, I sincerely thank 
 God for whatever there is of prospect, that one of the conse- 
 
18 THE nation's blessing IN TKIAL. 
 
 quences of this war will be the downfall of the Slave-Power, 
 and of the system on which it rests. It is quite time that such 
 a power should come to an end. It has already ruled too long 
 for the good of the people. In the language of Professor Cairnes, 
 "it forms, as it seems to me, one of the most striking and alarm- 
 ing episodes in modern history." He speaks of it "as the most 
 formidable antagonist to civilized progress which has appeared 
 for many centuries, representing a system of society at once re- 
 trograde and aggressive, — a system which containing within it 
 no germs from which improvement can spring, gravitates inev- 
 itably towards barbarism, while it is impelled by exigencies in- 
 herent in its position and circumstances to a constant extension 
 of its territorial domain." He says: — "From the year 1819 
 down to the present time, the history of the United States has 
 been one record of aggressions by the Slave-Power, feebl}^, and 
 almost always unsuccessfully, resisted by the Northern States, 
 and culminating in the present war." Such is the estimate of a 
 profound philosopher, looking at our past and present from the 
 other side of the water. Thank God for the hope, that our fu-. 
 ture will be different! 
 
 The Government released from the predominant influences of 
 slavery, has already done some good things in the right direction ; 
 and I trust that it will do more in the same direction. It has 
 abolished slavery in the District of Columbia. It has by law in- 
 terdicted the existence of this institution in the national territo- 
 ries. It has made a treaty with England, contemplating more 
 vigorous eflforts for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade. 
 It has recognized the national character of Liberia and Hayti, 
 and entered into diplomatic relations with these Governments. 
 It has applied its strong arm to the slave-trader, giving all the 
 people practical notice that it means to execute the law against 
 this class of offenders. These are steps in the right direction, 
 showing that the principles of freedom now rule at Washington. 
 
 The people of Missouri, too, show by their recent election, that 
 they have caught the inspiration of freedom. A majority of 
 their next Legislature, and at least four of their Kepresentatives 
 in the next Congress, are emancipationists, having been elected 
 on this distinctive principle. Missouri has received an awful 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 19 
 
 lesson from this war, and seems inclined to profit by it. West- 
 ern Yirginina will natnrallj range herself in the same line. In 
 the Border States, slavery has already been so demoralized, to 
 use the military phrase, as to lose very much of its value, com- 
 pactness and strength. The system is shaken and shaking under 
 the tread of contending legions. The war has unsettled its foun- 
 dations, lessened its profits, and made it insecure. These States 
 will soon find it for their interests, as it is clearly their duty, to 
 detach themselves from this falling and fading system of evil. 
 Every hour that the strife goes on, increases the certainty that 
 this must be the final result. 
 
 As I have no doubt, the Federal Government would be very 
 glad to have the rebels lay down their arms; but I see ho hope, 
 not even the faintest, that the leaders of this rebellion have the 
 least idea of doing this thing. If you call a Federal Convention 
 to remodel the Constitution, they will be no parties to it. They 
 do not mean to compromise this matter at all. They mean to 
 fight it out. They utterly scout the idea of returning to the Union 
 upon any terms. The Richnond Examiner, in a recent article, 
 giving up all hope of intervention by England, remarks;— "We 
 are told to beat the North, or submit. We may do the first of 
 these things; but if we cannot, we never will do the last. Im- 
 portant as it is, this event does not change tl!e position or pur- 
 pose of the South the breadth of a hair." Those compromisers 
 who are going to settle this difliiculty for ns, as they say, would 
 do well to remember, that those who constitute the life and soul, 
 the working 2>mm5, of this rebellion, want no compromise. Stead- 
 fastly, with a persistence that in a good cause would deserve our 
 admiration, do they assert that they will never come back into 
 the Union, or consent to a peace not based on Disunion. When 
 Henry May went to Richmond as a kind of volunteer peace- 
 maker, he was distinctly told that if he were to present them a 
 blank sheet of paper, with the full permission to write their own 
 terms of reconciliation, they would utterly reject it. The Rich- 
 mond Dispatch, of Nov, 10th, in an article on "the elections of 
 Yankeedora," says that "the old flag is the most detested of sym- 
 bols to the whole body of Southern society." It calls the Ameri- 
 can Eagle a "Yankee buzzard," and declares that "if slavery 
 
20 THE nation's blessing in trial. 
 
 were legalized in every State, the South would never accept the 
 condition for a return to the land of bondage." 
 
 It is hence a plain matter of fact, — and we may as well see it first 
 as last, — that we must positively conquer the rebels, and coerce 
 them into subjection to the Federal authority, as the only possi- 
 ble means of restoring the Union. If we cannot do this, we can- 
 not gain the end ; and if this will not gain it, nothing else will. 
 I think we may set our hearts at rest on this point. And in or- 
 der to this end, it is becoming increasingly obvious every day 
 that if we really mean to conquer the rebels, we must strike at 
 their system of slavery, it being one of their strongholds; and 
 make the slave-population our friends, using them and protect- 
 ing them as such, as fast as we can reach them. We must cease 
 to regard the people in the rebellious States as slaves and masters, 
 and simply view them as enemies ov friends. 
 
 Instructed by the course of events, and acting upon this theo- 
 ry, the President, who by the Constitution is the "Commander- 
 in-Chief of the Army and Navy," and to whom is hence intrusted 
 the direction of the military force of the nation in the time of 
 war, has issued his Proclamation of Emancipation as one branch 
 of his t«(zr-policy, giving the rebels ample lime in which to lay 
 down their aryis, yet threatening them with its execution, if they 
 persist in resisting the authority of the Government. This mea- 
 sure has been the subject of much careful and anxious thought on 
 the part of the President ; and it deserves the careful considera- 
 tion of the people. 
 
 It should be noted in the outset, that this Proclamation is 
 aimed, not dX peaceful and law-abiding citizens, not at those who 
 are living under the Constitution and recognize its authority, but 
 at rebellious com7nunities, including those States and portions of 
 States that are in armed rebellion against the Federal Govern- 
 ment. This is the attitude of their State authorities. The whole 
 power of these communities is now wielded for the destruction 
 of the Government. The slaves, irrespective of their own choice, 
 to all intents and purposes form a part of this power, as really as 
 the soldiers in the field. In their present position, they are 
 practically our enemies, as truly as their masters. 
 
 As to the utility of emancipation, considered as a war-mea- 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 21 
 
 sure, the President surrounded by bis Cabinet, is in a better pos- 
 ition to judge than any private citizen can possibly be. He has 
 long pondered the question; and however wise we may think 
 ourselves, "on this subject the President must be wiser, or all 
 the rules of probability fail,'' Of course it offends the rebels; 
 yet they show conclusively by tlieir own action, that they regard 
 it as increasing the difficulties of their position. They are al- 
 ready running off their slaves farther South; and when the Pro- 
 clamation shall reach the ear of the slave-population, as it most 
 certainly will, it will inspire them with the hope of liberty, make 
 them the friends of the Union, dispose them to escape from their 
 masters, and very likely compel them to withdraw a portion of 
 their forces to guard themselves against this cause of danger. So 
 far as the measure goes, it must act adversely to the rebellion, 
 and favorably to the Union. It must in various ways co-operate 
 with the army. While I am no strategist, I have common sense 
 enough to see this fact. I can readily see, that an army of inva- 
 sion treading the soil of slavery, and fighting on that soil, can 
 and must derive very great advantages from the fact that it is 
 also an army of emancipation. The slaves can and will fight for 
 our cause, if we choose thus to use them. Some of them fought 
 in the last war with England; and some of them, in the Kevolu- 
 tionary War. Why we should decline their services, especially 
 when the rebels are using them for war-purposes, is more than I 
 can see. 
 
 We have strangely overlooked the fact, that the slave-popu- 
 lation forms a prodigious power either for or against us in this 
 struggle, and that it will be one or the other according as we 
 treat that population. It is indeed a very serious question, whe- 
 ther we can conquer the South at all, if the slaves are practically 
 arrayed against us. In 1860, the number of white males between 
 the ages of 18 and 45, was about 4,000,000, for the joyal States, 
 and 1,300,000 for the disloyal States. In the latter of these States 
 you have about 3,500,000 slaves, of whom two millions may be 
 estimated as laborers. From these laborers deduct 300,000 em- 
 ployed in domestic service; and this leaves 1,700,000 plantation 
 hands engaged in tilling the soil and furnishing the productions 
 necessary for the support of the army, and hence actually work- 
 
22 THE nation's blessing in teial. 
 
 ing in the cause of the rebellion. Add j;lns 1,700,000 slaves to 
 the 1,300,000 whites between the ages of 18 and 45, and you 
 have a military and producing force of 3,000,000 in the disloyal 
 States opposed to one of 4,000,000 in the loyal. This makes the 
 struggle, as to the question of numbers, very much nearer one of 
 equality than we have been wont to imagine. Transfer the slave- 
 population to our side: adopt a policy which may and must, to 
 a very considerable extent, accomplish this result; make the ne- 
 gro loyal to the Union rather than to his master: and by the sim- 
 plest rules of arithmetic, you will so much weaken the rebellion, 
 and strengthen the cause of the Union. Decline this policy; and 
 you are doing the very thing that will best please the rebels, since 
 it leaves the slaves as so many human beings to be employed by 
 them for their own purposes. If this be good sense, I confess 
 that I cannot see it. Are we so prejudiced against black men, 
 that we propose to have our sons, and brothers, and fathers, by 
 the thousands and tens of thousands, killed on the field of battle, 
 rather than have our cause served by black men? This is paying 
 a large penalty for prejudice. The South are guilty of no such 
 folly. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind too, that if we mean to withdraw the 
 slaves from the service of the rebels, and enlist them in our be- 
 half, it must be done by the proclamation of freedom. There is 
 no other way to gain the end. They are persons — human 
 beings, and not passive things to be taken away by force, — to 
 whom the prospect oi freedom will be a motive of action. If we 
 repel them, or refuse to make any appeal that can reach them 
 and influence their action, they will remain just where they are, 
 serving their masters, and serving the rebellion, and thus pro- 
 tracting the war for an indefinite period. Their number is so 
 great as to make their position a question of very serious mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Some people who are quite apt to see a ghost whenever the 
 word slavery is mentioned, think that the President should have 
 done this thing, and not said it, How can he do it without say- 
 ing it? Saying it is the efi'ective way of doing it. If he wishes 
 to enlist these people in the cause of the Union, he must tell 
 them so, and upon what terms; and this is just what he has done 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TEIAL. 23 
 
 in the Proclamation. It is for their hearing as well as that of 
 their masters. 
 
 Some also are solicitous lest a servile insurrection may result 
 from the Proclamation. Of this there is no prospect; and if 
 it should occur, the fault will be wholly with the rebels. An 
 insurrection of white men against the rebel-Government we 
 should welcome and foster, as so much gain to the Union cause; 
 and I am not able to see why a needful war-measure to conquer 
 the rebellion should be ommitted, simply because Hack men 
 may possibly take it into their heads to fight for their own liber- 
 ty. We have tried war on peace principles quite long enough 
 
 Some also object because the Proclamation is not distinctively 
 an^^■ slavery. To this I reply, that whatever may be the Pres- 
 ident's moral convictions, he could not as a military commander, 
 make this a primary feature. His object is to conquer the re- 
 bellion and restore the Union: and as a means to this end, he 
 resorts to emancipation in the rebellious States. 
 
 Some '^QY&o'nQ d'owhi ihQ constitutionality of the act,* confound- 
 ing, as I humbly conceive, questions that differ most essentially. 
 Has the President, in the time oi jpeace^ the civil or administra- 
 tive right under the Constitution to adopt such a measure? 
 Clearly not. Has he as the "Commander-in-Chief of the Army 
 and Navy," in the time of war^ and for the purpose of weaken- 
 ing and destroying the enemy, the right to abolish slavery in 
 the rebel-States? Undoubtedly. He has a right to do anything 
 and everything, not contrary to the usages of civilized warfare, 
 that may be necessarj^ to the end. The Constitution makes him 
 the "Commander-in-Chief;" it puts into his hands the entire 
 military power of the nation ; but it does not prescribe to him the 
 way^ as it plainly could not, in which he shall subdue the enemy. 
 This he must determine for himself in the exercise of his best 
 discretion, subject only to those limitations which are recognized 
 among civilized communities. "No rebel has any right" of ei- 
 ther property or life, "a regard to which should weaken or ob- 
 struct any military measure needed to subdue the rebellion." 
 For this purpose the "Commander-in-Chief" has as much right 
 to emancipate the slaves in the rebellious States, as he w-ould 
 have to drill a regiment or bombard a city. The one is just as 
 
24 THE nation's blessing in teial. 
 
 constitutional as the other ; and both as war-measures, are mat- 
 ters for his discretion. The slaves are a portion of the Southern 
 people. If regarded as the property of rebels, the Government 
 has the same right to seize and use them for its own purposes, 
 that it would have to seize and use their horses or any other prop- 
 erty. If regarded as persons^ then the Government has a right 
 to detach them from the interests of the rebellion, to secure 
 their services, and take any measures necessary to these ends. 
 
 Such a war-policy in order to be effective, must act upon the 
 rebellious communities as a whole. It plainly cannot institute 
 courts of inquiry in these communities, to determine who are 
 ■ rebels and who are not. If there be loyal persons there who suffer 
 from the loss of their slaves in consequence of this measure, this is 
 the misfortune of their position; and they must look to the Govern- 
 ment to do them justice afterwards. A great military necessity 
 cannot stop on their account, especially while the Government 
 has no practical evidence that there ar'e any such persons. "Indi- 
 vidual justitffe" applicable to such cases, "must wait for calmer 
 times." 
 
 But does not the Proclamation undertake to repeal the laws 
 of the Slave States now in rebellion? Not at all. It says no- 
 thing about those laws. It leaves them where they are, in the 
 statute-book. Under the pressure of a military necessity, it sim- 
 ply removes the slave from under those laws; and so far as it 
 goes into effect, makes him a freed-man. It deals not with the 
 laws, but with the specific person or persons who are held as 
 slaves. In time of war, the military power suspends the action 
 of civil law, upon urgent necessity. It seizes the property of the 
 enemy, and applies it to its own uses. So in this case, the Pres- 
 ident adopts a policy, by which he hopes to secure and appro- 
 priate to the benefit of the Government that which the rebels 
 Qd\\ property, and which they are using with great effect against 
 the Government. In doing this he does not annul or repeal a 
 single law of any Slave State. No such power is assumed. In- 
 deed, if every one of the slaves were actually to gain his freedom, 
 the laws themselves in regard to slavery in the rebellious States 
 would still remain, just as the laws in regard to any other kind 
 of property. Suppose, the President could, and should, for mil- 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 25 
 
 itary purposes, seize nine-tenths of the horses of the rebels, would 
 any man pretend that this is a repeal of State laws in regard to 
 horses? True, the horses under the rights of war would pass 
 into the service of the Governtaent; yet the laws of the State 
 would not be repealed. They would afford no protection, for the 
 time being, against the right of seizure; and this is but the com- 
 mon incident of war, following from the general right to disable 
 an enemy. Suppose, the President selects a policy adapted to 
 take away the slaves from the enemy, on the same theory, and 
 under the same rights of war, that would justify him in taking 
 his horses, will any one say that this annuls or repeals the laws 
 of slavery? True, the slaves are gone in this case, and so were 
 the horses in the otlier; and if both are regarded as property, 
 then the President's right to take either or both, for military 
 purposes, is abundantly recognized by the laws of war. He does 
 not repeal State laws in the one case any more than he does in 
 the other; and in neither does he repeal them. 
 
 How will the Courts decide this constitutional question? 
 They will not decide it at all until they reach it; and they cer- 
 tainly will not reach it until the rebellion is subdued. The ques- 
 tion is not now^ in the Courts, and will not be until after the 
 President has done his work. As to what they will then do, we 
 must wait for time to supply the answer. They certainly cannot 
 remand back to the condition of slavery those who have actually 
 acquired their freedom under the Proclamation, any more than 
 they can return to the rebels property which has been seized and 
 coniiscated by the Government, The status of freedom being 
 once acquired, is fixed. The slave ceases to be an article of prop- 
 erty, and becomes a man, whom no existing law can return to 
 bondage. The Courts cannot, either during the war or after it, 
 reverse the actual consequences that arise from the Proclama- 
 tion. If one half, or even the whole of the slave-population be- 
 come free, then they must remain free. They are no longer the 
 subjects of slave-laws, any more than any other free persons. 
 The Courts must therefore recognize that status in which the 
 Proclamation has actually placed them, and which the President 
 pledges the executive government of the United States to main- 
 tain. True, this status grows out of a military act in the first in- 
 
26 THE nation's blessing in teial. 
 
 stance; and so does the seizure and resulting title of any other 
 species of rebel-property grow out of a military act. The Gov- 
 ernment might, if carrying out the theory of slavery, treat the 
 slaves coming into its possession as property, and sell them, just 
 as it would have the right to hold or sell the horses of rebels; 
 and if so, then it may also give them their freedom, which is the 
 theory of the President's Proclamation. 
 
 How far then will the Proclamation be likely to go in the 
 direction of freedom ? How much will it actually accomplish in 
 this respect ? It will at least be of as much service to the cause 
 of freedom, as it is to that of the Union. Every slave that it 
 takes from the rebels, and places on the side of the Union, it will 
 consecrate to freedom. This we think, may be regarded as a 
 fixed fact. "The slave" says an able writer on this point, 
 "whom we capture as property, is, after his capture and the trans- 
 fer to himself of all the captured title of his master, no longer 
 a chattel, but a man, insusceptible of recapture, except as a 
 prisoner of war, entitled to all the rights and privileges of such 
 persons." The capture forever extinguishes the master's title, 
 and devotes the slave to freedom. By his own act in escaping 
 from the master, and under the Proclamation making himself an 
 ally of the Union, he does that which is equivalent to a capture. 
 He captures himself, and forever becomes a freeman. The Pro- 
 clamation as adressed to the masters, furnishes a motive for them 
 to discontinue this wicked rebellion: but if they will not heed 
 it, then it invites the slaves to become our allies with the pro- 
 mise of freedom, pledging the Government to "maintain" this 
 freedom, and also to do " no act or acts" to hinder " any efforts 
 they may make for their actual fi'eedom." Already, without 
 any such pledge, thousands of slaves have fled from their 
 masters ; and more would have done so, if the policy of the Gov- 
 ernment had been different. General Butler designated them as 
 contraband of war, — persons indeed, yet claimed by their masters 
 2iQ property. "When the new policy shall go into effect, following 
 in the line of the army, and penetrating into the heart of the rebel- 
 lious States, these so called contrabands will be greatly increased. 
 
 The prospect, moreover, is that the leaders of the rebellion, 
 having staked everything upon their own success, will continue 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 2*7 
 
 the figlit, till the Southern people are desolated and blasted as 
 perhaps no other people ever were in the history of man. If 
 they persevere as they seem fully determined to do, and the 
 Government shall also persevere as it certainly must, then there 
 will not be much left of slavery at the end of this contest. The 
 war provoked by it, will prove its ruin, sweeping it away in the 
 wake of that general destruction that must overtake Southern 
 society. Its power will be so broken and scattered, that what is 
 left of it, will hardly be w^orth keeping. 
 
 This reasoning goes upon the supposition, that the struggle is 
 to be one of very great severity; and unless the loyal States re- 
 cede from their present position, and consent to a dismember- 
 ment of the nation, of which there is no prospect, then, judging 
 from the temper of the South, we must conclude that just 
 such a struggle is before us. The conditions upon which the 
 contending parties are willing to make peace, are so essentially 
 different, that nothing but the most absolute conquest, on the one 
 side or the other, can ever bring peace. The Government will 
 not yield to the demands of the rebels, and they will not yield 
 to the demands of the Government; and hence the sword must 
 settle the controversy. As I have no doubt, we shall conquer 
 them in the end; but I see no prospect of this result until they 
 feel the extremest desolations of war, carrying away slavery and 
 almost everytliing else in its train, and placing Southern society 
 on a new basis. This, while breaking down the rebellion, will 
 be very sure to widen the area of freedom. Once relieved from 
 bondage and tasting the sweets of liberty, the slave population 
 cannot be reduced to their former condition. The now ruling 
 class will be compelled to accept this result. 
 
 So far then as the Constitution is concerned, we see no just 
 ground of complaint with either the Proclamation itself, or the 
 freedom which, in connection with the war, is likely to grow out 
 of it. If the public mind had not been so long misguided on 
 the slavery-question, the President's policy would have been 
 welcomed with universal acclaim. It is a noticeable fact, that 
 loyal Southern men do not complain of this policy. 
 
 Colonel Hamilton says: — "Yes, I accept the President's Pro- 
 clamation, and I hail it with gratitude and joy." 
 
28 THE nation's blessen-g in trial. 
 
 Ex-Secretarj Holt, of Kentucky, who ought to be very good 
 authority with all loyal people, in a recent letter, thus writes: — 
 "My faith in all this matter is simple and briefly stated. It is 
 this: — For all things that are for the Union — against all things 
 that are against it^ "No human institution, no earthly interest, 
 shall ever by me be weighed in the scales against the life of 
 my country." "Is it not childish prattle to say, that the 
 South can claim to be at the same moment i\iQ protege and the 
 destroyer of the Constitution? Does it not require an audacity 
 absolutely satanic, to insist that the beneficent provisions of that 
 hallowed instrument shall be secured to States and people who 
 are spurning and spitting upon its authority, and who are lead- 
 ing forward vast armies to overwhelm it, and with it the homes 
 and hopes of all who are rallying in its defense?" "War, cer- 
 tainly one like this, in self defense, — is clearly constitutional; 
 but if such a war has its restraints, it has also its riglits and du- 
 ties, prominent among which is the right and duty of weakening 
 the enemy by all possible means, and thus abridging the san- 
 guinary conflict." "The Constitution is the charter of national 
 life, and not of national death." I commend these earnest and 
 patriotic words to those, who fear lest the President's Proclama- 
 tion may have tra.nscended the Constitution. 
 
 It cannot be too strongly impressed upon our minds, that the 
 Government in this war, is dealing with rebellious communities^ — 
 with "States and people who are spurning and spitting" upon the 
 authority of the Constitution. . It is not now a mob overcoming 
 the State authorities. It is an organized rebellion, having all the 
 forms of a political society. The States as such, with all the 
 machinery of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are 
 in rebellion against the United States. The people, whether con- 
 sidered as individuals or political societies, are in the same posture. 
 Practically there is no loj'-alty in these rebellious States. The 
 loyalty of individirals, however real as a personal sentiment, has 
 no effective being. It amounts to nothing. It at present fur- 
 nishes no basis on which to build. Such is very clearly the 
 state of the facts; and with these facts as they are, the Govern- 
 ment has to deal. 
 
 What then becomes of the doctrine of State Rights, as limit- 
 
THE nation's blessing EST TRIAL. 29 
 
 ing or restraining the legislative and executive action of the Gov- 
 ernment against States in rebellion? Are there any snch rights 
 known to the Constitution? Has a State any constitutional and 
 legal status, except as a member of the Federal Union? Is it a 
 State at all in the constitutional sense, when the whole machin- 
 ery of State-Government, and practically the whole body of the 
 people, are not only out of the Union, but actually making war 
 upon it? It surely is in no position to make an appeal to consti- 
 tutional rights ; whatever rights it had, are forfeited by its own 
 acts; and in attempting to conquer such a State and such a people, 
 provided the conquest itself be constitutional, the Government 
 may resort to any and every measure not inconsistent with civ- 
 ilized warfare. The Constitution clearly authorizes the conquest; 
 and the code of war defines the method. The Government may 
 annihilate the State, remodel it, change its boundary-lines, burn 
 down its cities, hang its State officers, place it under martial law, 
 alter its institutions, or do anything else, necessary to conquest, 
 and compatible with the code of war. We have no precedents 
 in our own history as to the method of dealing with such a case; 
 the Constitution furnishes no description of the method; it sim- 
 ply bestows upon Congress the power "to provide for calling 
 forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress in- 
 surrections, and repel invasions," making the President the " Com- 
 mander-in-Chief" of the militia when so called forth; and then 
 leaves the method with the'National Congress and the Executive. 
 Their business is to suppress the insurrection by force, doing 
 whatever may be necessary to the end. In doing this they are 
 not bound to consult either the laws or the institutions of a re- 
 bellious State. They are not bound to execute those laws. Their 
 work is conquest: this is tlie necessity and duty of the hour; and 
 whatever, not repugnant to the laws of civilized nations, will 
 contribute to this end, may be done. 
 
 In the commencement of this struggle, the Northern people 
 and the Government also, assuming the existence of a large and 
 powerful element of loyalty in the South, were anxious to treat 
 the rebellious States, so far as possible, as if they were practi- 
 cally in the Union, and therefore entitled to the privileges secur- 
 ed by the Constitution. Now, whatever we may say as to the 
 
80 THE nation's blessing in teial. 
 
 legal invalidity of secession, as a matter of fact these States are 
 out of the Union; they are represented in another government, 
 and that government is making war upon the United States. 
 These are the stern facts of the case; and with them we have to 
 deal without any precedent for our guide, except that furnished 
 by the usages of war. The doctrine of State-Rights as existing 
 under the Constitution, does not meet the case. It neither defines 
 the method of conquest, nor that of restoring the Union after 
 the conquest is gained. Those who continue to shout this doc- 
 trine, interpreting it as they do in times of peace, have a very 
 beautiful idea; but the misfortune is, that it has no practical appli- 
 cation to the matter in hand. What are they pleading for? The 
 State-Rights of rehellious States. Are there any such rights 
 known to the Constitution? Especially, are these rights such as 
 to hold back the Government from any measure necessary to 
 subdue the rebellion? If so, we had better abandon the whole 
 theory of coercion at once, and let the rebels go. As traitors to 
 the sovereign authority, they surely cannot claim the rights of 
 loyal citizens. Viewed in this character, they have the right to 
 be '"'■ constittctionally hung.'''' As helligerents^ they have only the 
 rights incident to war. Hence the plea of State-Rights urged in 
 behalf of rebellious States, has no foundation in the Constitution. 
 There is not a sentence in that sacred charter to support the idea. 
 Those who urge it, either misapprehend the facts, or are in sym- 
 pathy with traitors. 
 
 There is another constitutional question, not involved in the 
 President's Proclamation, yet very strongly suggested by the ex- 
 igencies and revelations of this war. Perhaps the people will 
 have to consider it before we reach the end of the pending strug- 
 gle. It is this: — Has the Government of the United States, — 
 the occasion imperatively requiring it as a means of self-preser- 
 vation — the right to abolish slavery in all the Slave States? It 
 is a first truth, that every nation has a right to exist, and do what- 
 ever may be necessary to secure its own safety; and if it be a 
 fact, as the events of this war seem to show, that the existence 
 and safety of this nation require the removal of slavery, wliy 
 may it not interpose its power and effect this removal? Why 
 may it not, by law and executive action, confiscate and set free all 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 31 
 
 the slaves that belong to rcheWi This if carried into effect, would 
 at once remove the largest part of the evil. In respect to loyal 
 slaveholders, the Government would, according to the Fifth Ar- 
 ticle of the Amendments to the Constitntion, be bound to render 
 a just compensation. Slaves are their private property in law; 
 and if taken from them to secure the public safety, then they 
 would be entitled to compensation. They would thus receive an 
 equivalent for their loss, and hence suffer no wrong. That pri- 
 vate property may be taken for the public good, is implied in 
 the very article which requires a "just compensation" when it is 
 taken, Slave-propei'ty is no more sacred in the right of tenure 
 against an imperative public necessity, than any other property. 
 If the Government may take the land o^ the master, paying him 
 for it, why may it not also take the slave upon the same theory? 
 If the public authority may destroy a building to arrest a con- 
 flagration that threatens to burn' down a city, why may not the 
 nation destroy that which perils its very life, dealing with trai- 
 tors by confiscation, and with loyal slaveholders by a "just com- 
 pensation?" 
 
 The whole question, as it seems to me, is mainly one of fact: — 
 Can the nation conquer the rebellion, and restore peace to the 
 land, without removing slavery? If it cannot, then unless the 
 Constitution be a charter of "national death," the legislative 
 sovereignty of the nation must be competent to the removal of 
 slavery. The President's plan of inviting the Slave States to 
 unite with the General Government for this purpose, is good so 
 far as it goes; it may be sufficient; it may be the very best way 
 of reaching the end; yet the progress of events may compel both 
 Government and people to march squarely up to the question 
 of general emancipation throughout all the Slave States, adopt- 
 ing the theory of confiscation for rebels, and that of compensa- 
 tion for loyal slave-holders. We have not yet seen the end of 
 this war by any means; nor can we to-day tell, what we shall 
 have to do before we reach the end. I am strongly inclined to 
 think, that a general breaking up of the whole slave-system, in 
 connection with the war, as a part of its history, and as a mea- 
 sure of war, will be found the shortest and surest road to the end. 
 I do not see much prospect of final victory, and none of perma- 
 
32 THE nation's blessing in trial. 
 
 nent peace, without this result. Clear am I that the great polit- 
 ical and moral benefit of this appalling struggle will be lost, un- 
 less we rid the land of slavery. I go for the Union even with 
 slavery, though not hecause of it; and I certainly go for it with- 
 out slavery. I am for maintaining the integrity of the Union 
 without any conditions; I believe in unconditional \oj2i\ij\ yet 
 it does seem to me, that one great purpose of Providence in this 
 war is to blast and destroy the system of slavery, by delivering 
 the rebels over to a most infuriated madness on the one hand, 
 and on the otlier, compelling the loyal people, by the actual ne- 
 cessities of their position, to apply their hand to the work. We 
 shall have to do more than simply say: — "Let slavery die, if ne- 
 cessary to save the Union." We shall have to say: — "Let sla- 
 very die." 
 
 Greatly, very greatly, should I have preferred the gradual 
 removal of this evil without the terrible ordeal of war, believing 
 this to be best for all classes ; but if this institution shall now 
 perish, or so far perish that its final death will be near at 
 hand, under the terrible arbitrations of war, it will not be the 
 first instance in the history of the world in which the sword has 
 accomplished a like result. It seems to be the order of Pro- 
 vidence that slavery shall at length die, peaceably if it will, 
 violently if it decline the peaceful method. And if a sovereign 
 and righteous Providence shall appoint this result, and thus 
 purify our political system, as one of the efi'ects of this war, I 
 shall thank God for it. It will, in my judgment, be the be- 
 ginning of brighter hopes avj'l better days in this land. I do 
 not rejoice in the war, or in the afflictions and snfi'erings of the 
 people, or in the madness of the rebels; but if this be pro- 
 videntially the painful birth of libcr'^y to all the people, then in 
 the result gained I do most devoutly rejoice, and that too, not 
 merely for the sake of the black man, but equally for the sake 
 of the white man. The blessing will fall on both. In every 
 point of light, slavery is a great curse to both. While it 
 degrades and oppresses the victim, it demoralizes the ruling 
 class. It generates its own peculiar vices; makes the South 
 poor ; impoverishes the land ; limits the modes of industry ; 
 places the ban of dishonor upon labor, and justly exposes the 
 
THK nation's BLESSTNO IN TRIAL. 33 
 
 nation to the reproach of the civilized world. Such a system 
 ought to die; it ought not to be anywhere, especially in this 
 land of professed liberty; and sincerely do I bless God for what- 
 ever there is of prospect, that its dying day is near at hand. 
 Before this war began it seemed strong, proud, and defiant ; the 
 philanthropist could see nothing indicating its early downfall; 
 the moral remonstrance of Christian argument and appeal 
 scarcely reached its ear; the Northern people Jiad no idea of 
 politically interfering with it as a local institution of the Slave 
 States; they were willing to abide by the compromises, and 
 pledges of the Constitution : yet now, contrary to the designs and 
 expectations of the rebels, this odious system has received, and 
 is receiving, such severe and heavy blows as to form a reason- 
 able prophecy of approaching death. 
 
 I NAME, FINALLY, THE GLORIOUS PROSPECTS OF THIS NATION IN 
 THE FUTURE, IF WE AUE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS CONTEST. Every- 
 thing depends on the question of victory. If we fa:l, the nation 
 is dismembered, and the country politically ruined. If we get 
 discouraged, and stop mid-way in the effort, we shall have rolled 
 up an enormous public debt and sacrificed thousands of lives 
 for no purpose. If we are defeated, the South will be trium- 
 phant, coming out of the struggle with the advantages, prestige, 
 and imperious bearing of victory, and withal claiming the 
 victor's right to dictate the terms upon which peace shall be 
 made. We shall then have at least two nations on this Conti- 
 nent, so diverse in their policy, and naturally so hostile, that all 
 hopes of permanent peace will be at an end. We shall have, in 
 immediate contact with us, a great slave-empire, flushed with 
 victory, ambitious to extend its dominion far and wide, deter- 
 mined to make itself a great military power, and amply proving 
 its capacity to do this by having triumphed over the armies of 
 the Union. We should be constantly quarreling with suoh a 
 neighbour. A precedent, moreover, would be established in 
 favor of secession, that would open the way for other revolu- 
 tions. The Western States, now so loyal, would be very likely 
 to set up for themselves, or drawn by the attraction of their own 
 interests, at length affiliate with the Southern Confederacy. Tho 
 Southern people would then become the ruling people, and if 
 
F 
 
 34 THE NATI0^''S BLESSIXG i:S TEIAl. 
 
 inspired by tlieir present instincts, spread the institution of 
 slavery over a large portion of this Continent. They would be 
 a fighting people. Mexico would fall into the.:' hands. The 
 PaciHc States would go with them, or detaching th'^mselves from 
 us, form an independent nationality. Our ].o>U; >;i among the 
 nations of the earth would be entirely altereil. Ve should no 
 longer be the Great Republic. We should V. i ' prey of our 
 mutual animosities, and also of the intrigues -h designs 
 
 of despots in the old world, having but little a.n ,j;y at home, 
 and less credit abroad. Our commerce would languish, and our 
 rapidly growing cities sink into decay. Thus disintegrated, v^e 
 should either repudiate our public debt, or be crushed to tlio 
 earth under its weight. Such is the disheartening and even 
 appalling picture set before ns, if Ave fail. Let those, if any 
 there be, who are willing to relinquish the struggle on account 
 of its present sacrifices, and yield to the demands of the South, 
 duly count the cost of the failure. Let those who prophesy 
 failure, and seem half-willing to have events confirm the truth 
 of the prophecy, estimate, if they can, the length and breadth, 
 the height and depth of the disaster involved in the meaning of 
 this word. Individnal men die, and their places are speedily fill- 
 ed by others; but when a nation like that of the United States 
 shall perish, proving the greatness and glory of its life in a short 
 career, and also by its death proving its incapacity for permanent 
 life, where, on what sliores, by the agency of what men, shall 
 the like be ever again reproduced? If the Republican principle 
 committed to our hands, canno' stand the test of time, and 
 triumph over rebellion, — if more than twenty millions of ])eople 
 cannot conquer eight millions, half of whom arc slaves, and will 
 be our friends if we have the wisdom to make them such, — if 
 with all our advantages we have not manhood, and energy, and 
 endurance enough for this purpose, — if this be .so. then I have 
 greatly mistaken the character of the Northern j^cople. I shall 
 believe such a disgraceful fiict when I see it, and -'Ot till then. 
 We may be less excitable and mercurial than the South, and hence 
 may not move quite as rapidly; yet the sober, solid, patriotic 
 sense of the Northern mind never will, and never can settle down 
 upon the doctrine of failure. We cannot afibrd to fail. 
 
THE nation's BLESSljJiTG IX TRIAL. 35 
 
 If, on tliG otlier hand, we win and establish a righteous 
 peace, tlien no other nation on earth has before it such a bril- 
 liant future. I am quite aware that it will take time and a great 
 amount of wisdom to reconstruct tlie Union after victory is 
 gained ; and moreover, at present, certainly until we better 
 know pi-ecisely what the difficulties are, we cannot fix upon any 
 specific {)rogramme of measures. We must deal with the case 
 as it presents itself. If we can conquer the rebels, we can find 
 the ways and means of managing them afterwards. The con- 
 quest will break up their armies, exhaust their power, destroy 
 the influence of their leaders, place them in the hands of the 
 Federal Government, and compel them to accept such terms as 
 the Government may choose to dictate. If the system of sla- 
 very shall be overthrown, the present. ruling class will lose their 
 power; the nonslaveholding whites, numerically the largest por- 
 tion of the people, will acquire a new importance in the general 
 economy of Southern life; and very likely there will be a large 
 emigration of Northern free labor into the Southern States. 
 Military subjection, undoubte ly necessary in the first instance, 
 will gradually do its work, and give place to a different orcj^r of 
 things. New ideas, new men, new institutions, and new modes 
 of industry- will take possession of the South. Southern society 
 will itself be reconstructed^ and enter upon a new style of life ; 
 and this, as I fondly believe, will, in due season, bring about 
 the reconstruction 'of the Union. All political societies, how- 
 ever violent their passions for the moment, at last yield to 
 their interests and their necessities; this is their history, and I 
 do not anticipate that the South either will or can be an excep- 
 tion to this rule. Conquer thein : hold possession of their ports 
 of entry: command their rivers with j'our gunboats: release 
 the masses of the common people from a despotism that now 
 overhangs them like a cloud of death: break down the Slave- 
 Power: show to the non-slaveholdiug whites, that their interests 
 lie with the Union, and the principles of a free democracy, 
 rather than wirii an aristocracy of landlords : send into the 
 South a powcrfr.l current of Northern emigration: give to the 
 millions of slaves, nearlv half of the whole population, a chance 
 to do something for their humanity; md at no distant period, 
 
36 THE nation's blessing in trial. 
 
 a reconstructed Union will be the result, resting, as I believe, 
 on a much lirmer basis than ever before. I believe this the 
 shortest and surest way to the end. 
 
 This point being gained, or in a good way of being gained, 
 we then enter upon a new career as a nation. We shall have 
 demonstrated to ourselves, and to all the world, the reality of 
 our national life, proving that we are, and are to be, one people, 
 from the Canadas to the Gulf of Mexico, and so proving it that 
 no earthly power will be likely again to call it in question. We 
 shall have demonstrated our capacity to conquer the greatest 
 rebellion known in the history of man, and thus shown that 
 Republican self-government stretching over the length and 
 breadth of a Continent, is no failure. In the very process of 
 doing this, we shall have acquired those elements of character, 
 those habits of mind, that military experience, and those mili- 
 tary preparations, which secure respect among the nations of 
 the earth. It will be well understood that we are a strong 
 people, and that no nation can expect to trespass upon our rights 
 with impunity. We shall at once be a first class nation, whose 
 ability to defend its rights will protect it against injury. Eng- 
 land, whose policy towards this coimtry, during this contest, has 
 been unnatural, unkind, and ineffably mean, will learn, possibly 
 by a dear bought experience, that this Western Republic is not 
 going to die, either to gratify the jealousy and hatred, or fulfill 
 the evil prophecies, of a self-conceited and heartless aristocracy. 
 Our success will speedily and wonderfully improve the national 
 manners of England. Like most other nations, she respects 
 power ; and she will find power here to respect. The theory so 
 common among despots, that a Republican Government resting 
 upon the broad shoulders of the people, cannot be a great mili- 
 tary and naval power, will, by our success, receive a most 
 signal rebuke. We shall prove the error by the demonstration 
 of fact. 
 
 We shall also have settled the long standing quarrel on this 
 Continent between freedom and slavery, superseding the necessi- 
 ty for compromises, restoring our national life to its normal con- 
 dition, removing, as I hope, the apple of discord from the land, 
 making ourselves politically a homogeneous people, and proving 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. SY 
 
 by the practical test of war^ as we have already done by that of 
 peace, that society organized on tlie basis of free labor, is vastly 
 superior to one organized on the opposite basis. This single re^ 
 suit if -gained, will be politically, socially, economically, and 
 morally, a very large compensation for the cost and sacrifices 
 incident to this war. Ever since the Union was formed, we 
 have been drifting towards the present crisis ; in other days 
 wise and good men have seen it and feared it, and done what 
 they could to avoid it: during the administration of General 
 Jackson the heavens gathered blackness over our heads; and 
 and but for his great promptitude, we should then have been in- 
 volved in a civil war. Ever since that day, the current has been 
 setting in the direction of a rupture between the North and 
 South ; Southern policy, under the managemefit of the Slave 
 Power, has been steadily advancing in its demands : the North 
 has from time to time yielded to these demands : at length the 
 rupture has come: the crisis is upon us; and if we can now 
 settle the questions w'hicli have led to this crisis, and which we 
 must eettle in order to avoid a like one in the future, we shall 
 have done a work as important as any ever committed to any 
 generation of men. la this aspect of the case we are living in a 
 glorious age. 
 
 Laying down the sword under these auspices, and resuming 
 the peaceful industries of life, we shall, in a comparatively short 
 time, repair the damages of the mighty struggle, and spread our- 
 selves out in a career of agricultural, mechanical, and commer- 
 cial activity, that must make us the great nation of the future. 
 We are the right kind of people to do this work. We have a 
 territory, whose vast amplitude and natural wealth furnish the 
 physical conditions of success. Our religion has a tendency to 
 elevate and energize the public character, tilling the intellect with 
 the inspiration of great ideas, imi moving the heart with the 
 most sacred impulses of feeling. (Hir duplicate system of Gov- 
 ernment, Federal and State, — the one national, and the other 
 local, — is eminently suited to extend its broad banner over a 
 whole Continent. Like the solar system, it has a central sun 
 with revolving planets, whose smaller movements lie within the 
 comprehensive orbit of the nation's life. Our growth of popu- 
 lation, rising in three-quarters of a century from three millions 
 
38 THE Iv^ATIOX's BLESSING IX TRIAL. 
 
 to more than thirty, will, at this rate, in another equal period, 
 present the spectacle of a people, not only numerically greater 
 than any nation in Europe, but nearly equal to the present pop- 
 ulation of all the European nations put together. Most of these 
 nations grow very slowly; some of tiiem, not at all; whereas we, 
 a .young and thrifty people, have scarcely passed the gristle of 
 this process. England is about as much of a man as she is likely 
 to be for a long time to come. She has not, and she cannot have, 
 the elements of growth which exist in the greatest abundance 
 here. She does not to-day feed her own population; and but 
 for her commerce, England would soon starve. We can live 
 without England very much better than she can live without us. 
 She wants our breadstuffs quite as much as our cotton. 
 
 Let us theQ go on under the well tested principle of E Plur- 
 thus Unum; let all parts recognize one, and but one Political 
 Centre; let us be content to be American citizens; let us now 
 save ourselves from beinc: denationalized and disinte^jrated into 
 hostile fragments; let us explode the barbarous dream of a slave- 
 empire; let us make the institutions of liberty the universal 
 breath and soul of our national life; let us as a great and grow- 
 ing people, go forth to the work of existence in the fear and 
 worship of the true God, building our churches at home, and send- 
 ing tlie light of Christian truth to the ends of the earth : — let us do 
 these things, and our future will be immeasurably more glorious 
 than our past. Let us fail, and we shall prove ourselves a people 
 unlit to command a great destiny. When I think of this future 
 as it will be, if we now triumph, in contrast with what it must 
 be if we fail, all the feelings of my heart are kindled into a flame 
 of patriotic, and I hope. Christian ardor. Fail! Speak that 
 word in the ear of dotards and cowards. It has no place in my 
 vocabulary. We must succeed. Success is our duUj. The God 
 of order and law as well as of liberty and justice, commands us 
 to succeed. Unborn generations are waiting to reap the blessings 
 of our success. Trusting in God, and in our own right arms, . 
 succeed we can, and succeed we will. If the rebels are in ear- 
 nest, we will be i:i earnest This, in a word, is ray doctrine for 
 the American people: — Rkbklliox shall submit to the au- 
 
 THORHY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT, OR ITS AGENTS SHALL 
 PERISH BY THE SWORD. 
 
THE nation's blessing IN TRIAL. 39 
 
 I have thus, my brethren, opened my whole heart to^you on 
 this subject. I might have discussed other themes; a Thanks- 
 giving service is very suggestive; yet I have felt that at this 
 time U was due to you, and due to the God of truth, to consider 
 those subjects to which the finger of Providence is pointing. 
 In the war which is upon us, and from which we so deeply suf- 
 fer, I have sought to find some things to comfort and cheer the 
 patriot and the^ Christian. The points to which I have referred, 
 furnish to me the great relief of thought as I ponder upon this 
 present scene of blood. But for them- 1 should look upon the 
 scene with unmingled detestation and horror. War is indeed a 
 most dreadful work. There is a awful wrong somewhere. In 
 most cases both of the belligerents are guilty before God. In 
 this case, however, I have no hesitation in saying, that the 
 wrong, thes m, the guilt, and the unparalleled criminality, belong 
 wholly to the rebels. They began the war without provocation, 
 T.ithout excuse, and for a purpose as wicked as any that ever 
 actuated the human heart. They have imposed upon the 
 nation the absolute necessity of fighting, as the only means of 
 escaping its own death. In these circumstances, I say frankly 
 that my voice is for war, persistent, energetic, unrelenting, until 
 this rebellion is entirely subdued. A* between war and national 
 death, I clioose the former, deeming it on the score of conse- 
 quences the least of two evils, and in its moral relations, an 
 obvious duty. Consoled and comforted by the considerations 
 which have been adduced in tliis sermon, I exhort you to 
 stand firmly in your places, to entertain no idea of defeat, to 
 accept of no inglorious compromise, and steadily, with an un- 
 flinching heroism, pursue the struggle, till victory and peace 
 shall gladden the land, and bless the world. May a gracious 
 Providence be propitious, while a loyal people leaning upon his 
 arm, and invoking his favor, perform the duties which belong to 
 • the crisis and the hour! May the God of justice and order, 
 purity and peace, re-establish harmony in our borders, by his 
 wonderful providence causing the- wrath of man to praise him ! 
 May the principles of liberty, based on the inalienable Bights 
 of man, and deeply rooted in the soil of the public conscience, 
 become the blessing and the comfort of all the people ! 
 

'^IS 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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