6 code that could be applied to the novel legal ques- tions presented for your decision. In truth, your legal acumen was quite an overmatch for that of the leading rebels and their sympathetio consular allies. But, sir, it is for the statesmanlike qualities evinced by you in this contest that your friends are disposed to award you the highest praise. You seem to them to comprehend most perfectly all the principles involved in the present contest, as well as the best means of bringing it to a successful issue. Your pioneer mind, like Daniel Boone, among the border men of the West, seems to keep in advance of all others. You are familiar with the causes that produced the war; you have shared in its progress, and have had leisure sinceyour return from active service to take a dispassionate survey of its present status and its probable future. We shall feel greatly obliged if you will give us your views on such of these topics as may be agreeable to you, feeling well assured that whatever you may say will be marked by your accustomed originality of thought and breadth of knowledge, and must therefore prove both interesting and instructive. Without detaining you longer, General, permit me to renew my assurance of welcome, and then present you io an assemblage worthy of such a guest. The Mayor, at the conclusion of the address, again took the General cordially by the hand, and presented him to the assembly as one of the best specimens of the volunteer army of the United States. [Prolonged cheers.] General Butler acknowledged the courteous reception, and spoke as follows : SPEKCH OF GBN. BUTLER. Mr. Mayor,—With the profoundestgratitude for the too flattering commendation of my administration of the various trusts committed to me by the Government, which, in behalf of your associates, you have been pleased to tender, I ask you to receive my most heartfelt thanks. To the citizens of New York here assembled, graced by the fairest and loveliest, in kind appreciation of my services supposed to have been rendered to the country, I tender the deepest acknowledgments. [Applause.] I accept it all, not for myself, but for my brave comrades of the Army of the Gulf. [Renewed applause.] I receive it as an earnest of your devotion to the country—an evidence of your loyalty to theConstitution under whichyou live, and under which you hope to die. In order that the acts of the Army of the Gulf may be understood, perhaps it would be well, at a little length, with your permission, that some detail should be given of the thesis upon which we fulfilled our duties. The first question, then, to be ascertained is, what is this contest in which the country is engaged ? At the risk of being a little tedious, at the risk even of calling your attention to what might seem otherwise too elementary, I propose to run down through the history of the contest to see what it is that agitates the whole country at thia day and thia hour. That we are in the midst of civil commotion, all know. But what is that commotion ? Is it a riot! Is it an insurrection ? Is it a rebellion ? Or is it a revolution ! And pray, sir, although it may seem still more elementary, what is a riot ? A riot, if I understand it, is simply an outburst of the passions of a number of men for the moment, in breach of the law, by force of numbers, to be put down and subdued by the civil authorities; if it goes further, to be dealt with by the military authorities. But you say, sir, “ Why treat us to a definition of a riot upon this occasion ? Why, of all things, should you undertake to instruct & New York audience in what a riot is ? ’’ [Laughter.] To that I answer, because the Administration of Mr. Buchanan dealt with this great change of affairs as if it were a riot; because his Government officer gave the opinion that in Charleston it was but a riot; and that, as there was no civil authority there, to call out the military, therefore, Sumter must be given over to the rioters ; and that was the beginning of this struggle. Let us see how it grew up. I deal not now in causes, but with effects—facts. _ Directly after the guns of the rebels bad turned upon Sumter, the several States of the South, in Convention assembled, inaugurated a series of movements which took out from the Union divers States; and as each waa attempted to be taken out, the riots, if such existed, were no longer found in them, but they become insurrectionary; and the Administration, upon the 15th of April, 1861, dealt with this state of affairs as an insurrection, and called out ths militia of the United States to subdue an insurrection. I was called at that time into the service to administer the laws in putting down an insurrection. I found a riot at Baltimore. They had burned bridges; but the riot had hardly arisen to the dignity of an insurrection, because «he
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