9 fall or rise with the communities in which they are situated. You in New York must follow the Government as expressed by the will of the majority of your State, until you can revolutionize that Government and change it; and those loyal at the South must, until this contest comes into process of settlement, also follow the action of the organized majorities in which their lot has been cast, and no man, no set of men, can see the possible solution of this or any other governmental problem, as affecting States, except upon this basis. Now, then, to pass from the particular to the general, to leave the detail in Louisiana, of which I have run down the account, rather as illustrating my meaning than otherwise, I come back to the question : What is the contest with all the States that are banded together in the so- called Confederate States ? Into what form has it cornel It started in insurrection; it grew up a rebellion ; it has become a revolution, and carries with it all the rights of a revolution. Our Government has dealt with it upon that ground. When the Government blockaded Southern ports, they dealt with it as a revolution; when they sent out cartels of exchange of prisoners, they dealt with these people no longer as simple insurrectionists and traitors, but as organized revolutionists, who had set up a government for themselves upon the territory of the United States. Sir, let no man say to me, “ Why, then you acknowledge the rights of revolution in these men I” I beg your pardon, sir, I only acknowledge the fact of revolution—that which has actually happened I look these things in the face, and I do not dodge them because they are unpleasant; I find this a revolution, and these men are no longer, I repeat, our erring brethren, but they are our alien enemies, foreigners [cheers] carrying on war against us, attempting to make alliances against us, attempting surreptitiously to get into the family of nations. I agree that it is not a successful revolution, and a revolution never to be successful [loud cheers],—pardon me, I was speaking theoretically, as a matter of law,—never to be successful until acknowledged by the parent State, Now, then, I am willing to unite with you in your cheers, when you say, a revolution, the rightfulness oi* success of which we never will acknowledge. [Cheers.] Why, sir, have I been so careful in bringing down with great particularity these distinctions ! Because, in my judgment, there are certain logical consequences following from them as necessarily as various corollaries from a problem in Euclid. If we are at war, as I think, with a foreign country, to all intents and purposes, how can a man here stand up and say he is on the side of that foreign country and not be an enemy to his country? [Cheers.] A man must be either for his country or against his country. [Cheers.] He cannot, upon this theory, be throwing impediments all the time in the way of the progress of his Government, under pretense that he is helping some other portion of his country. If any loyal man thinks that he muA do something to bring back his erring brethren, if he likes that form of phrase, at the South, let him take his musket and go down and try it in that way. [Cheers.] If he is still of a different opinion, and thinks that is not the best way to bring them back, but he can do it by persuasion and talk, let him go down with me to Louisiana, and I will set him over to Mississippi, and if the rebels do not feel for bis heart-strings, but not in love, I will bring him back. [Cheers, loud and prolonged. “ Send Wood down first!”] Let us say to him: Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. If the Lord thy God be God, serve him; if Baal be God, serve ye him. [Cheers.] But no man can serve two masters, God and Mammon. [“ That’s so.”] Again, there are other logical consequences to flow from the view which I have ventured to take of this subject, and that is with regard to our relations from past political action. If they are now alien enemies, I am bound to them by no ties of party fealty. They have passed out of that, and I think we ought to go back only to examine and see if all ties of party allegiance and party fealty as regards them are not broken, and satisfy ourselves that it is your duty and mine to look simply to our country and to its ‘service, and leave them to look to the country they are attempting to erect, and to its service; and then let us try the conclusion with them. Mark, by this I give up no territory of the United States. Every foot that was ever* circumscribed on the map by the lines around the United States belongs to us. [Applause.] None the less because bad men lave attempted to organize worse government upon various portions of it. It is to be drawn in under our laws and our Government as soon as the power of the United States can be exerted for that purpose, and, therefore, my friends, you sea the next set of logical conse-
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