principles and civilization characterized arid tested by the dependence of one class of people as chattel upon another. A more appalling confusion of ideas is not recorded in the history of any tribe or nation that has made any use of the terms—Rights, Principles, or Civilization. Thus slavery came to group the different portions of our country ; outside of, and indeed in hostility to, the National Government and National Constitution. The struggle for the leadership was upon us. The South declared openly that it must rule; we, in the meantime, declaring that the Nation must rule, and if an issue is forced upon us, between the South and the North, then, indeed, the North must rule and shall rule. This is the war in which we are now engaged—in which, at the moment this is read to you, the precious blood of your sons, and brothers, and fathers, is flowing. Whenever men are led, in the downward course of error and passion, ultimately to declare themselves, with immoral courage, in favor of a thing or principle which for centuries and thousands of years their own race has declared, by a united voice, an evil or a crime, the mischief does not stop with this single declaration. It naturally, and by a well-established law, unhinges the whole morality of man; it warps his intellect, and inflames his soul, with bewildering passions, with defiance to the simplest truth and plainest fact, and with vindictive hatred toward those who cannot agree with him. It is a fearful thing to become the defiant idolater of wrong. Slavery, and the consequent separation from the rest of men, begot pride in the leading men of the South—absurdly even pretending to be of a different and better race. Pride begot bitter and venomous hatred, and this bitter hatred, coupled with the love of owning men as things, begot at last a hatred of that which distinguishes the whole race to which we belong, more than aught else—the striving for and love of liberty. There is no room, then, for pacifying arguments with such men in arms against us, against their duty, their country, their civilization. All that remains for the present is the question, Who shall be the victor? It is for all these reasons which have been stated, that we pledge ourselves anew, in unwavering loyalty, to stand by and support the Government in all its efforts to suppress the rebellion, and to spare no endeavor to maintain, unimpaired, the national unity, both in principle and territorial boundary. We will support the Government, and call on it with a united voice to use greater and greater energy, as the contest may seem to draw to a close; so that whatever advantages we may gain, we may pursue them with increasing efficiency, and bring every one in the military or civil service, thal may be slow in the performance of his duty, to a quick and efficient account. We approve of the Conscription Act, and will give our loyal aid in its being carried out, whenever the Government shall consider the increase of our army necessary ; and we believe that the energy of the Government should be plainly shown by retaliatory measures, in checking the savage brutalities committed by the enemy against our men in arms, or against unarmed citizens, when they fall into their hands. We declare that slavery, the poisonous root of this war, ought to be
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