10 ment has no alternative bnt to meet them hy an armed force, doing its ntmost to compel their siilmiissioii. The case admits of no other course. An}' other would be fatal to our nationality. Any other would have resulted in the dissolution of the Union, and proved the tinal death of the Great Re])ublic. Men not having the res])onsibility of conducting the war, may find fault with this or that measure of the Government : yet I affirm that any Administration, be it Democratic or Republican, really in earnest, really meaning to conquer the rebellion and preserve the Union, would have been compelled to adopt substantially the very measures that have been adopted. Anj^ Administration would have been compelled to resort to the war-powers of Government, —to raise armies, provide money, build ships, fight battles, bombard cities, blockade the Southern coast, in short, to do everything justified by the usuges of civilized warfare, to weaken the enemy and strengthen its own cause. If you fight, you must fight. You nmst not 7>?ay ^^S^^^? ^^it actually do the work. It is a terrible process; blood flows; mcH are wounded and killed; families weep ; the land groans ; the heart sickens at the sad necessity ; but, in the presence of an armed rebellion, the end both justifies and demands tlie means. The question is—Shall this Government be subverted ? Shall this glorious Union l)e dissolved ? Shall this nationality die i Shall armed treason be successful, and shall posterity for ages to come be cursed with the calamities of this success ? This is the (juestion ; and in comparison with it all others are insignificant. The Rebels have made the sword the only instrument of its solution. In using that sword the nation is simply defending itself, defending its own life, and defending all the interests which are committed to that life. A people that will not do this, do not deserve to be a people ; and they will not be long. Disintegration, anarchy, and ruin will very soon be their fate. Civil authority that cannot be maintained is but the name without the thing. Inrespect then to the moral question, I take tlie ground, that the Government is right, morally right before God, and that it will so appear on the page of inq^artial history, in wielding the military power of the country for the utter extinction of this
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