107 sets upon this day of our trial, will look upon us a proud, a happy, a free, a powerful nation, or a rent, distracted, crushed, despised people. How foolish and feeble a conception of the fates that this war carries, have they, who regard it as a contest involving, only, tlie extent of territory and of population which our Government shall maintain dominion over. A mutilated territory and a dismembered people are results sufficiently intolerable to our pride and our interests. But the disastrous event of this war stops at no such measure of calamity. The Federal Constitution itself will have been rent in twain, and the fabric of our National liberties will have passed away as a scroll. The noble heritage which the wisdom and courage of heroic ancestors gained for us will have been wrested from our feeble and faithless hands. For this, our self-abasement, there will be "no cure, no after-health, no pardon." I believe that the people understand this momentous issue, and that their hearts thrill with the intensity of the emotions its contemplation begets. Have we, by Divine favor, the power to avert this ruin and maintain the life of the Nation ? This power can be none other than military and financial resources, and the wisdom and courage to apply them. The mass of the population supporting the Government, and counting as the supply of its military and financial strength, numbers about twenty-three millions, of which something like a million are slaves. The mass of the population arrayed in revolt is over eight millions, of which three millions are slaves. We thus stand four to one of the free population of the country, for the Government. Are these five millions of free whites, mounted on the shoulders of three million black slaves, able to predominate over our twenty millions of free whites, in battle and in war, as they have done in politics and in peace ? If they are, they had better be dismounted. But the question carries its own answer. If, on our part, the battles are still political, and the war peaceful, this treason will overthrow our Government. If we are to save the lives, the property, the feelings and the pride of the rebels, and waste only the lives, the courage and the strength of the loyal people, we are the allies of the rebels, not their enemies, and undermine, from within, the citadel, which they assault from without. If, on the other hand, we will dismiss politics and peace from our minds and from our hearts ; if our advancing armies shall treat the population in revolt, whether black or white, slave or free, as war groups them as rebel or as loyal, as hostile or as submissive ; if the Government will execute the simple policy, " parcere subjectis, debellare superbos," root out the haughty aristocracy that urges on the rebellion, and spare the abject followers it has cheated and forced into its support, " the hand of the Government will be in the neck of its enemies." We shall see this treason crouch and cower under the thunderbolts of war, and the leaders of the revolt strangled in the cruel rage with which the terrified and suffering masses will seek for victims, to save themselves and make peace with the Government. Thus far the weakness of our sentiments has been the strength of the rebellion. The battles of the Peninsula so glorious to our soldiery have made any further feebleness of purpose, or random aim, impossible, but at the cost of the nation's life. The Government and the people are now thoroughly aroused, thoroughly informed. Our rulers will lead, and we shall follow, fast and far. Everything is full of courage and strength, and the tide of WAR will never ebb till we are, atiin, one people, with one Constitution and one destiny. I canno't be at your meeting, but in the earnest and patriotic activity which will there receive new impulse, I shall give every aid of time, of money, and of labor which shall be in my power. I am, with great respect to yourself and the Committee, Your obedient servant, WM. M. EVABTS. To CHAS. GOULD, Esq., Secretary, $c.
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