20 there be a general uprising and arming throughout the loyal States ; and let this be followed by a prompt forward movement of the armies of the Union, so strong and irresistible that the armed traitors will be quickly driven to choose between flight and unconditional submission. [Enthusiastic cheering.] D. D. FIELD, being called upon by the Chair, read the following ADDRESS, t ADOPTED AND RECOMMENDEDBY THE CONVENTION OF COMMITTEES. The war in which the United States are engaged is not a war of conquest, but purely of defence. We are fighting for that which we received from our fathers: for the Union, which was freely entered into by all the parties to it ; for the Constitution, which is older than this generation, which was made, in part, by the rebel States, and which every rebel leader has oftentimes sworn to support. We did not resist till our forbearance was imputed to pusillanimity ; we did not strike till we had been struck ; and when we took up arms, we sought only to retake that which had been taken from us by force, or surrendered by an imbecile or traitorous President and Cabinet. The Rebellion had no cause or pretext which was even plausible. Misgovernment by the Federal power was not even pretended, nor any just apprehension of misgovernment, for, though a President had been chosen whose opinions were hostile to the extension of Slavery, the other departments of the Government were so constituted that no legislation hostile to the South could have been perfected. The Rebels revolted, therefore, against a Government which themselves or their fathers had, of their free choice, created for them, whose powers they had generally wielded, and whose offices they had for the greater part filled. What this rebellion was for is declared by the Constitution which the rebels immediately adopted for themselves, and to which they invited the adhesion of the loyal States. That instrument may be regarded as their manifesto. It is for the most part a copy of the Constitution of the United States, with these two important additions the perpetual servitude of the African race, and the inalienable right of each State to secede from the rest at will. Slavery and secession are the two corner-stones of the
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