29 I am for the war in its fiercest form always and in all things, however, having regard to our own character and superior civilization. [Applause.] Our antagonists claim that they are the muster race, and, as such, entitled to rule the land and give law to the baser sort, whom, as by one general term of reproach, they stigmatize as Yankee. This claim of superiority, indeed, was announced in a recent article of one of the leading newspapers in Richmond, as among the determining causes of this rebellion. We of the North, it was said, confident in our numbers and wealth, seemed to forget that we were an inferior race, and to be disposed to throw off the yoke of the chivalry, and set up for ourselves ; and thence the necessity, it was argued, that the master race should assert its supremacy, and bring us back to wonted submissiveness. The Yankee must be made to take off his hat when in the presence of a Southern gentleman ! Perhaps so ! But before that lesson is learned, a good many Southern heads will fall. Why, in every element that constitutes true manhood in physical power, in educated mind, in religious instruction, in habits of self-command, in the dignity of bread-winning industry, in the knowledge of his own rights, and in respect for the rights of others in all that constitutes a man and a citizen the Northern race is far, very far, superior to the Southern race. [Cheers.] With this moral and physical superiority, how can it be otherwise than that, admitting equal courage on both sides, (and that is a generous concession to the South,) with our great preponderance of numbers, we must, when once fairly aroused, effectually subdue them? [Cheers ] We are to listen to no talk of compromise, of negotiation, and, least of all, of foreign mediation. Compromise of what ? Our right to exist as a nation ? for that is the whole question. Negotiation with whom ? Rebels in arms, traitors that have struck at the bosom of our common mother ! And who among us would listen for an instant to mediation on the part of either France or England ? [Loud cheers, and cries of " No one !"] Under what pretence of right shall either of those nations, or both together, venture to interfere in our domestic quarrel ? It is an offensive assumption of European superiority which we will not brook. We are a people of ourselves, and by ourselves competent to manage our own affairs, without the aid or counsel of others owing allegiance to God but none to any earthly powers and thoroughly resolved to submit to no dictation or intervention from any such powers. No, friends, this is no time for parley, for negotiation, for half-way measures of any sort. The people are far ahead of the Government. They are in earnest, and will not be paltered with ; they mean to put down the rebellion, and to punish the traitors with the most condign punishment. They have a policy, whoever else may lack one. They mean war, in earnest, and they mean that war deals with men only as friends and as enemies. [Applause.] It has no cognizance of political questions, of social institutions ; it deals plainly and directly with men, and the only question it asks of them, without regarding race or color, is, " Are you for us or against us ?" If for us, come and help ; if against us, we shall know how to deal with you. This is war, according to common-sense and universal usage. A general in the field is bound to succeed, and in order to that to use all lawful means conducive to success. He may take the life none deny that of the enemy. Shall he, then.
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