30 hesitate about taking his property whenever and wherever it can be useful to his own force ? [Cheers.] He may seize his crops, his cattle, and why not his slaves? What right has a general in the field to expose our sons and our brothers to the horrors of unequal war, when thousands stand ready to help him if he will only say the word ? Ageneral in the field knows nothing of slavery that is a political and social question, with which it is none of his business to deal. He has to do only with the means of successfully prosecuting war, and wherever these means are tobe found he must use them. This is so plain, that but for the prejudice of color none would hesitate about it ; and yet it is not conceivable that the existence, possibly, of this great Continental Republic, the lives of our sons and brothers, should depend upon a question of complexion. If the issue be between the preservation of the Union and the preservation of slavery, who shall hesitate ? It may, indeed, be who shall say that it is not ? within the inscrutable purposes of Providence that, whereas all this great disaster and crime arises from slavery and the disappointed, mad ambition of slaveholding leaders, the result of this dire conflict shall be the total extinction of the great evil which has thus culminated in the greater crime of rebellion ? But of that I am not here to speak. All I urge is, that in the war to the death we use all the means which, according to all the usage of civilized war, we are entitled to use ; and that while our adversaries stop at no expedients to strengthen their hands, we shall not weaken ours by halt-way, halting, mean and miserable hesitations. See to it, you my friends ; let us all, individually and collectively, see to it that henceforth the lightning's flash shall tell of assault, of battle, of victory of the enemy overthrown and subdued of our old and honored flag restored in all its amplitude to every contested point throughout the land of treason vanquished, and of the Union reaffirmed and consolidated. Men of New-York, this you can greatly help to do. Fail not, then, as you value your peace on earth, your hopes of Heaven.' [Prolonged applause.] After music by the band, WM. Boss WALLACE spoke, \\iih thrilling and dramatic effect, an ode prepared by him for the occasion. The following is the ODE BY WILLIAM ROSS WALLACK. Keep step with the music of Union, The music our ancestors sung. When States, like a jubilant chorus, To beautiful sisterhood sprung ! ! thus shall their great Constitution, That guards all the honus of the land. A mountain of freedom and justice. For millions eternally stand. Xorth and South, East and West, all unfurl* n ONE Jlanner alotie o'er the sod, OXK voicefrom America, swelling In worship of Liberty's God '
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