32 minority consummate the overthrow and ruin of the only representative constitutional Government on earth. When she fixed this determination, and announced her will, eleven rebellious States had attempted to sever their connection with the Federal Government ; had torn from the forts, arsenals, magazines and harbors withintheir limits the banner of the constitutional Union. This reckless, rampant treason, though long threatened, took the civilized world by surprise ; and, as the conspirators by thousands poured their murderous hail of shot and shell upon that thirsty, half-famished garrison at Fort Sumter, with its seventy exhausted but loyal men, they little realized that throughout the whole Christian world they were calling silently into exercise forces wholly beyond human control ; for that man must be an atheist, or have no soul, who does not realize, that since that first event God himself has been manifest in the moral and political phenomena which this great, loyal nation now presents, and statesmen, and philosophers, and generals, will begin to reason right and act right, when they realize this great truth. The establishment of free institutions on this continent toward ameliorating the condition of the human race, was second to the inauguration of the Christian religion, and their dismemberment and overthrow is reserved only to Jehovah himself. Fellow-citizens, when last we met here, on the occasion to which I have referred, bold, rank, audacious treason pervaded almost every department of the Federal service. Army, navy, embassadors to foreign courts, collectors of customs, postmasters, the very defences at Washington, limited as they were, could not then be relied upon. The nation trembled for the satety of the national capital ; the personal safety of the President was endangered even in the Executive mansion. Consternation and despair briefly ruled the hour. How stands the matter now ? The capital is secured ; the rebels are trembling for Charleston, Savannah, and their entire coast, while we have New Orleans and Nashville. Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, then on the verge of rebellion, are secured; Virginia, then completely in the grasp of the rebels, has become loyal in the greater portion of her territorial extent. Over eight hundred thousand troops have been called into the field, armed, equipped, and provided, equal to any army ever before called into service ; a navy, like Pallas, from the brain of Jove, seems to have sprung at once into complete existence ; three thousand miles of coast have been blockaded, and a landing has been effected upon the soil of that pestiferous State, which first instigated and finally produced this wicked rebellion. I would that we could here have first made our terrible visitation of the power and resources of the Federal Government in quelling the treason, firmly believing, had that been done, the border States would never have hesitated in their allegiance. Twenty millions of people are on the one side, backed by the consciousness they are contending for the integrity and maintenance of the Government from which they have achieved greatness and commanded respect throughout the world. Eight millions of rebels oppose them. The grounds of the contest are clearly defined treason, revolt and anarchy are on the one side ; liberty, security and prosperity on the other. Great as is the disparity in wealth and numbers, the traitors thus far have maintained the unequal contest. But the end is not yet. An additional
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=