64 Concord and our Lexington.. It was also in this month of April that we had the attack upon and fall of Sumter. It was in this month of April that our brave soldiers were beset and brutally murdered in Baltimore. This meeting takes place in July, and July is also notable in our history as the month in which the Declaration of Independence was signed. April is a spring month, July is a harvest month. Fifteen months ago in April, during the spring we planted the seed of loyalty to the American Union, and it shall bring forth a glorious harvest throughout this promising land. Let us with heart and voice, word and deed, reassure our brethren in the field and give the word of cheer to our armies. I call this meeting one of reaffirmation. We are to day to reaffirm what we resolved upon fifteen months ago. What we planted in stormy spring is to be taken care of during this generous summer. What we did then was the result of instinct ; now it has become a deep-rooted conviction. It was passion which then guided us ; now it is principle. It may be that on the occasion of our former meeting our huzzas were louder ; but now I can see it in your faces, our resolutions are deeper, and when we now strike we shall strike as doth the lightning once and for all. W~e to day reaffirm our resolution to preserve the integrity of our land, our power, our interests, and our continent. In our uttered determinations then we were wiser than we knew of. We merely said it then ; we understand it now. This continent must and shall remain united, one and inseparable, and must be so until the end of time. [Applause.] This is a struggle between a rebellious confederacy and our Government ; and what for \ Not for the vague abstraction it purports to be, but for a remote but still more important issue the domination of this continent. They or we will have to rule this vast land from the St. Croix to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And I say unto you, men of the city of New-York, shall it be we, the men of the Christian North, or shall it be sons of ihe sunny South, as they delight to call themselves, who are, and have proved themselves, robbers by land, and if they had a fleet upon the sea, would also be pirates. [Applause.] This is the issue, and it must be determined sooner or later. Citizens of New-York, are you men enough to say you will take the issue on your own shoulders, or leave it for your posterity ? Can you look upon your babes now resting in their cradles, and bequeath to them the settlement of this great question ? Will you leave it for the next generation to settle this question ? [Loud cries of " No, no."] It must be determined now or never. It can be more easily settled now than by any conjunction in the future. We contend for the supremacy of our Government, and we will do so if we have to make a Thermopylae of it, and defend the gate till all have fallen; or else we shall have to submit to a military despotism whichwould march over the bleeding corpses of our comrades to rule us with a rod of iron. I stand here to defend the glorious republican idea which has gained to us the laurels that crown the brow of our glorious goddess Liberty. We must defend the old republic, for if we fail the republicans of the Old World will lose heart forever. We must vindicate our republican existence, and not only vindicate it in its geographical integrity, but in its political glory not only for ourselves, but for all mankind. ["Bravo," and applause.] The American people have learned something during the past fifteen months. I
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