85 Who dreamed then and how brief the interval that we would be so soon assembled, as at this hour, to gaze with ill-suppressed alarm in each other's faces, to gravely counsel in the desperate necessity of calling from the peaceful channels of industry, nearly a million of men to combat, upon our own soil, the enemies of our laws, liberty, civilization and national existence. Enemies not martialed under a foreign banner, familiar to history, suggesting old feuds and rival systems, with alien languages, institutions and origin ; but men, who but yesterday joined with us in the maintenance and defence, and glorying in the proud -significance of that flag, under which, as a united people, we have attained a progress in wealth and power unprecedented in human history, and which is now torn from the staff by Americans, with the red hand of rebellion, in the land of Washington ! Indeed, it is not discreditable to the sagacity of any man to admit that the present aspect of our country amazes and appalls him ; for it would seem that, equally, the motives which govern the best and worst of men, plead against the, not only criminal, but wanton attempt at the destruction of a government which fosters the welfare of its humblest inhabitant, and to whose career the patriots of every clime were wont to look Avith trembling hope as the auroral light of that day that would usher in the realization of man's highest earthly destiny. The defence of liberty and laws, even to the shedding of a deluge of human blood, if need be, is the first of rights, though the last of expedients. I therefore feel no need of apology, while claiming to be opposed to the destruction of human life in every instinct of my nature, that I wear a uniform that is significant of sanguinary strife, at a time like the present. For discussion and diplomacy are at an end, and we are left to choose whether we will fight at Richmond or at New-York and Philadelphia. It has come to this, either the Mississippi and the James or the Delaware and the North rivers must bear the crimson tinge which tells to wailing hearts the tale of fraternal strife. I will speak to you in the spirit of the instruction given by Napoleon to his marshals, when he said, " Send what you please to the bulletins, but tell me the truth." Therefore, while it may not be a welcome announcement, fidelity to my country demands it should be made, that you have held the enemy, heretofore, in unmerited contempt as to their fighting powers. You forget that they are Anglo-Saxons, like yourselves, having every natural element of power that you possess, and in addition, some appliances to awaken their energies, which, I regret to say, are neglected in our own army. And I would here allude to some of the elements which impart to this contest its fearful animus, presenting difficulties, which, did we not know that this rebellion lifts its red hand in sacrilegious defiance against the great whitet hrone of the universe, would well-nigh lead us to despond. The leaders of the South, with a sagacity we would do well to imitate, address the patriotism and passions of their men. There is not an article published in a northern paper, no matter how obscure, which is susceptible of being tortured into an ungenerous or barbarous significance, but it is immediately seized, promulgated and enforced with a fiendish ingenuity of comment, which fans to a savage fury the too susceptible natures of men reared amid 'an atmosphere which fosters prejudice and arrogance, to the destruction of every feelino- of nationality. And to more certainly effect their purpose, the exercise takes the form of a catechism, where the speaker recites some alleged violence to women or children, or something of the kind, by the Union forces, such as the hell-born lie which they fulminated about Butler's proclamation in New Orleans ; and then demanding, " Fathers of the South, will you bear this without a bloody retribution?" Of course there is a thundering "Never!" And the various relations of life are thus appealed to, by exciting interrogatories with the peculiar vehemence of southern elocution, till every element of the human heart ioins in the cry for vengeance in the blood of the Union Army The relio-ion of the south, also, is directed to furnish motives to robbery and murder f and where it cannot be so directed it is suppressed, and the same iron hand that would shut the ear of humanity against the wail of the bondman j
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