34 THANKSGIVING SERMON. ury and traitors to their country; when, in the phrensy of their rebellion, they form a government, seize our forts and arsenals, our national ships and our navy-yards, appropriate the government property, dishonor and insult our national flag, and by an armed force threaten the very city of our solemnities, and all this when the government of the nation has been virtually in the hands of the South for the greater part of our national existence, and that from the adoption of the Federal Constitution down to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the North has made concession upon concession without satisfying the demands of her exacting neighbors—when I see these things, my convictions are strong that we have reached the limit beyond which forbearance may not be extended. Who will complain that we grasped the sword ? Strong as have been my predilections for the South, and decided as my views still are that on her return to her loyalty she is entitled to equal rights and immunities with the North, I have not been able to see, nor do I now see, the justice, the equity of her demands. We regard the act of secession, so causeless, so rash, so fratricidal, so ruthless, as unequaled in wicked
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