(cheers). We are contending for national existence, against traitors and rebels, who aim at nothing less than a national assassination. Are we not then justified in persisting in our determination to maintain the Union, and in doing this we must subdue the rebellion? (Loud cheers.) Those, who would rightly measure the enormity of the crime, must estimate the magnitude of the consequences that would ensue were the rebellion to succeed. The death of an individual is of comparatively small importance. You or I may be struck down-it is but a single unit withdrawn from the sum of human existence-the wave passes over it, and no ripple marks the place where it went down. Not so when a nation dies. Language is inadequate to portray the wreck and ruin that follow upon the destruction of a powerful, prosperous, and happy nationality. The wounds may cicatrize and partially be healed, but the evil consequences that inevitably ensue, mark the pathway of history for generations, with signs as ineffaceable as the track of the fiery lava flood (loud applause). And, therefore, I say again, to prevent this immeasurable calamity, we must preserve the Union; and our only antagonists in the contest, are those who have inaugurated and are sustaining a rebellion, which, for atrocity, has no parallel in human history, and no prototype, unless it be in the imaginative words of the great poet, who tells how Lucifer rebelled against the rightful authority of the Almighty, and "drew

after him the third part of the stars of Heaven" (cheers). Again, our national honour demands of us that we maintain the Union. We are committed to this issue. With the individual when honour is sacrificed all is lost; and if I had better retire from association with civilized men, or even yield up existence, when I have sacrificed my personal honour, how much greater is the obligation upon us when aggregated as communities and nations, to see to it that our national honour is never stained or surrendered (applause). I will not enlarge upon this point; it is too obvious to need any amplification, as there is no nation on earth that would not now justly hold us in contempt and shower scorn upon us, if we should make terms with rebels in arms, or even discuss with them the question of the indissolubility of the Union (cheers). The Hon. Gentleman who presides here to-night has so ably and eloquently stated the reasons why we cannot, as a nation, for geographical and commercial considerations, consent to a division of the Union, that I will not dwell upon that theme. I fully concur with him, and with the sentiments to which I am responding, that "from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, from the source to the mouth of the Mississippi," the Union must be one and inseparable. We cannot afford to have either a divided nationality, or a country with a soil recognising conflicting jurisdictions. Our interlacing system of lakes and rivers, our continuous mountain ranges,

D

whose towering peaks stand as answering sentinels to one another from Katahdin's brow to the snowy Sierra Nevada's crest, all tell us that the God of nature has given us one land for our inheritrnce. The Mississippi, with all its mighty tributary streams, must roll its waters to the Gulf, owning the protection and acknowledging the sway of but one national flag; and the citizen of Boston and San Francisco, of New Orleans and New York, must enjoy equal privileges in each and all, and own allegiance to one national Government (loud cheers). But there are other considerations than those that spring from motives of patriotism or self-interest. The claims of humanity have an important place in the pending contest in our country, and lend weight to our resolution. It is but candour to admit that, in the commencement of our civil war, few even of our statesmen foresaw or believed that it would lead directly and speedily to the abolition of human slavery. Now, even the dullest of visions can see, through the smoke and rift of battle, that the rainbow of hope is not set for us alone. It portends the liberation of the long-enslaved race. All men see now that slavery is doomed-it must die the death. The problem is solved for which not even the wisest have found a solution. The sword has cut the Gordian knot. Nor can our erring brethren of the rebel States complain of us, if they have by their own act unwittingly contributed to this result. The arrogant slave-holder rebelled, hoping to make hu

man bondage perpetual, and the rebellion has throt tled slavery (cheers). The Haman of the slaveocracy is hanged to-day, in the sight of the civilised world, upon the gallows he built for the despised Mordecai of Emancipation. Shall we not give thanks for this? (Cheers.) The glaring inconsistency of which we have been guilty, in proclaiming the inalienable right of all men, without regard to colour, race, or creed, " to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," while, at the same time, we were fastening the chains upon our bondmen, has made us too long the by-word of a mocking world. How could we intercede with the despots and tyrants of other lands on behalf of their oppressed victims, while this foul blot stained our national escutcheon? I remember the burning words of one of the noblest of American poets, penned long years ago, and applicable now :

Go, ask the Czar of Russia's line,

To loose his grasp on Poland's throat;
Or beg the lord of Mahmoud's line,
To free the struggling Sulliote.

Will not the scorching answer come
From turbaned Turk and fiery Russ,
'Go, loose your fettered slaves at home,

Then turn and ask the like of us ?'"

Shall we not rejoice in the near prospect that opens to us now, in anticipation of that hour, when we can stand up and in the face of the civilised world say, "Behold, our reproach is taken away?" Some

poet has pictured, in the future, that a grand temple shall rise wherein all nations shall celebrate the final disenthralment of all the races from the dominion of error and tyrannic rule: and when that hour shall strike, no anthem of rejoicing will be welcomed with a more loud acclaim than that which commemorates the emancipation of the long-suffering sons of Afric's sunny clime, as, mingling with other choral songs, it echoes through the long colonnade and dies away upon the gilded architrave (loud applause). One word more, Mr. Chairman, and I have done. The Union will be preserved and made perpetual, because the loyal people will it so. It is the springing hope, the firm faith, and the unalterable determination of the government and people of the United States that gives me the confident assurance of our final victory. That determination is as immoveable as the foundations of our granite hills, and that hope and that faith as exhaustless as the sources of our mighty streams. The army, the navy, and the whole people alike sympathise in these views and feelings. Let me say that our soldiers fight from patriotic motives-no aspersion could be more unjust than that they are mercenary: no men ever went forth to battle with more unselfish promptings, none ever were more resolute in their purpose than the soldiers of the Union. Ask them why they fight; and they will answer you in the words of the appeal made by one of their own gallant comrades: