State. Then, as of old, the ensign of the pride and power, and dignity and majesty, and the peace of the Republic will Hon. E. D. Baker, 1861.

return.

A CALL TO ARMS.

YOUNG men of the United States-you are told this is not to be a war of aggression. In one sense, that is true; in another, not. We have committed aggression upon no man. In all the broad land, in their rebel nest, in their traitors' camp, no truthful man can rise and say that he has ever been disturbed, though it be but for a single moment, in life, liberty, estate, character or honor. The day they began this false, unnatural, wicked warfare, their lives were more secure, their property more secure, by us-not by themselves, but by us-guarded far more securely than any people ever have had their lives and property secured from the beginning of the world. We have committed no oppression, have broken no compact, have exercised no unholy power; have been loyal, moderate, constitutional, and just. We are a majority of the Union, and we will govern our own Union, within our own Constitution, in our own way. We are all Democrats. We are all Republicans. We acknowledge the sovereignty of the people within the rule of the Constitution; and, under that Constitution and beneath that flag, let traitors beware.

I

In this sense, then, we are not for a war of aggression. I propose to do now as we did in Mexico-conquer peace. propose to go to Washington and beyond. I do not design to remain silent, supine, inactive-nay, fearful-until they gather their battalions and advance their host upon our borders or in our midst. I would meet them upon the threshold, and there, in the very State of their power, in the very atmosphere of their treason, I propose that the people of this Union dictate to these rebels the terms of peace. It may take thirty millions; it may take three hundred millions. What then? We have it. Loyally, nobly, grandly do the merchants of New York respond to the appeals of the Government. It may cost us seven thousand men. It may cost us seventy-five thousand men in battle; it may cost us seven hundred and fifty thousand men. What then? We have them. The blood of every loyal citizen of this Government is dear to us. My sons, my kinsmen, the young men who have grown up beneath my eye and beneath my

care, they are all dear to me; but if the country's destiny, glory, tradition, greatness, freedom, government, written constitutional government-the only hope of a free peopledemand it, let them all go.. I am not here now to speak timorous words of peace, but to kindle the spirit of manly, determined war. I speak in the midst of the Empire State, amid scenes of past suffering and past glory; the defences of the Hudson above me; the battle-field of Long Island before me, and the statue of Washington in my very face-the battered and unconquered flag of Sumter waving in his hand, which I can almost imagine now trembles with the excitement of battle. And as I speak, I say my mission here today is to kindle the heart of New York for war-short, sudden, bold, determined, forward war. The Seventh Regiment has gone. Let seventy and seven more follow. Of old, said a great historian, beneath the banner of the cross, Europe precipitated itself upon Asia. Beneath the banner of the Constitution let the men of the Union precipitate themselves upon disloyal, rebellious confederate States.

Hon. E. D. Baker, 1861.

THE INSULT TO THE FLAG.

LET no man underrate the dangers of this controversy. Civil war, for the best of reasons upon the one side, and the worst upon the other, is always dangerous to liberty-always fearful, always bloody; but, fellow-citizens, there are yet worse things than fear, than doubt and dread, and danger and blood. Dishonor is worse. Perpetual anarchy is worse. States forever commingling and forever severing are worse. Traitors and secessionists are worse. To have star after star blotted out to have stripe after stripe obscured-to have glory after glory dimmed-to have our women weep and our men blush for shame throughout generations yet to comethat and these are infinitely worse than blood. Again, once more, when we march, let us not march for revenge. We have, as yet, something to punish, but nothing or very little to revenge. The President says: "There are wrongs to be redressed, already long enough endured." And we march to battle and to victory because we do not choose to endure this wrong any longer. They are wrongs not merely against us; not against you, Mr. President; not against me; but against our sons and against our grandsons that surround us. They are wrongs against our ensign; they are wrongs against

our Union: they are wrongs against our Constitution; they are wrongs against human hope and human freedom; and if it be revenge to right these wrongs, so let it be; as Burke says, "it is a wild justice at last," and we will revenge them.

Even while I speak, the object of your meeting is accomplished; upon the wings of the lightning it goes out throughout the world that New York, the very heart of a great city, with her crowded thoroughfares, her merchants, her manufactures, her artists-that New York, by one hundred thousand of her people, declares to the country and to the world, that she will sustain the Government to the last dollar in her treasury-to the last drop of your blood. The national banners leaning from ten thousand windows in your city to-day proclaim your affection and reverence for the Union. You will gather in battalions,

Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms,
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms;

and as you gather, every omen of present concord and ultimate peace will surround you. The ministers of religion, the priests of literature, the historians of the past, the illustrators of the present, capital, science, art, invention, discoveries, the works of genius-all these will attend us in our march, and we will conquer. And if, from the far Pacific, a voice feebler than the feeblest murmur upon its shore may be heard to give you courage and hope in the contest, that voice is yours to-day; and if a man whose hair is gray, who is well nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, may pledge himself on such an occasion and in such an audience, let me say, as my last word, that when, amid sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts of New York as they charged in contest upon a foreign soil for the honor of your flag; so again, if Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a sword, never yet dishonored-not to fight for distant honor in a foreign land, but to fight for country, for home, for law, for government, for constitution, for right, for freedom, for humanity, and in the hope that the banner of my country may advance, and wheresoever that banner waves there glory may pursue and freedom be established.

Hon. E. D. Baker, 1861.

ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE.

YOUNG GENTLEMEN:-I salute you as trained athletes, just entering upon the strifes of life. If we have at all succeeded with you in our efforts at education, you have learned how to use your faculties. It will now devolve on you to make their use subservient to the highest aims and the largest good. So only shall you prove yourselves worthy of your alma mater-worthy of your glorious country.

You put on the garment of manhood, and assume its obligations, in the midst of the most wanton, wicked, unprovoked, and unpardonable rebellion that has been witnessed in the annals of the human race. It has no parallel but in the rebellion of the fallen angels; and it has the same source-disappointed ambition and malignant hate. Against the most beneficent Government, the most equal laws, and a system carrying within itself a recognized and peaceful mode of adjusting every real or imaginary wrong or hardship, a portion of the people of the United States-the least civilized, the least educated, the least industrious, without a single wrong specified on the part of the national Government-have risen in rebellion, robbing its treasuries, and even its hospitals; firing upon and treading under foot the flag of our country; menacing its capital with armed hordes, led by the doubledyed traitors, who, educated at the cost of the nation, and sworn to defend its laws, have deserted in the hour of need and turned their arms against their nursing mother; and appealed to all the scoundrels of the world to come and take service under the rebel flag, against the commerce of the United States.

Honor, Loyalty, Truth, stood aghast for a while, incredulously in the presence of this enormous crime; but when Sumter fell, the free people of this nation rose-yes! rose as no like uprising has been witnessed before-and now who shall stay the avenging arm? Who, with traitor lips shall talk of compromise, or with shaking knees clamor for peace? Compromise with what?-peace with whom?

It is no question of this or that system of policy-of free trade or tariff-of slavery or anti-slavery-it is a question of existence. To be or not to be-it is all there. There is no such thing as half being and half not being. Either we are a nation or a band of anarchical outlaws. A grand continental Anglo-Saxon Republic, such as our fathers made, one and indivisible, E Pluribus Unum, under a Constitution equal for all, and supreme over all-or an accidental assemblage

of petty, jealous, barbarous, warring tribes, who acknowledge no law but the sword, and from among whom the sword will not depart.

My young friends, you enter upon life at the very moment this great question is under the issue of war. Shrink not back from it. We must be decided now and forever. The baleful doctrine of secession must be finally and absolutely renounced. The poor quibble of double allegiance must be disavowed. An American-and not a New Yorker, nor a Virginian-is the noble title by which we are to live, and which you, my young friends, must, in your respective spheres, contribute to make live, whatever it may cost in blood and money.

Go forth, then, my young friends-go forth as citizens of the great continental American Republic-to which your first, your constant, your latest hopes in life should attachand abating no jot of obedience to municipal or State authority within the respective limits of each-bear yourselves always, and every where, as Americans-as fellow-countrymen of Adams, and Ellsworth, and Jay, and Jefferson, and Carroll, and Washington, and Pinckney as heirs of the glories of Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Monmouth, and Yorktown, and Eutaw Springs, and New Orleans, and suffer no traitor hordes to despoil you of so rich an inheritance or so grand and glorious a country.

Chas. King, L.L.D., 1861.

SEPARATION AS A MEANS OF PEACE.

"WHY should we not," it is asked, "admit the claims of the seceding States, acknowledge their independence, and put an end at once to the war ?" "Why should we not?" I answer the question by asking another: "Why should we?" What have we to gain, what to hope from the pursuit of that course? Peace? But we were at peace before. Why are we not at peace now? The North has not waged the war, it has been forced on us in self defence; and if, while they had the Constitution and the laws, the Executive, Congress and the Courts, all controlled by themselves, the South, dissatisfied with legal protections and constitutional remedies, has grasped the sword, can North and South hope to live in peace, when the bonds of Union are broken, and amicable means of adjustment are repudiated? Peace is the very last thing which secession, if recognized, will give us; it will give us nothing but a hollow truce-time to prepare the means